Syria

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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‘Massacre’ in Syrian opposition stronghold

by News Sources 12.21.2011

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Inside Syria – Syria’s direction

by News Sources 12.18.2011

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Syria’s torture machine

by News Sources 12.14.2011

Jonathan Miller reports: A short drive from the frontier, along hair-pinned mountain roads, past Lebanese checkpoints where friendly soldiers shiver, is a Syrian safe-house. There is no electricity. The place is crammed with refugees; there are children sleeping everywhere. In an upstairs room, next to a small wood-burner, a weathered former tractor driver from Tal [...]

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UN says deaths in Syria unrest exceed 5,000

by News Sources 12.12.2011

Al Jazeera reports: More than 5,000 people are now believed to have been killed in the Syrian government’s crackdown on protests, the United Nations rights chief has told the UN Security Council. The UN’s Navi Pillay said on Monday there were reports of increased attacks by opposition groups on President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces but [...]

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Blogger, Rami al-Jarrah, describes his escape from Syria

by News Sources 12.12.2011

Rami al-Jarrah, who was blogging and tweeting from Syria under the pseudonym “Alexander Page,” just fled the country after his real identity became known to the intelligence services. Upon his arrival in Qatar he almost got sent back to Syria but thanks to a swift outpouring of support on Twitter, he was allowed in. Share

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Syrians ‘strike for dignity’

by News Sources 12.12.2011

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Factional splits in Syrian opposition hinder drive to topple Assad

by News Sources 12.10.2011

The New York Times: Even as the government of President Bashar al-Assad intensifies its crackdown inside Syria, differences over tactics and strategy are generating serious divisions between political and armed opposition factions that are weakening the fight against him, senior activists say. Soldiers and activists close to the rebel Free Syrian Army, which is orchestrating [...]

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‘Every Syrian has lost someone. Now we are ready to fight back’

by News Sources 12.07.2011

The Independent reports: The sharp pop of gunfire draws little reaction. The soldiers of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) point to a multi-storey house just across the wide valley from their base above the village of Ain al-Baida, about a mile from the Turkish border. “That is where the military is,” says commander Abo Mohammad, [...]

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In Syria crisis, Turkey is caught between Iran and a hard place

by News Sources 12.07.2011

Zvi Bar’el reports: “We have agreed that the free Syrian army will not carry out any independent attacks against the Syrian regime,” Ahmed Ramadan, one of the heads of the Syrian National Council, the chief opposition group, stated with satisfaction after meeting with the commander of the Free Syrian Army. “The commander of the free [...]

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Syria: 34 bodies dumped in public square in Homs

by News Sources 12.05.2011

The Daily Telegraph reports: A human rights group monitoring events in Syria claims it had evidence of the worst massacre yet by the regime of President Bashir al-Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has chronicled deaths on both sides during the nine month-long uprising, said a witness had seen the bodies of 34 [...]

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Ranks of Free Syrian Army gain strength

by News Sources 12.04.2011

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UN says Syria on brink of ‘civil war’

by News Sources 12.01.2011

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Turkey imposes sanctions on Syria

by News Sources 11.30.2011

The Washington Post reports: Turkey announced wide-ranging sanctions against Syria on Wednesday in response to the Syrian government’s continuing military crackdown on protests. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu outlined measures including a freeze on Syrian assets in Turkey and a ban on transactions with the Syrian central bank, capping an eight-day stretch in which Turkish [...]

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Arab League approves Syria sanctions

by News Sources 11.28.2011

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Reporting Syria

by News Sources 11.24.2011

Robin Yassin-Kassab writes: The Syrian regime’s blanket ban on journalist access has some carefully selected exceptions. Robert Fisk, for instance, who seems to be compensating for the naive anti-Syrian and pro-March 14th line in his reporting of Lebanon over the last years by treating the statements of Syrian regime figures – professional liar Boutheina Shaaban [...]

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Jordan seeks Palestinian respect by offering Hamas a new home

by News Sources 11.23.2011

Zvi Bar’el reports: Jordan’s King Abdullah is not an innovative leader. But last week he surprised Arab leaders and the whole world by becoming the first Arab ruler to call on Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign. “If I were in his shoes, I’d step down,” he told the BBC. This declaration set off a [...]

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In Homs, Syria, sectarian battles stir fears of civil war

by News Sources 11.20.2011

Anthony Shadid reports: A harrowing sectarian war has spread across the Syrian city of Homs this month, with supporters and opponents of the government blamed for beheadings, rival gangs carrying out tit-for-tat kidnappings, minorities fleeing for their native villages, and taxi drivers too fearful of drive-by shootings to ply the streets. As it descends into [...]

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