Syria

Syrian army cracks down on protests in Damascus suburbs

by News Sources 01.29.2012

The Los Angeles Times reports: Syrian tanks and troops moved Sunday to crush resistance in the rebellious suburbs of Damascus, opposition groups reported, bringing the bloody battle that has ravaged the nation for months to the doorsteps of the nation’s capital. The fierce fighting reported outside Damascus was the latest sign that Syria’s armed insurgency [...]

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Video: Will the West interfere in Syria?

by News Sources 01.26.2012

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Video: Is it time to increase the pressure on Syria?

by News Sources 01.22.2012

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Syria: beyond the wall of fear, a state in slow-motion collapse

by News Sources 01.16.2012

Ian Black reports: Sipping tea in a smoky Damascus cafe, Adnan and his wife, Rima, look ordinary enough: an unobtrusive, thirtysomething couple winding down at the end of the working day in one of the tensest cities in the world. But like much else in the Syrian capital, they are not what they first seem: [...]

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Assad’s combative speech: A method to the tyranny?

by News Sources 01.10.2012

Time reports: It was a fiercely combative and confident Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who took to the podium of Damascus University on Tuesday to deliver his fourth speech since unrest erupted in his troubled land last March. His manner and his words made one thing clear: he’s not going anywhere. In many ways, he has [...]

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Israel prepares for fall of Assad, Syria refugees

by News Sources 01.10.2012

Reuters reports: Israel is making preparations for the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a flood of refugees from his minority Alawite sect into the Golan Heights, Israel’s military chief told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. “Assad cannot continue to hold onto power,” a committee spokesman quoted Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz as saying. “On the [...]

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Syria’s Bashar Assad says he won’t step aside

by News Sources 01.10.2012

Atlantic Wire: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivered a defiant televised address on Tuesday saying that he will not step down and will not institute new democratic reforms, insisting that unrest in his country is the work of a foreign conspiracy. According to Al-Jazeera’s translations, Assad said that there are no real revolutionaries in his country, [...]

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Syria, the ‘Zio-American plot’, and Conflicts Forum

by Paul Woodward 01.09.2012

On its website (which I created) Conflicts Forum is referred to as “an international movement which engages with Islamist movements” — a partially correct but somewhat misleading statement. Conflicts Forum does indeed engage Islamist movements — principally Hezbollah and Hamas. It does have an international element — evident in its advisory board. But by no [...]

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Syria’s protesters are on their own

by News Sources 01.09.2012

Brian Whitaker writes: The Arab League’s much-heralded meeting to review the “progress” of its monitoring operation in Syria came and went on Sunday with barely a whimper. A few more monitors will be sent but unless Syria agrees to an extension, which seems unlikely, the mission will end on 19 January with the presentation of [...]

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Inside Syria: Has the Arab League failed in Syria?

by News Sources 01.08.2012

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In Syria, another Friday, another Damascus bomb

by News Sources 01.06.2012

The Daily Telegraph reports: At least 25 people were reportedly killed or wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself up in central Damascus on Friday, the second such attack on the Syrian capital in a fortnight. The bomb was detonated at a set of traffic lights in the historic district of al-Midan, just south of [...]

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Syria opposition lacks solidarity

by News Sources 01.04.2012

AFP reports: Syria’s opposition was in disarray Wednesday, struggling to present a united front in the face of a protest crackdown whose death toll rose again despite the presence of Arab League monitors. Western powers have repeatedly called for the Syrian opposition to put aside differences and join forces in their bid to oust President [...]

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Inside Syria – Is the Arab League mission doomed to fail?

by News Sources 01.01.2012

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Arab body says monitors should quit Syria promptly

by News Sources 01.01.2012

Reuters reports: An Arab League advisory body called on Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of the organization’s monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was allowing Damascus to cover up continued violence and abuses. The Arab League has sent a small team to Syria to check whether President Bashar al-Assad is keeping his promise to end [...]

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Largest Syrian opposition groups sign unity agreement

by News Sources 12.31.2011

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Activists hold mass rallies across Syria

by News Sources 12.30.2011

The New York Times reports: Tens, and possibly hundreds, of thousands of people defied a continuing government crackdown to fill the streets of several Syrian cities on Friday, intent on showing visiting monitors from the Arab League the extent of opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. As thousands marched in Idlib, Homs, Hama and in the [...]

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Inside Syria: Is the Syrian revolution getting militarised?

by News Sources 12.26.2011

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Assad’s Lebanese invasion

by News Sources 12.25.2011

Mitchell Prothero writes: The blacked-out sport utility vehicles entered the small mountain village of Arsal, in the furthest reaches of Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, at midnight on a cold night late last month. The mostly Sunni residents of the town immediately knew what was happening: Hezbollah had come to grab someone from his bed. The target [...]

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Is Assad’s regime behind the Damascus suicide bombings?

by News Sources 12.23.2011

The anonymous Arab journalist who blogs at The Arab Digest examines those reasons that support the idea that the Assad regime is behind these bombings, versus those reasons suggesting Free Syrian Army or Islamist involvement. In his view, the regime itself is more suspect. One could say the regime is behind it for the following [...]

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Syrian rebels take the fight to Bashar al-Assad’s heartland

by News Sources 12.22.2011

The Daily Telegraph reports: Military trucks stood parked at the end of the dark empty street. The electricity was cut, the phone signals out and apartment windows boarded up with whatever wood or metal people could find. It was to stop the bullets, activists explained. Shouting and chanting of “down down Bashar al Assad” could [...]

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