Syria

AFP reports: Syrian forces on Wednesday stormed a rebel bastion despite President Bashar al-Assad’s reported acceptance of Kofi Annan’s peace plan and an opposition plea that tanks be withdrawn, monitors said. The assault came as China urged Syria’s government and opposition to honour commitments to halt armed conflict and Arab foreign ministers were thrashing out [...]

McClatchy reports: Rima Flihan, a 36-year-old screenwriter and mother of two, is finally adjusting to life outside Syria. “We used to have a normal life,” she said. “I never dreamed we’d be refugees.” A Syrian television channel is presently airing a series she wrote last year, and another was filmed last month, she said, making [...]

The New York Times reports: Turkey and the United States plan to provide “nonlethal” assistance, like communications equipment and medical supplies, directly to opposition groups inside Syria, and will urge other allies to do so as well, the White House deputy national security adviser said on Sunday, after President Obama met with the prime minister [...]

Rami Khouri writes: In the past three months, a variety of countries – Arab and foreign, big and small, friends and foes of Syria – have all performed an ever-evolving diplomatic dance that last week generated a United Nations Security Council statement on Syria that is important for three reasons: It is unanimously supported by [...]

Joshua Landis: The opposition is in a state of chaos right now. The SNC, which has been the dominant external leadership and umbrella group for the opposition, and is led by Burhan Ghalyun, a French professor at the Sorbonne, is facing a crisis. It has been extremely successful in getting the international community organized to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

‘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 [...]

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. [...]