[Resuelto]El Asunto Siria

Free Syrian Army fires military chief

17 Feb 2014 05:11

Citing "difficulties faced by the Syrian revolution," the FSA replaces Selim Idriss with Abdel Al-Ilah al-Bachir.

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The FSA is caught between advancing government forces and the unified Islamic Front rebel group


The rebel Free Syrian Army has said it fired Selim Idriss as its military chief, citing the "difficulties faced by the Syrian revolution" in its battle with the government.

In a video broadcast on the internet on Sunday, the rebel coalition said its military council had decided to replace Idriss with Brigadier General Abdel al-Ilah al-Bachir.

Colonel Qassem Saadeddine said the decision was taken due to "the paralysis within the military command these past months" and the need to "restructure".

A source inside the Syrian opposition told AFP news agency that Idriss, who was appointed to the role in December 2012, had faced criticism for failings on the battlefield.

These included "errors and carelessness in combat" and "poor distribution of weapons" among the rebels on the ground, the source said.

He is also accused of distancing himself from "the concerns of the insurgents".

The Western-backed rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) was once the country's strongest armed opposition force is but now increasingly marginalised by rival groups.

It has been weakened by internal rifts and by competition from other rebel coalitions such as the Islamic Front, a powerful alliance formed last year that is now the largest rebel force with tens of thousands of fighters.

In December the United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to the FSA, dealing a major blow to a group that appears caught between advancing regime forces and the increasingly unified Islamic Front.

The FSA's move came after peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition ended without result, throwing the future of the negotiations to end the bloody conflict into doubt.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/02/free-syrian-army-fires-military-chief-201421742719901171.html

Syrian rivals trade blame as peace talks end

16 Feb 2014 19:37
Opposition backers say regime scuppered talks, regime blames US, and UN mediator apologises to people of Syria.

Rival sides in the Syrian civil war have blamed each other for the collapse of peace talks in Geneva, which ended without progress and no agreement to reconvene.

The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, said on Sunday that the US, which backs the Syrian opposition, had tried to "create a very negative climate for dialogue in Geneva".

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, in turn placed blame on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, saying: "We should all agree that the Assad regime’s obstruction has made progress even tougher.

He said the regime "obstructed and filibustered" while the opposition put forward a viable plan to install a transitional government in Damascus.

A transitional government is the key point of the so-called "Geneva I communique" which had been put forward at previous talks in Geneva.

The Syrian regime has not agreed to recognise the communique, however, and is opposed to any plan that would remove Assad from the presidency. The opposition, lead by the Syrian National Coalition, demands that Assad step down.

Kerry and Muallem's comments came after Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, said on Saturday that "the responsibility lies squarely with the Assad regime", and that the situation was "a serious setback in the search for peace in Syria".

His French counterpart, Laurent Fabiusm also blamed the failure of the talks squarely on Damascus.

The regime "blocked any progress on establishing a transitional government and stepped up violence and acts of terror against the civilian population," Fabius said.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab mediator who chaired the talks, apologised to the Syrian people as both sides left Geneva without agreeing on a plan for further talks.

"I think that what has been, the little that has been achieved in Homs, gave them even more hope that maybe this is the beginning of the coming out of this horrible crisis they are in. I apologise to them that on these two rounds we have not helped them very much," Brahimi said.

Al Jazeera's Stephanie Dekker reporting from Arsal refugee camp in Lebanon said there is palpable anger and frustration amongst an increasingly desperate people.
"A man at the camp asked why are they even speaking when people are dying? They should take the tanks off the streets, lay down their guns, and then move to a political solution.

"People are being treated like animals, they think no one cares, they think it is all about money," added Al Jazeera's reporter.

'Delay tactics'

Bashar Jaafari, Syria's ambassador to the UN, told reporters on Sunday: "We spent six days talking about the necessity to adopt a draft agenda, at the end today the international mediator came to the meeting with a draft agenda, we immediately accepted the draft agenda while the other side did not.

"Whatever you hear from these amateurs when they come here and they stand on the podium and they address the media, the international media, this is not true, they are just misleading the public opinion by circulating some kind of wrong rumours," Jaafari added.

Louay Safi, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) spokesman told the Associated Press news agency that the session was about finalising the agenda for the next round, but when they sat down the government only really wanted to focus on the issue of terrorism, the term used by the government for rebel attacks.

"We want to progress on the two sides. We would like to be assured that the regime really wants a political solution, not a delay tactic," Safi added.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/02/damascus-blamed-peace-talks-failure-201421693249673835.html

Marwan, el niño que cruzó el desierto para huir de Siria

REDACCION  Febrero 17, 2014    5:55 pm

El pequeño de cuatro años fotografiado por Andrew Harper ha causado un gran revuelo en redes sociales


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Foto: Especial

Marwan, de apenas cuatro años de edad, viajaba sin su familia, pero estaba acompañado de un grupo de refugiados sirios que intentaban llegar a la frontera con Jordania, así lo aseguró el representante del Alto Comisionado de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) Andrew Harper, cuya fotografía del pequeño ha causado un gran revuelo en redes sociales.


En la fotografía  del niño que sólo carga con una bolsa de plástico y viste un chándal se refleja la situación dramática en Siria, pues más de dos millones de refugiados han huido a los países vecinos, una situación que incrementa la inestabilidad en Oriente Medio. Desde que comenzó la guerra civil en Siria, Jordania ha acogido a 600 mil de ellos.

Por su parte el Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (UNICEF) informa que el número de niños sirios que se han visto obligados a abandonar sus hogares a causa de la guerra ya ha alcanzado el millón.

En la última actualización del activista a través de su cuenta de twitter, informó que tras su larga travesía en el desierto el pequeño ya logró reunirse con su madre en Jordania.

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Andrew Harper @And_Harper
Seguir
Just to let you know that Marwan was safely reunited w his mother soon after being carried across the #Jordan border
1:57 PM - 17 feb 2014
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Toma ejército sirio el control de Yabrud.

NOTIMEX
16/03/2014 05:43 AM
Madrid
Las tropas sirias retomaron hoy el control de la estratégica ciudad de Yabrud, al norte de la capital siria de Damasco, informaron fuentes oficiales.

El ejército tomó control total sobre la ciudad de Yabrud, el último bastión rebelde cerca de la frontera de Líbano, y ahora lleva a cabo operaciones de rastreo y desminado de los artefactos explosivos sembrados por los rebeldes.

La víspera se registraron fuertes enfrentamientos que terminaron con la entrada del ejército a la ciudad, destacó la agencia de noticias SANA.

La caída de Yabrud será un fuerte golpe para la oposición, ya que permitiría al gobierno obstruir la principal línea de abastecimientos desde Líbano.

Los nuevos avances se produjeron después de 24 horas de tomar el control de la entrada oriental y las fronteras norte y este de la ciudad.

Lebanon protests flare over Syria spillover

Demonstrators clash with the army and block roads to protest siege on Syria border town.

Last updated: 19 Mar 2014 02:39


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The road to the predominantly Sunni town of Arsal was blocked on Tuesday by residents from the neighbouring Shia town of al-Labwa.

Clashes erupted throughout the country as protesters fought with the army, angry over sand barriers erected on roads leading to the town, cutting it off from other parts of Lebanon.

In the northern province of Akkar, armed men fired on an army vehicle wounding three soldiers. In the Beirut suburb of Qasqas, five protesters were wounded when the army fired tear gas into a crowd of demonstrators.

Protesters also blocked a main road leading from the capital Beirut to the southern coastal town of Sidon before the army fired shots in the air to disperse the group.

The blockade follows days of rocket attacks on Labwa which residents blame on Sunni rebels who have fled into Arsal, where tens of thousands of refugees live, to escape Syria President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

On Monday, several rockets struck Labwa, which along with other Shia villages, is guarded by Hezbollah fighters.

Residents said the rockets caused some damage but no casualties, and were fired from Arsal.

The border area has been steadily sucked into Syria’s three-year-old conflict as Syrian troops and jets target rebel bases on the frontier and suspected Syrian rebels fire rockets at Shia towns targeting Hezbollah fighters.

Syria spillover

Tensions have been high in and around Arsal after Syrian forces and Hezbollah fighters recaptured the border town of Yabroud from rebels on Sunday.

The rebel defeat at Yabroud sent a stream of refugees and fighters pouring across the border into Arsal, and was followed hours later by a suicide car bombing against a local stronghold of Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army sent commandos to the border area, bracing for another spillover from the conflict.

Syria’s civil war has already ignited sectarian tensions between Lebanon's Sunnis and Shia Muslims, with the loss of Yabroud likely to drag Lebanon further into the conflict.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/03/lebanon-protests-flare-over-syria-spillover-201431905851686693.html

Syria: A human tragedy
As the conflict shows no signs of ending, we assess the current situation, the possible outcomes and next steps.

It has been three years since the start of the Syrian conflict. What began with peaceful demonstrations in the streets of Deraa has morphed into a nationwide conflict with sectarian, ethnic and regional consequences.

A regime that has run Syria for decades is fighting for its survival and is in no mood to compromise. On the opposition side, a group of disparate forces are united by the common goal of defeating the rule of Bashar al-Assad.

An uprising that was inspired by the Arab Spring is now its most violent conflict, threatening to destabilise an already turbulent Middle East. Since the start of the unrest in March 2011, more than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed and the conflict has also created the world's worst refugee crisis in 20 years.

It is a situation with no end in sight - and its impact is likely to last for generations.

In this edition of Inside Syria, we try to assess the current situation, the possible outcomes and next steps.

Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault

Joshua Landis, director of the Centre for Middle East Studies and a professor at the University of Oklahoma

Amr Al-Azm, associate professor of Middle East history and anthropology at Shawnee State University

Majwoob Zweiri, professor of modern and contemporary history of the Middle East at Qatar University
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidesyria/2014/03/syria-human-tragedy-201438153157493734.html

UN: Syria war crimes proof enough to indict
Human rights investigators expand their list of suspected war criminals from both sides of the conflict.
Last updated: 19 Mar 2014 01:36

United Nations human rights investigators have added to their list of suspected war criminals from both sides of the Syrian conflict and the evidence was solid enough to prepare any indictment after a new round of atrocities in recent weeks.

The UN inquiry identified military units and security agencies as well as rebel groups suspected of committing abuses, Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the inquiry said on Tuesday.

Four confidential lists of suspects on both sides have been drawn up to date.

"This 'perpetrators list', as we call it, contains names of persons criminally responsible for hostage-taking, torture and executions," Pinheiro told the Human Rights Council.

"It also contains names of the heads of intelligence branches and detention facilities where detainees are tortured, names of military commanders who target civilians, airports from which barrel bomb attacks are planned and executed, and armed groups involved in attacking and displacing civilians."

In its updated report, the UN commission of inquiry on Syria said the period of January 20 to March 10 was marked by escalating infighting within rebel groups throughout northern and northeastern provinces.

Syrian government forces dropped barrel bombs on Aleppo and other cities, it said, causing extensive civilian casualties in areas with no clear military target. They also severely tortured detainees, according to the report.

Mass executions

Rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad have used car and suicide bombs targeting civilian areas, also violations of international law, the UN said.
Fighters from al-Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) executed detainees, including civilians and captured soldiers, in Aleppo, Idlib and al Raqqa in the hours and days before coming under attack by other armed groups such as the Islamic Front, it said.

ISIL used the Children's Hospital building in Aleppo as its headquarters and as a detention facility. Later, fighters from another group discovered an 'execution field' near the hospital.

"In the days and hours prior to attack, ISIL fighters conducted mass executions of detainees, thereby perpetrating war crimes.

The number killed as well as allegations of mass graves connected to these executions remain under investigation," it added.

The independent team of more than 20 investigators, set up in September 2011, months after the start of the revolt now in its fourth year, includes former UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

'Highly-politicised'

It has called repeatedly for the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a call endorsed again by Britain, the European Union (EU), France and Switzerland on Tuesday.

"It is this volume of testimony that will be the enduring legacy of the Commission: an archive of Syrian voices and a resource for future prosecutions," Pinheiro said.

Syrian ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui took the floor to denounce the commission.

"Referral to the ICC is a politicised and unlawful step as there are national judicial mechanisms available in Syria," he said.

He accused the commission of working for the political agendas of countries that are supporting the rebels - naming the United States, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Iran, which supports Assad, condemned extreme violence committed by "terrorist and extremist groups" in Syria. The Iranian delegation said the move to refer its ally to the ICC constituted a "highly-politicised and illegitimate incitement".
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/03/un-syria-war-crimes-proof-enough-indict-2014318113449296850.html

Vista única de la guerra siria: imágenes de cámaras montadas en tanques luchando contra los rebeldes



Publicado: 25 mar 2014

Fuente: Tanks in Space

Les presentamos una compilación de imágenes grabadas por cámaras montadas en tanques sirios durante las batallas contra los rebeldes en la ciudad de Darayya. Darayya es un suburbio de Damasco que tenía una población de casi 80.000 personas. Este video nos muestra lo que realmente es estar en una zona de guerra: la devastación, el riesgo y todas las cosas terribles que se conocen y a veces se ignoran sobre la guerra.

Watchdog: half of Syria's chemicals removed
Chemical weapons agency says 53.6 percent of stockpiles have been destroyed or shipped overseas.
Last updated: 27 Mar 2014 06:59


Syria has sent 49 percent of the raw materials used for its poison gas and nerve agent programme abroad for destruction, according to the chemical weapons watchdog overseeing the removal of the country's stockpiles.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a report to the United Nations that the total percentage of chemicals either removed or already destroyed inside the country was at 53.6 percent.

The report, obtained by the Associated Press news agency on Wednesday, said Syria pledged to remove all chemicals by April 13, except for those in areas "presently inaccessible," which face an April 27 deadline.

Damascus agreed to destroy all chemical weapons facilities and surrender 1,300 metric tonnes of toxic agents to a joint OPCW/United Nations mission by mid-year as part of a US-Russian agreement negotiated after a chemical attack last August that killed hundreds of people around the capital.

The August attack was blamed on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which denied involvement.

In a cover letter to the new OPCW report, addressed to the UN Security Council, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said two incidents this month of rocket attacks on the Syrian port of Latakia "did not stop the removal operations".

But Ban urged speed, saying "the precarious and unstable nature of the security situation further underlines the importance of expediting the removal of chemical weapons material from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic as quickly and as safely as possible".

The most toxic chemicals, including mustard gas and raw materials for making the nerve agent sarin, are being put on Danish and Norwegian cargo ships at the port of Latakia and will be transferred to a US ship, MV Cape Ray, in the Italian port of Gioia Tauro. The Cape Ray is equipped with two machines that will render the chemicals inert.

Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, on Wednesday said fighters' attempts to shut down the port and affect the chemical shipments were "trying to create a catastrophe".

Rebels have launched an assault in the coastal province of Latakia this week. They seized a border crossing and continued to make small advances in several villages.

Syria's government previously missed a December 31 deadline to remove the most dangerous chemicals in its stockpile and a February 5 deadline to give up its entire stockpile of chemical weapons.

The Assad regime has frequently cited security concerns but has repeated that it remains fully committed to the process.

UN warns of Syria spillover into Iraq
Armed groups are increasingly forging links across the border of Syria and Iraq, fuelling sectarian tensions, UN says.

Last updated: 28 Mar 2014 04:13


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Clashes between government forces and Sunni tribesmen have displaced more than 400,000 people [Reuters]


The United Nations has warned that armed groups are increasingly forging links across the border of Syria and Iraq, fuelling sectarian tensions in a region that has suffered from years of bloodshed.

Speaking at the UN Security Council, the special envoy to Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said the conflict in Syria was "affording terrorist networks the occasion to forge links across the [Iraq-Syria] border and expand their support base".

He said the combination of a divided leadership in Iraq, unresolved constitutional issues between communities and the growing threat coming from Syria had created a "fragile and explosive" situation.

Mladenov insisted the only way the violence could stop was through a political process that would bridge differences, increase development and make the government more inclusive.

"You cannot resolve the problem of violence of terrorism simply by security measures," he said.

"You need to look at the inclusion of communities and decision making. You need to look at the economic development and the protection of human rights, the rule of law."

A nation divided

Sunnis in Iraq have been staging protests against the Shia-led government of Nouri al-Maliki, over what they consider second class treatment of their community, since late last year.

The demonstrations have tapped into longstanding grievances of Sunnis, who say they are marginalised by the Shia-led government and unfairly targeted with heavy-handed tactics by security forces.

Clashes between the security forces and Sunni tribesmen in the Anbar province have displaced more than 400,000 people according to the UN, after fighters took control of the main city of Fallujah in December.

Tensions among the country's communities and the conflict in neighbouring Syria are said to be fuelling the sectarian divide, creating "a fragile and explosive combination," according to Mladenov.

Baghdad has blamed support for groups fighting in Syria's civil war for inflaming tensions in Iraq, with weapons ending up in the hands of armed groups.

Last year, Maliki warned that a victory for rebels in the Syrian civil war would spark a sectarian war in Iraq, Lebanon and division in Jordan.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/03/un-warns-syria-spillover-into-iraq-201432821452664854.html

Siria: Tanques y artillería de Turquía ayudan al avance de los rebeldes

Tanques y artillería de Turquía ayudan al avance de los grupos extremistas Frente al Nusra y Ahrar al Sham hacia el Ejército sirio en el norte de Latakia, señaló el representante de Siria ante la ONU, Bashar Jaafari.

"La artillería y los tanques cubren los avances de los grupos terroristas hacia las posiciones del Ejército sirio", dijo el diplomático a la agencia rusa Itar-Tass. Añadió además que un buque militar turco ayudó a los militantes sirios bombardeando una zona fronteriza en la costa del Mediterráneo.

"Turquía ayudó a los grupos terroristas a atacar la ciudad de Kasab", dijo también Jaafari, recordando que la ciudad no tiene bases militares y en ella viven ciudadanos pacíficos, armenios que escaparon del genocidio de su nación durante la época del Imperio otomano. "Ellos mataron a los armenios en el mismo lugar tres veces: en 1909, en 1913 y ahora, en 2014", declaró.

Jaafari recordó a los periodistas que en una grabación recientemente publicada en YouTube el ministro de Exteriores de Turquía habla con el jefe de la Inteligencia y los representantes del mando militar sobre la posibilidad de organizar provocaciones en Siria de la mano de los rebeldes con el objetivo de justificar una invasión militar en el país árabe. Pocas horas después de la publicación de la conversación Turquía bloqueó YouTube. "La agresión en Kasab está relacionada con el plan urdido en la reunión secreta, revelada por los medios turcos y extranjeros", declaró Jaafari.

Turquía también está implicada en el bombardeo esta semana de contenedores con armas químicas en Latakia, añadió. Los contenedores fueron atacados con fuego mientras los estaban cargando en barcos daneses y noruegos para la posterior destrucción de las armas químicas en el mar. El incidente causa gran preocupación, dijo Jaafari, añadiendo que ha informado sobre el asunto al Secretario General de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, y sus adjuntos. El Gobierno sirio tiene pruebas de que los autores de los ataques eran militantes, dijo Jaafari: "Tenemos videos y testigos".

Ankara está muy involucrada en la situación en Siria, sostuvo el diplomático: "Es una violación brutal de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas, de las relaciones de buena vecindad y del derecho internacional. Alguien debe exigirle responsabilidades al Gobierno turco", declaró Jaafari.

Por AP
dom, 30 mar 2014 13:06


Madrid. Dos periodistas españoles que permanecieron seis meses secuestrados en Siria por un grupo simpatizante de al-Qaida llegaron el domingo a España tras ser liberados.

El periódico El Mundo había reportado previamente que su corresponsal de guerra Javier Espinosa se comunicó con ellos el sábado por la noche desde Turquía, donde él y el fotógrafo Ricardo García Vilanova estaban bajo resguardo militar.

Se desconoce si escaparon o si los liberó la organización extremista Estado Islámico en Irak y el Levante, que los secuestró el 16 de septiembre en un retén del noroeste de Siria cuando trataban de salir del país.

Siria es la zona de conflicto más peligrosa del mundo para los periodistas, debido en parte al riesgo que afrontan de ser secuestrados por rebeldes o fuerzas progubernamentales. Casi 30 profesionales de los medios de comunicación han muerto desde que comenzó el conflicto en mazo de 2011.

La mayoría de los secuestros del año pasado se dieron en territorios controlados por rebeldes, particularmente en el caótico norte y oriente de Siria, donde el Estado Islámico tiene presencia.

Con la libertad de Espinosa y García, restan cuando menos nueve corresponsales extranjeros más desaparecidos en Siria así como 10 reporteros locales.

Su liberación fue para amigos y familiares un motivo de regocijo después de meses de estrés. La reportera española Mónica García Prieto, pareja de Esteban, expresó el domingo "felicidad pura" en un mensaje por Twitter.

El trabajo de Espinosa como corresponsal es muy respetado. En febrero de 2012, resultó herido durante un ataque de artillería del ejército contra la ciudad de Homs, en el centro de Siria, en el que murieron el fotoperiodista francés Remi Ochlik y la reportera estadounidense Marie Colvin, quien trabajaba para un periódico británico. Espinosa salvó la vida porque una pared lo protegió de las esquirlas.

Los periodistas extranjeros no son el único blanco de secuestros. Los activistas siros, que proveen información desde el luchar de los hechos, también corren en peligro.

Un portavoz del Ministerio de Defensa de España informó que el gobierno utiliza "máxima discreción" cuando se trata de periodistas secuestrados y no quiso comentar si se negoció algún rescate. La funcionaria habló con la condición del anonimato en línea con las normas.

El grupo Reporteros sin Fronteras afirma que el Estado Islámico retiene a unos 20 periodistas y el gobierno a un número desconocido.

El surgimiento de grupos extremistas suníes, en especial el Estado Islámico, aumenta los peligros a los reporteros y activistas que pretenden cubrir la revuelta.

Marc Marginedas, otro periodista español secuestrado en septiembre por el mismo grupo, fue liberado a comienzos de marzo.

Assad's fatal strategic mistakes
Bashar al-Assad's support for armed groups might lead to his regime's demise.
Last updated: 29 Mar 2014 13:37

Lina Khatib
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Lina Khatib is the director of Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Previously, she was the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

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The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has cooperated with Bashar al-Assad's regime, writes the author [AP]

The Syrian State Army's victory in the battle of Yabroud in early March is widely seen as evidence of the regime's increasing military dominance in the Syrian conflict. But this win is undermined by two strategic mistakes by President Bashar al-Assad, which are likely to eventually lead to his demise. Those mistakes revolve around the growing influence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the National Defence Force (NDF).

In attempting to quell the opposition in 2011, Assad opened prison doors, letting out jihadists who later became the founders of ISIS, a radical group that has been terrorising the Syrian population, and in doing so, confirming the regime's narrative that it is engaged in a fight against Islamist extremism. Reports from Syria show that the regime has been cooperating with ISIS both directly and indirectly, allowing ISIS access into certain towns, refraining from bombing areas under ISIS control, and even buying petrol from oil wells run by ISIS in the north.

But this strategic alliance with ISIS will backfire once ISIS becomes self-reliant. Like other mercenary groups, ISIS has been profiteering from the war economy. In Iraq, the group has reportedly become largely self-financing due to its control of oil wells. If ISIS in Syria heads in the same direction - a highly likely scenario - then it will become very difficult for the regime to control it.

Assad later sponsored the creation of NDF, a name given to groups of "shabeeha" (pro-regime thugs) and mercenaries operating in a decentralised manner across Syria, which have been armed by the regime as a measure of "self-protection" against jihadists. As with ISIS, the NDF has also profiteered from the war, leading to the rise of several warlords whose economic stature has made it difficult for the regime to rein them in.

Even though the NDF is largely composed of Alawis, Christians, and Druze, its mercenaries have been indiscriminate in their raids on Syrian neighbourhoods, sometimes attacking regime loyalists. This has led to growing dismay among the Alawi and other minority populations, who have started staging protests in rural Latakia against the NDF, calling on the regime for protection.

In looking at the above two trends, it appears that Assad first contributed to the creation of a problem - jihadism - then sought to create a solution for it - the NDF. But both the problem and its "solution" are slipping out of Assad's control. Because he needs the NDF to fight jihadist groups not linked with the regime, like al-Nusra Front, he will be forced to continue arming the NDF.

As the NDF becomes less reliant on regime funding, Assad will need to sustain NDF support to maintain its loyalty. The more the NDF is empowered, the less able the regime will be to meet the protection demands of minority groups threated by the NDF. As for ISIS, Islamist extremist groups rarely stay loyal to their original sponsors once they feel empowered enough to begin to set their own agendas.

Empowering those two groups may have helped Assad in the short term, but the long-term implications will not be in his favour. The power structure in Syria is changing from a top-down dictatorship into a decentralised, almost-failed state, one where different regions and even neighbourhoods are under the mercy of semi-independent groups.

Those groups' independence and influence grow as the conflict continues. Although Assad remains influential today, his strategic mistakes will eventually lead him to become captive to the volatile groups he has helped create, and whose loyalty he will need to buy in order to stay in power. But by then, staying in power will cease to mean having significant political or military influence.

Assad's own undoing may, therefore, not be at the hands of the opposition, but the result of his own shortsighted strategic decisions.

Lina Khatib is the director of Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Previously, she was the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Islamistas en Siria ofrecen seguridad a los cristianos, pero a un precio muy alto

2 marzo 2014
12:08 PM ET

Por Saad Abedine y Jethro Mullen, CNN

(CNN) – Los militantes islamistas en una ciudad del norte de Siria le han dicho a los cristianos que van a garantizar su seguridad. Pero hay una condición costosa.

Digamos, mejor, que hay muchas condiciones.

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Los residentes cristianos de Raqqa, la que una vez fuera una de las ciudades más liberales de la nación, tendrán que hacer un pago anual de hasta 17 gramos de oro por cada adulto de sexo masculino, dijo el grupo extremista del Estado Islámico de Irak y Siria (ISIS) en un comunicado publicado en línea esta semana.

Según activistas sirios, el comunicado que ha circulado en la ciudad, también deja claro que el grupo prohíbe que los cristianos de la ciudad reparen o renueven sus iglesias y monasterios.

La lista de restricciones impuesta por los militantes limita incluso el culto cristiano, las actividades de negocios y el consumo de alcohol.

Las fuertes restricciones son quizás poco sorprendentes viniendo de ISIS, que se ha desprendido de Al Qaeda y está luchando con otros grupos rebeldes en Siria.

Activistas dijeron a CNN en noviembre que Raqqa era cada vez más conservadora después de que ISIS comenzó a imponer allí la ley islámica de línea dura y a impartir severos castigos a los que no siguen las órdenes.

Los locales han empezado a llamar a la ciudad Tora Bora y dicen sentirse como si los talibanes de Afganistán hubieran asumido el poder.

El nuevo conjunto de restricciones que ISIS ha impuesto a los cristianos ha provocado las críticas de la oposición siria e, incluso, de un clérigo musulmán radical.

Louay Safi, portavoz de la Coalición Siria, dijo que el trato de ISIS para los no musulmanes era anti-islámico.

Y el clérigo radical Abu Qatada, que está siendo juzgado en Jordania por cargos de terrorismo, dijo a CNN árabe el jueves que los militantes no tenían el derecho de ofrecer protección y exigir el pago a los cristianos, ya que aún no estaban facultados para gobernar Siria.

No está claro cuántos cristianos permanecen todavía en Raqqa después de años de una sangrienta guerra civil en Siria.

Desde que ISIS comenzó a tomar medidas enérgicas contra la disidencia en Raqqa, muchos activistas y residentes han huido de la ciudad.

Otras cosas que el grupo extremista ha prohibido hacer a los cristianos en Raqqa incluyen las siguientes:

– Exponer cruces o sus libros delante de los musulmanes;

– Hacer algún rezo o repicar cualquier campana de la iglesia que pueda ser escuchada por musulmanes;

– Vender carne de cerdo o alcohol a musulmanes o en sus mercados;

– Consumir alcohol en público.
http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2014/03/02/islamistas-en-siria-ofrecen-seguridad-a-los-cristianos-pero-a-un-precio-muy-alto/

17 febrero 2014
12:45 PM ET
(CNN) - Un video con duración de apenas 35 segundos. Es de noche. Seis hombres, iluminados por una linterna, están sentados con las manos atadas a la espalda y con varios tipos de vendas.

Más hombres se apiñan detrás de ellos en la oscuridad. Frente a ellos está un pozo, al parecer recién cavado y por el otro lado de la fosa se encuentra otra persona atada y con los ojos vendados de manera similar.

Dos segundos en el clip, alguien dice: "¿Yahiz?" "¿Listo?"

A los tres segundos que un hombre extiende su brazo derecho hacia la luz, sostiene una pistola.

A los seis segundos, el primer tiro es disparado en la parte posterior de la cabeza del primer hombre. El hombre de la pistola se mueve con decisión, sin vacilación, disparando una bala tras otra en la parte posterior de la cabeza del hombre atado. Al parecer, lo ha hecho muchas veces antes.

11 segundos en el clip de video, puede escuchar lo que suena como los grifos abiertos. Es el sonido de la sangre brotando de las heridas en la cabeza. Y el sonido que brota se vuelve más fuerte y más fuerte.

26 segundos después del primer disparo, un total de 14 hombres – algunos de los cuales parecen ser adolescentes – están muertos o moribundos, algunos tirados en el hoyo.

Este videoclip fue uno de una variedad recientemente obtenida por CNN de parte activistas sirios. Documentan atrocidades cometidas no por el régimen del presidente Bachar al Asad, sino más bien por los miembros del estado Islámico en Iraq y Siria, conocido como ISIS, que surgió el año pasado como una gran potencia en las partes controladas por la oposición del norte de Siria.

En las zonas controladas por ISIS, las flagelaciones y ejecuciones públicas se han convertido en cosas comunes. Recientemente ISIS ha luchado contra otros grupos de la oposición en la lucha que ha dejado más de 2.000 muertos.

El líder de Al Qaeda, Ayman Al- Zawahiri, ha exigido a ISIS que deje Siria.

El material que CNN obtuvo proporciona una muestra instantánea de los trabajos internos de ISIS, un grupo con métodos y tácticas no muy diferentes a las que el régimen sirio comenzó a utilizar contra los rebeldes hace casi tres años.

El material proporcionado por los activistas fue encontrado en una casa en Aleppo ocupado por Abu Ahmed Al-Iraqi o el iraquí. Como suele ser el caso con los miembros de estos grupos radicales, este no es su verdadero nombre. El líder dejó los videos, así como la cámara con que fueron tomados, cuando ISIS se retiró de la zona durante los combates contra otros grupos de la oposición.

Los activistas describen Abu Ahmed como un "emir", un comandante, encargado de realizar la justicia, con el estilo de ISIS. Él es, en efecto, juez, jurado y verdugo. Él parece ser el hombre que llevó a cabo las ejecuciones descritas anteriormente.

Los otros clips de video incluyen ocho interrogatorios a hombres, la mayoría de los cuales son miembros de las facciones de la oposición que no están asociados con ISIS, todos operando en o alrededor de la ciudad de Al- Bab, al noreste de Aleppo. No es claro si Abu Ahmed Al- iraquí está haciendo los interrogatorios, pero el fuerte acento iraquí de los interrogadores no deja ninguna duda acerca de dónde vienen.

No se practica la tortura en la cámara, pero está claro que los sujetos están bajo coacción. Todos ellos tienen los ojos vendados, y varios sudan en exceso. El tipo de preguntas son persistentes, siempre centrándose en las actividades y opiniones de los miembros de la oposición. Ni una sola vez en el transcurso de los largos interrogatorios no se hace una sola pregunta sobre al Asad. El mandatario sirio no es mencionado.

Hay amenazas veladas, uno de los hombres, que se identifica a sí mismo como un médico llamado Basilio, se le pregunta si alguna vez quiere ver a sus dos hijos de nuevo. A otro joven, Mohamed, se le pide que diga la verdad para "salvarse a sí mismo. "Él responde diciendo: "Voy a decir la verdad, incluso si pierdo mi cabeza".

ISIS está claramente preocupado de que muchos sirios los vean como intrusos no deseados. Miles de jóvenes han acudido de todas partes del mundo, incluyendo Europa y América del Norte, para unirse a la lucha contra el régimen de al Asad, y muchos de los más radicales entre los que se han unido a ISIS y otros grupos yihadistas.

En un momento las demandas de interrogador al citado Mohamed: "¿No dijo que en la ISIS somos extraños? Ellos usan Chabounatun, término despectivo que hace referencia a las batas usadas por los islamistas de línea dura, como la vestimenta del Profeta Mahoma. Esta vestimenta podría ser el equivalente de las enaguas. Mohamed demostró completa ignorancia.

En los videos parecen que Abu Ahmed ha hecho una vida para sí mismo en Siria.

En una serie de clips se muestra cómo el líder del movimiento está instruyendo a una mujer joven en un abrigo negro a usar un rifle de asalto AK- 47 y una pistola. Su rostro está expuesto- no lleva el "niqab", que cubre completamente la cara y se ha convertido en el vestido de rigor para las mujeres en las zonas controladas por el ISIS. Ella habla con un acento sirio.

Él también está poniendo todo en una camioneta negra BMW SUV. Y en otro clip del video, está haciendo prácticas de tiro en el jardín de una construcción de altas paredes.

Un coche de lujo, una bonita casa, interrogatorios y ejecuciones en masa: conocer al nuevo jefe en esta parte de Siria es igual que el antiguo jefe.


http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2014/02/17/una-serie-de-videos-muestra-las-torturas-de-la-agrupacion-isis-en-siria/

Syrian self-immolation case reflects tragedy
Refugee who set herself ablaze in Beirut after UN cutback remains in hospital, as officials say funding is insufficient.
Last updated: 03 Apr 2014 05:39


A Syrian female refugee's self-immolation in front of the UN headquarters in the Lebanese capital has highlighted the plight of nearly 2.6 million people who have fled from Syria.

Mariam al-Khawli, who fled her county with her husband and four children two years ago, set herself on fire last week out of frustration over living without food and cash lifeline after a UN cutback.

Khawli’s doctor, Gabriel al-Sabeh, said 70 percent of her body was now covered in burns and that she could remain in hospital for months if she survives.

Khawli’s husband is unable to work due to a lung abscess and three of her children have a blood condition and had relied on the aid, which had stopped in August. Her story has become well known over the past days, after appearing in news outlets in Lebanon.

"We really got hungry, but they burned my heart before they burned my body. They burned my heart from the inside," Khawli told Reuters news agency of how she regarded the UN cutback.

Officials at the UN headquarters in Beirut blamed a lack of funding for the limited aid provided to those who fled the violence.

Million Syrian refugees

The number of Syrians registered as refugees in Lebanon surpassed one million on Thursday, the UN refugee agency said.

Refugees from Syria now equal a quarter of Lebanon's resident population, the UNHCR said, describing the figure as "a devastating milestone worsened by rapidly depleting resources and a host community stretched to breaking point".

Lebanon has now become the country with "the highest per capita concentration of refugees worldwide," said the UNHCR, adding that is "struggling to keep pace".

"The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the impact is staggering," UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Ninette Kelley, regional representative for Lebanon at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said Khawli's case was "a very sorrowful reflection of the enormous desperation and need of the refugee community and it is also a telling reminder of the consequences of the Syrian emergency and the unfolding crisis here in Lebanon".

Kelley said the agency had been in touch with Khawli's family "for many, many months", but gave no details of why the funds were cut or how many other families might have been affected.

UN aid teams in Lebanon give aid to the most vulnerable first and makes regular checks on families who are not covered, Kelley said.

Last month, Lebanon's foreign minister said the crisis was "threatening the existence of Lebanon", still recovering from its own bloody 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, and called for their redistribution among other countries, citing depleted resources and infrastructure.

Syrian beggars now walk the streets of Beirut and informal tented settlements have sprung up around the country.

Lebanon has fallen in a wave of violence as political and religious sects took rival sides in the war in Syria, where Sunni Muslim rebels are fighting against President Bashar al-Assad, who is from the Alawite minority.

Lebanon holds the largest number of asylum seeker, but Syrians have also fled to Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere.

A UN appeal for $1.7bn in 2014 to help the refugees is only 14 percent funded, Kelley said.

Refugees from Syria now equal a quarter of Lebanon's resident population

Syrian army hits rebel positions in Damascus

Heavy fighting and air strikes kill at least 26 people in eastern suburbs of Mleiha and Jobar, say activists.

Last updated: 04 Apr 2014 19:11

The Syrian army has killed at least 26 people in suburbs of the capital Damascus in fighting with rebels in several districts along the eastern edge of the capital, activists have said.

President Bashar Assad's forces have been seeking for months to solidify their hold on Damascus by dislodging opposition fighters from the towns and neighbourhoods on the city's fringes.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an NGO monitoring the developments in the war-torn country, reported heavy fighting and air strikes on Mleiha, a neighbourhood in the east of the capital, and the nearby Damascus district of Jobar.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said at least 26 rebels have been killed in the clashes since Thursday.

Early on Friday, a series of government air raids targeted Mleiha, killing at least seven people, Ammar al-Hassan, an activist based near Mleiha, told the Associated Press news agency.

"There are very fierce clashes today and the bombardment is very intense," al-Hassan said by Skype.

He also said the government was focusing on Mleiha because of its location along the main road that links Damascus with Eastern Ghouta, which has long been a predominantly rebel-controlled area.

Attack 'repelled'

Another activist on the ground, Abu Saqr, told the AFP news agency" "Assad's regime has been trying for two days to storm [Mleiha]."

Speaking via Skype, he claimed that the offensive "is being repelled by the [rebel] Free Syrian Army".

Abu Saqr said fighting on the edges of Mleiha was "very fierce" and that the rebels were up against government troops backed by Syrian and Iraqi pro-regime militiamen.

Part of the government's desire to flush rebels from outlying areas of the capital is to prevent the opposition fighters from lobbing mortar rounds into neighbourhoods of the capital.

In the northwestern province of Idlib, rebel factions seized control of the town of Baboline and the village of Salihya, the Observatory said on Friday. At least 18 government troops were killed in the fighting, according to the group.

The two communities lie near Syria's main north-south highway, most of which has been highly contested since 2012.

Líbano: los refugiados sirios afrontan malas condiciones de trabajo

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Refugiados sirios en Libano Foto:UNHCR/M. Hofer

02 de abril, 2014 — La Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) informó hoy que un tercio de los refugiados sirios en el Líbano no tienen empleo y la mayoría de los que trabajan reciben bajos salarios y padecen condiciones laborales inadecuadas.

En un informe publicado este miércoles, esa organización afirma que el flujo de sirios que carecen de educación o de habilidades está causando la expansión del mercado laboral informal, que a su vez, está forzando un descenso de los salarios y el deterioro de las condiciones laborales.

Mary Kawar, especialista de la Oficina Regional de la OIT para los Estados Árabes, afirmó que tanto los refugiados sirios como los ciudadanos libaneses sufren esta situación.

“Muchos de ellos se ven imposibilitados de vivir con dignidad o de tener formas adecuadas para ganarse la vida”, dijo la especialista.

La valoración de la OIT señala que los sirios ganan mucho menos que sus contrapartes libaneses y que su salario promedio mensual es casi un 40 por ciento inferior al que reciben los libaneses, estimado en unos 450 dólares.

La OIT propuso la creación de oportunidades de trabajo decente mediante acciones que regulen el mercado laboral informal, que protejan el salario mínimo, provea a los refugiados de protección social y que aliente el desarrollo de empresas sostenibles.

http://www.un.org/spanish/News/story.asp?NewsID=29108

More than 50 fighters dead, opposition group says, as rebels clash over territory.
Last updated: 11 Apr 2014 06:42

Syria's conflict began three years ago with largely peaceful protests calling for reform [Al Jazeera]

Fierce infighting between rival Islamic rebel groups in eastern Syria has killed more than 50 fighters, an opposition group said, while government shelling left at least four teenagers dead in a town in the country's west.

The rebel infighting took place on Thursday around the town of Bukamal in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province near the Iraqi border between rebels from the al-Qaeda breakaway group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and fighters of the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and other groups.

The two sides have fought each other for months other over territory they previously captured together from President Bashar Assad's forces.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 51 died in the rebel-on-rebel fighting Thursday. The numbers could not be independently confirmed and calls to activists in the area went unanswered.

It was the latest episode in a relentless cycle of blood and violence that has gripped the country since March 2011, when the uprising against Assad's rule began.

Syria's conflict began three years ago with largely peaceful protests calling for reform, and later for Assad to be toppled.

Al-Qaeda-linked goups, with foreign fighters in their ranks, have played an increasingly prominent role, dampening support from the West.

Thousands of fighters have been killed in rebel-against-rebel violence that intensified beginning of the year, particularly in northern and eastern Syria.

Overall, more than 150,000 people have been killed in the past three years, opposition activists say.

Teenagers killed

Meanwhile, activists said four teenagers were killed in the rebel-held town of Rastan, just north of the city of Homs, a day after two car bombs exploded in a government controlled district there, killing 25 and wounding over 100.

Opposition groups including the Local Coordination Committees and the Observatory said a barrage of artillery shells killed the teenagers.

UN humanitarian affairs chief Valerie Amos condemned the Wednesday car-bombing in Homs, saying, "Two volunteers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were among the injured as they arrived in an ambulance to treat people hurt in the first blast, and were caught in the second."

"Attacks on civilians are war crimes and may also amount to crimes against humanity," Amos said.

In Damascus, state-run news agency SANA said rebel mortar fire killed two civilians and wounded seven on the city's outskirts.

Syrian sides trade blame over new gas attack

State media blames rebels for attack on village in Hama while opposition says government forces were responsible.
Last updated: 13 Apr 2014 03:11

Syrian state television and rebel forces have traded accusations over a poison gas attack that reportedly caused "suffocation and poisoning" of residents.

Details of the attack on Friday in Kafr Zita, a village in Hama province about 200km from Damascus, remain sketchy.

The Syrian National Coalition, the Western-backed opposition group, said the poison gas attack hurt dozens of people.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which gathers data on the conflict from activists inside Syria, said: "Regime planes bombed Kafr Zita with explosive barrels that produced thick smoke and odours and led to cases of suffocation and poisoning."

But state television claimed that the al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front had released chlorine gas in the deadly attack on the town.

"There is information that the terrorist Al-Nusra Front released toxic chorine ... leading to the death of two people and causing more than 100 people to suffer from suffocation," it said.

"There is information that Al-Nusra Front is preparing to hit Wadi Deif in Idlib province and Morek in Hama province with toxic chorine or sarin," the state broadcaster added.

There was no independent verification of either of the claims. The latest reported poison gas attack comes after a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus last year.

The opposition and much of the international community blamed that attack, which reportedly killed as many as 1,400 people, on the Syrian regime.

The regime denied responsibility, in turn blaming the rebels, but agreed under threat of US military action to turn over its chemical weapons stockpile for destruction.
Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

Syrian jets hit rebel bastions near Damascus

Fierce air assault reported near the capital even as President Assad declares war has turned in government's favour.
Last updated: 13 Apr 2014 17:14

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Online footage showed highly destructive barrel bomb attacks on Daraya, southwest of Damascus [YouTube]

Syrian jet fighters are reported to have launched a fierce offensive against a string of opposition strongholds, including Kafr Zita, a village north of Damascus that was recently hit by an alleged poisonous gas attack.

Other towns on the edges of the capital, including Eastern Ghouta area, were also hit by the bombardment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

"Warplanes carried out two air strikes against areas of Douma" northeast of Damascus, the UK-based monitoring group said, adding that "at least five people including one child were killed and several others injured".

One of the strikes on Douma, an opposition stronghold since early in the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, hit a crowded marketplace, according to the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of activists on the ground.

Douma and other towns and villages in Eastern Ghouta have been under a Syrian army siege for a year.

'Turning point'

Sunday's offensive came as Assad said that the three-year war tearing the country apart was turning in the government's favour, state television reported.

"This is a turning point in the crisis, both militarily in terms of the army's achievements in the war against terror, and socially in terms of national reconciliation processes and growing awareness of the truth behind the [attacks] targeting the country," the TV channel quoted Assad as saying.

Details of the poisonous gas attack on Friday in Kafr Zita, a village in Hama province about 200km from Damascus, remain sketchy.

State television and rebel forces traded accusations over the attack that reportedly caused "suffocation and poisoning" of residents. The Syrian National Coalition, the main opposition group, said the attack hurt dozens of people.

The Syrian Observatory also reported air strikes against Hammuriyeh, east of Damascus, and highly destructive barrel bomb attacks on Daraya, an opposition bastion southwest of Damascus.

The air raids came as fighting raged on the edges of Daraya pitting rebels against the army, which for more than a year has waged a bitter campaign aimed at securing the capital.

Other air raids targeted Mleiha, also in Eastern Ghouta, while clashes pitted rebels and their Al-Nusra Front allies against the army and its Lebanese Shia ally Hezbollah, the Syrian Observatory said.

Mleiha has suffered heavy bombing for 10 consecutive days, as the army and Hezbollah attempt to break through rebel lines.

The Syrian Observatory said government forces on Sunday took control of areas on Mleiha's edges.

North of Damascus, the army overran a string of hills overlooking Rankus, a former opposition stronghold in the strategic Qalamun mountains that fell to the regime on Wednesday, said state television.

Against this backdrop, the state news agency SANA reported "the death of a young man and the wounding of 22 others" in a mortar attack launched by "terrorists" in central Damascus.

State media uses the government's term "terrorists" to refer to rebels fighting to topple Assad's regime.

Damascus comes under frequent mortar fire. Sunday's attack hit Beirut Street, located near the army command headquarters.

The Syrian Observatory said two people were killed in the attack.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria's war, and nearly half the population have been forced to flee their homes.
Source:
Al Jazeera And AFP

El Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU queda pasmado por fotos de tortura en Siria (IMÁGENES EXPLÍCITAS)

Por: Huffpost Voces - abril 16 de 2014 - 13:39

El Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU quedó en un silencio total cuando los embajadores vieron varias imágenes espantosas de víctimas de la guerra civil en Siria, dijo el embajador de Francia. Las imágenes eran de personas esqueléticas con los huesos a la vista y algunas mostraban señales de estrangulamiento, de repetidas golpizas y les habían sacado los ojos, de acuerdo con la agencia AP.

El embajador francés, Gerard Araud, dijo que un profundo silencio se prolongó largo rato y entonces comenzaron lentamente las preguntas sobre la credibilidad de las imágenes de los muertos, un testimonio mudo del salvajismo de la guerra civil siria, en la que han muerto más de 150 mil personas.

Los miembros del consejo vieron más de las 10 fotos dadas a conocer públicamente en enero como parte de una investigación forense financiada por el gobierno de Catar, uno de los principales apoyos de la oposición siria y uno de los países más involucrados en el conflicto.

Francia, que patrocinó la presentación en el Consejo de Seguridad y la muestra de imágenes posteriormente en una conferencia de prensa, explicó que las fotos son prueba de crímenes de guerra cometidos por el gobierno del presidente sirio Bashar Assad, informó AP.

No se pudo confirmar independientemente la veracidad de las fotos.

Por otra parte, el Ministerio de Justicia de Siria ha descalificado las imágenes y el informe que las acompaña, a los que tachó de “politizados y faltos de objetividad y profesionalismo”, un “grupo de fotos de personas no identificadas, algunas de las cuales resultaron ser extranjeros”.

El ministerio dijo que algunas de las personas eran insurgentes muertos en combate y otros fueron abatidos por milicias rebeldes.

Refugiados en Siria: víctimas de violencia, hambre y enfermedades

18. abril, 2014 Autor: IPS D, Línea Global, Semana Comenta

Los refugiados palestinos en Siria, que hasta hace algunos meses vivían con tranquilidad, ahora padecen la guerra. No sólo llegaron los enfrentamientos, las bombas, los secuestros y las muertes en el fuego cruzado: también, el hambre y las enfermedades. Ahora que han dejado de ser noticia para los medios corporativos –tal vez porque estos refugiados no se rebelaron contra Al Assad–, además de haber sido expulsados de su nación, son víctimas de violencia en el país que les había dado cobijo

Mutawalli Abou Nasser/IPS

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Damasco, Siria. Los camarógrafos se fueron después de cubrir la llegada de la ayuda alimentaria al campamento de refugiados de Yarmouk, en Damasco, Siria. Ahora, cuando se ha dejado de considerar que ese barrio es noticia, el hambre, la violencia y las enfermedades han vuelto a atormentar a los palestinos varados allí.

Sólo en ese momento el campamento fue noticia. Tras meses de hambre y muerte a la sombra de la guerra civil siria, en enero pasado llegaron paquetes de alimentos… Con cámaras a cuestas.

Los refugiados inundaron las calles en un río de desesperación, para reclamar las primeras entregas de la ayuda que había logrado ingresar al área sitiada. Hombres adultos se deshicieron en lágrimas al interrumpirse, momentáneamente, su terror y aislamiento.

Pero los camarógrafos se fueron, y el hambre, la violencia y las enfermedades han vuelto a atormentar a las personas que están varadas en el campamento.

El de Yarmouk solía agrupar a la mayor comunidad de palestinos que vivían en Siria, y que habían llegado tras las guerras de 1948 y 1967. Era un barrio floreciente y vibrante de la capital, con más de 100 mil habitantes.

Para fines de 2012, el campamento quedó envuelto en un conflicto civil cada vez más intenso. Los rebeldes libran batallas largas y sangrientas con las fuerzas del presidente Bashar al-Assad.

Yarmouk enfrenta sitios tácticos, bombardeos indiscriminados y fuego de francotiradores, igual que otros barrios. La estrategia parece dominar poblaciones enteras y tener éxito.

En muchas de las áreas sitiadas, incluido Yarmouk, los rebeldes acordaron una frágil tregua con las fuerzas del gobierno y sus milicias aliadas a comienzos de 2014. Se mediaron varios acuerdos locales para poner en suspenso los enfrentamientos, así como para permitir que entraran y salieran alimentos, medicinas y civiles.

El alivio del sitio y de la guerra en enero fue tan breve como desesperado. “La Agencia de las Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados de Palestina en Oriente Próximo (UNRWA, por su sigla en inglés) está profundamente preocupada por la desesperante situación humanitaria en Yarmouk y por el hecho de que el reiterado recurso a las Fuerzas Armadas haya desbaratado sus esfuerzos por aliviar la desesperada situación de los civiles”, señaló en un comunicado el portavoz de esa entidad, Chris Gunness.

Hasta hace poco, voluntarios trabajaron para mantener cierto sistema educativo rudimentario para los niños y adolescentes atrapados en el campamento. Al no contar con apoyo institucional, hicieron lo que pudieron para garantizar que el conflicto no dejara una generación perdida a su paso.

Ahora, los maestros y voluntarios han tenido que cerrar las aulas. No son sólo las bombas y los francotiradores quienes han interrumpido su trabajo, sino las enfermedades. El colapso del sistema de salud, la escasez crónica de alimentos y agua limpia, y la acumulación de desechos se combinan para dar pie a varias epidemias.

“Uno de nuestros estudiantes se desmayó en clase, lo llevamos al hospital y le diagnosticaron hepatitis”, dice Jalil Jalil, maestro fundador del improvisado proyecto escolar, entrevistado por Inter Press Service (IPS).

“Entonces les hicimos análisis a todos nuestros estudiantes y constatamos, por lo menos, otros siete casos. La propagación de ésta y otras enfermedades contagiosas implica tomar una decisión para dejar de convocar a las clases”, agrega.

Para empeorar las cosas, volvieron a estallar los combates. “La reciente tregua fracasó, y la cantidad de vacunas y [otra] medicación que entró al campamento no alcanzó ni mínimamente para tratar la plétora de enfermedades que vemos propagarse por el lugar, especialmente entre niños y niñas”, dice Wissam Al-Ghoul, trabajador comunitario en el local Hospital Palestina, en diálogo con IPS.

Los combatientes de ambos lados usaron las cantidades insuficientes de ayuda que pudo ingresar al campamento para recompensar a su propia gente.

“Miembros de los servicios de seguridad en los puestos de control confiscaron parte de la ayuda para distribuirla entre su gente, y combatientes rebeldes robaron parte de los suministros para sus familias y otras personas cercanas a ellos”, dice Abou Salmi, organizador de la asistencia alimentaria. “No hay orden y sufrimos por eso”, completa.

Se cree que unos 7 mil paquetes de ayuda sortearon el bloqueo en enero. La UNRWA admite que esto fue una gota en el océano para las aproximadamente 20 mil personas que están atrapadas en el campamento.

Durante el periodo en que se levantó el sitio, las fuerzas del gobierno y las facciones palestinas aliadas a ellas secuestraron a muchos de quienes sospechaban apoyaban a los rebeldes, entre ellos niños.

Por lo menos 30 hombres y adolescentes fueron detenidos, y se desconoce su paradero.

“Miembros de los servicios de seguridad sirios, junto con sus aliados del Frente Popular para la Liberación de Palestina-Comando General [una facción palestina aliada al gobierno sirio] detuvieron a por lo menos 10 hombres jóvenes frente a mis propios ojos… También sabemos de personas a las que atrajeron hacia edificios apartados y luego las secuestraron”, dice una funcionaria de la UNRWA que integraba el equipo que vigilaba la ayuda alimentaria, y que pide no ser identificada por motivos de seguridad.

Cada lado culpa al otro por la interrupción del cese del fuego. “El régimen no liberó a ninguno de los detenidos que había prometido liberar, ni garantizó el pasaje seguro de alimentos”, dice Abu Jitaab, del batallón rebelde extremista Jabhat al-Nusra.

“Nos retiramos totalmente del campamento como habíamos acordado, pero en vez de liberar prisioneros, el régimen empezó a secuestrar a jóvenes estudiantes y activistas y a ocupar algunos edificios dentro del campamento. No pudimos tolerar esto, así que volvimos y reanudamos la batalla”, añade.

Independientemente de quién sea el responsable de violar el acuerdo sobre el que se estableció el cese del fuego, para los inocentes que viven en el campamento de Yarmouk la realidad volvió a plagarse de las mismas dificultades: el regreso a un encarcelamiento virtual y el caos de la lucha. Y ahora, además, con las enfermedades propagándose.

State Department confirms indications of use of toxic industrial chemical in Kfar Zeita town in Hama province.
Last updated: 22 Apr 2014 10:17

Syria has shipped out or destroyed approximately 80 percent of its declared chemical weapons material [AP]

The US has indications that a toxic chemical, probably chlorine, was used in Syria this month and is examining whether the Syrian government was responsible, according to the US State Department.

Jen Psaki, State Department spokesperson, said there were indications of the use of a toxic industrial chemical in the town of Kfar Zeita, a rebel held area in Hama province in Syria.

Syrian opposition activists reported that helicopters dropped chlorine gas on Kfar Zeita on April 11 and 12.

Psaki said chlorine was not one of the priority one or two chemicals Syria declared to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) under a Russian-US agreement for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

The Syrian government and rebels exchanged blame over the incident in Kfar Zeita in its aftermath earlier this month.

There was no independent confirmation of the attack which both sides said wounded more than 100 people.

State media accused the al-Qaeda linked group the Nusra Front of carrying out the attack and said it also planned more attacks in other parts of Syria.

Opposition activists said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad carried out the attack.

Amateur video uploaded to YouTube and social media sites purported to show the attack and its aftermath.

Syrian state television reported the incident on April 13, saying two were killed and more than a 100 injured when the Nusra group attacked the village with chlorine poisoned liquid.

Last week, opposition activists accused Assad's forces of a new poison gas attack in the Syrian capital and posted footage of four men being treated by medics.

They said this chemical attack, the fourth the opposition has reported this month, was in the Harasta neighbourhood of Damascus.

The Syrian government failed to meet a February 5 deadline to move all of its declared chemical substances and precursors, about 1,300 tonnes, out of the country. It has since agreed to remove the weapons by late April.

Syria has shipped out or destroyed approximately 80 percent of its declared chemical weapons material, the head of the international team overseeing the disarmament process, Sigrid Kaag, said on Sunday.

Three men have been accused of illegally shipping goods to Syria through other countries for nine years.
Last updated: 23 Apr 2014 19:33
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Opposition activists say the Syrian government has recently been attacking rebel-held areas with chlorine gas [AP]

US prosecutors have charged a man from the state of Pennsylvania and two foreign citizens with conspiring to illegally export chemical weapon detection devices and other equipment to Syria, according to authorities.

A federal judge on Wednesday unsealed the case after the prosecutor, Todd Hinkley, signed a plea agreement for Harold Rinko, of Pennsylvania, one of the three men who were charged in 2012.

Rinko, along with Ahmad Feras Diri, of London, and Moawea Deri, a Syrian citizen, stand accused of illegally shipping goods to Syria through other countries for nine years by creating false invoices, mislabelling items and listing fake purchasers and end users.

"We know they were exported to Syria," Hinkley said. "The end user information we weren't able, at least to this point, to develop in the investigation."

Prosecutors said the items included masks used in civil defence against chemical agents, industrial engines used in oil and gas fields, a device used to locate buried pipelines and portable instruments used to detect, measure and classify chemical agents.

The United Arab Emirates, Jordan and the UK were allegedly used as transfer points for the items.

Unanswered questions

A 31-page indictment did not say how authorities discovered the alleged scheme, and Hinkley said that he could not comment on it.

Investigators also do not know who used the products once they were in Syria.

Diri and Deri allegedly used Rinko as a "front" to purchase the items and ship them to countries without export bans.

Prosecutors said Diri is awaiting extradition in London, where he was arrested last year.

Deri is thought to be in Syria, which has no extradition treaty with the US.

Syrian opposition activists and other witnesses told the AP news agency that government forces have attacked rebel-held areas with poisonous chlorine gas in recent months.

But the Syrian government denies these claims.
Source:
AP

Head of mission overseeing destruction of chemical weapons says about eight percent of stockpile remains at one site.
Last updated: 27 Apr 2014 13:29

Sigrid Kaag urged the government to ensure it meets a June 30 deadline to destroy all its chemical weapons [AP]

The head of the mission overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons has said that Damascus still holds about eight percent of its stockpile.

Sigrid Kaag urged the government of President Bashar al-Assad to ensure it meets a June 30 deadline to destroy all its toxic chemicals.

Speaking in Damascus, Kaag said 7.5-8.0 percent of Syria's declared chemical weapons material remained in country, at "one particular site".

"However, 92.5 percent of chemical weapons material removed or destroyed is signficant progress," she said.

"A small percentage is to be destroyed, regardless, in-country. That can be done. It's a matter of accessing the site," she added.

She acknowledged the security challenges facing the mission, but said Syria was required to meet its commitments nonetheless.

Under a US-Russian deal negotiated last year, Syria signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to hand over its entire chemical arsenal by June 30 of this year.

Syria already missed an April 13 deadline to destroy all the weapons in accessible locations.

In addition to the remaining chemical material, there is a dispute over whether Syria will have to destroy 12 remaining chemical weapons production sites.

Damascus wants to seal the sites, which it says have already been rendered unusable, but Western countries want them completely destroyed, fearing that they may be reopened in the future.

There are also questions over alleged chlorine gas attacks in Syria in recent weeks, which the regime blames on an anti-government group but activists say were carried out by government forces.

Activists and the West blamed the attack on the regime, which denied responsibility.

Presidential candidates

Seperately, Syria's parliament speaker on Sunday said four new candidates had announced they would compete in the country's June 3 presidential election, which is expected to return Assad to power.

He has not yet announced his candidacy, though he has strongly suggested he will run.

The four candidates announced on Sunday are Sawsan Haddad, Samir Maala, Mohammed Firas Rajjuh and Abdel-Salam Salameh.

Haddad, the only female candidate so far, was born in 1963 and is a mechanical engineer from Latakia province in the northwest, Assad's Alawite heartland.

Maala is an international law professor from Quneitra province in the south.

Rajjuh was born in Damascus in 1966 and Salameh, born in 1971, is from central Homs province.

They join a businessman, Hassan Abdullah al-Nuri, who studied in the US, and independent MP and former communist Maher al-Hajjar as candidates.

The candidates are all largely unknown, with few details immediately available about their backgrounds or political leanings.
Source:
Agencies

The CIA wants to use fingerprint scanners and GPS devices to make sure Syria's rebels target Assad -- not the West.

BY Yochi Dreazen , Shane Harris , Dan Lamothe
APRIL 29, 2014

After more than three years of civil war in Syria, the Obama administration may soon send shoulder-fired missiles to the rebels fighting the country's dictator, Bashar al-Assad. But before the first missiles fly, they'll have to be outfitted with fingerprint scanners and GPS systems designed to keep the weapons from falling into the wrong hands. There's only one problem: It's not clear the relatively high-tech security equipment will be compatible with the decidedly low-tech, twenty-year old missiles.

The weapons in question are the awkwardly named man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS. The mujahadeen battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s used U.S.-supplied versions of them to shoot dozens of enemy helicopters out of the sky. The beleaguered Syrian insurgents fighting Assad today say they need the missiles to prevent Syrian aircraft from strafing and bombing their positions. The rebels have been steadily losing ground to Assad, and officials in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations argue that the MANPADS may be one of the last, best chances to give the rebels a potentially game-changing weapon.

The White House has considered giving the weapons to the rebels in the past, but held back because of fears that the weapons -- which are extraordinarily easy to use -- might be taken out of Syria and used against Western airliners. Typically weighing between 28 and 55 pounds, they can be carried by a single person and launched quickly without sophisticated targeting information. The missiles are stored in a tube that's between four and 6 1/2 feet long -- easy to hide in the trunk of a car or in a case.

Fears about the weapons winding up with Islamist militants have led the CIA to look for technological ways of ensuring that they can only be used against Assad's forces. The agency, according to people familiar with the matter, is considering a pair of options. One would involve installing fingerprint scanners, which would prevent the missiles from being fired by anyone who hadn't been vetted by the U.S. The other would be a GPS-based system that would render a shoulder-fired missile inoperable if it was taken outside of certain parts of Syria.

Versions of both systems are standard equipment in iPhones and other modern gadgets. Making them standard equipment in the MANPADS would be far harder. The biometric system, for instance, would require the U.S. or its allies to take the fingerprints of authorized rebels and then program them into the devices attached to each missile. That, in turn, would require either smuggling the fingerprint-taking equipment into Syria or getting the rebels to CIA bases in Jordan or Turkey.

The second option would be just as challenging. According to officials with knowledge of the matter, technical experts with the CIA have struggled to get a locking mechanism linked to GPS satellites to work with the older variety of missile launchers. Even when the GPS systems are ready for use, CIA engineers will need to install them on individual MANPADS, a potentially lengthy process that could further slow the weapons' introduction to the battlefield.

Even if the GPS locks are made to work, some fear that they could still be disabled in the field.

"I think the real issue here is the U.S. government is loath to put these weapons into rebel hands unless the lockouts are completely immune to external compromise, or hacking," said Christopher Harmer, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War and a former Navy helicopter pilot. "Until the U.S. government is satisfied that the lockouts work, and that they are immune from external compromise, it won't supply these top end weapons to the rebels."

The CIA didn't respond to a request for comment.

The administration's tortured internal debates over what types of weapons to provide to Syria's rebels has plagued Washington' Syria policy for two years and strained relations with key allies in Riyadh and other Middle Eastern capitals. In 2012, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey supported a plan -- hatched by CIA Director David Petraeus and backed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- to arm moderate Syrian rebels. Despite the near consensus of President Obama's top national security team, the White House overruled the officials and opted against sending the armaments into Syria.

Saudi Arabia became so frustrated with the inability of the U.S. and other world powers to form a coherent opposition to Assad that last year it gave up a coveted spot on the U.N. Security Council, a move that shocked diplomats and exposed the growing rift between the U.S. and one of its closest Middle East friends.

The MANPADS are emerging as another potential flashpoint. Saudi Arabia has stockpiles of the weapons but is waiting for U.S. permission to send them into Syria, a step the White House has so far refused to take to authorize. The administration, in a nutshell, argues that they're too dangerous to send into Syria without carefully vetting their recipients and installing robust safeguards.

The State Department said in a 2011 assessment of the weapon that keeping MANPADS away from terrorists is a "major priority of the U.S. government." Since 1975, some 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by MANPADs across the world, causing about 28 crashes and more than 800 deaths, the assessment found. In 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell called MANPADS the most serious threat to civilian aviation. His remarks were prompted in part by a terrorist attack the previous year, in which unidentified assailants fired two SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles at an Israeli passenger jet as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. The missiles missed their target but raised the specter of terrorists using a relatively cheap and widely available weapon to cause massive casualties. Fear over an airliner shootdown has prompted a recent online petition calling on Congress to expressly forbid the CIA from ending MANPADS into Syria.

The State Department has cited several other reported attacks of MANPADS since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including a strike on a DHL Airbus cargo jet carrying mail over Iraq in 2003, which was forced to return to an airport in Baghdad, and the shootdown four years later of a Transaviaexport Ilyushin 76TD cargo plane over Mogadishu, Somalia, which killed the entire crew of 11.

MANPADs have also taken down numerous military aircraft, including the United States'. The U.S. decision to supply the weapons to the mujahadeen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988 is widely believed to have helped turn the tide of the war there, enabling the Afghan rebels to launch attacks against Soviet aircraft. Some have speculated that they have been used against U.S. troops in Afghanistan since 9/11, including in the August 2011 shootdown of a helicopter carrying 38 people, including 17 U.S. Navy SEALs -- the deadliest single day in the war in Afghanistan. A U.S. military investigation found the helicopter -- call sign "Extortion 17" -- was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade and crashed, but U.S. Navy SEALs who witnessed the disaster reportedly still believe it could have been a MANPAD, which are more powerful and accurate.

The world is already lousy with MANPADS -- there are half a million on earth, several thousand of which are available for sale on the black market, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The Obama administration may find the inability to properly secure the missiles a non-starter and ultimately decline to send the weapons. But Oubai Shahbandar, a senior adviser to the Syrian opposition, said that both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been pushing the U.S. to authorize the missile shipments. U.S. government officials, he said, see the use of biometric systems and GPS locks as a way of assuaging U.S. concerns that the weapons not get picked up by terrorists.

If the administration ultimately signs off, only small numbers of MANPADS would be sent Syria at one time, raising doubts about whether such a modest amount of arms would help turn the tide of the war. The technical challenges with the GPS locks may provide a convenient excuse for the administration to avoid having to answer that question and sending the missiles at all.

There's one bright spot for the Syrian opposition: Even if MANPADS aren't on the way, the anti-Assad fighters have recently obtained powerful anti-tank missiles. The weapons may not have come directly from the U.S., but experts say they almost certainly arrived in Syria with U.S. approval, possibly via Qatar or Saudi Arabia. The CIA also has a base in Jordan where it has trained Syrian rebels.

MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images

BY Colum Lynch
APRIL 29, 2014 - 11:26 AM


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The world's chemical weapons watchdog will send a fact-finding mission to Syria to examine claims by the United States and other Western powers that the Syrian government may have used deadly chlorine gas against its own people.

Tuesday's announcement by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) followed a week of intensive diplomatic efforts by Washington to rally international support for such a mission, which is likely to renew international scrutiny of Syria's chemical weapons at a time when Damascus was receiving credit for destroying its stockpiles of the lethal toxins.

Over the past several days, the United Nations has repeatedly declared that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had eliminated most of his country's chemical weapons program, largely abiding by the terms of an agreement struck earlier this year to avert a U.S. attack. Chlorine wasn't covered by that deal, which means Assad can technically use a weapon fashioned from an old-fashioned industrial cleaner without being in violation of the agreement. And according to Syrian opposition groups, that's exactly what he's doing.

A Syrian human rights group, the Violations Documentation Center, issued a report this month alleging that the Syrian government has used chemical gases, including chlorine, at least 14 times since the beginning of the year, killing 22 people and injuring nearly 250. It cited one case in which Syrian helicopters allegedly dropped explosives containing chlorine gas on the village of Kfar Zeita on April 11 and 12.

The Obama administration finds some of those claims credible. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters last week that the U.S. was conducting its own investigation into allegations that the Syrian government used "a toxic industrial chemical, probably chlorine" in April in Kfar Zeita. In response, the White House has mounted an intensive, behind-the-scenes diplomatic campaign in The Hague designed to convince other Western powers to prod the OPCW to investigate whether Damascus has been using weaponized chlorine against rebels. Exposure to chlorine gas in large quantities can have a deadly effect, targeting the throat and lungs and suffocating its victims.

The American diplomatic effort appears to be bearing fruit. Ahmet Uzumcu, the Turkish director general of the OPCW, informed the agency's executive council that he will send a fact-finding mission to Syria to examine claims that the chemical agent chlorine may have been used as a weapon of war in Syria's conflict. The effort has the backing of the OPCW council, which includes the United States and Russia, and of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has pledged logistical support for the mission, according to a statement issued by the OPCW.

"The Syrian government, which has agreed to accept this mission, has undertaken to provide security in areas under its control," according to a statement from the agency. "The team is expected to depart for Syria soon."

Chlorine is a common industrial chemical that is best known for its use in laundry detergents and swimming pool cleaners, a standard industrial agent that is not banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. But chlorine has an unsavory history, first used as a chemical warfare agent by Germany against Franco-Algerian troops in World War I. Despite that history, chlorine is no longer considered a chemical warfare agent.

The preparations come amid growing concerns in Western capitals that the Syrian government may be seeking to preserve at least a limited capacity to reconstitute a chemical weapons program when international scrutiny of its declared stockpiles subsides. The United States, Britain, and France have already begun to quietly raise concerns with the chemical weapons watchdog that Syria has not declared its entire chemical weapons program.

Syria's U.N. envoy, Bashar Jaafari, has "categorically" denied the allegations, claiming that Western powers have trumped up charges of alleged chemical weapons use to detract attention from Syria's preparations for presidential elections.

The new mission -- if it is approved by Syria -- would conduct a preliminary assessment of allegations of chlorine use. A more formal investigation, however, would likely require approval by the OPCW's executive board, which includes representatives from 41 countries, including Syria's ally Russia, or the U.N. Security Council, where Moscow holds veto power, according to Western diplomats.

The U.S. and Russia brokered a deal last fall that bound Syria to destroy its previously clandestine chemical weapons program and join the Chemical Weapons Convention in exchange for calling off U.S. airstrikes against Damascus.

The deal -- which was later accepted by Syria and blessed by the U.N. Security Council -- required Syria to destroy or remove all of its chemical weapons from the country by April 27, a deadline which passed this weekend with a small portion of Syria's declared chemical weapons program still in Syria. The final destruction of Syria's chemical weapons programs -- some of which will be carried out at sea on a U.S. naval vessel, the M.V. Cape Ray, and at other foreign chemical disposal facilities -- is due to be completed by June 30.

Sigrid Kaag, a Dutch diplomat who heads the U.N.-OPCW joint mission overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal, declared over the weekend that Syria had eliminated more than 90 percent of its declared chemical weapons.

Jaafari, the Syrian envoy, told reporters last week he expected Kaag's mission to conclude its work and leave Syria as soon as Syria completes the elimination of its declared chemical weapons program. "It will be the end of everything," he said.

But U.S., British, and French officials have voiced concern with the OPCW that Syria has not declared its entire chemical weapons program, including rockets used in a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian town of Ghouta last summer, and that it possesses stores of chemical precursors that can be used to make new chemical weapons, according to U.N.-based diplomats. In an interview with Reuters, Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, said, "Our view is that there is a continuing role for the joint mission well beyond the removal of the chemicals."

In an April 25 letter to the U.N. Security Council, Ban said Syria has "made important progress towards the elimination of its entire declared stockpile of chemical weapons material." As of last week, Syria either destroyed or exported more than 92.5 percent of its chemical weapons program, including 96.7 percent of the most dangerous chemicals and 82.6 percent of other chemical precursors, according to Ban.

Ban said that most of the remaining 7.5 percent of Syria's declared stockpile of chemical weapons materials -- including small amounts of isopropanol, a common industrial chemical that also serves as a key precursor for the nerve agent sarin -- are housed in a single facility "where the [Syrian] government had determined it would not be possible to undertake removal operations due to the prevailing security situation." But, he added, the "Syrian authorities have recommitted to the removal and destruction of this remaining stockpile as soon as the security situation permits." Ban also said that the team is preparing for the destruction of 12 chemical weapons production sites that Syria had hoped it could keep.

While Ban has previously praised Syria for cooperating with international efforts to destroy its chemical weapons, he voiced concern "about recent reports of allegations regarding the use of toxic chemicals during the course of the conflict," an apparent reference to reports of chlorine use, and urged that "all necessary steps should be taken to establish the facts surrounding these allegations."

Jim Lopez/ AFP/ Getty Images

Fighters begin withdrawal from Syria's Homs
Buses arrive for first of 1,000 fighters trapped in besieged Old City area as part of UN-supervised evacuation.
Last updated: 07 May 2014 08:51

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Buses taking fighters from Homs' Old City as part of a deal with government forces [Activist image]

Syrian opposition fighters have begun withdrawing from the central city of Homs under a ceasefire deal agreed with government forces, opposition activists say.

Several buses entered the Old City district on Wednesday to withdraw the first of 1,000 fighters surrounded there by government troops, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Three buses have left, carrying 120 people in total, a mixture of wounded and non-wounded civilians and fighters," Abul Hareth al-Khalidi, a rebel negotiator, told the AFP news agency

The withdrawal of more than 1,000 fighters from Homs is part of a complex deal which also involves easing a rebel siege on two northern Shia Muslim towns loyal to the president, Bashar al-Assad.

The evacuation, which is taking place under UN supervision, will mark the end of any rebel presence in the heart of a city once called the "capital of the revolution" against Assad, handing him a major symbolic victory.

A picture post on the internet showed green buses driving through central Homs towards a collection point for the withdrawing rebel fighters.

Their departure would be staged over several phases, coordinated with the evacuation of residents from Nubl and

al-Zahraa in northern Syria, and the entry of humanitarian aid into those two Shia towns.

More than 150,000 people have died in Syria's civil war. Millions more have fled their homes and the government has lost
control of swathes of territory across the north and east.

The government has scheduled presidential elections for June 3, a vote likely to give Assad a third term as president.

Assad's opponents have dismissed the election as a farce.

Thousands of Syrian refugees in Bulgaria are living in overcrowded camps, held in limbo by EU bureaucracy.
Daniel Trilling Last updated: 06 May 2014 12:55

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Syrian refugee children look through a window inside a Bulgarian Red Cross refugee centre [Reuters]

Sofia, Bulgaria - When Aveen, a Kurdish refugee from Syria, was stopped as she tried to board a plane with her baby son at Sofia's international airport, she thought she knew the drill. Having already bribed her way out of a camp on Bulgaria's southern border with Turkey, she tried to shove a wad of notes into the passport official's outstretched hand.

"Security guards appeared from everywhere," Aveen says, laughing as she remembers the incident. "I spent 25 days in a detention centre."

In the second half of 2013, an estimated 15,000 refugees, the majority Kurdish Syrians, crossed into Bulgaria from Turkey - many only planning to pass through the country on their way to friends and relatives in Western Europe. The surge caught the Bulgarian and EU authorities unprepared, and a wave of international condemnation followed media reports of "overflow" camps without electricity, running water or basic healthcare provision.

What I built in 25 years in Syria has been destroyed. It's been spent in six months.

- Ciwan, refugee

An emergency injection of EU cash narrowly averted a humanitarian disaster, but more than six months on at least 8,000 refugees remain. Like Aveen, their way forward is blocked - EU rules mean they must apply for asylum in their country of entry - and for many, the situation is again becoming desperate.

Over cups of sweet tea at their apartment in a Sofia suburb, Aveen and her husband Ciwan - the couple ask Al Jazeera not to give their real names because they are worried it will affect their pending application for refugee status - explain their situation. For 500 euros ($690) a month, they share a two-bedroom apartment with three of their children and a cousin. While their claim is processed, asylum seekers are supposed to receive a monthly allowance of 65 leva (33 euros/$46), but Aveen says the family have not yet received anything.

Only the cousin has been able to find work, earning 10 leva (5 euros/$7) a day making sweets at a shop in Sofia's Arab quarter. Beyond that, the family is living off their dwindling life savings.

"What I built in 25 years in Syria has been destroyed," says Ciwan, a former taxi driver, explaining the family sold their home and all their possessions when they fled the war. "It's been spent in six months."

Nowhere to go

Thousands more refugees don't even have savings to fall back on; many of them have stayed in the camps, saying they have nowhere else to go. Conditions have improved since the winter - families are living indoors rather than in tents; there are basic utilities and a daily hot meal - but life remains tough.

At the Voenna Rampa camp on the edge of Sofia, a former college on a dilapidated ex-industrial estate, Al Jazeera saw families crammed into what had been a basketball court, their sleeping quarters separated by blankets and wooden boards. Since March, there have been nine confirmed cases of hepatitis A among children, a disease spread by overcrowding and poor hygiene. Renovations to the buildings are ongoing.

Bulgarian officials point out the efforts they have made to improve conditions. The State Agency for Refugees (SAR) says more than 7m euros ($9.7m) - 5.6m euros ($7.8m) of which comes from the EU - has been spent on emergency measures to improve facilities and speed up the asylum process.
Many Syrian refugees remain stranded after three years of war [Reuters]

Roland Francois-Weil, representative in Bulgaria for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, agrees the authorities are "doing their utmost" to improve conditions in the camps, and there has been a real improvement since winter. But, he warns, the next challenge is "integration" - ensuring the refugees have access to housing, education and jobs.

Economic woes

That won't be easy. Bulgaria is the EU's poorest member state, in the grips of an economic crisis and with soaring unemployment.

The country's minority government is being propped up with votes from the far-right Ataka party, which has organised protests against the Syrians and employed virulently nationalist rhetoric. The official refugee integration programme, which provided language lessons, job training and welfare payments, closed at the end of 2013, and the government has still not been able to agree on a new one.

Yet, according to Nikolai Chirpanliev, head of the State Agency for Refugees, many inhabitants of the camps are unwilling to look for work.

"We organised two job fairs and nobody was interested," he says. By allowing refugees to stay in the camps once they have received their status, he adds: "We discriminate against Bulgarian citizens." Another senior official at SAR complains "the refugees do not want to integrate into society and do not have working habits".

Iliana Savona, a lawyer with the Bulgaria Helsinki Committee, argues the situation is more complex, pointing out many refugees haven't been able to work since the war in Syria began more than three years ago. "If the refugees don't work, they won't be able to live," she says. "But you need a real effort to re-socialise them. Unfortunately the administration doesn't have the luxury of time, because otherwise the refugees will be left destitute."

Francois-Weil agrees. "The risk is that you end up with people homeless in the streets, which would be a disaster," he says. Savona warns the government has failed to learn the lessons of last winter's crisis: "My grim forecast is that it will happen again. Lives will be lost."

'Who can live here?'

Aveen can't understand why the refugees aren't being allowed to travel to countries where they have more chance of finding a job.

The risk is that you end up with people homeless in the streets, which would be a disaster. My grim forecast is that it will happen again. Lives will be lost.

- Roland Francois-Weil, UNHCR

"Bulgaria is a poor country - who can live here? Their own people emigrate to work in Western Europe," she says. But the trend in Europe is towards the tightening of borders. While more than two million people have fled the war in Syria, European states have been reluctant to resettle more than a tiny fraction.

Since fall, with EU financial support, Bulgaria has strengthened its border with Turkey - prompting complaints from human rights groups that officials are violently pushing back vulnerable people in need of protection. A number of refugees issued with three-year temporary passports in Bulgaria told Al Jazeera they had been turned away at the Romanian and Greek borders as they attempted to travel further into the EU.

According to Chirpanliev of the State Agency for Refugees, the EU has two choices: either provide financial support to help Bulgaria integrate refugees "so they can feel Bulgaria is their second motherland", or see them travel - by legal or illegal means - to other, wealthier European countries. "It is in the interest of the EU to help Bulgaria," says Francois-Weil.

"We don't blame any country," says Aveen, "the war forced us to come here."

As Aveen clears away the cups of tea, Ciwan pulls out a phone and plays a video clip showing captured fighters from the Free Syrian Army being beaten by Assad regime soldiers. The men are kneeling and lined up against a wall, which is dripping with their blood. A soldier kicks one of them in the head, while a voice off-camera shouts obscenities.

One of the prisoners leans around to look at his assailant, an expression of total fear on his face. Ciwan puts down his phone. "Europe knows what we're escaping from," he says. "Why don't they help us?

Why British boys are fighting in Syria's war
Brits have been killing - and being killed - in jihadist conflict zones for decades.
Last updated: 12 May 2014 06:54
Robin Simcox

Robin Simcox
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Robin Simcox is a Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and an expert on terrorism, al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups, and national security.
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Security officials claim that the numbers of Brits travelling to Syria are higher than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, writes Simcox [Reuters]

Footage has recently emerged from Syria of an apparently British fighter helping execute a prisoner loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This fighter is thought to be aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the al-Qaeda offshoot.

Unfortunately, it is no surprise that a British citizen is carrying out such an act, as Brits have been killing - and being killed - in jihadist conflict zones for decades. Worryingly, the numbers now seem to be growing, rather than diminishing.

In the 1990s, a small but steady stream fought in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kashmir and Afghanistan. Pro-Mujahideen websites highlighted cases such as Dawood al-Britanee and Abu Muslim al-Turki, killed fighting in Bosnia. In 1996, it is thought that Britain had its first - although by no means its last - suicide bomber, an individual fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. Four years later, Birmingham resident and Jaish-e-Mohammed recruit Bilal Ahmed carried out a similar attack in Kashmir.

The government's response was close to non-existent. Terrorist recruitment and facilitation centres were allowed to operate virtually unhindered. One recruit estimated that around 50 Muslims were killed fighting abroad from one London mosque alone.

A 'pure' Islamic state

The situation was exacerbated by 9/11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan. Dozens more British Muslims travelled with the purpose of defending the Taliban, joining fellow countrymen who had already emigrated there to experience living in a "pure" Islamic state. British troops were now at war with some of their fellow countrymen - a problem that continued throughout the war.

There are understandable fears over the activities of radicalised, battle-hardened returnees from the Syrian jihad. However, there are no guarantees that they will automatically involve themselves in terrorism-related activity back home.

Belatedly, the government began to grasp the scale of the problem it had allowed to take root. However, as anti-Western sentiment spread after 9/11, so did the presence of British fighters. Asif Hanif, a London resident, killed three people in a suicide attack in a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003. By 2006, it was feared that up to 150 Brits had journeyed to Iraq to combat US and UK forces under the guidance of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then head of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

This trend was not restricted to countries that were close allies of the West or had been subject to a US-led intervention. For example, in 2007, a London resident killed over 20 Somali soldiers in a suicide attack in Mogadishu. Somalia itself was to become an increasing magnet for British citizens, with over 100 receiving training there by 2009, and the number now likely to be much higher. As al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula gained strength in Yemen, it, too, would attract dozens of British volunteers.

Now the conflict has spread to Syria, where security officials claim that the numbers of Brits travelling are higher than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. As of December 2013, researchers at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation assessed the number that had fought there could be as high as 366. These ranks were reduced by one in February 2014 when Abdul Waheed Majid carried out a suicide truck bombing in Aleppo.

Battle-hardened returnees

There are understandable fears over the activities of radicalised, battle-hardened returnees from the Syrian jihad. However, there are no guarantees that they will automatically involve themselves in terrorism-related activity back home. Only 28 percent of those who have committed "Islamist"-related offences since 1999 had received any known terrorist training, and only 4 percent had fought in foreign conflict zones. While these numbers may be reassuring, sheer weight of numbers means returning fighters will likely plan terrorist acts against domestic targets. The threat is clearly significant.

The British government has responded. The Home Secretary stripped several dual-nationals of their citizenship in an attempt to prevent their return from Syria and, last month, the police appealed to Muslim women to try and persuade their relatives not to travel there. The police have also been much more active in prosecuting those returning from Syria than it has been with past conflicts.

Dozens have already been charged - including former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg - though the ease with which the state can assemble usable evidence regarding alleged offences in a warzone remains to be seen. When prosecution is not possible, placing returnees through de-radicalisation programmes will be a likely alternative.

Yet the war in Syria will continue to attract Brits. Some will travel because they sympathise with al-Qaeda's ideology, others because they genuinely wish to alleviate Muslim suffering and who have no intention of joining up with al-Qaeda or ISIL. Unfortunately, the radicalising effect of conflict means this could sometimes be the outcome anyway.

Ultimately, as long as there are images of Muslim suffering worldwide, groups like al-Qaeda will manipulate it to inspire Westerners to join their cause. Governments can implement practical measures to control this. Yet as violence flourishes across the Middle East and Africa, the limits of what they can do to stop it entirely are becoming alarmingly clear.

Robin Simcox is a Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and an expert on terrorism, al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups, and national security.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source:
Al Jazeera

Syrian air force chief dies in combat
In blow to Assad regime, air defence chief dies as rebels attack air force headquarters in Mleiha near Damascus.
Last updated: 18 May 2014 21:03

The chief of Syria's air defence forces, General Hussein Ishaq, has been killed in combat near Damascus, a security official has told news agencies.

The general died on Saturday of wounds suffered when rebels attacked Syrian air defence headquarters near the town of Mleiha, a key battleground southeast of the capital.

He is one of the few top-ranking officers whose deaths have been announced during Syria's three-year war.

The army's entire arsenal and forces are deployed in Damascus's war against rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime brands the uprising as a foreign-backed "terrorist" plot.

"The regime's air defence force is to face a possible US attack, but in this war it is using its firepower against the rebels," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

'Psychological' blow

Abdel Rahman called Ishaq's death an "important psychological blow" to the regime.

For more than a month, the army backed by the Lebanese Shia group, Hezbollah, has been battling to recapture Mleiha, a strategic rebel bastion.

Mleiha has been under siege for more than a year, and under near-constant bombardment for more than a month.

The UK-based Observatory, an anti-government monitoring group, said that despite initial regime advances in Mleiha, the rebels have recovered ground, retaking several buildings around the central town hall.

While the army remains in control of Damascus, rebels still hold a number of towns and villages on the outskirts, despite a suffocating blockade and frequent air strikes and shelling.

EE.UU. envía misiles a los rebeldes sirios para un "programa piloto"
Publicado: 17 may 2014 | 4:58 GMT Última actualización: 17 may 2014 | 4:58 GMT


Los rebeldes sirios ya han recibido los misiles antitanque estadounidenses que forman parte de un programa piloto para luchar contra el Ejército sirio y garantizar que el armamento pesado no cae en las manos equivocadas.
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Se trata de los misiles guiados modelo TOW que pueden penetrar cualquier blindaje de tanques, así como fortificaciones e incluso búnkeres a unos cuatro kilómetros de distancia, señala el periódico 'USA Today'.

Este nuevo "programa piloto" está destinado a ayudar a los rebeldes que luchan contra el Ejército de Bashar al Assad y, al mismo tiempo, garantizar que el armamento pesado no caiga en manos de los radicales, señaló un exalto funcionario del Gobierno de EE.UU. que habló con el rotativo bajo la condición de mantener el anonimato.

Ese arsenal sería utilizado por los rebeldes en las ciudades estratégicas como Alepo. "Van a probarlo primero y ver cómo va", explicó.

La administración de Barack Obama espera que estos misiles lleguen a los grupos moderados, pero algunos analistas aseguran que la poderosa tecnología ya está en poder de grupos terroristas.

Según Jeffrey White, analista político y exfuncionario de la Agencia de Inteligencia de Defensa, esta medida no logrará derribar el Gobierno de Al Assad. No obstante, el hecho de que los grupos rebeldes sumen victorias en el campo de batalla y consigan más armas atraerá a más reclutas para este bando, apuntó White.

Los TOW son los misiles antitanque más empleados en todo el mundo. El Ejército estadounidense los usó hace 10 años en la guerra de Irak.

Esta misma semana el secretario de Estado de EE.UU., John Kerry, declaró que EE.UU. y sus aliados ampliarán su apoyo a la oposición siria. Por otro lado, el máximo responsable militar del país negó que los rebeldes vayan a recibir apoyo armado.

What Saudi-Iranian rapprochement means for Assad
Limiting support for the Syrian regime might be the least costly compromise Iran is likely to make.
Last updated: 21 May 2014 13:49

Lina Khatib is the director of Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Previously, she was the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

The coming elections is likely to be Bashar al-Assad's last, writes Khatib [EPA]

After months of back-channel talks, Saudi Arabia and Iran seem to be on their way towards rapprochement. This can only be bad news for Bashar al-Assad. While Saudi Arabia's stance towards Assad remains unchanged, aimed as it is at removing him from power, Iran's stance is likely to migrate closer to Saudi Arabia's, albeit for different reasons.

The dominant wisdom has been that Iran has thrown its full weight behind Assad and that it would not abandon this ally because Assad guarantees Iran's strategic interests in the Levant. But Assad himself is less valuable to Iran than the much-coveted nuclear arms deal. Talks between the United States and Iran appear to be heading towards a settlement, while Saudi Arabia's softened stance towards Iran means that Iran must give Saudi Arabia something in return for cordial relations, because Saudi Arabia remains the stronger regional player in the Gulf. Assad is likely to be the least costly compromise for Iran on both fronts.

Although Assad's relationship with Iran continues, his value to Tehran is lessening because of some of the strategic decisions he has taken in order to stay in power. Assad's reliance on Hezbollah to fight the Syrian opposition may have given him military wins on the ground, but it has lessened his regional political clout. Hezbollah has managed to translate its military triumphs in Syria into increased political power within Lebanon.
Inside Syria - UN on Syria: Must a million die?

The delay in electing the next Lebanese president is due to no small extent to Hezbollah's wish to handpick the president at a time of its choosing, namely, after the Syrian presidential election. This is not so that Assad can give his blessing before a Lebanese president can be elected, as was usually the case with all post-civil war presidents, but so that Hezbollah can show Assad that it now has the autonomy to impose its political agenda within Lebanon.

Assad has thus empowered Hezbollah at the expense of his own regional influence. This makes him less valuable for Iran than Hezbollah. Instead of taking measures to bolster Assad's regional position, Iran has begun a bottom-up process of replicating the Lebanese Hezbollah model in Syria. Not only is Iran establishing a Syrian Hezbollah, it is also sponsoring a process of Shiasation among the Syrian population. Those measures are about Iran's planting the seeds of long-term clientelism within Syria so that its own regional influence can be retained regardless of who rules Syria.

For Iran as well as Israel, Assad remains valuable enough to keep in power as long as he is able to guarantee their strategic interests. But his indirect support of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has created a potential serious threat to stability in those countries. ISIS is now reportedly financially independent, which means it is likely to begin operating outside the remit of Assad's control.

Recent assessments of ISIS's capabilities paint it as the new al-Qaida in terms of potential international threat. Neither Iran nor Israel will accept a volatile Sunni extremist group using a neighbouring country as a hub. Saudi Arabia too sees in ISIS a dangerous challenge to its domestic stability. Assad's strategic decisions have thus inadvertently given the Middle East's three staunchest rivals common ground. The blooming Iranian-Saudi rapprochement is partly driven by shared concerns about security in the region.

Domestically, Assad is also on his way to losing his grip. His destruction of state infrastructure even in loyalist areas means that in the future he will not be able to meet the service demands of his supporters, who will be driven to become the clients of the new warlords ruling Syria, such as the chiefs of the National Defence Force. With the rise of ISIS, Assad is also likely to begrudgingly be forced to accept a power sharing compromise with jihadists further down the line. Having less domestic control means a lessened ability to guarantee Iran's interests.

The anticipated rapprochement between Iran and Saudi might therefore be the shortest straw for Assad. Though this will not mean an end to the Syrian regime, or an end to the conflict, it does mean that Assad's forthcoming presidential election is likely to be his last.

Lina Khatib is the director of Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. Previously, she was the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.