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US halts aid to Syrian rebels
WASHINGTON

Daily Hürriyet’s Washington representative, Tolga Tanış, reported that the Obama administration commenced its ‘disengagement’ from Syria on Oct. 2, laying out three conditions to the moderate rebels, should they wish for the resumption of aid.

A joint U.S.-Russia plan on the chemical disarmament of Syria and clashes between the Western-Arab-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked rebels known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) factored into the halting of aid to the rebels. Turkey closed its Öncüpınar border gate on Sept. 18 amid an al-Qaeda advance and the U.S. stopped a batch of non-lethal aid to moderate rebels.

At the same time a group of Syria’s most powerful rebel brigades have rejected the Western-Arab-backed opposition group, Syrian National Coalition (SNC), which announced the creation of an interim government in exile. The 13 rebel groups, led by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, called on supporters of the Syrian opposition to embrace Sharia law.

On Oct. 2, U.S. State Department officials conferred and decided on sending three messages to the moderate rebels. Citing an unnamed source who attended meetings, Tanış said the first one was that the U.S. would not repeat the same mistake in Afghanistan where supported groups were radicalized; instead, Washington would wait for moderate groups to distance themselves from radicals. The second one was that the U.S. would not resume its provision of aid until Turkey reopens its border gate and the moderate rebels took control of the northern Syrian town of Azaz. The third and final one was that the U.S. would not allow for any further developments until positive indications were observed from the rebels.

High-ranking CIA official resigns

The opposition tried to solve the deadlock and even pushed al-Nusra Front out of the Saudi Arabian-backed Islamic Army, but could not convince Washington to ‘disengage’ from Syria at the time.

A U.S. official advised yesterday that the aid to rebels had officially ceased. “ISIS has blocked the dispersal of part of the aid. The border gate is closed and we cannot distribute necessary supplies,” he said. Another source familiar with the matter commented on the new U.S. policy, saying it has caused quite the stir within the CIA, including the resignation of a high-ranking official in September.
October/22/2013

Saudi Arabia to hit back at US in Syria
Tensions between the two countries have grown sharply in recent months
By Ellen Knickmeyer Zawya Dow JonesPublished: 12:26 October 22, 2013Gulf News


Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Al Saud

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief told European diplomats this weekend that he plans to scale back cooperating with the US to arm and train Syrian rebels in protest against Washington’s policy in the region, participants in the meeting said.

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Al Saud’s move increases tensions in a growing dispute between the US and one of its closest Arab allies over Syria, Iran and Egypt policies. It follows Saudi Arabia’s surprise decision on Friday to renounce a seat on the United Nations Security Council.
The Saudi government, after preparing and campaigning for the seat for a year, cited what it said was the council’s ineffectiveness in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian and Syrian conflicts.

Diplomats here said Prince Bandar, who is leading the kingdom’s efforts to fund, train and arm rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, invited a Western diplomat to the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah over the weekend to voice Riyadh’s frustration with the Obama administration and its regional policies, including the decision not to bomb Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in August.


“This was a message for the US, not the UN,” Prince Bandar was quoted by diplomats as specifying of Saudi Arabia’s decision to walk away from the Security Council membership.

Top decisions in Saudi Arabia come from the king, Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, and it isn’t known if Prince Bandar’s reported remarks reflected a decision by the monarch, or an effort by Prince Bandar to influence the king. The diplomats said, however, Prince Bandar told them he intends to roll back a partnership with the US in which the Central Intelligence Agency and other nations’ security bodies have covertly helped train Syrian rebels to fight Al Assad, Prince Bandar said, according to the diplomats. Saudi Arabia would work with other allies instead in that effort, including Jordan and France, the prince was quoted as saying.
US officials said they interpreted Prince Bandar’s message to the Western diplomat as an expression of discontent designed to push the US in a different direction. “Obviously he wants us to do more,” said a senior US official.

US Secretary of State John Kerry met in Paris on Monday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal. Officials familiar with the meeting said Kerry urged the Saudis to reconsider their UN decision but said Prince Saud didn’t raise Prince Bandar’s concerns. Officials said this may suggest that there are divisions within the monarchy about how to pressure the US to play a more hands-on role.

Cautious approach
The US, fearing arms will wind up in the hands of Al Qaida and other extremist factions in Syria, has advocated a cautious approach in strengthening the moderate opposition in Syria, frustrating key allies, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudi officials say they, too, are concerned about arming extremists in Syria and are working only with moderate rebel factions.

Tensions between the US and Saudi Arabia have grown sharply in recent months. President Barack Obama authorised the CIA to provide limited quantities of arms to carefully vetted Syrian rebels, but it took months for the programme to commence. In July, the Saudis undercut the US by backing the Egyptian military’s overthrow of that country’s democratically elected president.

Saudi Arabia was particularly angered by Obama’s decision to scrap plans to bomb Syria in response to the alleged chemical-weapons attack in August and, more recently, tentative overtures between Obama and Iran’s new president.

Diplomats and officials familiar with events recounted two previously undisclosed episodes during the buildup to the aborted Western strike on Syria that allegedly further unsettled the Saudi-US relationship.

In the run-up to the expected US strikes, Saudi leaders asked for detailed US plans for posting Navy ships to guard the Saudi oil centre, the Eastern Province, during any strike on Syria, an official familiar with that discussion said. The Saudis were surprised when the Americans told them US ships wouldn’t be able to fully protect the oil region, the official said.

Disappointed, the Saudis told the US that they were open to alternatives to their long-standing defence partnership, emphasising that they would look for good weapons at good prices, whatever the source, the official said.

Eager to be a military partner
In the second episode, one Western diplomat described Saudi Arabia as eager to be a military partner in what was to have been the US-led military strikes on Syria. As part of that, the Saudis asked to be given the list of military targets for the proposed strikes. The Saudis indicated they never got the information, the diplomat said. The Pentagon declined to comment.

“The Saudis are very upset. They don’t know where the Americans want to go,” said a senior European diplomat not in Riyadh.
“The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a long-standing partnership and consult closely on issues of mutual interest, including preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, countering terrorism, ensuring stable and reliable energy supplies, and promoting regional security,” said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.

A senior administration official said the US and Saudi Arabia have a “strong and stable relationship” on core national security issues.
“While we do not agree on every issue, when we have different perspectives we have honest and open discussions,” the senior administration official said.
In Washington in recent days, Saudi officials have privately complained to US lawmakers that they increasingly feel cut out of US decision-making on Syria and Iran. A senior US official described the king as “angry”.

Another senior US official added: “Our interests increasingly don’t align.”
As of Monday in New York, however, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hadn’t yet received the formal notice from Saudi Arabia that would make official its renunciation of the Security Council seat. Some analysts and diplomats saw that as an opening for Saudi Arabia to be persuaded to take the seat, and to mend the split with the US and the UN that the renunciation implied.

Diplomats said Prince Bandar conveyed in the weekend session that scheduled meetings in Paris on Monday and Tuesday involving Kerry, Prince Saud and ministers of other nations backing Syria’s armed opposition would be a crucial opportunity for the US to mend relations with Saudi Arabia, the world’s oil power and Washington’s main Arab ally in the Middle East.

In particular, Saudi Arabia wants to see the US or UN come up with a more effective plan of action for helping rebels overthrow Al Assad, and end the Syrian war, one Western diplomat said.

China and Russia, Security Council members and allies of Syria, have helped block any UN action that could support military action against the president.
In the Syria conflict, Iran and Tehran-backed Hezbollah militias are supporting Al Assad’s regime against rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations and private donors, and less actively by some Western nations.

Saudi Arabia regards defeating Al Assad’s regime as essential to its interests because of the involvement of Iran in the Syrian conflict. Saudi officials long have accused Iran of trying to exploit Shiite populations in Arab countries across the region to try to undermine regional governments and their interests.
Saudi officials are suspicious of recent overtures toward the US by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, fearing that Iran aims only to have international sanctions against it lifted while secretly continuing a nuclear programme that earned the sanctions, diplomats said.

Allegro » Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:20 pm wrote:IanEye, great ^ article.

A Thanks to both you and cptmarginal for a reminder of Sublime Frequencies.

~ A.

Have you heard Wenu Wenu, his new Four Tet produced album?

MG: I have heard Omar’s new record, and it’s not so compelling to me. Though some of the performances are decent, it’s missing a lot of the urgency and edge, in my opinion. I found this to be true of many of Omar’s previous studio recordings in Syria as well. He’s made dozens of studio albums back home, and in my opinion, with a few exceptions, he is best outside of the studio. It boils down to aesthetics and the choices made by the producer or management in the end.

Saudi Arabia in Unprecedented Withdrawal from UN Security Council over Syria, Palestine

Posted on 10/19/2013 by Juan Cole
Saudi Arabia mysteriously withdrew, after having campaigned for and won a seat on the UN Security Council. They said it was over Western inaction on Syria and the the Palestinians.

The UN Security Council consists of 5 permanent members (China, Russia, US, Britain and France), essentially the victors in WW II. These 5 get a veto. It also has 10 rotating members who are much less powerful and cannot veto resolutions.

Saudi Arabia had campaigned for a seat on the UNSC as a rotating member, and just won one (along with Chile, Nigeria, Chad and Lithuania). It is a two-year term, and the rotating members do have some influence on world affairs (they declined e.g. to authorize Bush’s Iraq War). I received a press release from the Saudi government celebrating this achievement.

Then all of a sudden on Friday, Saudi Arabia resigned its seat. It said that it did so over UNSC inaction on Syria and on the lack of progress in resolving the problem of Palestinians’ statelessness. Some observers also suggested that it was an implicit protest against the possibility that the US and Iran will make up.

It is hard to know what to make of the Saudi action, which has never occurred before in the history of the UN. Perhaps King Abdullah believes that his country would get more concessions from Russia regarding Syria this way than it would without the histrionics.

There are three possibilities going forward. The Saudis could rethink their reluctance, and could finally join before January 1, when their term begins. The UNSC could on the other had have a special election to replace them. Third, the UNSC could limp along with 14 members for a couple of years.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter and it has hundreds of billions of dollars in currency reserves. It could be that the kingdom is throwing its weight around more now, and this resignation is meant to draw attention to the Syria gridlock.

Stay tuned. Saudi Arabia is not playing politics as usual.

Saudi Leaders in a Snit at UN
October 21, 2013
Saudi Arabia is upset President Obama didn’t bomb Syria and join the Saudis’ crusade to fight Shiite influence in the Mideast. It’s not enough that the U.S. tolerates Saudi support for radical Sunni jihadists. So, Saudi leaders are boycotting their own seat on the UN Security Council, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.


By Paul R. Pillar

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has just had a tantrum. A day after winning one of the rotational seats on the United Nations Security Council, the Saudis announced they would not take the seat. This move undoubtedly has annoyed and even angered many others in member states and at the United Nations, not least of all in states that campaigned unsuccessfully for one of the non-permanent seats on the council.

Diplomatic heads are shaking over this unprecedented situation. The closest thing to a precedent was a boycott of council proceedings in 1950 by the Soviet Union, which came to regret its tactic when in its absence the council authorized a U.S.-led intervention in Korea. But the Soviets had a permanent seat not to be filled by anyone else. It is unclear after the Saudi announcement whether the General Assembly will be picking a replacement member for the Security Council or there will be an empty chair.


King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
Some predict that the Saudis, like the Soviets, will come to regret their move, and that prediction probably is correct. Although some Saudis may have genuinely believed that an unusual move such as this would help direct attention to their favored issues, plenty of smart Saudi officials would recognize multiple flaws in the tactic.

Annoyance with Saudi Arabia probably will be a stronger international reaction than any felt need to pay more attention to the Saudis’ favorite causes. Action on the issues of high concern to Riyadh is stymied by factors other than merely insufficient attention to them. It also is not entirely clear exactly who or what is the target of the Saudis’ disapproval. Ostensibly it is the Security Council itself, but according to some interpretations the Saudis are trying to express disapproval of U.S. policies.

A different and credible way to look at the Saudi move is as simple pique, less a matter of any calculation than of emotion and frustration at high levels, probably the level of the king. In this respect it is the result of a flawed policy-making system that does not do a good job of weeding out high-level emotion. The United States probably has done a better job of weeding such stuff out. Think of a short-tempered Harry Truman and all of the angry letters that he wrote but never got sent.

An explanation involving more calculation is that the Saudis had second thoughts about how casting votes at the Security Council would force them to be more specific and open in their preferences. This is different from the sort of behind-the-scenes influence with which they are more comfortable and is better suited to the type of power they wield. That still does not explain or excuse, of course, their earlier decision to seek the council seat.

The proper posture for the United States and others to take is a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger disapproval of what the Saudis have done, with the disapproval based on procedure rather than substance. Substantively some of the Saudis’ favorite causes and positions are consistent with U.S. interests, and others are not.

But the United Nations Security Council serves a useful function regardless of one’s position on any of the issues it addresses. Shunning it, especially in a way that screws up the long-established procedures for filling seats on the council, does not help the council do its job any better. And it would be a mistake to encourage the notion that an absence of talk and engagement about controversial issues is better than the alternative.

...and it has hundreds of billions of dollars in currency reserves...

Huge explosion reported at Syrian air defense base October 31, 2013 The Times of Israel
Reports suggest a missile strike from Mediterranean Sea; social media explodes with posts blaming Israel

A Syrian air defense base near the coastal city of Latakia was reportedly destroyed Wednesday night, with multiple Syrian and Lebanese sources speculating that an Israeli strike from the Mediterranean was to blame.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a loud explosion in a Syrian army base, and Twitter users quoted eyewitnesses who said the blast occurred near Snobar Jableh, just south of the city.

continued: http://www.timesofisrael.com/huge-explosion-reported-at-syrian-air-defense-base/

Private Donors’ Funds Add Wild Card to War in Syria

November 12, 2013

AL SUBAYHIYAH, Kuwait — The money flows in via bank transfer or is delivered in bags or pockets bulging with cash. Working from his sparely furnished sitting room here, Ghanim al-Mteiri gathers the funds and transports them to Syria for the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr. Mteiri — one of dozens of Kuwaitis who openly raise money to arm the opposition — has helped turn this tiny, oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a virtual Western Union outlet for Syria’s rebels, with the bulk of the funds he collects going to a Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda.

One Kuwait-based effort raised money to equip 12,000 rebel fighters for $2,500 each. Another campaign, run by a Saudi sheikh based in Syria and close to Al Qaeda, is called “Wage Jihad With Your Money.” Donors earn “silver status” by giving $175 for 50 sniper bullets, or “gold status” by giving twice as much for eight mortar rounds.

“Once upon a time we cooperated with the Americans in Iraq,” said Mr. Mteiri, a former soldier in the Kuwaiti Army, recalling the American role in pushing Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. “Now we want to get Bashar out of Syria, so why not cooperate with Al Qaeda?”

Outside support for the warring parties in Syria has helped sustain the conflict and transformed it into a proxy battle by regional powers, with Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah helping the government and with Saudi Arabia and Qatar providing the main support for the rebels.

But the flow of private funds to rebel groups has added a wild-card factor to the war, analysts say, exacerbating divisions in the opposition and bolstering its most extreme elements. While the West has been hesitant to arm and finance the more secular forces that initially led the turn to armed rebellion, fighters have flocked to Islamist militias and in some cases rebranded themselves as jihadist because that is where the money is.

“It creates a self-sustaining dynamic that is totally independent of all the strategic and diplomatic games that are happening and being led by states,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst in the Middle East with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Inside The One-Man Intelligence Unit That Exposed The Secrets And Atrocities Of Syria's War

Posted: 11/18/2013

There was something strange about the rockets that landed on Zamalka, a town south of Syria's capital, just after two in the morning on Aug. 21. They didn't explode. Yet even lodged into walls of homes or injected into the dirt fully intact, they proved lethal. Hundreds of people sleeping near the landing sites were killed instantly and bloodlessly, as if choked by invisible hands. A cloud of death spread quietly, ending hundreds of other lives.

Just after dawn the following day, Muhammed al-Jazaeri, a 27-year-old engineer who had joined a coalition of activists fighting to take down the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, felt an urge to document what had occurred. He found one of the rockets protruding from a patch of orange dirt behind a mosque a mile from his home. Recalling later that he was determined to reveal to the world the "real picture" of life in Syria, he used a handheld Sony camera to capture a short video of its twisted remains. That same day, he uploaded his clip to a site that has become an intelligence hub for war-watchers and a time-killing venue for bored teenagers: He sent it to YouTube.

Several hours later and 2,300 miles to the northwest in Leicester, England, a shaggy-haired blogger named Eliot Higgins peered at his laptop and clicked play on al-Jazaeri's video. It was one of scores Higgins turned up that day as he trawled Twitter, Google+ and the more than 600 Syrian YouTube accounts he monitors daily. From his living room, Higgins was racing to solve the same whodunit confronting world leaders amid claims that Assad had unleashed chemical weapons against rebel sympathizers in the suburbs of Damascus. Was Zamalka a victim of such an attack? If so, who was responsible for the deed?

On paper, Higgins -- a 34-year-old with a 2-year-old daughter -- brought no credentials for the job. He had no formal intelligence training or security clearance that gave him access to classified documents. He could not speak or read Arabic. He had never set foot in the Middle East, unless you count the time he changed planes in Dubai en route to Manila, or his trip to visit his in-laws in Turkey.

Yet in the 18 months since Higgins had begun blogging about Syria, his barebones site, Brown Moses, had become the foremost source of information on the weapons used in Syria's deadly war. Using nothing more sophisticated than an Asus laptop, he had uncovered evidence of weapons imported into Syria from Iran. He had been the first person to identify widely-banned cluster bombs deployed by Syrian forces. By The New York Times' own admission, his findings had offered a key tip that helped the newspaper prove that Saudi Arabia had funneled arms to opposition fighters in Syria.

His work unraveling the mystery of the rocket strikes of Aug. 21 played a key role in bringing much of the world to the conclusion that it was indeed a chemical weapons attack, one unleashed by Assad's forces. That conclusion led to a diplomatic deal under which the Syrian government submitted to international inspections and pledged to destroy its stocks of chemical weapons.

"I saw the U.N. got the Nobel Prize for Syria," says one weapons expert, referring to the United Nations-backed Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who declined to be named on account of his own work with the international body. "I think Eliot has done a lot more for Syria than the U.N."

Higgins belongs to an obsessive coterie of self-appointed military intelligence experts who use social media to piece together critical details of faraway conflicts, often well ahead of seasoned professionals. Frequently self-taught and operating far outside the military-industrial complex, these amateur analysts have honed a novel set of sleuthing skills that fuse old-fashioned detective work with new sources of intelligence generated by cell phone cameras and spread by social networks. Syria's war, widely considered the most documented conflict in history, has turned social media into a weapon of mass detection -- critical both for fighters on the ground and for faraway observers trying to make sense of the conflict.

"All parties to the conflict in Syria realize that social media is an important front in this war," says Peter Bouckaert, an expert in humanitarian crises and the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch. "There is a war for the truth as much as for territory."

Many government agencies, private research groups and newsrooms are still wary of analyses based on the Facebook status updates or viral videos of Syria's opposition groups. Such "open source intelligence" -- so-called by the U.S. military -- is deeply biased and difficult to verify, its critics say, often amounting to meaningless chatter.

"I personally don't really have the time to go through the social media in Syria so as to start knowing which sources, which sites, which media, which individuals are credible or not," said Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center. "All that takes time and continuous follow up. "

But in an age in which social media produces seemingly limitless streams of information, some people are proving obsessive enough to go rooting through it all in search of small nuggets of undiscovered reality. People like Higgins.

After a temporary job reviewing orders at a ladies' lingerie maker came to an end in February, he dispensed with looking for another so that he could devote himself to blogging full-time. His wife admits she does not read his blog and yearns for a time that he will return to "a real job." But as Higgins sees it, he is consumed with the realest job of all, sifting through a digital goldmine disdained by those who lack the patience for the work.

"If you're in intelligence and you want to know what your enemies are armed with, just watch their YouTube channels and see what weapons they're waving around," he advises. "You'll find out all sorts of information -- and not necessarily the stuff they intend to show you."

Stolen Futures: The Hidden Toll of Child Casualties in Syria



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The growing death toll in the Syrian conflict has been referred to with deep concern by the United Nations and by government officials, the media and civil society organisations around the world. It can be argued that these continually mounting numbers have become the predominant measure of the conflict’s scale and severity.

Most casualty figures in circulation originate from a small number of Syrian civil society groups which began recording deaths and human rights violations in response to the conflict, and are to varying degrees aligned with the opposition movement in Syria. Instead of simply issuing statistics, these groups publish detailed lists of each individual killed, in most cases including their name and the circumstances of their death, with the category of weapon that caused it.

These very specific details, and their open publication, lend the casualty recording projects a degree of credibility.[i] This is because they provide the basis and a starting point from which the deaths they report can be investigated, and verified – if not immediately, then post-conflict. Many of the higher-profile events these details describe are of course already corroborated by other sources, including the world’s media. Nonetheless, simple totals throughout this study and elsewhere should be treated with caution and be considered provisional: briefly put, it is too soon (and outside the scope of this study) to say whether they are too high or too low.

What the details contained in these databases also provide is clearer insight into the vulnerabilities of the civilian population exposed to conflict in Syria.

Earlier studies[ii] combined multiple databases to obtain more comprehensive figures for the conflict’s civilian and combatant death toll than are found in any single database. Taking a similar approach, the present study uses information on demographics and causes of death recorded in four casualty databases to shed light on the lethal effects of the conflict on one particular civilian group: children.[iii]

Our findings are accompanied by an examination of the Syrian casualty recording organisations that produced the databases, all of which agreed to be interviewed for this study on questions relating to data quality. We also describe the methods, scope and limitations of the present study.

Based on the data on children published in these four databases, our principal findings are that:

By the end of August 2013, 11,420 children aged 17 years and younger had been recorded killed in the Syrian conflict, out of a total of 113,735 civilians and combatants killed.
Of the children killed, boys outnumbered girls by more than 2 to 1 overall, with the ratio of boys to girls close to 1:1 among infants and children under 8 but rising to more than 4 boys to every girl among 13- to 17-year-olds.
The highest number of child deaths occurred in the governorate of Aleppo, where 2,223 were reported killed. When measured against its population size (about one-fifth of Aleppo’s), the deadliest governorate for children was Daraa, where 1,134, or roughly 1 in 400, children were reported killed.
By far the primary cause of death reported for children was explosive weapons, killing 7,557 (71%) of the 10,586 children whose specific cause of death was recorded.
Air bombardment was given as the cause of death for 2,008 of the children reported killed by explosive weapons.
Small-arms fire was reported as the cause of death for 2,806 (26.5%) of the 10,586 children for whom cause of death was recorded, including 764 cases of summary execution and 389 cases of sniper fire with clear evidence of children being specifically targeted.
The four databases between them reported 128 children killed in the chemical attacks in Ghouta on 21 August 2013.
At least 112 cases of children tortured and killed were reported, including some of infant age.
We conclude that the conflict in Syria has had (and as of the time of writing, continues to have) a large-scale lethal impact on the country’s children.

In the absence of other sources of information, the extent and nature of this impact on children (and on Syrians generally) is known only thanks to the efforts of a handful of Syrian civil society groups that record the conflict’s casualties on a daily basis.

Our recommendation to all parties concerned with the victims of the Syrian conflict is that such information gathering efforts should be joined and supported, including by States. The chemical attacks in Ghouta are already under investigation by the international community; the many other ways in which civilians, including children, have been killed throughout this conflict warrants similarly serious investigation.

Our specific recommendations for States and conflict parties, in brief, are that:

All armed forces and groups operating in the Syrian conflict must refrain from targeting civilians, including children.
All armed forces and groups should receive training in how to avoid putting civilians and children at risk.
All armed forces and groups should be trained in, and carry out, the recording of casualties, including those that they cause, and make these records public.
Persons and organisations contributing to casualty recording (including journalists) should not be hindered from going about their work by any armed forces or groups.
As the highest priority for children, in our view, is to remove them from all the inherent dangers of war, we end this report with an overview of options other than military intervention for bringing the Syrian conflict to an end.



[i] The term “casualty” throughout this report is used to refer to persons directly killed in violence. The injured are outside our scope, but deaths can also be taken as an indicator of the presence of victims of wounding: see section below on explosive weapons.

[ii] Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic. Commission by OHCHR. Megan Price, Jeff Klingner, Anas Qtiesh and Patrick Ball. HRDAG. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countrie ... report.pdf

[iii] Defined in this report as anyone aged 17 and below.



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al-akhbar

Assad: Our Battle With Saudi Is Open-Ended

Published Saturday, November 30, 2013

Ten days ago, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with a delegation of party leaders and politicians from Arab countries. He said unequivocally: The battle will continue as long as Saudi Arabia continues to “back terrorism,” and the flow of extremist fighters, money, and arms into Syria continues.

Tunisia – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has proclaimed that Saudi and other countries’ support for terrorist groups will delay any solution to the crisis. He also said that the Syrian government was advancing on more than one front against terror and the war against Syria, stressing that the government would not go to Geneva if it is expected to hand over power.

Assad’s remarks on the situation in Syria came during a meeting on the sidelines of the Arab Parties Conference held in Syria 10 days ago. Al-Akhbar interviewed a party leader from the Maghreb who took part in the meeting.

In response to a question on what is happening in Syria, Assad said, “We have been subjected to a major war. In the first phase, we had to focus on standing our ground, which is what we did in the first year. Then we moved into the stage of triumphing over the enemies. There are experiences in recent history, including what happened with the Resistance in Lebanon, which stood its ground for many long years, and then achieved major victories in 2000 and 2006. We have known from the outset that the battle targeted our independent decision, but this independent decision was a major factor in our steadfastness and our victory, although we appreciate the support Syria has received from its allies, and some allies have had a pivotal role, such as Russia, which stands on our side because its interests, too, are threatened. I heard directly from the Russian leadership that they stand alongside Syria to defend Moscow and not just Damascus.”

Assad continued, “The time required to end the crisis in Syria depends to a large extent on the ongoing support and funding to armed groups provided by the actors in the region.”

He added, “Saudi Arabia and other countries are strong backers of terrorism. They have dispatched tens of thousands of takfiris to the country, and Saudi Arabia is paying up to $2,000 as a monthly salary to all those who take up arms on their side.”

Assad said, “There is another problem, related to al-Qaeda’s infiltration through the border with Iraq. This is something that the authorities in Baghdad are cracking down on but not entirely with success. Consequently, stopping Saudi support would have a decisive impact, especially since the militants and those behind them have been caught by surprise by our army’s capacity to confront them. Now, we know, and the whole world knows that al-Qaeda does not pose a threat to Syria alone. We hope for rational solutions in the coming months, but the issue is also contingent upon our ability to confront those, and we are determined to fight them until the end.”

The Syrian president then told his audience, “In light of the situation on the ground, we do not believe that it is possible to reach a settlement soon. As long as fighters, weapons, and funds continue to be sent across the border into Syria, we will not stop pursuing them. No one in the world can stop us exercising our right to defend our country. Moreover, today, we find little that can be agreed upon in Geneva, especially since some wrongly believe that we are going there to hand over power to them.”

“If this is what they want, then let them come to Syria so we can hand over power to them,” Assad sarcastically added. “If they decide to appoint [leader of the opposition National Coalition Ahmad] al-Jarba as president, do they think he would be able to come to Syria?”

Assad explained that Saudi Arabia “is leading the most extensive operation of direct sabotage against all the Arab world,” adding, “Saudi Arabia led the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council in the battle against all nations and parties that stand in the face of Israel. The [Saudis] gave cover to the Camp David agreement, supported the war on Lebanon in 1982, and today, they are engaged in an open-ended war against Syria. We are now openly saying that we are at war with them. True, we accommodated them previously, but they want everything to be according to their vision and interests.”

Regarding the position of the Western countries that back the armed Syrian opposition, Assad said, “The colonial West still acts in a vain mentality. They act like the past 20 years did not happen. They ignore the US defeat in Iraq, and they act as though the Soviet Union collapsed only yesterday.”

Concerning the current state of the Arab world and the Arab League, Assad said, “If the league shall remain under the influence and tutelage of backwards regimes like those of the Arab Gulf countries, it will have no role and no value. However, not all the Arab countries have had their independence taken from them.” He then added, “Today, there is a brave man making a stand in Iraq who is Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He has important stances, even though his country is torn and many seek to destroy it. Even Algeria, one could consider its stance ahead of others. But most importantly, we must take heed of what is taking place in Egypt today. We see as the rest of the Arabs do that there is in Cairo today someone telling America frankly and sharply, ‘You have no business in Egypt’s internal affairs,’ and this is an important position that must be supported.”

The Syrian leader then spoke about the state of political parties in Syria and the Arab world, and said, “Vacuum is one of the reasons why extremist groups have spread. But another reason has to do with the fact that these parties did not rejuvenate themselves, and they are still weak. We as a state are keen on boosting their work, not as a party. We have also been observing the reflection of Syria’s steadfastness on Arab reality in general, and especially in the Maghreb, which we fear could be subjected to the rule of NATO.”

Assad then warned against the spread of Wahhabi ideology in the Arab world, and said, “This requires a new approach to religious institutions, but first and foremost, it requires supporting a civil state based on co-citizenship.”

Assad added, “Today’s generation has been subjected to a large-scale process of spreading ignorance. The generation that preceded us had more awareness, and this process of spreading ignorance is aimed at keeping the Arab world in a state of backwardness. I want to remind you that the West does not want us to ever evolve. I remember when the US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited us in 2003 and conveyed his country’s demands from Syria after the occupation of Iraq, he especially wanted us not to host any Iraqi scientists. We rejected his demand, so the US and Israeli intelligence liquidated quite a few of those scientists. Today, they want to eliminate scientists in Iran.”

But Assad noted that, by contrast, awareness among Arab peoples is reemerging, saying that raising the picture of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdul-Nasser in many Arab demonstrations is a sign of this.

He said, “We are not against religion, but we are against invoking religion in all aspects of people’s daily lives. Even us, who are secular, gave religion a role in our constitution, which states explicitly that Sharia is a source of legislation. However, we refuse any politicization of religion in the sense that leads to negative results. As an example that our stance is not against religion, consider Hezbollah’s case in Lebanon. This is an ideological party that derives its ideas from religion. But we do not disagree with Hezbollah politically. This is proof that we don’t have an absolute stance against religions, but we refuse any religious force that operates in accordance with takfiri or Wahhabi ideology.

“For this reason, we say that we do not deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in this way. I believe that Syria cannot tolerate this faction. They did not give us a positive model in all stages. They operate on the basis of a sectarian position; otherwise, how can one explain their stance opposed to Hezbollah? They accept politicization in all issues, and use sectarian discourse to inflame Sunni-Shia strife.”

He then said, “Syria, like Iran and Hezbollah, tolerate many things to prevent sedition. Even the approach in dealing with the situation in Bahrain is very cautious for this reason.”

(Al-Akhbar)

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

cptmarginal wrote:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/eliot-higgins-syria_n_4269417.html

Inside The One-Man Intelligence Unit That Exposed The Secrets And Atrocities Of Syria's War

Posted: 11/18/2013

There was something strange about the rockets that landed on Zamalka, a town south of Syria's capital, just after two in the morning on Aug. 21. They didn't explode. Yet even lodged into walls of homes or injected into the dirt fully intact, they proved lethal. Hundreds of people sleeping near the landing sites were killed instantly and bloodlessly, as if choked by invisible hands. A cloud of death spread quietly, ending hundreds of other lives.

Just after dawn the following day, Muhammed al-Jazaeri, a 27-year-old engineer who had joined a coalition of activists fighting to take down the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, felt an urge to document what had occurred. He found one of the rockets protruding from a patch of orange dirt behind a mosque a mile from his home. Recalling later that he was determined to reveal to the world the "real picture" of life in Syria, he used a handheld Sony camera to capture a short video of its twisted remains. That same day, he uploaded his clip to a site that has become an intelligence hub for war-watchers and a time-killing venue for bored teenagers: He sent it to YouTube.

Several hours later and 2,300 miles to the northwest in Leicester, England, a shaggy-haired blogger named Eliot Higgins peered at his laptop and clicked play on al-Jazaeri's video. It was one of scores Higgins turned up that day as he trawled Twitter, Google+ and the more than 600 Syrian YouTube accounts he monitors daily. From his living room, Higgins was racing to solve the same whodunit confronting world leaders amid claims that Assad had unleashed chemical weapons against rebel sympathizers in the suburbs of Damascus. Was Zamalka a victim of such an attack? If so, who was responsible for the deed?

On paper, Higgins -- a 34-year-old with a 2-year-old daughter -- brought no credentials for the job. He had no formal intelligence training or security clearance that gave him access to classified documents. He could not speak or read Arabic. He had never set foot in the Middle East, unless you count the time he changed planes in Dubai en route to Manila, or his trip to visit his in-laws in Turkey.

Yet in the 18 months since Higgins had begun blogging about Syria, his barebones site, Brown Moses, had become the foremost source of information on the weapons used in Syria's deadly war. Using nothing more sophisticated than an Asus laptop, he had uncovered evidence of weapons imported into Syria from Iran. He had been the first person to identify widely-banned cluster bombs deployed by Syrian forces. By The New York Times' own admission, his findings had offered a key tip that helped the newspaper prove that Saudi Arabia had funneled arms to opposition fighters in Syria.

His work unraveling the mystery of the rocket strikes of Aug. 21 played a key role in bringing much of the world to the conclusion that it was indeed a chemical weapons attack, one unleashed by Assad's forces. That conclusion led to a diplomatic deal under which the Syrian government submitted to international inspections and pledged to destroy its stocks of chemical weapons.

"I saw the U.N. got the Nobel Prize for Syria," says one weapons expert, referring to the United Nations-backed Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who declined to be named on account of his own work with the international body. "I think Eliot has done a lot more for Syria than the U.N."

Higgins belongs to an obsessive coterie of self-appointed military intelligence experts who use social media to piece together critical details of faraway conflicts, often well ahead of seasoned professionals. Frequently self-taught and operating far outside the military-industrial complex, these amateur analysts have honed a novel set of sleuthing skills that fuse old-fashioned detective work with new sources of intelligence generated by cell phone cameras and spread by social networks. Syria's war, widely considered the most documented conflict in history, has turned social media into a weapon of mass detection -- critical both for fighters on the ground and for faraway observers trying to make sense of the conflict.

"All parties to the conflict in Syria realize that social media is an important front in this war," says Peter Bouckaert, an expert in humanitarian crises and the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch. "There is a war for the truth as much as for territory."

Many government agencies, private research groups and newsrooms are still wary of analyses based on the Facebook status updates or viral videos of Syria's opposition groups. Such "open source intelligence" -- so-called by the U.S. military -- is deeply biased and difficult to verify, its critics say, often amounting to meaningless chatter.

"I personally don't really have the time to go through the social media in Syria so as to start knowing which sources, which sites, which media, which individuals are credible or not," said Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center. "All that takes time and continuous follow up. "

But in an age in which social media produces seemingly limitless streams of information, some people are proving obsessive enough to go rooting through it all in search of small nuggets of undiscovered reality. People like Higgins.

After a temporary job reviewing orders at a ladies' lingerie maker came to an end in February, he dispensed with looking for another so that he could devote himself to blogging full-time. His wife admits she does not read his blog and yearns for a time that he will return to "a real job." But as Higgins sees it, he is consumed with the realest job of all, sifting through a digital goldmine disdained by those who lack the patience for the work.

"If you're in intelligence and you want to know what your enemies are armed with, just watch their YouTube channels and see what weapons they're waving around," he advises. "You'll find out all sorts of information -- and not necessarily the stuff they intend to show you."

Follow the link for the full article and embedded links/videos

Brown Moses and “new media”; same as the old media.
http://notthemsmdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/brown-moses-new-media-same-as-the-old-media/

A glaring example of one of the major pitfalls emerging in supposed “new media” has arisen during the conflict in Syria. Most notably in the form of YouTube blogger, and self-proclaimed weapons expert Eliot Higgins, aka “Brown Moses”. The clique of highly ideological analysts, think-tankers and journalists Higgins’ regularly works with and consults – alongside the dubiously funded western NGO’s he receives payment from – provide a stark indication as to the factions within the corporate media circus this supposedly independent blogger is operating in unison with.

Higgins has provided the western corporate media apparatus the opportunity to present its war-propaganda as having a “new media” facade of impartial legitimacy. Yet it is the same capitalistic “old media” apparatus endlessly promoting his work – consisting of scouring Jihadist war-porn and agitprop on YouTube for tidbits that may bolster corporate media narratives – as an invaluable tool in tracking human rights abuses, arms trafficking, and risk-free coverage of fast evolving conflicts. Yet contrary to the innocuous portrayal of an unemployed YouTube addict in Leicester becoming a credible analyst of a conflict in the Middle East; Higgins’ blog has been thrust into the foreground not through the benefit of impartiality or public appraisals, but through corporate “benefactors” with vested interest operating alongside the same “old media” organisations and stenographers.

Bloggers such as Higgins promoting themselves as working from an impartial standpoint are actually nothing of the sort and work in complete unison with mainstream journalists and western NGO’s – both in a practical capacity, and an ideological one. As noted at the Land Destroyer blog and others; Higgins was initially pushed into the limelight by the Guardians’ former Middle East editor Brian Whitaker, a “journalist” with the honour of being a lead proponent of almost every smear campaign and piece of western propaganda directed at the Syrian government, while wholeheartedly promoting the Bin Ladenite “rebels” as secular feminist freedom fighters and repeatedly spouting the liberal opportunist mantra of western military “action”, which realistically means Imperialist military intervention. Whitaker and Higgins played a lead role in bolstering corporate media’s fantasy narratives throughout the joint NATO-Al Qaeda insurgency in Libya during 2011, with many of the anti-Gaddafi claims they propagated subsequently proven to be speculative at best, outright propaganda at worst.

Furthermore, Whitaker’s promotion of “The Gay Girl in Damascus” is but one embarrassing anecdote within the litany of completely fabricated narratives both he and the Guardian have made efforts to advance, while making equal effort to marginalize and discredit journalism and opinion that contradict western-desired narratives. It was during Whitaker’s period of running the Guardian’s “Middle East Live blog” – providing daily scripted coverage of the “Arab Spring” in a pseudo-liberal “new media” format – that he and other Guardian journalists first began to promote Higgins’ YouTube findings as credible evidence. Regular readers commenting on the Guardian blog quickly recognised the duplicity and close relationship between Higgins and the Guardian staff, resulting in his propagandistic comments being scrutinised, debunked, and ridiculed on an almost daily basis. Curiously, Whitaker has since left the Guardian and the “MELive” blog has been cancelled due to “staffing shortages” and the ridiculous excuse of a lull in worthwhile coverage. Yet the Guardians skewed standpoint on Syria, along with Whitaker and Higgins relationship, have remained steadfast.

The working relationship between Higgins and the corporate media became almost uniform during the course of the Syrian conflict; an unsubstantiated anti-Assad, or pro-rebel narrative would predictably form in the corporate media (cluster bombs, chemical weapons, unsolved massacres,) at which point Higgins would jump to the fore with his YouTube analysis in order to bolster mainstream discourse whilst offering the air of impartiality and the crucial “open source” faux-legitimacy. It has become blatantly evident that the “rebels” in both Syria and Libya have made a concerted effort in fabricating YouTube videos in order to incriminate and demonize their opponents while glorifying themselves in a sanitized image. Western media invariably lapped-up such fabrications without question and subsequently built narratives around them – regardless of contradictory evidence or opinion. Yet such media, and more importantly, the specific actors propagating it fraudulently to bolster the flimsiest of western narratives has continued unabated – primarily as a result of the aforementioned “old media” organs endlessly promoting it.

Following award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s groundbreaking essay in the London Review of Books, which exposes the Obama administrations intelligence surrounding the alleged chemical attacks in Ghouta as reminiscent of the Bush administrations outright lies and fabrications leading to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, Higgins took it upon himself to rush through a rebuttal, published by the establishment media outlet Foreign Policy magazine – a predictable response as Higgins represents the principal source for the “Assad did it” media crowd. Accordingly, the “old media” stenographers that originally promoted Higgins became the vanguard force pushing his speculative Ghouta theories above Hersh’s – to hilarious effect.

A particularly revealing example of Higgins’ unwillingness to depart from mainstream discourse came shortly after the alleged Ghouta attacks. The findings of a considerable open-source collaborative effort at the WhoGhouta blog were repeatedly dismissed as ridiculous or unverifiable by Higgins. The bloggers at WhoGhouta drew more or less the same logical, and somewhat scientific conclusions outlined in the Hersh piece, but in much greater detail. Yet Higgins chose to ignore WhoGhouta’s findings and instead rely on his own set of assumptions, dubious videos, and an unqualified ex-US soldier that seems determined to defy both logical and scientific reality. The estimated range of the rockets allegedly used in the attack, with the alleged azimuth that pointed to Syrian army launch points breathlessly promoted by Higgins and his patrons at Human Rights Watch (HRW), and of course corporate media, were convincingly debunked mere weeks after the attack at the WhoGhouta blog, yet Higgins chose to stick to his orchestrated narrative until the bitter end, only revising his wild speculation on rocket range once the obvious became too hard to conceal.

As Higgins is a self-declared advocate of “open source investigative journalism”, it is perplexing that he attempted to marginalize and dismiss the many findings from independent observers and instead concentrated on bolstering the dubious narratives of the US government and western corporate media. Unless of course, he is tied to a particular narrative and desperate to conceal anything that contradicts it.

Predictably, Higgins now claims the Syrian army are indeed capable of firing the alleged rockets from anywhere in the region of Ghouta, no longer is the alleged launch-zone exclusive to the Syrian army’s Republican Guards base; effectively nullifying the original fabrications he relied on to build his earlier accusation alongside HRW.

It is no longer necessary to address the ins and outs of the Ghouta debate, as a comprehensive review by others has already highlighted the strawman nature of Higgins’ feeble refutation of Hersh, (see here,) not to mention the plethora of literature that has effectively demolished the US governments “intelligence” summary and the much-politicised UN report that Higgins originally built his fantasies from. Rather, the focus of this article is the pernicious nature of the “new media” model currently being promoted by Higgins et al, as a credible alternative to the corporate “old media” model. If the corrupt acolytes of “old media” are promoting their own versions of “new media” to the public, then the public aren’t really getting anything “new” apart from a YouTube generation of ill-informed and gullible recruits to the same old systems.

Prominent members of “new media” have invariably been pushed to the foreground of mainstream coverage by the very same corporate media institutions and establishment journalists that the public has rightly become exceedingly sceptical of. It is becoming an accepted normality for the lackeys of “old media” to determine what now represent the figureheads and platforms of “new media”, with large corporate organisations and their Jurassic minions making concerted efforts to raise the profile of, and offer incentives to bloggers who invariably say or write exactly whats required to bolster the “old media’s” still-dominant narratives.

The complete lack of historical materialism, geopolitical insight, critical distance, logical reasoning and dialectics, and crucially, an open political position, afforded by simplistically narrow-framed blogs such as Higgins’ gives the corporate media class a malleable tool it can easily manipulate to bolster its propaganda.

The Ghouta debate again provides an example of the way in which narrow frames of reference are manipulated by corporate media to subvert logical reasoning and the lack of solid evidence. Higgins’ simplistic narrative conveniently dismisses the fundamental argument that the Syrian government – winning its fight against an internationally orchestrated and funded terrorist insurgency – had nothing to gain from using chemical weapons, and everything to lose, while the rebels in Ghouta found themselves in the exact opposite conundrum. Motive generally tends to be a sticking point in a court of law, but not even an afterthought in the puerile “courts” of the corporate media and its underlings. Higgins’ argument also dismisses the fact that prior to the August 21st attack, it was the Syrian government that invited the UN inspection team to investigate the use of chemical weapons, and then supposedly launched a massive chemical weapons attack a mere 15 miles from the UN teams base. Such logical reasoning is afforded no space in the conspiracy theories of Higgins and the corporate media, instead the discourse is filled with obfuscation, misleading tangents and speculation.

The dynamic of young, supposedly independent minded bloggers and writers being co-opted by corporate media is by no means a new dynamic, as the self-proclaimed “leftist” Owen Jones can happily attest to. Since Jones’ rise to fame and employment with the corporate-owned establishment newspaper the Independent, he has become the archetypal Fabian opportunist, preaching a reform-based bourgeois social democracy, while duplicitously portraying himself as some sort of socialist Marxist. Jones now deems it reasonable, no doubt civilised, that he should “no-platform” speakers at western anti-War events in order to marginalize anyone accused of having an unacceptable opinion to that of the dominant media class of corporate vultures. Jones has become a caricature of himself, more eager to spend his time promoting the UK Labour party on war-mongering podiums of the BBC (for a fee of course) and appease the corporate stenographers and celebrities he is surrounded by, than to hear – or, heaven forbid, sit beside – a nun from a war-zone in the Middle East that disagrees with western prescriptions and corporate propaganda.

To avoid the pitfalls outlined above, a totally new model of journalism is required, a model that is not designed, or even accepted, by the current dominant corporate media class. A model in which writers and journalists have the space and freedom to express their opinions in an open and forthright manner – discarding the charade of objectivity. A model in which publicly oriented media is free from the chains of corporate power, advertising, celebrity subversions, and, more importantly, monetary incentive.

Thus, the question remains: in a capitalist incentive-driven world, is journalistic freedom and honesty even attainable? Or is the omnipotent corporate-media-system and its inherent corruption an inevitable side-effect of the sickness that is Capitalism?

Syrian rebels have taken iconoclasm to new depths, with shrines, statues and even a tree destroyed – but to what end?

Robert Fisk

Sunday 22 December 2013

Eccentricity marks the path to heaven or hell. Take the Takfiri rebels trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. They have chopped off the heads of their enemies, eaten a few human entrails, massacred Christians and Alawites – the Damascus government, of course, has done its share of civilian bloodletting and war crimes – and even gone to war on the Kurds. But of all the activities of the al-Qa’ida/al-Nusra/Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria insurgents in Syria, surely the weirdest has been an iconoclasm worthy of both Henry VIII and the Taliban: the destruction of shrines, tombs and the statues of poets and caliphs.

Take, for example, Abu Tammam Habib ibn Aws who was born near Damascus AD804. He was assistant to a weaver and the son of Christian parents – an obvious provocation to the Nusra lads 2,213 years later – but travelled to Egypt to study poetry. He went to Armenia and Iran, and produced an anthology of other poets’ work known as the Hamasah, an anthology of bravery, courage in defeat and revenge.

A work, you might think, that could appeal to the Salafists anxious to rid Syria of its infidel president. But no. In his native town of Jasim in the countryside of Deraa this year, the Islamists destroyed his statue. They simply blew it up with explosives. Was it because he had Christian parents? Unlikely, surely, since some of the current followers of al-Nusra are Muslim converts. Or was it because Abu Tammam brazenly compared the composition of poetry to the sex act? May he be turned to dust!

So let’s move on to Abu al-Ala Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Ma’arri, who was born almost 170 years after Abu Tammam near Aleppo, the ancient city currently split between rebel and government fighters.

Like Milton, al-Ma’arri was almost blind, but produced a popular collection of poetry called The Tinder Spark and later, in Baghdad – where he was adored by writers but lived in almost hermit-like isolation on a vegetarian diet – wrote Unnecessary Necessity, which complained about the rhyming scheme of poetry. More dodgy, however, al-Ma’arri also described a Dante-like visit to heathen poets in paradise. And a later work was described as a parody of the Koran. He believed, so we are told, in “social justice” – whatever that was in the 9th century – but thought a world without children would spare future generations the pain of life.

Well, you can understand why the al-Nusra boys scratched their heads when they saw al-Ma’arri’s turbaned statue. For the poor chap is also credited with telling his readers: “Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true… The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have…” So off with his head! The al-Nusra guys decapitated the statue in al-Ma’arri’s home town of Maarat al-Numan.

Then we come to Harun ar-Rashid himself, the fifth Abbasid caliph of One Thousand and One Nights fame, who ruled Islam’s greatest empire, putting down revolts – Assad-style – in Syria, Egypt and Yemen, even bringing Tunisia under his rule. He became an immensely wealthy man whose wife insisted that only gold and silver would hold food on the family table. The palace was packed with singing girls, concubines and servant girls. But… word had it that he maintained a homosexual relationship with Jafar, one of his principal administrators, who was later executed. Luxury, concubines, vice. No chance, then, for Harun’s statue in the city of Rakaa – the only town in Syria currently under total Islamist control. His image, in the city’s Ar-Rashid Park, no less, was destroyed.

Need one go on? The shrine of the Prophet’s companion Hujr ibn Adi has been destroyed in Rif Damascus (the countryside around the capital) and a shrine to a Sufi sheikh in Busaira has been blown up. The Islamists have even announced the cutting down of a 150-year-old tree in the town of Atmeh – next to another shrine which the Salafists had taken over. “Thank God Almighty, the tree… has been removed, after people were worshipping it instead of God,” an Islamist informed a French news agency.

But what’s new? Didn’t the Taliban destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan, just as the Saudis have reduced every old building in Mecca to rubble and the Islamists hundreds of shrines in Pakistan? Not to mention the destruction in Timbuktu. Think Henry VIII. Think Oliver Cromwell – who would surely have understood the cruelty of the Syrian war. And beware graven images. Pity about the tree.

NYT Backs Off Its Syria-Sarin Analysis
December 29, 2013

Exclusive: For months, the “slam-dunk” evidence “proving” Syrian government guilt in the Aug. 21 Sarin attack near Damascus was a “vector analysis” pushed by the New York Times showing where the rockets supposedly were launched. But the Times now grudgingly admits its analysis was flawed, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The New York Times has, kind of, admitted that it messed up its big front-page story that used a “vector analysis” to pin the blame for the Aug. 21 Sarin attack on the Syrian-government, an assertion that was treated by Official Washington as the slam-dunk proof that President Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people.

But you’d be forgiven if you missed the Times’ embarrassing confession, since it was buried on page 8, below the fold, 18 paragraphs into a story under the not-so-eye-catching title, “New Study Refines View Of Sarin Attack in Syria.”

Secretary of State John Kerry (center) testifies on the Syrian crisis before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sept. 3, 2013. At the left of the photo is Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. and on the right is Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. No senior U.S. intelligence official joined in the testimony. U.S. State Department photo)
Secretary of State John Kerry (center) testifies on the Syrian crisis before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sept. 3, 2013. At the left of the photo is Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. and on the right is Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. No senior U.S. intelligence official joined in the testimony. U.S. State Department photo)
But this Times article at least acknowledges what has been widely reported on the Internet, including at Consortiumnews.com, that the Times’ “vector analysis” – showing the reverse flight paths of two missiles intersecting at a Syrian military base – has collapsed, in part, because the range of the rockets was much too limited.

There were other problems with the “vector analysis” that was pushed by the Times and Human Rights Watch, which has long wanted the U.S. military to intervene in the Syrian civil war against the Syrian government.

The analytical flaws included the fact that one of the two missiles – the one landing in Moadamiya, south of Damascus – had clipped a building during its descent making a precise calculation of its flight path impossible, plus the discovery that the Moadamiya missile contained no Sarin, making its use in the vectoring of two Sarin-laden rockets nonsensical.

But the Times’ analysis ultimately fell apart amid a consensus among missile experts that the rockets would have had a maximum range of only around three kilometers when the supposed launch site is about 9.5 kilometers from the impact zones in Moadamiya and Zamalka/Ein Tarma, east of Damascus.

The Times’ front-page “vectoring” article of Sept. 17 had declared: “One annex to the report [by UN inspectors] identified azimuths, or angular measurements, from where rockets had struck, back to their points of origin. When plotted and marked independently on maps by analysts from Human Rights Watch and by The New York Times, the United Nations data from two widely scattered impact sites pointed directly to a Syrian military complex.”

An accompanying map on the Times’ front page revealed the flight-path lines intersecting at an elite Syrian military unit, the 104th Brigade of the Republican Guard, based northwest of Damascus, near the Presidential Palace. This “evidence” was then cited by U.S. politicians and pundits as the in-your-face proof of the Syrian government’s guilt.

The Times/HRW analysis was especially important because the Obama administration, in making its case against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, had refused to release any evidence that could be independently evaluated. So, the “vector analysis” was almost the only visible nail in Assad’s coffin of guilt.

Short-Range Rockets

In Sunday’s article – the one below the fold on page 8 – the Times reported that a new analysis by two military experts concluded that the Aug. 21 rockets had a range of about three kilometers, or less than one-third the distance needed to intersect at the Syrian military base northwest of Damascus.

The report’s authors were Theodore A. Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Richard M. Lloyd, an analyst at the military contractor Tesla Laboratories.

The Times noted that “the authors said that their findings could help pinpoint accountability for the most lethal chemical warfare attack in decades, but that they also raised questions about the American government’s claims about the locations of launching points, and the technical intelligence behind them. … The analysis could also lead to calls for more transparency from the White House, as Dr. Postol said it undermined the Obama administration’s assertions about the rockets’ launch points.”

Finally, in the article’s 18th paragraph, the Times acknowledged its own role in misleading the public, noting that the rockets’ estimated maximum range of three kilometers “would be less than the ranges of more than nine kilometers calculated separately by The New York Times and Human Rights Watch in mid-September. … Those estimates had been based in part on connecting reported compass headings for two rockets cited in the United Nations’ initial report on the attacks.”

In other words, the much-ballyhooed “vector analysis” had collapsed under scrutiny, knocking the legs out from under Official Washington’s certainty that the Syrian government carried out the Aug. 21 attack which may have killed several hundred civilians including many children.

The Times article on Sunday was authored by C.J. Chivers, who along with Rick Gladstone, was a principal writer on the now-discredited Sept. 17 article.

The erosion of that “vector analysis” article has been underway for several months – through reporting at Web sites such as WhoGhouta and Consortiumnews.com – but few Americans knew about these challenges to the Official Story because the mainstream U.S. news media had essentially blacked them out.

When renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh composed a major article citing skepticism within the U.S. intelligence community regarding the Syrian government’s guilt, he had to go to the London Review of Books to get the story published. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Deceiving the US Public on Syria.”]

Even Ake Sellstrom, the head of the United Nations mission investigating chemical weapons use in Syria, challenged the vector analysis during a Dec. 13 UN press conference, citing expert estimates of the missiles’ range at about two kilometers, but his remarks were almost entirely ignored. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “UN Inspector Undercuts NYT on Syria.”]

A Replay of Iraqi WMD

Besides the deaths from the Sarin itself, perhaps the most troubling aspect of this episode has been how close the U.S. government came to going to war with Syria based on such flimsy and dubious evidence. It seems as if Official Washington and the U.S. mainstream news media have learned nothing from the disastrous rush to war in Iraq a decade ago.

Just as false assumptions about Iraq’s WMD set off a stampede over that cliff in 2003, a similar rush to judgment regarding Syria brought the U.S. government to the edge of another precipice of war in 2013.

The New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets propelled the rush to judgment in both cases, rather than questioning the official stories and demanding better evidence from U.S. government officials. In September 2002, the Times famously fronted an article linking Iraq’s purchase of some aluminum tubes to a secret nuclear weapons program, which — as Americans and Iraqis painfully learned later – didn’t exist.

In the case of Syria, another potential catastrophe was averted only by a strong opposition to war among the American public, as registered in opinion polls, and President Barack Obama’s last-minute decision to seek congressional approval for military action and then his openness to a diplomatic settlement brokered by Russia.

To defuse the crisis, the Syrian government agreed to destroy all its chemical weapons, while still denying any role in the Aug. 21 attack, which it blamed on Syrian rebels apparently trying to create a casus belli that would precipitate a U.S. intervention.

With very few exceptions, U.S. news outlets and think tanks mocked the notion of rebel responsibility and joined the Obama administration in expressing virtual certainty that the Assad regime was guilty.

There was almost no U.S. media skepticism on Aug. 30 when the White House stoked the war fever by posting on its Web site what was called a “Government Assessment,” a four-page white paper that blamed the Syrian government for the Sarin attack but presented zero evidence to support the conclusion.

Americans had to go to Internet sites to see questions raised about the peculiar presentation, since normally a decision on war would be supported by a National Intelligence Estimate containing the judgments of the 16 intelligence agencies. But an NIE would also include footnotes citing dissents from analysts who disputed the conclusion, of which I was told there were a number.

The Dogs Not Barking

As the war frenzy built in late August and early September, there was a striking absence of U.S. intelligence officials at administration briefings and congressional hearings. The dog-not-barking reason was that someone might have asked a question about whether the U.S. intelligence community was in agreement with the “Government Assessment.”

But these strange aspects of the Obama administration’s case were not noted by the major U.S. news media. Then, on Sept. 17 came the New York Times front-page article citing the “vector analysis.” It was the Perry Mason moment. The evidence literally pointed right at the “guilty” party, an elite unit of the Syrian military.

Whatever few doubts there were about the Syrian government’s guilt disappeared. From the triumphant view of Official Washington, those of us who had expressed skepticism about the U.S. government’s case could only hang our heads in shame and engage in some Maoist-style self-criticism.

For me, it was like a replay of Iraq-2003. Whenever the U.S. invading force discovered a barrel of chemicals, trumpeted on Fox News as proof of WMD, I’d get e-mails calling me a Saddam Hussein apologist and demanding that I admit that I had been wrong to question President George W. Bush’s WMD claims. Now, there were ugly accusations that I had been carrying water for Bashar al-Assad.

But – as John Adams once said – “facts are stubborn things.” And the smug certainty of Official Washington regarding the Syrian Sarin case gradually eroded much as a similar arrogance crumbled a decade ago when Iraq’s alleged WMD stockpiles never materialized.

While it’s still not clear who was responsible for the Aug. 21 deaths outside Damascus – whether a unit of the Syrian military, some radical rebel group or someone mishandling a dangerous payload – the facts should be followed objectively, not simply arranged to achieve a desired political outcome.

Now, with the New York Times’ grudging admission that its “vector analysis” has collapsed, the pressure should build on the Obama administration to finally put whatever evidence it has before the world’s public.

Syria crisis: evidence of 'industrial-scale killing' by regime spurs call for war crimes charges
Senior war crimes prosecutors say photographs and documents provide 'clear evidence' of systematic killing of 11,000 detainees

The Guardian, Monday 20 January 2014
A picture of Bashar al-Assad riddled with holes
Calls for Assad or other officials to face justice at the international criminal court in The Hague have foundered on the problem that Syria is not a member of the court. Photograph: Reuters
Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the "systematic killing" of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers.

The three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files recording deaths in the custody of regime security forces from March 2011 to last August.

Most of the victims were young men and many corpses were emaciated, bloodstained and bore signs of torture. Some had no eyes; others showed signs of strangulation or electrocution.

The UN and independent human rights groups have documented abuses by both Bashar al-Assad's government and rebels, but experts say this evidence is more detailed and on a far larger scale than anything else that has yet emerged from the 34-month crisis.

One of the images contained in the Syria report
One of the images contained in the report, purportedly showing ligature marks across the neck of a prisoner. Photograph: The report
The three lawyers interviewed the source, a military policeman who worked secretly with a Syrian opposition group and later defected and fled the country. In three sessions in the last 10 days they found him credible and truthful and his account "most compelling".

They put all evidence under rigorous scrutiny, says their report, which has been obtained by the Guardian and CNN.

The authors are Sir Desmond de Silva QC, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the former lead prosecutor of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, and Professor David Crane, who indicted President Charles Taylor of Liberia at the Sierra Leone court.

The defector, who for security reasons is identified only as Caesar, was a photographer with the Syrian military police. He smuggled the images out of the country on memory sticks to a contact in the Syrian National Movement, which is supported by the Gulf state of Qatar. Qatar, which has financed and armed rebel groups, has called for the overthrow of Assad and demanded his prosecution.

The 31-page report, which was commissioned by a leading firm of London solicitors acting for Qatar, is being made available to the UN, governments and human rights groups. Its publication appears deliberately timed to coincide with this week's UN-organised Geneva II peace conference, which is designed to negotiate a way out of the Syrian crisis by creating a transitional government.

Caesar told the investigators his job was "taking pictures of killed detainees". He did not claim to have witnessed executions or torture. But he did describe a highly bureaucratic system.

"The procedure was that when detainees were killed at their places of detention their bodies would be taken to a military hospital to which he would be sent with a doctor and a member of the judiciary, Caesar's function being to photograph the corpses … There could be as many as 50 bodies a day to photograph which require 15 to 30 minutes of work per corpse," the report says.

"The reason for photographing executed persons was twofold. First to permit a death certificate to be produced without families requiring to see the body, thereby avoiding the authorities having to give a truthful account of their deaths; second to confirm that orders to execute individuals had been carried out."

Families were told that the cause of death was either a "heart attack" or "breathing problems", it added. "The procedure for documentation was that when a detainee was killed each body was given a reference number which related to that branch of the security service responsible for his detention and death.

"When the corpse was taken to the military hospital it was given a further number so as to document, falsely, that death had occurred in the hospital. Once the bodies were photographed, they were taken for burial in a rural area."

Three experienced forensic science experts examined and authenticated samples of 55,000 digital images, comprising about 11,000 victims. "Overall there was evidence that a significant number of the deceased were emaciated and a significant minority had been bound and/or beaten with rod-like objects," the report says.

"In only a minority of the cases … could a convincing injury that would account for death be seen, but any fatal injury to the back of the body would not be represented in the images …

"The forensics team make clear that there are many ways in which an individual may be killed with minimal or even absent external evidence of the mechanism."

The inquiry team said it was satisfied there was "clear evidence, capable of being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government. It would support findings of crimes against humanity and could also support findings of war crimes against the current Syrian regime."

De Silva told the Guardian that the evidence "documented industrial-scale killing". He added: "This is a smoking gun of a kind we didn't have before. It makes a very strong case indeed."

Calls for Assad or others to face justice at the international criminal court in The Hague have foundered on the problems that Syria is not a member of the court, and that the required referral by the UN security council might not be supported by the US and UK or would be blocked by Russia, Syria's close ally.

Nice said: "It would not necessarily be possible to track back with any degree of certainty to the head of state. Ultimately, in any war crimes trial you can imagine a prosecutor arguing that the overall quantity of evidence meant that the pattern of behaviour would have been approved at a high level.

"But whether you can go beyond that and say it must be head of state-approved is rather more difficult. But 'widespread and systematic' does betoken government control."

Crane said: "Now we have direct evidence of what was happening to people who had disappeared. This is the first provable, direct evidence of what has happened to at least 11,000 human beings who have been tortured and executed and apparently disposed of.

"This is amazing. This is the type of evidence a prosecutor looks for and hopes for. We have pictures, with numbers that marry up with papers with identical numbers – official governmentdocuments. We have the person who took those pictures. That's beyond-reasonable-doubt-type evidence."

A US administration official told the Guardian on Monday: "We stand with the rest of the world in horror at these images which have come to light. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the actions of the regime and call on it to adhere to international obligations with respect to the treatment of prisoners.

"We have long spoken out about mistreatment and deteriorating prison conditions in Syria. These latest reports, and the photographs that support them, demonstrate just how far the regime is willing to go to not only deny freedom and dignity to the Syrian people, but to inflict significant emotional and physical pain in the process. To be sure, these reports suggest widespread and apparently systematic violations of international humanitarian law.

"The regime has the ability to improve the atmosphere for negotiations in Geneva by making progress in several areas. However, this latest report of horrific and inhumane prison conditions/actions further underscores that if anything, it is tarnishing the environment for the talks.

"As we have for over two years, and again today, we call on the Syrian government to grant immediate and unfettered access to all their detention facilities by international documentation bodies, including the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

"We have long said that those responsible for atrocities in Syria must be held accountable for their gross violations of human rights. The United States continues to support efforts to promote accountability and transitional justice, and we call on the international community to do the same."

William Hague, the UK foreign secretary, said: "This report offers further evidence of the systematic violence and brutality being visited upon the people of Syria by the Assad regime. We will continue to press for action on all human rights violations in Syria, and for accountability for those who perpetrate them."

Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch said his organisation had not had the opportunity to authenticate the images. But he added: "We have documented repeatedly how Syria's security services regularly torture – sometimes to death – detainees in their custody.

"These photos – if authentic – suggest that we may have only scratched the surface of the horrific extent of torture in Syria's notorious dungeons. There is only one way to get to the bottom of this and that is for the negotiating parties at Geneva II to grant unhindered access to Syria's detention facilities to independent monitors."