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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Syria army retains grip on border gate with Northern Iraq |
| 2012-07-21 |
| Syrian rebel information operations have taken more than a few pointers from Pallywood, but the facts on the ground remain pretty hairy for them. The departure of loyal minorities towards Tartus and Latakia is possibly so that (1) they can be accounted for and mobilized for a universal draft of anti-Sunni Arab minorities and (2) the regime can flatten the rest of the country with high explosives without any fear of hitting friendlies. If the rebels are to win, NATO will need to jump in soon. This is the relative calm before the storm. (Reuters) - Syrian truck driver Abu Sara used to feel scared when he crossed the border into Iraq, fearing attacks in a country gripped by sectarian violence. Now, as he exits a Syria in even greater turmoil, he feels a sense of relief. "Us drivers, we feel the danger of the road as we enter the Syrian territories, but we feel safe when we are near the crossings between the two sides," he said at the northern Iraqi border crossing in Rabia, 100 km (62 miles) west of the Iraqi city of Mosul. Rabia was still in the hands of government forces, he said on Friday night. The Syrian flag fluttered above the border crossing and a huge mural of Hafez al-Assad, the late father of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was on display. Other crossings with Iraq and Turkey have fallen in the hands of the rebels, the first time they have held sway over Syria's frontiers. On Thursday, the rebels claimed control of the Abu Kamal crossing with Iraq - one of the most important trade routes in the Middle East and the main border post on the Baghdad-Damascus highway - and of the crossings at Jarablus and Bab al-Hawa at the border with Turkey. With the rebels making gains in the fighting, some Iraqi officials were reported as saying that the rebels had captured all four border posts with Iraq, while others said only Abu Kamal had fallen. Abu Sara said the roads around Rabia remained dangerous. He parks his truck close to Syrian military checkpoints to feel safer, he added. "Every day we are exposed to the danger of the road, we face bandits, not necessarily armed operations. But this indicates how fragile the security situation is in Syria - it is not able to control the roads and the thieves." |
| Posted by:Zhang Fei |
| #6 Syria army retains grip on border gate with Northern Iraq Didn't seem to have much of a 'grip' during the Iraq Insurgency. Now they have motivation. Wonder why? /rhet question |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-07-21 19:38 |
| #5 The Alawites call their outward declarations of fealty to the Muslim faith taqiyya, a deception necessary to avoid persecution or even slaughter at the hands of Muslims who might otherwise seem them as heretics or apostates. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-07-21 19:22 |
| #4 From the NYT, an account of Sunnis fleeing Damascus: Many Syrians were headed to stay with relatives, some to apartments they already owned and a few to hotels. But many without means staggered to the nearest village, Majd al-Anjar, where the local mosque set up a charity center where volunteers said that they had just distributed several hundred thin foam mattresses and food kits. The mayor, Anwar Hamzeh, said Thursday night that he was stunned to see Syrian families parked by the side of the road, uneasy about where to go next. “They were afraid if they ended up in a Shiite village they would be killed,” he said. Hezbollah, the main Shiite party in Lebanon, supports the government of Bashar al-Assad, and many of those fleeing are Sunni Muslims. So Majd al-Anjar opened its homes and one of its seven schools to the Syrians. Many more will come, they are sure. “There are seven million people in Damascus; where will they all go?” said Omar Abdel-Rahman, responsible at the charity center for distributing aid. For everyone reaching Lebanon, there were hundreds more fleeing the capital into the Syrian countryside as the mood in Damascus shifted markedly — not least because the government warned residents that it would shell rebellious neighborhoods. Many of those arriving were well-to-do young families, the parents saying all they wanted was to get their children out of harm’s way while they were sure they still could. Some were obviously coming for the long haul, cars stacked with extra suitcases and children’s bicycles and kitchen utensils like a colander. For those without much knowledge about Alawites, they apparently don't do mosques (re Daniel Pipes) - and the mosques set up by their Turkish rulers for them during the Ottoman era were used as livestock pens. This is one of the reasons that bought-and-paid for fatwas aside, very few rank-and-file Muslims (Sunni or Shiite) think of Alawites as Muslims. In addition, Alawites don't fast during the month of Ramadan, even though they observe Easter and Christmas. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-07-21 19:19 |
| #3 Good article on what's happening in Syria's Kurdish areas. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2012-07-21 19:09 |
| #2 According to wikpedia, the primary economic activity in Rabia is smuggling. And this is a Kurdish region and the Kurds are pretty much neutral at the moment. But doubtless well armed from across the border. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2012-07-21 18:59 |
| #1 The reporting so far has mostly covered explosions and such. It would be interesting to find out the % of each population that has been mobilized. A lot of military-age Alawite interviewees appear to be bystanders and onlookers, commenting on events as if they were occurring in a foreign country instead being active participants in combat. If Assad has a manpower shortage, why aren't these young men on the front lines? Unless Assad's the most inept war leader in the world and has no concept of a universal draft, my feeling is that a lot of the rhetoric coming from the media is the usual hyperventilation we get from them - wherein explosions = impending defeat or collapse for whatever regime is out of favor with them (or their stringers) at the moment. The media certainly came up with a bunch of stupid reasons why Iraq would fall to Sunni rebels if the US left. They were also wrong about South Vietnam, which did not fall to internal rebels, but was conquered via invasion from the North. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-07-21 18:58 |