Source: Associated Press
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will attend a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday to lend her support to Syrians seeking democratic change.

This article titled “Syria accused of torturing relatives of overseas activists” was written by Sam Jones, for The Guardian on Monday 3rd October 2011 21.54 UTC

The Syrian government has been accused of torturing the relatives of Syrians protesting overseas in an attempt to silence international criticism of President Bashar al-Assad‘s regime.

The charges are made in a report from Amnesty International – The Long Reach of the Mukhabaraat (the name of the Syrian secret police) – which details more than 30 cases of direct and indirect intimidation of activists in Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK and US.

One dissident, now living in Germany, told Amnesty that his brother had been arrested, held for a month and tortured by Syrian military intelligence because of his sibling’s anti-regime stance. In Sweden, another pro-reform activist said her activities on the internet and the streets of Stockholm had attracted the attention of the Syrian authorities.

At the end of May, she received a letter in Arabic using her maiden name, which warned her: “Keep quiet or neither you, nor your family in Syria is safe.” Not long after, her brother was arrested in Damascus, had both his hands broken and was forced to promise that the family would disown his sister.

Anti-regime activists in several countries have reported being harassed, intimidated and even assaulted.

Five weeks ago in Paris, a 35-year-old Syrian engineer and two fellow demonstrators were attacked by a group of men and women carrying pro-Assad flags. They say they were told by French police officers that no action could be taken against two of their assailants because they held diplomatic passports. Later that night, according to the engineer, more anti-regime protesters were attacked with baseball bats by the same group.

In the UK, the Foreign Office has raised concerns of intimidation on at least two occasions, while in the US, where concerns about Syrian diplomatic staff photographing and filming protesters have already led the state department to summon the country’s ambassador to Washington, there have been similar reports of intimidation.

According to the Amnesty study, the elderly parents of a US-based Syrian were badly beaten and locked in their bathroom in the city of Homs after their son – a pianist and composer – was filmed performing at a pro-reform demonstration in front of the White House. In Illinois, an expatriate Syrian activist reported receiving a menacing email after one of her Facebook friends in Syria was arrested for protesting at his university and being forced to open his account on the social network.

It read: “These words are directed at you, you agent, you traitor. Your messages have come to us … We are waiting for you to come to the airport so we can show you what is good for you and for what you are doing. We will make an example out of you.”

British-based demonstrators say they have also been filmed while protesting, phoned and visited at home by Syrian embassy staff, and threatened with death. One protester said Mukhabaraat officers raided his mother’s home in Damascus, asking questions about him and eventually forcing her to flee the country.

Another British-based protester, Ghias Aljundi, told the Guardian he had been called on his mobile in June by someone claiming to be from the embassy. “He said: ‘Don’t think you are protected. We can get you anyway. It’s better for you to stop what you are doing. You are a traitor’.” Aljundi added: “I didn’t feel comfortable at all. I know they’re not going to do anything to me, but I immediately had to call my brothers to see what was happening [in Syria].

“The regime is completely morally bankrupt and so they can do anything.”

Allegations of menacing behaviour by Syrian embassy staff in London have also prompted the Foreign Office to raise the issue of intimidation and harassment of protesters and their families on at least two occasions during meetings with the Syrian ambassador, who gave assurances that his staff were not involved in such activities. He said he would take action were evidence to emerge to the contrary.

The FO is also liaising with Scotland Yard and urging demonstrators to report any evidence of harassment or other crimes by embassy staff to the Metropolitan police.

Scotland Yard said it was aware of the allegations of intimidation and is investigating a claim of harassment made on 28 August.

Amnesty is calling on the Syrian government to immediately end its harassment of protesters and their families, and is asking the international community to make sure such intimidation does not go unchecked.

“We look to host governments to act on credible allegations of abuses without waiting for formal complaints,” said Neil Sammonds, Amnesty’s Syrian researcher.

“Many of the people we have spoken to are too scared of what could happen to them to make formal complaints with the police. We would expect that any official found responsible for such acts should be prosecuted, or – if diplomatic immunity prevents that – asked to leave the country.”

No one at the Syrian embassy in London could be reached for comment on the allegations.

Despite the apparent intimidation, UK-based Syrians are planning to stage an “I am not afraid” demonstration outside the Syrian embassy on Tuesday morning.

During the protest, they will hold placards inscribed with their names and home towns.

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This article titled “Russia refuses more Syria sanctions” was written by Ian Black, for The Guardian on Monday 12th September 2011 19.44 UTC

Russia has rebuffed western attempts to increase the pressure on the Syrian regime, led by Bashar al-Assad, as new United Nations figures show at least 2,600 people have been killed since anti-government protests erupted in March.

President Dmitry Medvedev said after talks with David Cameron that additional pressure was “absolutely not needed” because existing UN and European Union sanctions were squeezing the regime.

Britain, the US and France have been pushing for tougher action by the UN but have met opposition from Russia and China, veto-wielding permanent members of the security council, and others.

The latest UN casualty figures – 400 more than previously given – were announced on Monday by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, who called the situation “dire” and again complained that Syria had refused access for a UN humanitarian assessment team.

Syria has banned almost all journalists from entering the country but new images have emerged of killings, injuries and funerals of victims.

One clip, [WARNING: Contains explicit images] posted by the Local Co-ordination Committees, appeared to show the final moments of a 14-year-old boy, Izzat al-Babidi, reportedly shot in the head during a demonstration in the Damascus suburb of Douma on Monday morning.

Other pictures showed hundreds of people attending the funeral of another boy, Subhi Salam, who was fatally wounded by a sniper during protests last Friday.

Pillay’s figure of 2,600 dead was immediately contradicted by a senior aide to Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban. “There are 700 casualties among the army and the police, and 700 among the rebels,” she said in Moscow. “We have a list [of the victims' names], and we can provide it.”

Shaaban’s visit was part of an attempt by Syria to stave off any danger that its Russian ally would abandon it. Medvedev appeared to show that he would stand firm, calling for a “well-balanced position between both parties to the conflict, the Syrian government and the rebels”. This was a far cry from the now firm western position that Assad has lost all legitimacy. Russia’s support brought a call from Syrian opposition activists for a “day of anger”.

Al-Arabiya TV quoted opposition sources as claiming that Syrian military aircraft had been flying low over the central city of Homs, where many have died in recent weeks. Syrian activists describe fighting in the nearby Rastan area between army defectors and loyalists, and an incipient “low-intensity civil war”, with Islamists smuggling in weapons from abroad.

The Saudi-owned channel also reported three clergymen from the Assad family’s Alawite sect in Homs as distancing themselves from the “atrocities” carried out by the regime. This week, opposition figures plan to unveil the final makeup of the Syrian National Council, a broad coalition of different anti-Assad groups.

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This article titled “Obama to toughen stance on Syria with call for Assad’s departure” was written by Ian Black, Middle East editor, for The Guardian on Wednesday 10th August 2011 18.45 UTC

The United States is poised to shift its position on Syria by calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down because of the violence he has inflicted on his own people and his failure to implement meaningful reforms for the last five months.

Barack Obama could issue the demand as early as Thursday in a speech that will mark a dramatic departure in the Syrian crisis. Until now US policy — echoed by Britain and its EU partners — has been that Assad must lead a transition or get out of the way. Now, for the first time, the US president will tell him bluntly to go.

In previous statements Washington has described Assad as “illegitimate” or “part of the past”. The White House on Wednesday decried Assad’s “heinous actions”, and spokesman Jay Carney said: “We are all watching with horror what he is doing to his own people.”

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday that Washington had evidence of “crimes” in Syria and was ready to use it to step up pressure on Assad.

“He has lost his legitimacy … and Syria would be a better place without him,” Rice said. “We are looking … to lend support to the people of Syria who have the same aspirations for freedom and democracy that we have seen in so many other parts of the world.”

Syrian opposition sources and western diplomats predicted that an unconditional call for his departure would have far-reaching implications, though it would likely be couched in terms of US support for the aspirations of the Syrian people.

The precise timing and content of a presidential statement was still under discussion — partly because the US wants a full account of Assad’s six hours of talks on Tuesday with Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmed Davotoglu, officials said.

The British and French governments are considering their response amid doubts in Whitehall about the wisdom of the US move. It was unclear whether the US would also recognise a Syrian opposition government. Unlike in Libya, where the opposition is based in Benghazi, the Syrian rebels have no base inside the country and are divided on key issues.

US media have reported in recent days that the White House is more eager to make the announcement while the state department is more cautious about the ramifications in the likely event that Assad ignores Obama’s call.

In continuing violence on Wednesday, 17 people were killed in raids in Homs, al-Jazeera reported. New attacks by security forces were also reported from the north-eastern city of Deir Ez-Zor. Citizen journalists working for Avaaz said there had been nine fatalities there and two near Deraa.

The Turkish ambassador to Syria visited Hama, scene of recent heavy civilian casualties, where his presence reportedly led to the cessation of attacks by security forces. The envoy reported that tanks and heavy weapons were being moved out, Davutoglu said in Ankara.

Saudi residents in Syria were reported to have been arrested in apparent retaliation for Riyadh’s criticism of Assad, who King Abdullah described earlier this week as presiding over a “killing machine”.

The US also imposed sanctions on Wednesday on the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, its Lebanon-based subsidiary and the largest mobile phone operator Syriatel. The US treasury said it was “taking aim at the financial infrastructure that is helping provide support to Assad and his regime’s illicit activities”.

Signs of a shift in US policy came from the state department on Tuesday. “The message from 2009 was if you are prepared to be a reformer, if you are prepared to work with us on Middle East peace and other issues we share, we can have a new and different kind of partnership,” said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. But “that is not the path that Assad chose.”

The US estimates that 2,000 people have been killed during the protests.

A state department spokesman declined to comment further except to say the US wanted to raise the pressure on Assad.

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This article titled “Qassem Suleimani: the Iranian general ‘secretly running’ Iraq” was written by Martin Chulov in Baghdad, for The Guardian on Thursday 28th July 2011 22.58 UTC

There’s a story that the new CIA director, David Petraeus, likes to tell which harks back to his days as a four-star general in Iraq.

Early in 2008, during a series of battles between the US and Iraqi army on one side and the Shia militias on the other, Petraeus was handed a phone with a text message from the Iranian general who had by then become his nemesis.

The message came from the head of Iran’s elite al-Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, and was conveyed by a senior Iraqi leader. It read: “General Petraeus, you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan. And indeed, the ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who’s going to replace him is a Quds Force member.”

Petraeus hardly needed to be told. Much of the US military’s work with Iraq’s Shia Muslims had been undermined by Suleimani and the client militias of the Iranian general’s al-Quds force. So too had US government diplomatic efforts elsewhere in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon.

Petraeus last year told a thinktank, the Institute for the Study of War, about the problem Suleimani created for him: “Now, that makes diplomacy difficult if you think that you’re going to do the traditional means of diplomacy by dealing with another country’s ministry of foreign affairs because in this case, it is not the ministry. It is a security apparatus.”

As he prepared for the job of the US’s most senior spy, Petraeus would surely have been preparing for further shadow boxing. Suleimani’s reputation as the most formidable operator in the region has not diminished in the past three years. By some measures it has actually increased: Syria now also comes within Suleimani’s sphere of influence.

The strength of the ties between Suleimani and Iraqi legislators has been revealed during weeks of interviews with key officials, including those who admire him and those who fear the man like no other.

Iraq’s former state security minister, Sharwan al-Waeli is one who knows Suleimani well. A formal conversation between the Guardian and al-Waeli last year took on a very different tone as soon as Suleimani’s name was mentioned.

The Shia legislator was a known ally of Iran, so much so that he was seen by secularists and Sunnis in parliament as someone prepared to do Iran’s bidding. He denied Iran played a pervasive role in Iraq until he was interrupted with a question that Iraqi officials have long prefered to ignore: when was the last time Qassem Suleimani came to the Green Zone, the fortified government district in the heart of Baghdad?

Al-Waeli’s left hand trembled slightly and his brow furrowed. “You mean Sayed Qassem Suleimani,” he said, giving Suleimani an Arabic honorific reserved for the most esteemed of men. He refused to elaborate.

In Baghdad, no other name invokes the same sort of reaction among the nation’s power base – discomfort, uncertainty and fear.

“He is the most powerful man in Iraq without question,” Iraq’s former national security minister, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said recently. “Nothing gets done without him.”

Until now, however, few Iraqis have dared to talk openly about the enigmatic Iranian general, what role he plays in Iraq and how he shapes key agendas like no one else.

“They are too busy dealing with the aftermath,” said a senior US official. “He dictates terms then makes things happen and the Iraqis are left managing a situation that they had no input into.”

Suleimani’s journey to supremacy in Iraq is rooted in the Islamic revolution of 1979, which ousted the Shah and recast Iran as a fundamentalist Shia Islamic state. He rose steadily through the ranks of the Iranian military until 2002 when, months before the US invasion of Iraq, he was appointed to command the most elite unit of the Iranian military – the al-Quds force of the Revolutionary Guards Corp.

The al-Quds force has no equal in Iran. Its stated primary task is to protect the revolution. However, its mandate has also been interpreted as exporting the revolution’s goals to other parts of the Islamic world.

Shia communities throughout the region have proved fertile grounds for revolutionary messages and have formed deep and abiding partnerships with the al-Quds force. So too have several Sunni groups opposed to Israel – first among them Hamas in Gaza.

But Iraq has been Suleimani’s key arena. The last eight years have witnessed a proxy war between Suleimani’s Quds force and the US military, the full effects of which are still being played out, as the US prepares for a full departure from Iraq and Iraq’s leaders ponder over whether to ask them to stay.

Arabian heartland

At stake is no less than who gets to shape the destiny of the heartland of Arabia. “His power comes straight from (the country’s lead cleric Ayatollah) Khamenei,” said one of Iraq’s three deputy prime ministers, Saleh al-Mutlaq, a secular Sunni. “It bypasses everyone else, including Ahmadinejad.

“There is a saying in Islam that you should never get angry with your father or mother. The [Shia] interpret that as meaning what (Khamanei, via Suleimani) says has to be respected by every [Shia] inside, or outside Iran.

“All of the important people in Iraq go to see him,” said Mutlaq. “People are mesmerised by him – they see him like an angel.”

A second MP – a senior member of Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki’s inner circle who regularly meets Suleimani in Iran – said the general has only travelled once to Iraq in the past eight years. He described him as “softly spoken and reasonable, very polite”. “He is simple when you talk to him. You would not know how powerful he is without knowing his background. His power is absolute and no one can challenge this.”

Silver-haired, slight and with a perennial serene smile, Suleimani comes across as the most unlikely of warlords. Those who met him during the one time he traveled to Baghdad at the height of the 2006 sectarian conflict say he walked around the compounds of his two key hosts without bodyguards. The Americans did not know he had been in the capital until he was back in Iran and were deeply unhappy to learn that their arch enemy had been among them.

“He is indeed like Keyser Söze,” said a senior US official this week – in reference to the legendary villain in the The Usual Suspects, whose ruthlessness and influence terrified everyone. “Nobody knew who he was and this guy’s the same. He is everywhere, but nowhere.”

The senior Shia MP added: “He has managed to form links with every single Shia group, on every level. Last year, in the meeting in Damascus that formed the current Iraqi government, he was present at the meeting along with leaders from Syria, Turkey, Iran and Hezbollah. “He forced them all to change their mind and anoint Maliki as leader for a second term.”

Over the five years that Maliki has been in power in Iraq, all his key advisers have been granted court in Iran by Suleimani. Iraq’s president, a Kurd – Jalal Talabani, has also regularly met the general, sometimes along the border separating both countries.

The Syrian uprising has added a new dimension. The al-Quds Force has been involved in suppressing the Syrian uprising, according to multiple sources inside and outside the country.

The US has slapped personal sanctions on Suleimani and two other generals in the Iranian security forces who it accuses of helping orchestrate the crackdown that is believed to have killed more than 1,600 civilians.”

Tehran has heavily invested in the survival of embattled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose ruling Allawite clan has links to Shia Islam. Assad’s fall would be a serious strategic setback for Iran and Suleimani. It is perhaps the only part of the region where the general’s preferred mix of strategic diplomacy with aggressive operations is being strongly tested.

In the meantime, the work of the al-Quds force continues in Iraq. All but two of the US troops killed in June – the highest number in more than two years, were killed by client militias directly under Suleimani’s control, the Keta’ib Hezbollah and the Promised Day Brigades.

“It is clear that the al-Quds force is responsible,” said the director general of the intelligence division in Iraq’s interior ministry, Hussein Kamal. “There has been a systematic flow of weapons into Iraq for the past eight years. Of course they try to say it is not state-sponsored. But when weapons are flowing from the borders of a sovereign state, it is very clear where the blame lies.

“They are destructive weapons and they cannot deny the responsibility for them.”

Another Shia MP said he had personally asked Suleimani why his al-Quds force continued to smuggle weapons, many of which are fired into the Green Zone, where he and most of Maliki’s inner circle live. “He just smiled and said it is nothing to do with me,” the MP said. “He said he had no idea where the weapons were coming from.”

Suleimani has been variously described by those who dislike him – Iraq’s Sunnis, and those who have spent years trying to get his measure – as a “talented extortionist” and a highly skilled wheeler-dealer.

US officials who have spent years trying to disrupt the work of his loyalists say they would like to meet him, while at the same time being puzzled as to his objectives.

“I would simply ask him what he wants from us,” said a senior US military official. In addition to the soldiers killed this year, the US ambassador in Baghdad, James Jeffrey, said last summer that Iranian proxies accounted for roughly a quarter of US combat casualties in Iraq – around 1,100 deaths and many thousands more injuries.

Despite this, the US has landed few public blows on Suleimani’s close circle.

In March 2007, the British SAS captured a senior Hezbollah official, Ali Moussa Daqduq, who had allegedly planned an operation that killed seven soldiers in Karbala. The same year, US troops also captured two men in the Kurdish north who they believed were al-Quds leaders. Apart from that, the trophy cabinet remains bare – at least publicly. More troubling than the apparent dearth of tactical victories is how the rest of the year will play out.

The US – and some key neighbouring Sunni states – believe Iran’s strategy in Iraq as the conflict winds down is to keep the country in a permanent but manageable state of chaos.

“They keep it on simmer and turn it up and down when they want to,” said one Lebanese official in Beirut.

The senior US military spokesman in Iraq, Major General Jeffrey Buchanan agreed. “Their overall strategy has been to keep [Iraq] isolated from the rest of its neighbours and from the US, because that makes it likely that it will depend on Iran. They want Iraq to play a subordinate, weak role.”

Only Iraq’s lawmakers can stop the master-client relationship from becoming entrenched here. It’s a task that Kurdish legislator in the national parliament, Mahmoud Othman, fears may prove to be beyond his colleagues.

“Qassem Suleimani is the key man to every decision taken in Iraq,” he said.

“It is a shame to have such a man playing such a role in this country. There should be a relationship between equals like normal relations with normal states.”

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This article titled “Syrian town empties as government tanks mass outside” was written by Martin Chulov in Beirut and Nidaa Hassan in Damascus, for The Guardian on Tuesday 7th June 2011 19.34 UTC

The Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour was besieged by columns of government tanks on Tuesday night as the army massed for what is feared will be an all-out assault on residents it claims killed more than 120 security force members over the weekend.

By nightfall most inhabitants had fled to nearby Turkey before the expected sharp escalation in a three-month uprising that has pitched largely unarmed demonstrators against a regime using increasingly lethal force to suppress the gravest threat to its four-decade rule.

Jisr al-Shughour, a town of 41,000 people, was largely abandoned. The hospital stood empty and the intelligence headquarters, which had been the scene of an uprising on Sunday, was now a looted and empty shell, according to three men who had stayed behind.

Human rights activists in Damascus said 59 civilians had been confirmed killed. However they feared the final number was likely to be more than 100.

The prospect of the imminent operation has stirred the ghosts of an infamous assault on the town of Hama 29 years ago, in which tens of thousands of residents were killed by the former president Hafez al-Assad after they launched a failed challenge to his authority.

Assad’s son, President Bashar al-Assad, is now facing a more serious threat, with sustained protests in many Syrian towns and cities that are steadily eroding the iron-clad rule of the Assad dynasty.

The siege of Jisr al-Shughour appears to mark a turning point in the popular rebellion, inspired by revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. The Syrian information minister, Mohammed al-Shaar, insisted on Monday night that residents had taken up arms and turned on security forces.

Exactly what happened is not yet clear, but anecdotal evidence emerging from the town suggested that armed clashes did take place. One witness told the Guardian that some officers from the security headquarters had switched allegiances and were shot by loyalists from inside the building.

“They were killing the defecting officers,” said one local speaking by telephone. “The people came to defend them and then they had to defend themselves. There was a battle.”

Another man, who did not want to be identified, also said that some officers had switched sides. The Syrian government refused to acknowledge that any mutiny had occurred. However, it did concede that forces inside the town had “lost control for intermittent periods”. Another government official confirmed that some government weapons were now in the hands of residents. The haul included five tonnes of dynamite, the information ministry spokesman Reem Haddad told the BBC.

Shaar said the military would “not stay silent” and a move to retake the town was expected before daybreak. “The army will carry out their national duty to restore order,” he said.

Authorities in Turkey said it had received several hundred refugees who had crossed the border, many of whom had wounds. Several thousand more villagers are thought to have fled south towards Aleppo and east into farmlands. It is not known how many residents have stayed behind.

“I know that people are waiting for the army,” said one Syrian exile in London. “I have spoken to people there today and they are preparing to fight them.”

If claims of an armed rebellion are proven, it would mark the first time that citizens had taken up weapons in large numbers. Protests have been taking place at least weekly in many cities, including the capital, Damascus. Human rights groups claim that more than 1,000 people have been killed, nearly all of them demonstrators campaigning for widespread democratic reforms.

Weekly death tolls have risen sharply over the past fortnight, placing growing pressure on Assad. Damascus has been anxious to cast the uprising as a series of clashes with armed gangs who are backed by foreign powers aiming to topple the government.

The US has imposed sanctions on Assad and members of his inner circle and there are increasing signs that Europe has lost a one-time belief that Assad is a reformer constrained by the society he rules.

The UN has stopped short of imposing on Syria the same sort of security resolutions as those directed at Libya and has ruled out military intervention, and Russia has indicated it would veto any UN attempt to increase the pressure on its long-term ally.

Analysts in Damascus said they feared the government was willing to push the country into a violent struggle as it tried to cling to power. Their view was backed by diplomats in Beirut, who said regime figures were likely to further destabilise neighbouring Lebanon if pressure on them continued to mount.

Israel has accused Damascus of orchestrating protests in the Golan Heights along the ceasefire line between both countries to create a diversion from its domestic troubles.

The uprising broke out in mid-March, initially calling for reforms but escalating into demands for the toppling of the regime after a series of brutal crackdowns that spread to most major towns and cities in the country.

“Our line is that protesters either go out peacefully, or they don’t go out at all,” said one religious man in Damascus who is supporting the protests.

• Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym for a journalist in Damascus

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This article titled “Syria’s crackdown on protesters becomes dramatically more brutal” was written by Katherine Marsh in Damascus, Matthew Taylor and Haroon Siddique, for The Guardian on Monday 25th April 2011 19.02 UTC

The Syrian government’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations has escalated dramatically, with tanks rolling on to the streets for the first time and troops reported to have opened fire in several towns and villages across the country.

Scores were reportedly killed and many more arrested in a widespread pre-emptive crackdown that was described by one human rights activist as a “savage war” against the pro-democracy movement.

The southern town of Deraa, which has been a centre of the rebellion, bore the brunt of the regime’s assault. Witnesses said at least 3,000 troops, backed by tanks and heavy weapons, entered the town in the early hours of Monday.

Soldiers were said to have opened fire at random, with snipers firing from rooftops and men armed with guns and knives conducting house-to-house searches. Although these reports have not been verified, videos posted online appear to support the claims of witnesses.

The violence drew condemnation from the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, and the US government warned that it was considering imposing sanctions.

“The government has an international legal obligation to protect peaceful demonstrators and the right to peaceful protest,” said Pillay. “The first step now is to immediately halt the use of violence, then to conduct a full and independent investigation into the killings, including the alleged killing of military and security officers, and to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

The White House condemned the violence as deplorable and confirmed that it was considering “targeted sanctions” against the Assad regime.

The Foreign Office said it would not be drawn into speculation over sanctions, adding: “We’re continuing to work with the EU, UN and partners.”

More than 350 people have been killed since unrest began in Syria five weeks ago.

Human rights organisations warned that this latest crackdown signalled an attempt by the regime to deliver a fatal blow to the pro-democracy movement. Syria dismissed that claim, insisting the action was a response to what it called an Islamist-inspired uprising.

“We need international intervention, we need countries to help us,” said one resident in Deraa, who added that he had seen five corpses after security forces opened fire on a car.

Another witness told Associated Press that people in the town were using mosque loudspeakers to summon doctors to help the wounded, as busloads of security forces and troops made house-to-house searches, causing panic in the streets.

“They are entering houses, they are searching the houses,” he said. “They are carrying knives and guns.”

Abu Qasim, a resident of Deraa, told al-Jazeera English by phone: “They [the troops] came in from four sides … Heavy artillery pounded the city. They used tanks to kill us. We call on you to help us and call on God first of all to help us … Senior figures in the Syrian military are leading the military campaign against Deraa.”

Mobile and landline phone connections in Deraa have been down since Sunday and the nearby border crossing with Jordan was reported to have been closed. A Jordanian official told Reuters: “The timing is related to what appears to be a major security operation that is taking place right now.”

Suhair al-Atassi, a leading Syrian human rights campaigner, said: “This is a savage war designed to annihilate Syria’s democrats. President Bashar al-Assad’s intentions have been clear since he came out publicly saying he was prepared for war in his speech on 30 March.”

The crackdown on Deraa was replicated in towns and cities across Syria. On Sunday, troops loyal to the regime entered the coastal town of Jableh, close to Assad’s homeland.

Security forces backed by tanks shot randomly at people after prayers, a witness said. “It was quiet, peaceful, there was no demonstration, and then the security forces and Shabiha [a Shia militia group] started to fire at people, at shops, at children, at anyone,” a frantic shopkeeper told the Guardian on Sunday afternoon.

Adding that people were now trying to hide inside buildings, he said: “We don’t yet know how many are dead and injured but we are scared, very scared. We are peaceful, every area of the town is peaceful, we did not provoke this.” Wissam Tarif, the executive director of the human rights organisation Insan confirmed that there had been at least 13 deaths in Jableh, although he said he had not been able to contact anyone in the town since Sunday.

Further assaults were reported in a ring of villages and towns in the rural area around Damascus. Douma, Daraya and Moadamiya were caught up in the violence. In the nearby town of Saqba, a human rights monitor said that people were being loaded into the back of army trucks and taken away.

In Moadamiya, pleas for help were ringing out from the mosques and there were reports that Kisweh, another town near Damascus, was being surrounded by tanks on Monday afternoon.

Activists have also reported that Daraya, another small town in the rural band around the capital, was being closed off on Monday evening.

Radwan Ziadeh, a US human rights activist in the town, said: “I heard there were checkpoints but the tanks were two kilometres from Daraya, near to Moadamiya. But I am now hearing that the internet is cut and that the roads are being closed.”

There were also unconfirmed reports of security forces firing at people in towns close to Bosra, a tourist city with a Roman amphitheatre close to the border with Jordan.

A member of the Union of Democratic (Kurdish) Youth said Aleppo, Syria’s second city, in the west of the country, had been quiet, but that some groups were trying to start protests. “There is a very, very, extensive security and intelligence presence everywhere in Aleppo and they crack down on any protest as soon as it starts,” he said.

As the brutality of the crackdown increased, there were reports of some small-scale defections within the Syrian army. In Deraa, a battalion commander was reported to have clashed with other sections of the security forces as he tried to protect wounded civilians. A Syrian activist, Malath Aumran, said the commander was later arrested.

However, analysts said it was unlikely that the higher echelons of the army, which are dominated by Assad loyalists drawn mainly from the president’s Alawite sect, would turn against the regime.

“The system is too strong to collapse easily,” said one political analyst, who asked for anonymity. “The 4th battalion is effectively a private army which strikes fear into Syrians. The rest of the army is conscripts, some of whom may defect. But how many of them will dare to say no when the commander is a member of the regime?”

In Damascus, Syrian activists watched the latest crackdown with dismay and outrage. “They believe they can finish it once and for all,” said one, who also asked to remain anonymous. “It is unbearable.”

Katherine Marsh is the pseudonym of a journalist working in Syria.

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This article titled “Syria to lift emergency rule after 48 years – but violence continues” was written by Katherine Marsh in Damascus and Ian Black, Middle East editor, for The Guardian on Tuesday 19th April 2011 18.41 UTC

Syria’s government has approved the lifting of a draconian, decades-old emergency law in the most important concession yet made by the embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, after a month of unrest.

Security forces again opened fire on demonstrators in Homs, Syria’s third largest city, in the early hours of Tuesday morning after more than 5,000 anti-government protesters took over the main square on Monday night, emulating demonstrators in Cairo and Bahrain by vowing to stay until their demands for change were met.

The centre of Homs, which is north of Damascus, was described as a ghost town, with shops, markets and schools closed in the city of around 700,000 people where 17 protesters were killed on Sunday night.

In the absence of major protests in Damascus and Aleppo in the north, gaining a foothold in Homs would be significant for Syria’s pro-democracy movement.

Activists have drawn inspiration from counterparts in Egypt, where Tahrir Square in Cairo became a focus for weeks of protest that brought down President Hosni Mubarak.

Syria’s official Sana news agency said the government had also approved abolition of the state security court, which handled trials of political prisoners, and had passed a law allowing peaceful protests.

The emergency law requires Assad’s signature to take effect, but that is expected to be a formality.

“I think this will be done in the coming few days,” said Razan Zeitouneh, a lawyer in Damascus.

The Foreign Office said the abrogation of the emergency law was “a step in the right direction” but it was “only one part of a wider package of necessary reforms. The Syrian authorities should do more to ensure the Syrian people experience real political progress without delay.”

Lawyers and protesters told the Guardian that the moves were not enough. “If it had been made earlier, it might have made a difference,” said one activist in Damascus. “But now we have seen the regime for what it is.”

Haitham Maleh, a former judge, said: “This [announcement] is all just talk. The protests won’t stop until all the demands are met or the regime is gone.”

Syria’s ubiquitous security services are immune from prosecution under a law passed in 2008. It was reported that a prominent leftist in Homs, Mahmoud Issa, was taken from his house around midnight by members of Syria’s feared political security division.

Reports suggest the new law to regulate protests still gives the government considerable scope to decide when a protest is legal. Stringent anti-terrorism legislation is expected to enacted soon.

Protesters have been increasingly angered by the government’s policy of disinformation. In an ominous sign, the government said on Monday that it was now facing an “armed insurrection” by Salafists – fundamentalist Sunnis who are equated by many with al-Qaida.

“It is a ridiculous and dangerous comment,” said Rime Allaf, a Syrian analyst at the Chatham House thinktank in London. “How many ‘armed insurrections’ have you seen sit in a square and wait to be gunned down?”

Diplomats and analysts in Damascus said they feared the move to implicate “terrorists” would be used to justify a harsh crackdown.

Syria’s government has often invoked the threat of Islamism to justify its hardline policy on internal dissent.

The country has large minorities of Christians and Druze, and the fear of sectarian violence is often cited as an argument against too much political freedom.

Conservative Sunni groups have represented the biggest challenge to the Ba’ath regime since it took power in 1963, when the emergency law came into force, prompting a hard line by the government throughout the 1970s and 80s, culminating in the notorious Hama massacre of 1982 in which at least 10,000 died.

Such a violent reaction may be less likely in the age of Twitter and YouTube, but the violence in Homs has heightened fears among protesters.

A small protest was held at Damascus University’s faculty of medicine on Tuesday, just hours after the government had warned protesters not to take to the streets after security forces opened fire on demonstrators in Homs.

Witnesses said the security forces had closed off the Clock Square in Homs and fired into the air and crowds.

“People were running away from the square but the security forces chased them, beat and detained them,” said a man who identified himself as one man, Anwar al-Omar. “Many people are missing and we don’t know if they were killed, detained or are hiding somewhere.”

He added that security forces opened fire again after protesters attending funerals on Tuesday threw shoes at security forces, although no fatalities were reported. Rights groups said at least one person was confirmed dead.

Syrians have been increasingly drawing parallels with the 1980s, pointing to the heavy-handed tactics of the government including shootings and arrests, as well as the deaths of army officers, which the government claims were due to armed criminal groups.

Katherine Marsh is a pseudonym for a journalist living in Damascus

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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Via the AP:

The Syrian nuclear reactor allegedly built with North Korean design help and destroyed last year by Israeli jets was within weeks or months of being functional, a top U.S. official said Thursday.

The facility was mostly completed but still needed significant testing before it could be declared operational, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

However, no uranium—needed to fuel a reactor—was evident at the site, a remote area of eastern Syria along the Euphrates River.

The Syrian reactor was similar in design to a North Korean reactor at Yongbyon that has in the past produced small amounts of plutonium, U.S. officials said. Plutonium is highly radioactive and can be used to make powerful nuclear weapons or radiological bombs.

Top members of the House intelligence committee said Thursday after being briefed on the facility by intelligence and administration officials that the reactor posed a serious threat of spreading dangerous nuclear materials.

“This is a serious proliferation issue, both for the Middle East and the countries that may be involved in Asia,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said today that Jimmy Carter’s much publicized meeting with Hamas achieved nothing.

“President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete,” he told a conference in the Spanish capital.

“The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else,” he said.

“Hamas offered nothing to president Carter. They reiterated the same positions. There was no change on the part of Hamas,” Malki added.

Actually Al-Malki is wrong to say that Carter’s trip achieved nothing. One achievement was giving legitimacy on the world stage to one of the most notorious terrorist organizations on earth.

Carter gave legitimacy to a group which thinks sending young men into Israel wearing vests packed with explosives and nails in to blow themselves up is the fastest way to heaven. A group that raises their children to believe that killing Jews is their duty as Palestinians and God will reward them for it.

Hamas is a group of cold-blooded killers pure and simple. For Jimmy Carter to have met with the group’s leadership in Syria (right in the belly of the beast) was a disgrace.

He continues to be shockingly naive in his belief that “talking” with dictators and terrorists is the solution for everything, and as usual he was proven wrong.