Syrian forces kill 62, U.S. toughens sanctions

[SpArK]

Syrian forces kill 62, U.S. toughens sanctions​

AMMAN | Fri Apr 29, 2011
(Reuters) - Security forces killed more than 60 people across Syria on Friday during demonstrations demanding the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, and the United States imposed new sanctions on key figures.

A medical source told Reuters soldiers in Deraa killed 19 people when they fired on thousands of protesters descending from nearby villages in a show of solidarity with the southern city where Syria's uprising broke out six weeks ago.

Syrian human rights group Sawasiah said it had the names of a total of 62 people killed during protests in Deraa, Rustun, Latakia, Homs and the town of Qadam, near Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a similar death toll.

Friday's bloodshed occurred as demonstrators across the country again defied heavy military deployments, mass arrests and a ruthless crackdown on the biggest popular challenge to 48 years of authoritarian Baath Party rule.

U.S. President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions against Syrian figures, including a brother of Assad in charge of troops in Deraa, the first diplomatic reprisal for Syria's violent crackdown.

Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the intelligence agency, Assad's cousin Atif Najib and his brother Maher, who commands the army division which stormed into Deraa on Monday.

Shortly after Obama's move, European Union diplomats said they had reached preliminary agreement to impose an arms embargo on Syria and would consider other restrictive measures.

Obama's sanctions, which include asset freezes and bans on U.S. business dealings, build on U.S. measures against Syria in place since 2004, but they may have little impact since Assad's inner circle are thought to hold few U.S. assets.

One official said the White House was "not ready" to call on Assad to step down because Obama and his aides "do not want to get out in front of the Syrian people".

But thousands of Syrians took to the streets across the country after Friday prayers demanding his removal and pledging support for the residents of Deraa.

"The people want the overthrow of the regime!" demonstrators chanted in many protests, witnesses said.

More demonstrations flared in the central cities of Homs and Hama, Banias on the Mediterranean coast, Qamishly in eastern Syria and Harasta, a Damascus suburb.

Damascus saw the biggest protest in the capital so far, with a crowd swelling to 10,000 as it marched toward the main Ummayad Square before being dispersed by security forces firing tear gas, rights campaigners said.

Syrian rights group Sawasiah said this week at least 500 civilians had been killed since the unrest broke out six weeks ago. Authorities dispute that, saying 78 security forces and 70 civilians died in violence they blame on armed groups.

DERAA SHOOTING

State news agency SANA blamed "armed terrorist groups" for killing eight soldiers near Deraa. It said groups had opened fire on the homes of soldiers in two towns near Deraa and were repelled by guards. SANA said security forces detained 156 members of the group and confiscated 50 motorbikes.

But a witness in Deraa said Syrian forces fired live rounds at thousands of villagers who descended on the besieged city.

"They shot at people at the western gate of Deraa in the Yadoda area, almost three km (two miles) from the center of the city," he said.

A rights campaigner in Deraa said on Friday makeshift morgues in the city contained the bodies of 85 people he said had been killed since the army stormed the city, close to Syria's southern border with Jordan, on Monday.

Assad's violent repression has brought growing condemnation from Western countries which for several years had sought to engage Damascus and loosen its close anti-Israel alliances with Iran and the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas.

The top United Nations human rights body condemned Syria for using deadly force against peaceful protesters and launched an investigation into killings and other alleged crimes.

A U.S. official said Friday's sanctions were meant to show that no member of the Syrian leadership was immune from being held accountable. "Bashar is very much on our radar and if this continues could be soon to follow," the official said.

The new sanctions also target the General Intelligence Directorate and its director, Ali Mamluk. The spy agency is accused by U.S. officials of repressing dissent and of involvement in the killing of protesters in Deraa.

The fifth target is Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- Qods Force. A source familiar with the new sanctions said the force is accused by the Obama administration of being the conduit for support Iran has provided to Syrian authorities in their crackdown on protesters. Syria has denied Iran has played any role in confronting the protests.

Security forces shot dead 120 protesters on Friday April 22, according to a Syrian rights group, in the biggest protests Syria has seen since the uprising ignited in Deraa on March 18.

Three days later an army division under the control of Assad brother's Maher stormed into Deraa. That echoed their father's 1982 attack on Hama to crush an armed revolt led by the Muslim Brotherhood, killing up to 30,000 people.

In a sign of rare dissent within ruling circles, 200 members of the Baath Party resigned on Wednesday in protest at the bloody crackdown.


Syrian forces kill 62, U.S. toughens sanctions | Reuters

 

[Abii]

lol a few days ago 4 Bahraini protesters were sentenced to be executed and a few more were sentenced to life in prison. These Americans and their double standards haha

and lol at arabs doing business with these people. Before long they are going to back stab the arabs for someone else.

 

[hembo]

UN rights council finally condemns Syria
BY STEVEN EDWARDS, POSTMEDIA NEWS APRIL 30, 2011 12:00 AM


More than six weeks after the start of a brutal government crackdown on peaceful protests in Syria, the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday issued the UN's first condemnation of the violence.

The U.S.-led proposal passed mainly with support from western European, African and Latin American countries on the 47-member council in Geneva - but only after Washington agreed to water down the measure.

Russia and China actively campaigned against the resolution, while Arab states on the council either abstained from the vote, or were absent - "probably not by accident," noted the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

Back-room negotiations led to the deletion of a paragraph that would have pointed out the irony of Syria's current candidacy to join the Human Rights Council on June 20 for a three-year term even as it uses lethal force against its own people.

As it stands, Syria is running unopposed for one of the four upcoming seats reserved for Asian countries on the council.

The resolution authorizes an independent investigation into the killings and other alleged crimes. But the United States agreed to drop its initial call for the council president to appoint a commission of inquiry, accepting instead a "lesser mission" under the UN bureaucracy, UN Watch reported in a statement.

Human rights organizations say 500 people have died since demonstrations began in March, although the number has not been independently verified.

The United States also acted unilaterally Friday as President Barack Obama ordered an asset freeze and other sanctions against three Syrian officials, including the brother and a cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The order provides the U.S. with "new tools to target individuals and entities determined to have engaged in human rights abuses in Syria," said a White House statement.

Canada does not now sit on the Human Rights Council, but expressed support for the council's resolution as an observer.

The measure, which "unequivocally condemns" Syria for killings and arrests of protesters since the latest unrest began in mid-March, passed by 26 votes to nine, with seven abstentions.

The difficulty the United States and its allies have had in mustering support at the UN over Syria illustrates the sharp slide in the willingness of many countries beyond the West to extend international intervention in the region.

Only weeks ago, Russia and China abstained from a Security Council vote to permit a resolution that approved the launch of military air strikes in Libya.

 

[casual]

so... war #4?

 

[hembo]

Israel's 'Syria option' was never one
Many Israelis assumed Assad's Iran alliance was not a happy one. On the contrary, that axis is ensuring the dictator's survival

'If you mess around with Assad

, you are issuing a challenge also to Iran [and Ahmadinejad, left] … the west doesn't want to do that.' Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP​

One early casualty of the Syrian uprising has been the "Syrian option" favoured by an influential section of Israel's policymaking elite. The case within Israel for engagement with and potential concessions to Damascus rested on a number of assumptions.

Most centrally, Syria's strategic alliance with Iran was thought of as an uncomfortable fit for the non-Islamist rulers of Syria – so it was assumed that President Assad was looking for a way out if it. Assad's relations with allied Islamist movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas were considered similarly instrumental in nature, and hence similarly susceptible to alteration. The Israeli "Syria firsters" therefore advocated a process whereby Syria would receive territorial concessions from Israel in return for a strategic realignment away from Iran and toward the US.

These assumptions were noteworthy in that they were not only untrue, but in many ways represented the precise opposite of the truth. Syria's alignment with Iran and its backing of local paramilitary and terrorist clients are not flimsy marriages of convenience. They were and are the core of a successful regional policy. Through it, Damascus has magnified its local and regional influence, and obtained an insurance policy against paying any price for its activities.

This insurance policy is now paying dividends. Syria's alignment with the regional axis led by Iran represents Assad's best hope of survival. Indeed, western fear of Iran is the crucial factor making possible the crackdown in Syria and hence the survival of the regime.

The pro-western Arab authoritarian rulers, Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, were forced aside by a combination of internal and subsequent western pressure. Non-aligned, isolated Muammar Gaddafi now finds himself fighting in Libya against a coalition of local rebels and western air power.

Assad, by contrast, who is aligned with the coalition of anti-western states and movements led by Iran, is currently facing only nominal and minimal western pressure. This is despite the fact that he appears to be engaged in the energetic slaughter of his own people.

The US administration disapproves of the repression, but the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, remains firmly in place. The British foreign secretary finds the violence unacceptable but the defence secretary makes clear that a Libya-type option is not on the cards.

This is because if you mess around with Assad, you are issuing a challenge also to Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and their various regional allies and interests in Iraq and further afield. The leaders of the west don't want to do that.

According to opposition reports, Iranian personnel are on the ground helping to crush the rebellion in Syria. Many Syrians believe that the snipers whose bullets are reaping a terrible toll among the protestors are Iranians. Syrian-Iranian military co-operation is formalised (a co-operation treaty was signed in 1998) and intensive. Syria gives Iran a presence on the Mediterranean, and is the key arms conduit between Tehran and its Hezbollah client in Lebanon. It is also a major recipient of Iranian arms and aid. And Iran, evidently, sticks by its allies.

Since the west's commitment to regional liberty and freedom does not appear to extend to entangling itself in a general confrontation with the Iran-led regional bloc, Assad may feel reasonably confident. Now he just needs to crush the internal challenge.

Which brings us back to our Israeli Syria-firsters. There is now an interesting split developing in this camp. Some of its members have realised the moral and political absurdities of advocating concessions to a bloodstained dictatorship (and not even a stable one) and are issuing mea culpas. Others are recommending that the west offer to underwrite Assad's regime in return for his aligning away from the Iranians.

But in the end, the Israeli "Syrian option" advocates don't matter much. Israel is not going to decide whether Assad survives or not. And Assad is not going to align away from his key Iranian guarantor – whatever his would-be Israeli friends want.

There are more crucial matters at stake here than the fate of a dead-end policy option in Israel. The Syrian dictator is currently getting away with slaughtering large numbers of his people because of western fear of Iran and its proxies. The question of whether the Arab spring stops at the borders of the Iran-led regional alliance will thus be decided in Syria.

The Iranians and their allies, who enthusiastically cheered the demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia, are keen to ensure that it does end there. Western policy, meanwhile, looks likely to be too confused and hesitant to ensure that it does not. This matter will be decided in the weeks and months ahead.

The fall or weakening of the Assad regime in Syria would constitute a serious body blow to Iranian regional ambitions. Its resurgence under the protective tutelage of Tehran, by contrast, would prove that membership of the Iranian alliance provides a handy guarantee for autocratic rulers hoping to avoid the judgment of their peoples. In the ongoing cold war that remains the key strategic process in the Middle East, the west should see preventing this outcome as a key objective.​