Malik Al-Abdeh writes: How do we explain the de facto civil war unfolding in Syria today? How do we predict what course it will take? How do we come up with a viable and long-term solution?

A good starting point is to compare Syria with a country that bears a striking resemblance: Lebanon. This may seem surprising because the two countries (and two peoples) appear to be somewhat different.

Syrians regard themselves as being superior to Lebanese because their country suppresses confessional and ethnic identities in favour of a secular and all-embracing Arabism.

The Lebanese on the other hand look at the Syrians and they pity. Fortress Damascus is not a good place if you value creativity and free expression. It is the GDR of the Levant.

Broadly speaking, Syria is about unity, Lebanon is about freedom.

In reality, these differences developed recently and are superficial. What Syria and Lebanon have in common is grounded in shared experience: for centuries they were part of the Byzantine empire, they were conquered by the Muslim Arabs at the same time, both were later ruled by the Ottoman Turks for 400 years, and both fell under French mandate after the end of the First World War.

Something else they had in common were significant groups of non-Sunni Muslim minorities who chafed under Ottoman Turkish rule and vowed never to fall under Sunni overlordship again.

It was during the formative Mandate years (1920-46) that non-Sunni Muslim minorities (Christians, Alawites, Druze, Ismai’lis) began to develop survival strategies to adapt to the reality of living in newly-created nation states. It is by recognizing and analyzing these survival strategies and their long-term consequences that one can trace the historic roots of the Lebanese civil war (1975-90) and the Syrian civil war (2011-present).

The modern history of Syria and Lebanon is the story of how religious minorities turned the tables to become political masters, and how that often brought them into conflict with the Sunni Muslim majority. [Continue reading…]

Sharmine Narwani writes: In recent weeks, there has been a notable shuffle in the positions of key external players in the Syrian crisis. Momentum has quite suddenly shifted from an all-out onslaught against the Assad government to a quiet investigation of exit strategies.

The clashes between government forces and opposition militias in Baba Amr were a clear tipping point for these players – much hinged on the outcome of that battle. Today, the retreat of armed groups from the Homs neighborhood means one thing: the strategy of militarizing the conflict from within is no longer a plausible option on which to hang this geopolitical battle. Especially not in an American or French election year, when anything less than regime change in Syria will look like abject failure.

And so the external players are shifting gears – the more outspoken ones, quietly seeking alternative options. There are two de facto groups that have formed. Group A is looking for a face-saving exit from the promised escalation in Syria. It consists of the United States, European Union and Turkey. Group B, on the other hand, is heavily invested in regime-change at any cost, and includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some elements of the French, US, British, and Libyan establishments.

Before Baba Amr, these two groups were unified in maximizing their every resource to force regime change in Syria. When the UN Security Council option was blocked by Russia and China, they coalesced around the General Assembly and ad-hoc “Friends of Syria” to build coalitions, tried unsuccessfully to bring a disparate opposition fighting force (Free Syrian Army) under central leadership, pushed to recognize the disunited Syrian National Council (SNC), and eked out weekly “events” like embassy closures and political condemnations to maintain a “perception momentum.”

But those efforts have largely come to a standstill after Baba Amr. A reliable source close to the Syrian regime said to me recently: “The regime eliminated the biggest and most difficult obstacle – Baba Amr. Elsewhere, it [eliminating armed militias] is easier and less costly at all levels. Now both political and military steps can continue.” [Continue reading…]

Human Rights Watch addresses an “Open Letter to the Leaders of the Syrian Opposition”: We are writing to express our concern about increasing evidence, as described below, of kidnappings, the use of torture, and executions by armed Syrian opposition members and strongly urge you to work to ensure that all opposition members refrain from engaging in these unlawful practices.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented and condemned widespread violations by Syrian government security forces and officials, including disappearances, use of torture and forced televised confessions, arbitrary detentions, indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods, and deaths in custody under torture. Now, in the face of evidence of human rights abuses by armed opposition members, Human Rights Watch calls on the leadership of leading opposition groups including the Syrian National Council (SNC) and its Military Bureau to condemn such practices by the armed opposition and to work to prevent such unlawful practices.

While the protest movement in Syria was overwhelmingly peaceful until September 2011, since then Human Rights Watch has documented apparent crimes and other abuses committed by armed opposition elements. These crimes and abuses include the kidnapping and detention of security force members, individuals identified as members of government-supported militias (referred to locally as shabeeha), and individuals identified as government allies or supporters. They also include the use of torture and the execution of security force members and civilians. Some of the attacks targeting Shias and Alawites appear to be motivated by sectarianism.

The New York Times reports: Armed Syrian defectors took their uprising into the heart of a heavily guarded and wealthy district of Damascus on Monday, clashing with security forces in what activists and residents called the most intense fighting in such a strategic area since the protests against President Bashar al-Assad began a year ago.

The flaring of violence in the Syrian capital followed a weekend in which bombers struck at government targets in both Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest cities, raising concerns that the scope of the armed uprising was expanding into places that had been largely spared from violence.

The clashes in Damascus also coincided with the arrival of a monitoring team sent by Kofi Annan, the special representative on Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League. Mr. Annan is trying to advance his effort to start a dialogue between the antagonists in the Syria conflict and open the way for humanitarian aid.

There were also signs that Russia, Mr. Assad’s most important foreign supporter, was exerting some pressure on him to allow a daily pause in the fighting and to permit outside aid to victims of the conflict, which the United Nations has estimated has left more than 8,000 dead and thousands more displaced.

The Telegraph reports: Syria was hit by a third car bombing of the weekend as political security offices in the northern city of Aleppo were targeted, according to human rights groups.

State media, which have said that such attacks aimed to sabotage efforts to find a political solution to Syria’s crisis, said it exploded near residential buildings and a post office.

Activists in Aleppo, the target of car bombings on February 10 that killed 28 people, told AFP in Beirut on Skype that the blast rocked the city early in the afternoon.

On Saturday, twin car bombings killed 27 people and wounded 140 others in the heart of Syria’s capital, the interior ministry said, blaming “terrorists” for the attacks near police and air force headquarters.

The Guardian reports: A Harley Street cardiologist has been acting as a close adviser to the president of Syria during his regime’s brutal crackdown on anti-government activists, according to a cache of what appear to be emails sent and received by Bashar al-Assad and his wife.

Dr Fawas Akhras, who is the father of Assad’s wife, Asma, used a private email channel to the Syrian leader to offer advice on how the regime should spin its suppression of the uprising, including how best to rebut graphic video footage appearing to show the torture of children by Syrian forces.

The 66-year-old west London-based consultant has until now been regarded as a modernising influence on his son-in-law. He is co-chair of the British Syrian Society, which has said it is “saddened and appalled at the violence and loss of life in Syria”, where more than 8,000 people are believed to have been killed since the uprising against Assad’s rule began a year ago.

But a collection of several thousand messages to and from the Assads’ private email accounts obtained by the Guardian appears to show that as the violence escalated in recent months, Akhras offered the Syrian president detailed political and media handling advice as well as moral support in dozens of emails direct to his personal inbox.

Juan Cole writes: The world community has failed Syria, just as it failed Rwanda and the Congo, though the human toll in Syria is a fraction of those killed in the African events. Russia and China have used their veto to block any effective United Nations Security Council resolution that might lead to regime change. India has also, unlike the Arab League, opposed any call for President Bashar al-Assad, the Butcher of Homs, to step down.

Those on the left and in the libertarian movement who stridently condemned Arab League and NATO intervention in Libya (which forestalled massacres like the one we just saw in the Baba Amr district of Homs) have been silent about al-Assad’s predations and clueless as to what to do practically. Perhaps they do not care if indigenous dictators massacre indigenous protesters, as long as there is no *gasp* international intervention.

The Baath one-party police state, dominated at the top by the minority Allawite Shiite sect, has deployed armor and artillery to bombard city quarters without regard to civilian casualties. Thousands of innocent civilians are dead at regime hands. Some 200,000 Syrians have had to flee their homes. While defectors from the military have formed a Free Syrian Army that has attacked and ambushed the regular army, these attacks have formed a minor part of the violence. Likewise, bombings by “al-Qaeda,” Sunni Muslim radicals, have been few and far between. Mostly, the violence has stemmed from government troops sniping at peaceful protesters. The protests have often been big, and they have been persistent, but they have predominated in medium-sized and smaller cities away from the capital of Damascus. They are unable by themselves to cause the regime to fall.

Many of the protests are economic, not ideological. In much of rural Syria, a persistent drought has deprived farmers and urban food distributors of enough water. The Baath Party, which back in the 1970s was very good at dams and irrigation works, has been unable to get the water flowing, either because the drought is too severe or because the party has become corrupt and inefficient. Likewise in many of the protesting cities, there are many fairly recent labor migrants from the countryside, whose hopes for urban jobs have been disappointed by the world economic crisis since 2008. Many of the demonstrations have been in working class districts of central cities, suffering most from high unemployment. To dismiss these civilian crowds of workers and farmers as “Salafis” and “al-Qaeda” is bad social science and just regime propaganda.

‘I wanted to die’: Syria’s torture survivors speak out [PDF] is a newly-released Amnesty International report in which former detainees describe their treatment in Syria’s detention centers since the predominantly peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began in March 2011.

Fairly usual over many years and continuing to be so is the torture method known as the dulab (tyre), whereby the victim is forced into a vehicle tyre which is often then hoisted up and the individual is beaten on the feet – a method of abuse itself often referred to as falaqa – or elsewhere on the body with fists, sticks, whips or cables.

More common now than in recent years is shabeh, whereby the victim is hung in one of a number of ways, for example from a raised hook or handle or door frame, or by manacled wrists, so that the feet just hang above the ground or so the tips of toes touch the floor. The individual is then often beaten with various instruments. Other forms of suspension, such as crucifixion, were also reported.

There have been more frequent reports of some torture and ill-treatment methods that were previously rare, including electric shock. Survivors interviewed by Amnesty International in Jordan described three forms of electrocution: after water is sprayed onto detainees and the floor, an electric charge is applied to the floor and the current rushes through to those covered in water; via electric prods; and in one case in a metal “electric chair”. Such methods often cause the victim to collapse and pass out.

A method also reported was bisat al-rih (flying carpet), whereby the victim is strapped faceup onto a foldable wooden board, the two ends of which can be moved towards each other bringing the head towards the feet and causing significant pain to the lower back, during the process of which the victim is beaten. Another method described was being slashed, including with the fixed bayonet on a Kalashnikov-type rifle. Also more frequent than in recent years are cigarette burns.

Rape and other torture and ill-treatment of a sexual nature have been reported more frequently than for many years. Several of those interviewed in Jordan said it was quite common to be hit in the genital region with truncheons, including while hanging in the shabeh position. In one case, a former detainee told Amnesty International that he was forced to watch as a male detainee was raped in front of him. One released detainee said that he shared a cell with a young man who had been forced to have a glass bottle with a broken top inserted into his anus. One said that his cellmate had been raped with a metal skewer. Others spoke of a detainee with whom they had shared a cell who, while hanging in the shabeh position, had a cord attached to a large bag of water tied around his penis.

Amnesty International also heard accounts of methods of torture and other ill-treatment not heard of for many years. One man showed lesions on his leg and ankle that he said were caused by a pincer. Another said he was kept for a night in a cell with what seemed to be a corpse.

Bloomberg reports: About 20,000 Syrian soldiers have deserted from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in less than a month, according to Turkish intelligence reports cited by a Foreign Ministry official.

The desertions are in addition to 40,000 military personnel who left before Feb. 20, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with government rules. The Syrian armed forces have a strength of 295,000 active personnel, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ 2012 Military Balance.

They have been at the forefront of Assad’s bid to stamp out the yearlong uprising, which yesterday resulted in the seizure of the rebel-held city of Idlib. Some of the soldiers are joining the opposition Free Syrian Army, whose commanders reside in Turkish refugee camps.

The New York Times reports: The main Syrian exile opposition group suffered a serious fracture on Wednesday as several prominent members resigned, calling the group autocratic, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and powerless to help Syrian rebels as government forces, having flushed insurgent strongholds in the north, swept into the rebellious southern city of Dara’a.

The government’s near-complete takeover of the cities of Homs and Idlib fueled frustration with the exile group, the Syrian National Council, said one activist who had resigned, Kamal al-Labwani, a respected dissident released from Syrian prison last year halfway through a 12-year sentence.

Activists have said hundreds of people were killed in Homs alone as rebel fighters, their pleas for weapons unanswered, were heavily outgunned by the Syrian military.

“What happened in Homs is betrayal,” Mr. Labwani said in an interview. “There is a sense of irresponsibility on the part of the council.”

The council, he added, was in danger of causing splits in Syrian society by failing to create a single rebel military command under its control, leaving individual militias to seek their own sources of help. He accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of “monopolizing funding and military support.”

The 270-member council has been plagued by internal disagreements. A member of its executive committee, Samir Nachar, played down the latest frictions, saying the members had not submitted formal resignations and were simply frustrated at their exclusion from a meeting with the United Nations special envoy, Kofi Annan.

But this time the departing members include some well-known members with deep credibility among Syrians both inside and outside the country, including Mr. Labwani and Haitham Maleh, an executive committee member and lawyer in his 80s who served many years in prison after defending Syrian dissidents, including Muslim Brotherhood members.

Mr. Maleh could not be reached for comment, but told Al Jazeera that he had resigned because of chaos within the group and doubt over what it could accomplish, adding, “We have not gotten very far in working to arm the rebels.”

The Guardian reports: Bashar al-Assad took advice from Iran on how to handle the uprising against his rule, according to a cache of what appear to be several thousand emails received and sent by the Syrian leader and his wife.

The Syrian leader was also briefed in detail about the presence of western journalists in the Baba Amr district of Homs and urged to “tighten the security grip” on the opposition-held city in November.

The revelations are contained in more than 3,000 documents that activists say are emails downloaded from private accounts belonging to Assad and his wife Asma.

The messages, which have been obtained by the Guardian, are said to have been intercepted by members of the opposition Supreme Council of the Revolution group between June and early February.

The documents, which emerge on the first anniversary of the rebellion that has seen more than 8,000 Syrians killed, paint a portrait of a first family remarkably insulated from the mounting crisis and continuing to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.

They appear to show the president’s wife spending thousands of dollars over the internet for designer goods while he swaps entertaining internet links on his iPad and downloads music from iTunes.

As the world watched in horror at the brutal suppression of protests across the country and many Syrians faced food shortages and other hardships, Mrs Assad spent more than £10,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris and instructed an aide to order a fondue set from Amazon.

The Associated Press reports: In northern Syria, the Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, reported intense clashes between government troops and rebels in the town of Maaret al-Numan, in Idlib province, on Sunday night.

The U.N. refugee agency said 230,000 Syrians have fled their homes since the uprising against Assad’s regime began last year. The U.N. says more than 7,500 people have been killed in the past 12 months.

Panos Moumtzis, the UNHCR’s coordinator for Syria said 30,000 people have already fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan and “on a daily basis hundreds of people are still crossing into neighboring countries.”

Moumtzis said at least 200,000 people were also displaced within the country, according to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus writes: Since the outset of the Syria crisis in March 2011 there has been little appetite for outside military intervention. This has been based on two assessments.

Firstly, that the situation on the ground in Syria is in many ways very different from that in Libya – the opposition is much more divided, the government’s security forces are much stronger, and Syria’s air defences are more effective.

Secondly, there has been a view that the implications of toppling President Bashar al-Assad could prompt a much wider wave of instability in the region.

Unlike Libya, Syria – both politically and geographically – is a central player in the Arab world, and sectarianism and instability there could threaten both Lebanon and Iraq.

Then, of course, there is the fundamental legal problem. Constrained by Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN Security Council, there is no possibility of getting a resolution to authorise force.

That has not always mattered in the past. Nato troops went into Kosovo, after all, to halt systematic abuses by Serbian forces.

But the absence of legal authorisation certainly precludes action when there is little enthusiasm for it in the first place.

So what are we to make of calls from senior Republican politicians in the US, like Senator John McCain, urging air strikes against Syrian security forces?

Joshua Landis, director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, says: “Despite the growing chorus of politicians calling for US leadership in Syria, the Obama administration is adamant that Washington should not take the lead, but follow regional partners, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.”

Mr Landis argues that the simple fact is that the Obama administration sees no strong reason to intervene.

“US officials are unanimous in arguing that the Assad regime is doomed and can only hang on for a limited time, with or without increased US support for the Syrian opposition. I think they are right in this analysis.”

“This means that the US has no compelling national security interest in jumping into the Syrian civil war that is emerging. The regime’s days are numbered.”

The Telegraph reports: Syria’s opposition has accused security forces of killing 47 women and children in Homs and urged the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the killings.

Hadi Abdallah, a Syrian activist in the besieged central city, said the bodies of 26 children and 21 women, some with their throats slit and others bearing stab wounds, were found in the Karm el-Zaytoun and Al-Adawiyeh neighbourhoods.

“Some of the children had been hit with blunt objects on their head, one little girl was mutilated and some women were raped before being killed,” he said.

The main opposition group, the Syrian National Council (SNC), called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the “massacre”, which it said took place on Sunday.

“The Syrian National Council is making the necessary contacts with all organisations and countries that are friends with the Syrian people for the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting,” the SNC said in a statement.

And in a clear reference to Russia and China, the SNC said that allies of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad shared responsibility for the “crimes” committed by his regime.

State television blamed “armed terrorist gangs” for the killings, saying they had kidnapped residents of Homs, killed them and then made video footage of the bodies in an attempt to discredit Syrian forces.

News of the killings came after UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan left Damascus on Sunday without managing to secure an accord to end bloodletting monitors say has claimed more than 8,500 lives since March last year.

Annan departed at the end of a two-day mission during which he said he presented Assad with “concrete proposals” to halt the unrest that has rocked Syria since pro-democracy protesters rose up against his regime on March 15, 2011.

On the ground, more than 150 people – 61 of them civilians caught in the crossfire – were killed weekend clashes between armed rebels and regular soldiers in various flashpoint areas, according to figures of rights monitors.

AFP reports: Syrian regime stalwart and former defence minister Mustafa Tlass has arrived in Paris with one of his sons but they are not defecting, opposition representatives told AFP on Monday.

Tlass arrived in France from Syria with his businessman son Firas, the Paris-based opponents said. His other son Manaf, an officer in the Syrian regime’s military, is believed still to be in Damascus.

Mohamad al-Rashdan, member of the National Committee for Support of the Syrian Revolution, told AFP: “He has been in France for five days after having an argument with Assef Shawkat, President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law.”

Shawkat is the current deputy defence minister and husband of President Assad’s sister Bushra.

A source close to the Syrian community in exile told AFP: “Tlass and his son Firas arrived in Paris yesterday (Sunday). I don’t think this is a defection. He will be here awhile, but it is with the regime’s authorisation.”

Other Syrian regime opponents confirmed Tlass’s presence in France but denied reports that he was about to announce his defection or that he was meeting with opposition members.

A Sunni Muslim, Tlass was Syrian defence minister from 1972 to 2004, having befriended Bashar’s father and predecessor as Syrian president, Hafez, at military academy.

Joshua Landis quotes an anonymous source saying:

Word in Lebanon is that Mustafa Tlass was trying to recruit people here to overthrow Bashar, and the regime found out about it. They let him and his one son leave, to France, but the other son is in the Army and they are basically keeping him as a hostage to prevent Tlass from joining the rebels.

Landis also posts a letter from one of his readers who recently visited Latakia, Syria’s principal port city.

I am a christian Syrian living abroad. Last month I went back to Syria and spent a week with my parents in Lattakia. Here are some observations.

The son of my 2nd grade teacher is in prison. He was caught distributing pro opposition fliers. A few days ago, his flat burned down and his 3 kids died in the fire. His wife is in a critical condition.

A relative of my family lawyer, a university student was arrested couple weeks ago in Damascus. She was released the day I arrived.

Another guy from our neighborhood, though known to be pro regime, was picked up by the secret police at the university as he was leaving his mid term exam room. He disappeared for 2 weeks. He was just released…. Some name miss match they explained.

I was stopped at the airport. Was called to Damascus for questioning by an officer in one of the security branches. Without my father’s connections I am sure I would ve not been able to get the travel permission and to leave on time. I still don’t know what they wanted from me.

We hear stories about kidnappings taking place in the eastern part of the country near Deir Ezzor, in Homs and on the outskirts of Damascus in exchange of ransom.

Lattakia is one of the cities the least affected by the events. It’s kept under tight control by a strong pro regime presence. The government is doing all it can to show that it’s business as usual. They do amazing cleaning job after each Friday clashes. As I hang out with some friends at a coffee shop in the afternoon, life seems to go on as usual in the busy streets… but something weird is felt in the air… a thick layer of pessimism and anxiety is hanging over the city… everybody feels that it is boiling and it might explode at any moment. You can’t miss the signs:

My high school has become an army base. The main city square, less than 1000 yards from my parents flat and a center of protests in the early days, is now filled with soldiers and sand bags. “Al Assad soldiers” they proudly painted on the walls.

My friends drove me by the Ramel neighborhood. One of the hot areas in town. Army check points with sand bags control all streets entering the neighborhood. “POLICE” is painted on them. We all know it is the army who controls them and not the police.

Gunmen in civilian clothing are present at all hospital entrances. They are there to arrest wounded protesters seeking treatment.

4×4 trucks with armed men and mounted machine guns pass by every now and then.

Electricity is cut off 6 hours a day, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. It is setting the rhythm for business hours. – Today Electricity is off 12 hours a day. it’s on and off every 3 hours.

The price for heating fuel has sky rocketed. The price for cooking gas has doubled. It s cold in my parents and my friends flats. It’s been one of the coldest and rainiest winters in Syria. People wear many layers indoors and sleep with thick wool covers- these are still the privileged neighborhoods. I can’t imagine the living conditions in rebelled areas.

I have just come back from a week stay in Syria. I left as the bombing of Homs was about to begin.

Nir Rosen writes: James Clapper, the United States Director of National Intelligence, warned last month of al Qaeda taking advantage of the growing conflict in Syria. The Syrian regime and its supporters frequently claim that the opposition is dominated by al Qaeda-linked extremists. Opposition supporters often counter that the uprising is completely secular. But months of reporting on the ground in Syria revealed that the truth is more complex.

Syria’s uprising is not a secular one. Most participants are devout Muslims inspired by Islam. By virtue of Syria’s demography most of the opposition is Sunni Muslim and often come from conservative areas. The death of the Arab left means religion has assumed a greater role in daily life throughout the Middle East. A minority is secular and another minority is comprised of ideological Islamists. The majority is made of religious-minded people with little ideology, like most Syrians. They are not fighting to defend secularism (nor is the regime) but they are also not fighting to establish a theocracy. But as the conflict grinds on, Islam is playing an increasing role in the uprising.

Mosques became central to Syria’s demonstrations as early as March 2011 and influenced the uprising’s trajectory, with religion becoming increasingly more important. Often activists described how they had “corrected themselves” after the uprising started. Martyrs became important to a generation that had only seen martyrs on television from Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. “People got more religious,” one activist in Damascus’s Barzeh neighborhood explained, “they got closer to death, you could be a martyr so people who drank or went out at night corrected themselves.” Some Arab satellite news stations have also contributed to the dominance of Islamists by interviewing more of them and focusing on them as opposed to more secular opposition figures or intellectuals. In Daraa activists complained that satellite networks were marginalizing prominent leftists.

Clerics were influential from the beginning in much of the country, but their authority is not absolute. Sheikhs have often played a positive role in the uprising, enforcing discipline and exhorting armed and unarmed activists to act responsibly. One reason why Homs has not descended into Bosnia-like sectarian massacres is because of the strong influence of opposition sheikhs. [Continue reading…]