Syria now a magnet for Sunni extremists

Naturally, without an American invasion.

NYT via MSNBC: "The video, posted on YouTube, is one more bit of evidence that Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists are doing their best to hijack the Syrian revolution, with a growing although still limited success that has American intelligence officials publicly concerned, and Iraqi officials next door openly alarmed.

While leaders of the Syrian political and military opposition continue to deny any role for the extremists, Al Qaeda has helped to change the nature of the conflict, injecting the weapon they perfected in Iraq — suicide bombings — into the battle against President Bashar al-Assad with growing frequency.

The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda. An important border crossing with Turkey that fell into Syrian rebels’ hands last week, Bab al-Hawa, has quickly become a jihadist congregating point."

Maliki defends Assad, KSA to fund Syrian rebels

'On Sunday, Maliki issued a forceful defense of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying his ouster would destabilize the region. On the same day, at a U.S.-backed gathering of “Friends of Syria” in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia endorsed a plan to fund and equip Syrian rebels.'

Only 10 heads of state at Arab League Summit

AP: "In a snub to Iraq, only 10 heads of state from the Arab League's 22 members attended, with the rest sending lower-level officials. Especially notable were the absences of the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and most other Gulf countries, as well Morocco and Jordan — all of them headed by Sunni monarchs who deeply distrust the close ties between Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government and their top regional rival, Iran.

...The Gulf countries also see Iraq as too soft on Syria. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have talked of arming Syria's opposition, apparently eager to bring the fall of Assad and break the Sunni-majority country out of its alliance with Iran."

Syrian rebels committed serious abuses

LAT: 'Syria's armed rebels have committed "serious human rights abuses," including kidnappings and torture, and reportedly executions, of security personnel and civilians, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The group painted a dark picture that is in stark contrast to the "freedom fighter" image that the rebels and their political allies outside Syria have sought to project to the world.'

Torture in Syria worst in 30 years

LAT: "The scale of torture in Syria since an antigovernment uprising began a year ago amounts to crimes against humanity and is the worst the country has experienced in 30 years, says an Amnesty International report released Tuesday."

3 out of 4 Syrians want Assad out

This is an interesting article that argues "Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media." The article cites a poll that reveals 55% of Syrians want Bashar al Assad to stay, fearing civil war if he's overthrown, but half of those who want him to stay want to see free elections in the near future. So basically 3 out of 4 Syrians want Bashar gone.

"The key finding was that while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a spectre that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria's borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future. Assad claims he is about to do that, a point he has repeated in his latest speeches. But it is vital that he publishes the election law as soon as possible, permits political parties and makes a commitment to allow independent monitors to watch the poll."

An Iraqi American friend (another Shiite!) posted on fb a recent video by a French filmmaker in Syria, and he commented "Bashar will go, it is a matter of time." Another friend posted the link to the Guardian article.

Hopefully the Allawites will not be attacked if Assad is overthrown. That is a big fear among older Shia, evidently. Also I heard on CNN last night (from Anderson Cooper's guest Robert Baer) that Syrian Christians are afraid of persecution by Sunni extremists if Assad is overthrown. I wanted to link to that interview, but the part where Bauer talks about Syrian Christians (at the end) is cut.

Obama has done it better

Another great stand up by Bill Maher, and this time it's online. It's mostly about American politics, but at about 25 minutes he compares Obama's foreign policy to George Bush's. Very funny satire. He also made good points, including: Bush spent a trillion dollars to get Saddam, and then Obama spent a billion dollars (1000 times less than a trillion) to get Qadhafi.

Maher says Obama did it better, and it's true. "It's called doing things smart," Maher says. Obama was lucky he didn't have to deal with Iraq, I've said before, but it's not over for Obama. The conflict in Syria could explode. World powers are calling for intense pressure on Assad.

At 20 min he talks about John Steinbeck's quote about socialism, which I happened to see on fb today: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Bill Maher replaced "embarrassed" with "inconvenienced" but I think he got the message across. Great show.

Assad dictatorship is nearing expiration

Fouad Ajami wrote another great article. I'm glad to see another Shiite condemning the Assad regime:

"Plainly, the Syrian tyranny's writ has expired. Assad has implicated his own Alawite community in a war to defend his family's reign. The ambiguity that allowed the Assad tyranny to conceal its minority, schismatic identity, to hide behind a co-opted Sunni religious class, has been torn asunder. Calls for a jihad, a holy war, against a godless lot have been made in Sunni religious circles everywhere.

Ironically, it was the Assad tyranny itself that had summoned those furies in its campaign against the American war in Iraq. It had provided transit and sanctuary for jihadists who crossed into Iraq to do battle against the Americans and the Shiites; it even released its own Islamist prisoners and dispatched them to Iraq with the promise of pardon. Now the chickens have come home to roost, and an Alawite community beyond the bounds of Islam is facing a religious war in all but name."

I remember all the Arabs, including the Angry Arab, who ridiculed and hated Fouad Ajami when he wrote so eloquently (I've quoted him many times) in support of the American effort to bring democracy to Iraq. I wonder if those Arabs still hate him.

2 Western journalists killed in Syria

"A French photojournalist and a prominent American war correspondent working for a British newspaper were killed Wednesday as Syrian forces intensely shelled the opposition stronghold of Homs. President Bashar Assad's regime also escalated attacks on rebel bases elsewhere, with helicopter gunships strafing areas in the northwest, activists said."

Guns used to come from Syria into Iraq

Now it's the other way around.

NYT: 'Like Iraq and Afghanistan before it, analysts say, Syria is likely to become the training ground for a new era of international conflict, and jihadists are already signing up. This weekend, Al Qaeda’s ideological leadership and, more troublingly, the more mainstream Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, called for jihadists around the world to fight Mr. Assad’s government.

Nowhere is the cross-border nature of sectarian hostilities more clear than in Iraq’s western desert, where Sunni Arabs are beginning to rally to the cause of the Syrian opposition and, in the process, perhaps strengthen their hand in dealings with an antagonistic Shiite-led national government in Baghdad.

A weapons dealer who operates in Anbar, who said he goes by the alias Ahmed al-Masri, said, “Five months ago I was told that the Syrian brothers are in need of weapons. I started to buy the weapons from the same guys that I previously sold to — the fighters of Anbar and Mosul. I used to bring them from Syria; now it’s the other way around.” '

200 killed in 3 hours in Homs

Some eerie footage out of Homs.

Obama on Syria's Assad: Human Dignity Cannot Be Denied

Obama just said that in his state of the union speech. He also said the US is determined in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Bashar been shelling Homs

"As many as 20 people were killed in heavy shelling and gunfire in the Syrian city of Homs on Monday, opposition activists said, even as the first group of about 50 Arab League observers was expected to arrive in the country to monitor compliance with a regional peace initiative."

Embarrassing to see Shia defending al Assad

It is embarrassing to see Shia defending Bashar al Assad's regime. Hasan Nasrallah defended the dictator. Iran of course is defending him. Even one of my own relatives says the footage out of Syria is fake. Fake!?? Watch Barbara Walters' interview with Bashar al Assad and tell me the video is fake, 3ammu.

We Shia should be supporting democracy in Syria, even if many Syrians did not support democracy in Iraq.

Assad wants "evidence" of his regime's crimes

Bashar al Assad seems to be living in a parallel universe, as if he does not know of brutality and murder by his own goons. He tells Barbara Walters that he has seen no evidence of brutality against Syrian protesters!



Barbara Walters gives some examples of torture and murder by Assad's regime:



He said only a "crazy" leader kills his own people. He really sees himself as a legitimate leader still.

Will the fall of Assad throw the Middle East into turmoil?

Patrick Cockburn: "The fall of the government in Syria will not be confined to one country, as happened in Libya. It will throw the whole Middle East into turmoil. Turkish leaders say privately they have been given a free hand by the US and Britain to do what they want. But the Saudis have no wish to see Turkey become the champions of the Muslim world. The battle for Syria is already producing fresh rivalries and the seeds of future conflicts."

Arab Hypocrisy on US Embassies

A day after I expressed my belief that Iraq should maintain diplomatic ties with the US in a post about Muqtada al Sadr's comment about the US embassy, a Canadian Palestinian said I am a traitor for defending the occupier. Just because I want to see Iraq maintain diplomatic ties with the US? He said if I ever said this stuff in any Arab country I would most likely be lynched.

Tonight I watched this:

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Syrian protesters in Hama greeted the American ambassador with flowers. The Palestinian in Canada, like most Sunni Arabs everywhere, presumably support the protesters in Hama. At the same time a large number of them condemn or have condemned Iraqis who want normalized relations with the US. There are US embassies in every Arab capital now, yet only Iraqis are condemned for it. I wonder if the munafiqeen know they are munafiqeen.

Iraq calls for Assad to step down

NYT: 'After months of striking a far friendlier tone toward the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the Iraqi government has joined a chorus of other nations calling on him to step down.

An adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said in an interview on Tuesday that the Iraqi government had sent messages to Mr. Assad that said he should resign.

“We believe that the Syrian people should have more freedom and have the right to experience democracy,” said the adviser, Ali al-Moussawi. “We are against the one-party rule and the dictatorship that hasn’t allowed for the freedom of expression.” '

Al Qaeda in Iraq regrouping

'U.S. officials said al Qaeda's global second-in-command, Atiyah abd al-Rahman -- a Libyan who played a key role in managing ties between the leadership and al Qaeda in Iraq -- was killed in Pakistan last week.

But al Qaeda's resurgence, along with Shi'ite militias often funded and armed by neighbor Iran, represents a dangerous sectarian mix for Iraq as Syria seethes next door and U.S. forces aim to leave by year-end.

"There was a thought that al Qaeda has ended in Iraq. No, they regrouped and now the third generation of al Qaeda is working actively to reorganize itself with weapons and training," Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamal, Iraq's deputy interior minister for intelligence, told Reuters.'

Syrians inspired by Libya taunt Assad

"Taking inspiration from the rapid unraveling of the regime in Libya, thousands of Syrians poured into the streets Monday and taunted President Bashar Assad with shouts that his family's 40-year dynasty will be the next dictatorship to crumble.

Assad, who has tried in vain to crush the 5-month-old revolt, appears increasingly out of touch as he refuses to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of people demanding his ouster, analysts say. Instead, he blames the unrest on Islamic extremists and thugs."


That would really suck if Islamic extremists and thugs actually take over Libya and Syria. The other day on fb Hayder al Khoei was "wondering how many of the Libyan rebels now fighting Gaddafi were once upon a time in Iraq killing innocent people with Gaddafi's blessings." I am still wondering, and I also wonder how many Syrians who oppose Assad were supporting the insurgency in Iraq at some point since 2003. In any case, I am with the people who want freedom and democracy, and I hope for peace between the Arab countries.