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alarabiya.net, Free Syrian Army claims responsibility for Damascus attack: video

Telegraph, Syria: Bashar al-Assad ‘flees to Latakia’
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Rebels claimed a bomb attack which struck at the heart of Syria's senior command, killing at least three of President Bashar al-Assad's top brass and warned of more carnage to come.

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The killing of three top figures at the heart of Syria’s defence establishment shows President Bashar al-Assad is losing control, the White House says.
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Paul Mutter sends in a round-up of today’s momentous news from Syria.

The “Free Syrian Army” has claimed responsibility for a stunning attack on the Assad regime’s inner circle in Damascus. The heretofore unknown organization “Liwa al-Islam” claimed one of its suicide bombers had been responsible, but spokespeople from the FSA countered that they had infiltrated the secure compound where the meeting was held month prior to today and planted bombs there with this meeting in mind. The regime asserts that it was a suicide bombing by “hireling tools that are implementing foreign plots.”

Defense Minister Daoud Rajha and Deputy Chief of Staff Asef Shawkat were reportedly killed, along with one of Assad’s top aides. Former Defense Minister Hasan Turkmani was also reportedly killed. Hisham Bekhtyar, head of the General Security Directorate, and the Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar were said to be injured as well (rumors additional top officials’ deaths are swirling around, as are ones that Bashar al-Assad himself was caught in the blast).

What the regime must be really worried about now is that if members of the FSA did carry out the attack as they claim, then it strongly suggests that there were defectors inside the regime’s inner circle who made the bombing happen. The Wall Street Journal reports that the FSA is claiming unnamed members of the Republican Guard Division as accomplices (the Guard is led by Assad’s brother, Maher).

Assad’s clique is no stranger to such internal paranoia – they came to power in a coup, the Muslim Brotherhood targeted Ba’athist Party members in the 70s and 80s, and Bashar’s father stood down an abortive 1984 coup by his brother Rifaat – but the increase in ranking defections this summer, most notably of Manaf Tlass, a general whose father was Syria’s Defense Minister from 1972 to 2002. He is now believed to be hiding in France after defecting earlier this month.

This attack is significant from the rebels’ and the regime’s perspective because of the casualty list and where it occurred. The message is that Assad’s inner circle is not safe, and that inner circle is what keeps Assad himself in power (of course, larger factors, like “Alawite preference” and Russian backing, keep the inner circle in power).

Rula Amin of Al Jazeera reports that there is “[a]nxiety in Damascus as people anticipate a strong govt reaction against the armed rebels on the ground.” Syrian activists report that heavy weapons and Alawite militias have been deployed inside Damascus, and that the Syrian Army is withdrawing forces from the Golan to reinforce Damascus. Demonstrations are taking place in Damascene neighborhoods, as are firefights, and access in and out of the city has reportedly been severely restricted.

There is indeed reason to fear that this attack will lead to reprisals. In the regime’s collective mind, this simply cannot go unanswered. A major new military push against the rebels, if it occurred, could be damaging to them if in their recent push towards Damascus they are stretching their forces too thin.

A reoccupation of areas outside Damascus by the Syrian Army and the paramilitary shabbiha would harm the rebels in the short term, and be deadly for civilians judged to have been helping the rebels. But if they are able to continue holding their gains, such heavy-handedness will benefit the armed opposition in the same way that the depredations of anti-partisan brigades in other wars have undermined an occupying army’s position. Even if the partisans’ movement among the civilian population brings down the hammer on noncombatants, it is precisely because the violence of the “counterinsurgency” strategy pursued – in the Syrian village of Tremesh, for instance – that the partisans’ legitimacy grows in these communities.

Eventually, when such forces become strong enough, it is possible that they can hold back the anti-partisan brigades and protect their operational areas better – in Syria’s case, especially so if defections increase. If this were to happen on a wider scale following the assassinations and fighting in Damascus, the regime would be severely embarrassed. What the regime would do then is difficult to determine. There is talk of a regime retreat to the coastal plain if the army becomes too strained to hold onto the Sunni-dominated inland. Others hope that a decisive moment is coming in Damascus, while less optimistic observers believe this is not a turning point but another indicator that Syria is in for a long, ever-worsening internal conflict along the lines of the 1976-82 conflict.

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New York Times

Blast Kills Core Syrian Security Officials New York Times BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law and Syria's defense minister were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber attacked a crisis group of senior ministers and security chiefs meeting in central Damascus, according to state … Massive Bomb Strikes at Assad's Inner CircleWall Street Journal Top Syrian officials killed in major blow to al-Assad's regimeCNN Syrian rebels claim responsibility for attack on officialsUSA TODAY Los Angeles Times -BBC News -Jerusalem Post all 1,673 news articles »

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will use chemical weapons against opposition forces and may have already deployed them, Nawaf Fares, the first Syrian ambassador to defect, told the BBC on Monday.

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Syria peace mediator Kofi Annan was due in Moscow on Monday for talks with President Vladimir Putin amid growing pressure on Russia to finally back the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

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Some observations for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad:

You know you’re in trouble when you can only rule over people if you massacre them:

Opposition sources said that a major massacre was committed on Thursday by Syrian government forces, which bombarded the Sunni town of Taramseh near Hama with artillery and helicopter gunships. The government then sent in Shabiha (Ghost Brigades) militiamen composed of Allawites from surrounding villages, who finished off the slaughter by hand. If confirmed, it is one of the great massacres of the past 40 years.

You know you’re in trouble when there is mortar fire in the shi-shi neighborhoods of your capital’s downtown:

There was fighting Thursday in the tony Kafar Souseh district in the downtown area of Damascus. There were conflicting reports of whether the government or guerrillas fired the weapons, but it is in any case not good news for you if there is mortar fire in the middle of your capital city.

You know you’re in trouble when your ambassador to Iraq defects and denounce you as a terrorist.

Nawaf Faris, a Sunni diplomat who had also in the past served as governor of some provinces before he was posted to Iraq as ambassador, walked off the job and ended up in Dubai giving interviews. He said that his allegiance was to the Syrian people, not to a regime and army that was massacring them. He called on the Syrian army to cease killing the people, and he accused Bashar al-Assad of having aided terrorists who went to Iraq in the last decade to commit terrorism against the new government.

You know you are in trouble when one of your top Sunni generals, son of a long-serving minister of defense defects.

Last week Gen. Manaf Tlass defected to the opposition. Although, as a Sunni, he had not exactly been in Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle (which is largely Alawite Shi’ite), he was a top member of the regime. His father, a long-serving minister of defense, had been a key figure in incorporating Sunnis into the Baath regime during the time of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, who came to power in a 1970 coup.

You know you’re in trouble when thousands of your Sunni foot soldiers flee to Turkey:

Sunni soldiers are often put in the front lines and intensively spied on so that they cannot easily escape. Despite these measures, thousands of Sunni service personnel and officers have defected, many crossing over to Turkey.

The death toll of the attempted revolution and civil war in Syria is now being put at 17,000. Russia and China continue to block any international action to stop the bloodshed.

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GENEVA – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to have finally agreed to discuss the possibility of forming a transitional government in the crisis-ridden Mideast country as proposed during an …
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BBC News

Syria defection: Ex-Iraq ambassador Nawaf Fares 'in Qatar' BBC News Syria's envoy to Baghdad has defected to the opposition and, according to Iraqi officials, is in Qatar. Nawaf Fares, the first senior Syrian diplomat to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, has urged other politicians and military figures to follow suit. Syria crisis: ambassador to Iraq defects – live updatesThe Guardian Syrian Ambassador to Iraq Defects; Joins OppositionVoice of America Syria Says Defecting Ambassador Is FiredNew York Times Ynetnews -ABC Online -Sydney Morning Herald all 6,889 news articles »

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