McClatchy reports: The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

The international terrorist network’s presence in Syria also raises the possibility that Islamic extremists will try to hijack the uprising, which would seriously complicate efforts by the United States and its European and Arab partners to force Assad’s regime from power. On Friday, President Barack Obama repeated his call for Assad to step down, accusing his forces of “outrageous bloodshed.”

The U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the bombings came on the orders of Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian extremist who assumed leadership of al Qaida’s Pakistan-based central command after the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden. They suggest that Zawahiri still wields considerable influence over the network’s affiliates despite the losses the Pakistan-based core group has suffered from missile-firing CIA drones and other intensified U.S. counterterrorism operations.

U.S. officials said that al Qaida in Iraq, or AQI, began pushing to become involved in Syria as Assad’s security forces and gangs of loyalist thugs launched a vicious crackdown on opposition demonstrations, igniting large-scale bloodshed. Growing numbers of lightly armed army deserters and civilians have joined an armed insurrection, and perhaps thousands of people have been killed.

Zawahiri finally authorized AQI to begin operations in Syria, the officials said, in what’s believed to be the first time that the branch has operated outside of Iraq.

“This was Zawahiri basically taking the shackles off,” said a U.S. official with access to the intelligence reports. Like others interviewed for this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue involves classified information.

U.S. officials believe that the Sunni Muslim AQI was looking to expand beyond Iraq, where it has been stepping up attacks on majority Shiites. In Syria, Assad heads a regime dominated by Alawites, a minority Shiite Muslim sect that has ruthlessly ruled the Sunni Muslim-majority country since Assad’s father seized power in a 1963 coup.

While the extent of AQI’s presence in Syria is unknown, U.S. officials believe that it’s too small to have a decisive effect on the conflict. Although al Qaida and its affiliates may have sought to play roles in other Arab Spring uprisings, this appeared to be the first time that the network had successfully done so.

“This has less to do with the targets and more to do with the opportunity,” the U.S. official said.

To explain al Qaeda’s entry into the conflict in Syria as “opportunism” is really to offer no explanation — unless one believes al Qaeda’s ranks are filled with young men simply looking for an opportunity to blow themselves up.

Neither should a recognition of al Qaeda’s involvement draw the simplistic retort (but no doubt it will) that this is a confirmation of Bashir’s claim that his government is facing a challenge from terrorists.

Assuming that the intelligence being reported here is accurate, then it would seem more likely that AQI’s activity in Syria has more to do with its ambitions in Iraq than in lending support to the cause of Sunni majority rule in Syria.

In Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki is showing no restraint in his effort to wipe out AQI. This week, 14 people were executed on a single day — most of them AQI members according to government officials.

AQI’s emergence in Syria may simply be a way of declaring its continued existence. And it may also hope to consolidate its foothold in its last remaining safe haven by compounding the instability on which it thrives.

Amal Hanano writes: Another early morning in Baba Amr, another late night here. My plan is to write a simple post from a few reports on the day’s events in Homs, the fifth consecutive day of shelling in Baba Amr. Keeping an eye on Skype and Twitter and my ears tuned in to Omar Shakir’s livestream broadcast, I begin, intending to finish quickly with the goal of sleeping earlier than the last four nights. Omar’s livestream is calm. The quiet moments before dawn are punctuated by chirping birds and soon after by the crowing rooster of Baba Amr, whose crows have now been heard across the world. I hear a booming noise in the distance every now and then. They have become part of Baba Amr’s everyday soundtrack, as normal as the calls of the rooster.

People tweet that it seems more peaceful, that the sounds of shelling are less intense. Then I notice Omar’s latest tweets, in Arabic with no hashtags, just cries of pure desperation. I sense this is Omar the person speaking not the citizen journalist. I know something was terribly wrong. A few moments later, we find out what it was. A different livestream camera had been targeted with a missile. People watched as the screen turned gray with smoke then black. The feed is dead. So are the five people who were manning the camera, including two women. I realize that Omar had been tweeting about witnessing the explosion of his friends, “A street strewn with limbs. People have become limbs. We have no one but you, God.”

Five dead quickly become twenty-nine and another fifty-five wounded. My fresh reports from an hour ago are now obsolete. Baba Amr is under attack. Again.

As I read Omar’s tweets and watch his videos, Jaafar, an activist in Daraa, messages me on Skype, “I need you to connect me to someone from the media to speak to a doctor in Homs.” I tweet, many kind people retweet, and we wait. He sends me another message, “I want television coverage not an article.” I wasn’t about to start arguing or tell him that beggars can’t be choosers. But truth is, no one is contacting me. So I call him and tell him I want to speak to the people in Baba Amr myself. He says reluctantly, “For an article?” “Yes, Jaafar,” I say, holding my tongue, “For an article.” He says, “Okay.” Moments later we’re on the call.

I speak to Yousef (whose name has been changed for his protection), an activist in Baba Amr who was assisting the doctor. The doctor was at another makeshift field hospital taking care of the wounded. Yousef recounts this morning’s events.

“The shelling started at 5 a.m. There are four families buried under the rubble of their homes. The rockets tear through one side of a house and penetrate through the walls into the next. At night, the shelling is less frequent but the snipers are everywhere, targeting every moving object. If people leave their homes to get food or anything, the snipers are ready. Almost fifty percent of the homes in Baba Amr are destroyed. Four days before the shelling, Baba Amr was cut off from the rest of the city. Cut off from bread and food. There is no food. When the Red Crescent entered, the army took all their supplies before letting them in. And they didn’t allow them to take any wounded out. What did we get out of the Red Crescent without supplies?” As we speak I can hear the pounding explosions in the background. Planes are circling over Baba Amr, launching missiles into buildings filled with people.

Journalists are responding now. I connect each one to Jaafar. He’s like a media traffic controller, efficient and precise. I listen to him typing while he talks, ordering activists to be ready to speak, in English and Arabic. Each time I send him a name of someone who is interested in an interview, he messages me within one second, “television or newspaper?” He says, “I want people to listen to the explosions, to see with their eyes, not just read about it. Reading about it is not good enough.” I smile to myself and respond dutifully: newspaper, newspaper, radio. The radio interview makes him happier, and for some reason that makes me as well.

I listened in to the calls with the journalists. I could tell Yousef was getting frustrated. When they ask for the number of dead, Yousef repeats, “Twenty-nine. No, not in the last twenty-four hours, the last four hours.” Later, a reporter asks, “What is the condition of the hospital?” He answers, “There are no hospitals. We’ve made our homes into hospitals. We are treating our wounded in the mosque.” She asks again, “Where is the hospital?” He replies in a clipped tone, “It’s not a hospital. It’s a mosque.”

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: This is an English translation, courtesy of Wadiqratiya, of a joint statement by Palestinian intellectuals offering their solidarity to the Syrian people and applying for for membership to the newly established Syrian Writers Union.

It is our honor, as Palestinian writers and signatories to this statement, to request as a group to be inducted into the Syrian Writers Union, which has been recently established by the free Syrian writers and intellectuals who stand with the people as they climb the ladder of freedom which has been smeared with blood by the hand of the tyrant. The establishment of the Syrian Writers Union constitutes an essential pillar of the Syrian revolution and places the true intellectual in his or her rightful place beside the people as an effective partner in building a new Syria free of dynastic authoritarianism–a diverse, democratic, civil system based on the rights of the citizen, one that embraces the rights of expression and creation, a system incapable of falsifying the free Syrian intellectual’s will through hollow structures that arrogate the potentials of culture, usurp the role of the intellectual and falsify his or her will, always a device in the hand of the tyrant and his apparatuses.

Now more than ever, Syria needs a mature voice that speaks from its very heart, a voice which strengthens national unity and derives strength from the diversity and richness of Syrian society […] [which will serve as] the basis for building a democracy.

We have recently heard a representative of the Syrian regime at the UN Security Council use the Palestinian cause and its painful and honorable course as cover for its terrifying crimes in Syria. We say to the Syrian regime and its representatives: not in our name, not in Palestine’s name, will these crimes be committed in our beloved Syria, oh killers. Do not make our just cause a mask for your inhumane crimes against our Syrian brothers and sisters. It is the Syrian people who have historically adopted our cause, and sacrificed martyrs for its sake, not your regime, of which we have painful memories. We will never forget its role in the massacre of Tel Az-Zaatar in 1976, nor in the terrible assault on the Nahr al Bared camp near Tripoli in 1983, nor the siege of the camps in Beirut in 1985, nor any of the other acts which have bitterly weakened Palestinian national unity. Do not use Palestine’s name, for it is no longer your winning card.

A unified, free and democratic Syria is what Palestine needs, and this is the Syria that is being born today from the womb of a bloody revolution ignited by a great people. We are confident that Palestine’s name will remain in the heart of this courageous, revolutionary people and of its cultural elite.

Mourid Barghouti (poet and writer)
Taher Riyad (poet)
Ghassan Zaqtan (poet)
Zuhair Abu Shayib (poet)
Azmi Bishara (intellectual)
Mahmoud Ar-Rimawi (writer)
Ma’an al-Biyari (writer and journalist)
Youssef Abu Laouz (poet)
Najwan Darwish (poet)
Rub’i al-Madhoun (novelist)
Adel Bishtawi (writer, novelist and researcher)
Antoine Shalhat (writer and critic)
Fakhri Salih (critic)
Hussein Shaweesh (writer)
Huzama Habayeb (writer and novelist)
Nasr Jamil Shaath (poet)
Ahmed Abu Matar (academic critic, researcher and activist)
Mohammad Khalil (writer)
Youssef Abdel Aziz (poet)
Moussa Barhouma (writer)
Issa Ash-Shu’aibi (writer)
Moussa Hawamdeh (poet)
Na’il Balaawi (poet)
Khalil Qandeel (writer)
Ghazi at-Theeba (poet)
Wissam Joubran (poet and musician)
Omar Shabana (poet)
Qusai al-Labadi (poet)
Ali al-Aamari(poet)
Jihad Hudeib (poet)
Ziad Khaddash (writer)
Nasr Rabah (poet)
Bassem Al Nabrees (poet and writer)
Raji Bathish (writer)
Shaher Khadra (poet)
Raed Wahish (poet)
Asma Azaiza (poet)
Mahmoud Abu Hashhash (poet)
Khodr Mahjaz (novelist, poet, researcher, academic critic)
Bassel Abu Hamda (writer)
Ibrahim Jaber Ibrahim (writer)
Abdullah Abu Bakr (poet)
Osama al-Rantisi (writer)
Issam As-Saadi (poet)
Khalid Juma (poet)
Naim al-Khatib (writer)
Akram Abu Samra (poet)
Hanin Juma Takrouri (writer)
Najwa Chamoun (poet)
Mohamad As-Salimi (poet)
Hani As-Salimi (novelist)
Bilal Salameh (poet)
Osama Abu Awad (writer)
Jaber Sha’at (poet)
Youssef al-Qadra (poet)
Nesma al-Aklouk (writer)
Othman Hussein (poet)
Rizk al-Biyari (poet)
Yasser al-Wiqaad (poet)
Subhi Hamdan (writer)
Imad Mohsen (writer)
Leila Violet (poet)
Tayseer Muheisen (writer, critic, and political activist)
Fayez As-Sirsawi (visual artist and poet)
Rajab Abu Sirriyeh (writer)
Fuad Hamada (academic critic, researcher, and political activist)
Mai Nayif (academic critic, researcher, and gender activist)
Yusri Al-Ghul (writer and critic)
Hussein Abu An-Najja (writer and academic researcher)
Nasr Aliwa (novelist and critic)
Abdel Karim Aliyan (writer and education researcher)
Walaa Tamraz (researcher and political writer)
Omar Sha’aban (writer and researcher)
Hassan Mai (writer and academic critic)
Ma’an Samara (poet and journalist)
Mohamad Hassouna (academic and critic)
Aoun Abu Safia (novelist)
Atif Hamada (poet and academic critic)
Ghiath al-Madhoun (poet)
Rajaa Ghanem (poet)
Tariq al-Karmi (poet)
Ahmed al-Ashqar (poet)
Ali Abu Khitab (poet and writer)
Dunia al-Amal Ismail (poet)
Isra Kalash (writer)
Moussa Abu Karash (poet and writer)
Abdel Fitah Shihada (poet and novelist)
Yasser Abu Jalala (poet and visual artist)
Khalil Hassouna (poet and novelist)
Muheeb al-Barghouti (poet)
Abdel Nasr Aamer (poet, visual artist)
Nidal al-Hamarna (writer)
Ashraf Amro (writer)
Asma Nasr Abu Ayyesh (writer and journalist)
Maya Abu al-Hiyaat (writer)
Zeinat Abu Shaweesh (writer)
Suzanne Salameh (poet)

The original Arabic text can be found here. I’ve taken a few small liberties for the sake of clarity and flow in English, but tried to remain as faithful to the text as possible. I have also taken the liberty of adding “his or her,” which is generally not used in Arabic for stylistic reasons but I feel is in the spirit of the statement since the signatories include women.

Marc Lynch enumerates some of the pitfalls in the proposals for providing Western military support for Syria’s opposition: First, who exactly would be armed? The perennial, deep problem of the Syrian opposition is that it remains fragmented, disorganized, and highly localized. This has not changed. The “Free Syrian Army” remains something of a fiction, a convenient mailbox for a diverse, unorganized collection of local fighting groups. Those groups have been trying to coordinate more effectively, no doubt, but they remain deeply divided. For all their protestations of solidarity, the Syrian National Council and the FSA show few signs of working well together, while repeated splits and conflicts have emerged in the media within the FSA. So to whom would these weapons be provided, exactly? I expect that what will happen is that foreign powers will rush to arm their own allies and proxies (or are already doing so); which ones are the United States meant to choose? While claims about the role of Salafi jihadists in the armed opposition are likely exaggerated, the reality is that we know very little about the identities, aspirations, or networks of the people who would be armed.

Second, how would the provision of weapons affect the Syrian opposition? Access to Western guns and equipment will be a valuable resource that will strengthen the political position of those who gain control of the distribution networks. Competition for those assets does not seem likely to encourage the unification of the fragmented opposition, and it could easily exacerbate their divisions. What’s more, fighting groups will rise in political power, while those who have advocated nonviolence or who advance political strategies will be marginalized. Fighting groups’ political aspirations will likely increase along with their military power. The combination of militarization and more ambitious goals will make any political solution that much less likely. And it could increase the fears of Syrian fence-sitters who have stayed with Assad out of fear for their future.

Third, what will the weapons be intended to achieve? I can see at least three answers. Perhaps they’ll be meant to be purely defensive, to stop the regime’s onslaught and protect civilians. But this relatively passive goal does not seem a likely stable endpoint once the weapons start flooding in. A second possibility is that they’ll be meant to give the rebels the power to defeat the regime on the battlefield and overthrow it. But that does not seem realistic, since it would require far more fire power than would likely be on offer to reverse the immense imbalance in favor of regime forces. A third possibility is that they’ll be meant to even the balance of power sufficiently to force Assad to the bargaining table once he realizes that he can’t win. But the violence of the escalating civil war will make such talks very difficult politically. The provision of arms probably won’t be intended to create a protracted, militarized stalemate — but that does seem the most likely outcome. Is that the goal we hope to achieve?