The Wall Street Journal reports: Several high-ranking Syrian military officials joined the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday and Friday, in the Syrian conflict’s biggest wave of military defections to date.

The defections appeared to boost Syria’s armed opposition, and exposed corrosive sectarian splits in Syria’s army, between a largely Sunni core of soldiers and the highest officials, many of whom are from the same minority Alawite sect as President Assad.

The defections also appeared to lay the ground for new struggles within Syria’s already-fractured opposition. The rebel Free Syrian Army, led by a former Syrian army colonel since its founding last year, has since been joined by higher-ranking officers. A brigadier-general who defected in January is preparing to split into his own armed group, rebels familiar with his plans said Friday.

U.S. intelligence officials said that while the opposition movement is fractured—they cited 32 constituent groups from around Syria, including Islamist, Kurdish and secular groups—the armed rebels appear to be gaining momentum against the regime. The rebels are likely to win out eventually, these officials said, but are up against a more powerful military than insurgents faced in Libya.

Reuters reports: Syria has begun preemptively withdrawing ambassadors from Europe because it fears EU members will expel them in the coming weeks, Arab diplomats said.

The diplomats stressed that Syrian envoys in a number of European Union countries had been told to come home by their government and were preparing to leave as soon as possible, although they did not specify the countries.

EU member states have been discussing proposals, promoted by France, to collectively downgrade diplomatic ties both in EU capitals and Damascus, but with no agreement so far.

In Brussels, an EU foreign policy spokesman said: “There is an ongoing discussion about the status of EU embassies in Syria and Syrian embassies in Brussels and in EU states, but there is no proposal at the moment to expel Syrian diplomats.”

Joshua Landis writes: The exchange rate of the Syrian Pound has reportedly plunged to the 103 range against the dollar at mid-day Wednesday, March 7th, 2012 in Damascus. This is a loss of over 100% since the beginning of the uprising. Over the last month, the pound has begun to weaken significantly which has received little attention. The 100 mark is an important psychological barrier.

Syrian businessmen are taking large losses. Most rely on account receivables when they sell their goods. This means that traders who have sold goods over the last half year in Syrian pounds are taking heavy losses when they are paid back.

One businessman I spoke to this morning reports that he sold three-hundred thousand dollars of car parts several months ago in Syrian pounds. He is to be paid at the end of this month. Due to the decline of the pound over this time period from 57 to 100 pounds per dollar, he will lose close to $150,000 dollars. This is a crushing blow to business.

No one is trading the Syrian pound today because its price is decreasing every hour. No one has any idea where this might end.

The Central Bank had continually threatened that it would punish black market speculators by intervening in support of the Syrian currency, but it has not actually done this over the last few months. People have come to understand that Central Bank threats are empty. Hence the currency is collapsing. The Central Bank has not committed its reserves to defend the pound.

Most of the savings of Syrians were in Syrian pounds because the Central Bank offered high interest rates compared to the more liquid currencies which were offering rates near zero. Syrians placed confidence in the pound because it had been stable for many years. The public has been hit hard by the decline of the pound. Most Syrians are losing their life savings. Many have neglected to move out of Syrian pounds because it is against the law and because they calculated that the political climate might improve.

Rime Allaf, associate fellow at Chatham House, says that the importance of the defection of Syria’s deputy oil minister, Abdo Hussameddin, is being greatly exaggerated.

“There’s very little chance that the regime is going to manage the level of repression for much longer. Something’s going to give — it’s going to be financial, maybe economic, military, maybe somebody in the regime high enough up, high up, will manage to get people around them to say, this is where it stops. But something will break the camel’s back… but we just don’t know yet what it will be,” but in Allaf’s opinion, Hussameddin’s defection is not that significant.

Allaf spoke to Matthew Weaver on Skype:

In its latest Middle East Briefing, the International Crisis Group says:

One year into the Syrian uprising, the level of death and destruction is reaching new heights. Yet, outside actors – whether regime allies or opponents – remain wedded to behaviour that risks making an appalling situation worse. Growing international polarisation simultaneously gives the regime political space to maintain an approach – a mix of limited reforms and escalating repression – that in the longer run is doomed to fail; guarantees the opposition’s full militarisation, which could trigger all-out civil war; and heightens odds of a regional proxy war that might well precipitate a dangerous conflagration. Kofi Annan’s appointment as joint UN/Arab League Special Envoy arguably offers a chance to rescue fading prospects for a negotiated transition. It must not be squandered. For that, Russia and others must understand that, short of rapidly reviving a credible political track, only an intensifying military one will remain, with dire consequences for all.

Annan’s best hope lies in enlisting international and notably Russian support for a plan that:

• comprises an early transfer of power that preserves the integrity of key state institutions;
• ensures a gradual yet thorough overhaul of security services; and
• puts in place a process of transitional justice and national reconciliation that reassures Syrian constituencies alarmed by the dual prospect of tumultuous change and violent score-settling.

Such a proposal almost certainly would be criticised by regime and opposition alike. But it would be welcomed by the many Syrians – officials included – who long for an alternative to the only two options currently on offer: either preserving the ruling family at all costs or toppling the regime no matter the consequences.

Read the complete briefing, “Now or Never: A Negotiated Transition for Syria” [PDF].

Sami Moubayed writes: Whenever the world seemed to start caving in around them, Syrian politicians have leaned on the Russians for support. Moscow, both now and during the Soviet era, has always been Syria’s “security blanket”. Syrian leaders, however, have almost equally misjudged how far Russia was willing to go to help them.

In 1956, then-president Shukri al-Quwatli visited Moscow seeking Russian support for Egypt in the infamous Suez War. He roared at the Kremlin: “Syria wants you to send in that big Red Army that defeated [Adolf] Hitler!”

A few years earlier, president Husni al-Za’im threatened at a press conference: “If the Americans continue to provoke me, I will extend my hand to the Russians. Yes, I will do that. I will go to Moscow and let a Third World War erupt from right over here, from Damascus!”

Today, 63 years later, there are many in Damascus who, like Husni al-Za’im, wrongly believe that Moscow would indeed ignite a “Third World War” for the sake of Syria. To show their support for the strongman of Moscow, these same Syrians came out demonstrating in favor of Vladimir Putin, the man behind his country’s strong pro-Syria stance, at the gates the Russian Embassy in Damascus. Carrying photos of Putin, they wished him luck in his bid for re-election to the Russian presidency. A senior Lebanese figure recently returned from Moscow and was quoted saying: “I heard from the Russians that if Putin stays, then [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad stays.”

These Syrians are waiting for Putin to return to the Kremlin. Others, however, are waiting for him to change his positions on Syria shortly after his re-election. They believe that he has stood behind Syria since disturbances began a year ago for one reason only: to re-establish his country’s image and position as a powerful and influential Middle East broker – as a superpower that can stand up for its allies should the need arise.

It’s not about the Soviet-era supply and maintenance base in the port city of Tartus, dating back to 1971. Russia’s macro-interests are much more strategic. Putin was seemingly telling the world: “No solutions for the Middle East can be reached anymore in complete disregard for Russian interests. If you want things done, you have to do it through us.”

Apart from that, everything is on the table for the Russians, including regime change in Syria.

Robert Young Pelton writes: It was a star-filled night in Chechnya’s besieged capital of Grozny. The snow crunched under my feet as I walked with the Chechen rebel commander away from the warmth of our safe house. When we entered a bombed-out neighborhood 15 minutes away, I put the battery in my Iridium satellite phone and waited for the glowing screen to signal that I had locked on to the satellites.

I made my call. It was short. Then the commander made a call; he quickly hung up and handed me back the phone. “Enough,” he said, motioning for me to remove the battery.

As we walked briskly back to the safe house, it was exactly 10 minutes before the cascade of double wa-whumps announced the Grad rocket batteries pounding the vacant neighborhood we had just left.

It was December 1999, and the Russian assault on Grozny was unfolding in all its gruesome detail. After the dissolution of so much of the former Soviet empire, Chechnya was one country that the newly minted prime minister, Vladimir Putin, refused to let go of. His boss, Boris Yeltsin, and the Russian army had been defeated and then humiliated in the media by Chechen forces in the first war. Five years later, Russia was back. And Putin’s new strategy was unbending: silence, encircle, pulverize, and “cleanse.” It was a combination of brutal tactics — a Stalinist purge of fighting-age males plus Orwellian propaganda that fed Russians a narrative wherein Chechen freedom fighters were transformed into Islamist mercenaries and terrorists. More than 200,000 civilians were to die in this war, the echoes of which continue to this day.

This time, journalists were specifically targeted to prevent sympathetic or embarrassing reports from escaping the killing zone. As such, you can’t find a lot of stories about the second Chechen war. One of the few and best accounts was written by Marie Colvin, who described her terrifying escape from Grozny for the Sunday Times. Last month, Colvin thought she could roll the dice and enter the besieged Syrian city of Homs to defy yet another brutal war of oppression. This time she lost.

It’s impossible to know whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — a longtime ally of Russia — studied the success of the last Chechen war before launching his own assault on the restive city of Homs. However, his Russian military advisors surely know the tactics well. The crackdown in Homs carries a grim echo of Grozny, both in its use of signals intelligence to track down and silence the regime’s enemies and in its bloody determination to obliterate any opposition, including Western journalists.

The Guardian reports: Turkey has called the violence in Syria “a crime against humanity” on the scale of the 1990s bloodshed in the Balkans, as a Red Cross convoy was once again barred from entering the Homs suburb of Baba Amr.

The comment by Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu follows similar remarks from the EU on Friday, which called for the documentation of war crimes in Syria.

“No government, no authority, under no circumstances, can endorse such a total massacre of its own people,” Davutoglu said. “The international community must speak louder. The lack of international consensus is giving Syria the courage to continue.”

The criticism came at the end of a week in which the UK and France closed their embassies in Syria, and China and Russia appeared to shift position in calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to admit UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos.

“The situation in the field seems to resemble Sarajevo or Srebrenica. This seems to be the way we are heading,” Davutoglu said at a joint news conference with Giulio Terzi, Italy’s foreign minister. “We believe that diplomatic pressure on the Assad regime must be increased. We say this not only from the point of view of the EU. We believe all international institutions must do this.”

The New York Times reports: The Syrian authorities on Friday blocked without explanation an officially sanctioned Red Cross convoy laden with food and medical supplies from entering a devastated neighborhood in the central city of Homs, one day after the army overwhelmed the main rebel stronghold there after a brutal monthlong siege.

There were unconfirmed reports that Syrian security forces were conducting house-to-house searches and summary executions in the neighborhood, Baba Amr, while the convoy of seven Red Cross trucks was parked at the edge of the neighborhood, where military sentries refused to grant it entry despite official approval 24 hours earlier.

It was unclear why the Syrian military had blocked the convoy. But the convoy organizers said officials had told them that the Baba Amr neighborhood was still not safe. There was possibly a legitimate concern about mines and other booby traps, organizers said, but they were not given a precise reason.

The Red Cross angrily rebuked the Syrian government in a statement that reflected the growing international frustration with delays on funneling help to civilians whose lives have been upended by the uprising in Syria, which is now nearly a year old.

“It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help,” Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement from its headquarters in Geneva.

He said the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society, which together had sent the convoy to Homs in the morning, waited all day to enter Baba Amr. “We are staying in Homs tonight in the hope of entering Baba Amr in the very near future,” Mr. Kellenberger said. “In addition, many families have fled Baba Amr, and we will help them as soon as we possibly can.”

Malik Al-Abdeh: Founder-member of the Movement for Justice and Development (est. 2006) which is a leading force in the Damascus Declaration opposition coalition in Syria. Professionally, I’m an ex-BBC journalist and a King’s College, London and SOAS alumni. Currently serve as the Chief Editor of the pro-democracy satellite channel Barada TV.

And before a few commenters jump up to enlighten me about U.S. State Department funding for Barada TV, don’t bother. I find the content of al-Abdeh’s analysis much more interesting than the ways in which others might attempt to tarnish him. (He also happens to be listed on a site called The Plot Against Syria — a thoroughly entertaining and ridiculous “exposé” of the uprising claimed to be led by “a conspiracy of evil persons” following directions from AIPAC!)

So this is my challenge to anyone who feels inspired to comment: try and say something about the substance of al-Abdeh’s analysis — an analysis that needless to say I find both persuasive and enlightening, which is why I’m posting it. (H/t Brian Whitaker)

BBC News reports: Syria’s main political opposition group has formed a military bureau to unify armed resistance to the government.

The Syrian National Council (SNC) said the bureau would bring armed groups under a central command and control the flow of weapons to avoid “chaos”.

The government launched a ground assault in the city of Homs this week after weeks of shelling.

The UN’s rights council has passed a resolution condemning “systematic violations” against civilians.

The motion, supported by 37 nations, called for the regime to allow access for aid agencies, and demanded an immediate halt to the violence.

China and Russia, which have both vetoed UN resolutions on Syria, voted against the proposal. Cuba also rejected the motion.

The vote carries no legal weight, but analysts say it may embolden diplomats to take a tougher line in UN Security Council debates.

SNC leader Burhan Ghalioun announced the new military bureau at a news conference in Paris.

He said the uprising had begun as a non-violent movement, but the council had to “shoulder its responsibilities in light of this new reality”.

Mr Ghalioun said the bureau would function like a defence ministry and be staffed by soldiers from the main armed group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), as well as civilians.

It would control the supply of arms, track and organise armed groups, manage funding and seek guidance from foreign experts, he said, insisting its function was only to protect peaceful protesters.

Mr Ghalioun said the FSA had agreed to the new organisation.

However, the head of the FSA, Col Riyad al-Assad, has declared his organisation will not co-operate with the new bureau, says the BBC’s Jim Muir, in neighbouring Lebanon.

It is extraordinary, our correspondent explains, because the announcement specifically mentioned that the bureau was being established in order to provide arms to the FSA, as well as political control.

What Col Assad is saying is that the FSA does not want any political interference and has its own military strategy, which is to keep fighting the government, our correspondent says.

The New York Times reports: After a bruising, 27-day siege under intensifying bombardment, rebels holed up in the shattered Baba Amr district of the central Syrian city of Homs announced a “tactical withdrawal” on Thursday, apparently handing victory to forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad but raising concerns about the plight of civilians in the neighborhood.

A campaign of raids and arrests began almost immediately in the area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, which said 17 people had died in Baba Amr on Thursday.

Baba Amr had become an emblem of resistance with fighters maintaining their defiance despite daily reports of a pounding by artillery, sniper and tank fire as government forces encircled them. The announcement of a rebel pullout, a day after government forces seemed to crank up military pressure on the neighborhood, came as Western and Arab nations pressed to deepen the diplomatic isolation of the Damascus authorities.

A statement from the fighters within the neighborhood, the “Revolutionary Brigades of Baba Amr,” said they were making a tactical retreat because of the “drastic humanitarian situation for the residents” who are lacking food, medicine, water, electricity and any means of communication.

The government shelling, which began on Feb. 4, had practically leveled Baba Amr, the statement said, and the government forces enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in firepower from helicopters to tanks to mortars.

With about 4,000 residents left, the statement held the government soldiers responsible for the safety of those left and called for international humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross to be allowed to deploy in the quarter.

There are widespread concerns that the army units might exact revenge on the residents for holding out for a month — not least because the Syrian government has a history of murdering the residents of rebellious neighborhoods as it did in nearby Hama in 1982.

Fares Chamseddine writes: The fall of Baba Amr, when it happens, will be a serious blow to the morale of protesters throughout Syria and abroad. The Baba Amr district of Homs has come to symbolise the Syrian people’s defiance against the dictator, and if President Bashar al-Assad manages to crush this centre of urban revolt he may feel emboldened to carry on wherever else mass protests threaten his rule.

In fact, Assad’s army has been methodically crushing each urban centre of protest that has emerged over the past year. It began with a ruthless military campaign against the city of Deraa. At the time Syria’s artists and actors still had the self-confidence to organise such efforts as “Milk for Deraa” and to call for an end to the armed campaign.

In those days there was still a naive hope that Assad was a reasonable man who could be appealed to. Of course, those days are long gone and we saw last summer how, during Ramadan, Assad’s forces began shelling the city of Hama for daring to field demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people.

Over the course of an entire month, Hama was subjected to a systematic campaign of brutal repression. The result is we hardly see any demonstrations from that city any more; certainly none that are near the size of the early demonstrations. Rastan, Latakia, and Deir al-Zour, all shared the same fate, each in their own way, but it is Homs that has remained defiant, and it is Homs has been a thorn in Assad’s side throughout the uprising.

Soon, this will no longer be the case. At the time of writing there are reports that more than half the district is now under the control of Assad’s divisions, who are conducting door-to-door searches. It would have been naive to expect that the elements of the Free Syrian Army, and any other local militias, would have been able to hold out against Assad indefinitely, but this is not the end of the revolution.

Stephen Starr, an Irish freelance journalist, arrived in Syria five years ago and stayed until “the horrors of the country’s incipient civil war drove me away this month.”

Conversation dies after 11 months of unrest. “What can we talk about?” a state employee asked me. “The news? We’d rather talk about anything else.” Many are not afraid to criticize the regime, but most are too frightened to take to the streets.

Syria’s minorities are frozen in fear. Christians spend hours watching the television station run by Adnan al-Arour, a Salafi Syrian cleric based in Riyadh who broadcasts videos of rebels shouting Islamic slogans and issues threats to pro-Assad minorities while calling for the establishment of an Islamic government. “Who will protect us?” one Christian woman asked me recently. “Will they make us wear Islamic dress?”

Ultimately it was the scenes at Saqba in eastern Damascus that prompted me to leave. An English journalist in Syria on a temporary visa asked whether I was interested in visiting to search out an underground, activist-run hospital. Frustrated at hearing of other journalists making it to Homs, I could not turn down the opportunity.

I saw six bloated bodies hidden under pine trees inside a schoolyard, some missing eyes, lips, noses. Another dead man blackened by fire. They were hidden by locals so that their families could bury them in dignity at a later time, when the regime’s forces left.

I feared that if the Syrian security forces found out what I had seen, they would not hesitate to silence me — perhaps blaming the “armed gangs” for doing so.

As the sound of shells thudding into the Damascus suburbs kept me awake, I got a taste of many Syrians’ fears of the regime’s pervasive security forces. Every morning I held my breath when turning the ignition of my car. Footsteps on the stairs outside my door made me sit upright on the sofa.

The regime remains strong, say many.

State employees are still being paid on time each month. Police can still be seen at their traffic-light posts every morning. Families continue to turn out in droves to eat sandwiches at the few city malls where electric generators help maintain a semblance of normalcy.

Damascenes have lived with this regime for decades and know it only really understands the way of the gun. It is a regime that scoffs at political ideals, a family fiefdom forged long ago in an absurd tribal pride that values a misplaced honor and personal ego over all. It can smuggle and steal, and it is not afraid to shoot and kill –but it will not negotiate or compromise. [Continue reading…]