PS The station of King Fahd’s brother-in-law later interviewed Michel Kilu to discuss the defection. He said: I don’t know whether he defected or not but he was not in agreement with the method of the regime’s handling of the uprising early on.
“… “All they do is come to count the bodies,” was a common refrain from rebels and anti-government activists in central Syria in June as the U.N. monitors documented grisly slayings that they said were carried out by the Syrian army and pro-government militias.The end of the mission comes just days after a bombing in Damascus near the Dama Rose Hotel, where some of the remaining members of the estimated 300-member U.N. observer team were staying.
While rebels said Wednesday’s blast was meant to target a nearby Syrian military installation, it’s clear that many in the opposition view the observers as collaborators with the government rather than brokers or observers of a truce. …… At times, even when Syrian government representatives were not present, residents of areas with open rebel sympathies often expressed the belief that the monitors were spies.
“I think it is unfortunate that we are losing the visibility that the observers provided,” said Daniel Serwer, a professor of international studies at Johns Hopkins University and a scholar at the Middle East Institute….
“The big risk for the United States is that the instability spreads and becomes more and more sectarian and ethnic,” Serwer said. “We have to keep our eye on that, and I think that argues for giving Brahimi more support than we gave to Annan.”…”
“… ”To be fair, one can’t put all the blame of what’s happening in Syria on the Syrian regime. No government in the world, were it authoritarian or democratic, accepts its sovereignty to be disputed. The fact is that the two parties bear equal responsibility for every drop of blood that fall on the Syrian ground.
28 years of fighting the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon, Hezbollah’ first priority was the residents safety. It never tried to hold any town because it knew the catastrophic consequences of such an act. Instead, its focus was on making the occupation’s life a hell by attacking the checkpoints and military barracks of the Israelis and their agents of the South Lebanon Army using the guerrilla warfare. Throughout this period, we never heard of the fall of a single civilian as a result of the resistance activities. But the Syrian “revolutionaries”, in their savage fighting to topple the Syrian regime, don’t care about the fate of the innocent civilians. By, deliberately, transferring the battle to the populated centers, the rebels are, partly, responsible for the destruction of cities and the killing and the displacement of the people they pretend to protect. They are, clearly and unethically, willing to drag the Syrian regime to commit atrocities in order to obtain the long- awaited western military intervention …”
UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has sent his best wishes to leaders of many countries on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr. Sheikh Khalifa exchanged greetings with Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed …
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The Human Appeal International (HAI), a non-governmental aid agency based in the UAE, has given zakat money and clothes to poor Palestinian families ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. Ibrahim Al Rashid, director …
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The US, Russia, Syria and others welcome the appointment of veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as the new international envoy to Damascus.
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Suspected al-Qaeda militants attack the intelligence HQ in Yemen’s southern city of Aden, killing at least 14 people, security officials say.
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