organization:syrian government

Why the U.S. Military Can’t Fix Syria
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/opinion/why-the-us-military-cant-fix-syria.html

The memo’s authors and other interventionists fail to recognize that the United States in fact has effectively weakened President Bashar al-Assad already. In 2015, the administration’s aggressive covert action program facilitated significant gains for the opposition in northern Syria, exposed Latakia — the regime’s heartland — to attack, and diminished the Syrian military position in the northwestern province of Idlib.

But these losses were also key factors in Russia’s decision to enter the Syrian fray after years of sitting on the sidelines. This gives the lie to the interventionists’ belief that “judicious” airstrikes could somehow disempower the Assad government, sap Russian resolve and improve prospects for a negotiated solution.

If Moscow saw fit to intervene on account of Washington’s covert support for the rebels, it is only logical that it would retaliate even more strongly in the event of overt support. Indeed, that prospect is probably Moscow’s main motivation for keeping an air contingent and thousands of troops in Syria, conducting regular operations there and continuing to assure the Syrian government of Russia’s unstinting support.

Even in the unfathomable event that Russia were to abandon Syria, direct American military action would cause Iran and Hezbollah, the Assad government’s closest allies, to intensify their support. This would strengthen hawks in Iran and dim prospects for further improvement in United States-Iran relations.

Perhaps the interventionists believe that American military action would force Mr. Assad to the peace table. That prospect is equally implausible. There is no conceivable bargain that the Syrian president could strike with his adversaries, many of whom are hard-line Islamists. He and his colleagues would rather go down fighting than hand Syria to Sunni jihadists. The same goes for Iran and Hezbollah.

In the Line of Fire - the War Against the UN in Syria
▻http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/line-fire-war-un-syria

Since the war in Syria began, aid delivery has been politicized. The anti-regime camp rejected the very notion of delivering aid through government held areas. Western countries who backed the insurgency and supported regime change pushed for most aid to be delivered “cross border,” from Turkey or Jordan. Diplomats and aid workers based in Turkey or Jordan often went native and viewed aid agencies based in Damascus as the enemy. Even the UN faced divisions and rivalries. At the center of this was Yacoub El Hillo, the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Syria since August 2013. El Hillo’s very existence was an affront to those who prioritized regime change above all else and because he was based in Damascus and accredited by the Syrian government he was required to acknowledge the Syrian government as it continued to represent the sovereignty of Syria at the United Nations. This cooperation with Syrian state institutions was anathema to those who hoped El Hillo could be some kind of humanitarian dictator, operating as if there was no Syrian state. But since most Syrians still live in government held parts of Syria and there is still a government with institutions and security forces, the UN must work especially with institutions that provide services to people such as health, education, water, electricity and vaccination.

[…]

In mid June an advocacy group called The Syria Campaign accused the UN of collaborating with and supporting the government’s policies.

Un point assez complet sur les combats actuels en Syrie et la pause dans les pourparlers :
Syrian rebels launch new assaults as opposition seeks peace talks ’pause’
MEE / 18.04.16
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/rebels-launch-new-offensives-syrian-opposition-seeks-pause-peace-talk
Relevé des points saillants :
A Lattaquieh :

Among the groups involved in the Latakia offensive are Kataib Ansar al-Sham, the al-Qaeda-linked Turkistan Islamic Party, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaish al-Islam and the First Coastal Division.

A Hama :

There were also reports of a new opposition offensive against government targets in Hama.
According to the pro-Assad al-Masdar news site, fighters from the al-Qaeda splinter group Jund al-Aqsa launched a major assault on the al-Ghaab Plains near the Hama-Latakia axis, in an attempt to capture the village of Khirbat al-Naqous.

A Alep :

On Sunday, government jets carried out air strikes in Aleppo province that killed at least 11 civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.

Formation d’une nouvelle chambre d’opération commune Ahrar al-Cham/ Jaysh al-Islam et groupes labellisés ASL - sans qu’al-Nousra qui participe aux combats, avec d’autres organisations classées terroristes (Parti Islamique du Turkestan), n’en fassent formellement partie :

A number of groups, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham group, also announced on Monday the “formation of a joint operations room to begin the battle...in response to violations by the army of Assad”.

Toujours la question d’Assad sur laquelle les négociations achoppent :

Negotiations between the opposition and the government have stalled over the government’s refusal to discuss the opposition’s call for Assad to step aside as part of any peace deal and some have suggested that rebels on the ground have pushed for the opposition negotiators to withdraw from talks altogether.

Les tweets de Mohammed Allouche, négociateur du HCN (opposition de Ryadh) appellant à frapper le régime partout - et donc à mettre fin à la cessation des hostilités :

On Sunday, Mohammed Alloush, senior negotiator for the HNC, called in a tweet for the resumption of attacks on Syrian government targets.
“Don’t trust the regime and don’t wait for their pity,” Alloush wrote on Twitter.
“Strike them at their necks [kill them]. Strike them everywhere,” he said, reciting a passage from the Quran dealing with war.

En bonus de jolies photos/vidéos récentes de rebelles avec des missiles anti-tanks américains TOW et des missiles sol-air portatifs (chinois)...

#option_Stinger

The Assad Files. Capturing the top-secret documents that tie the Syrian regime to mass torture and killings.

The investigator in Syria had made the drive perhaps a hundred times, always in the same battered truck, never with any cargo. It was forty miles to the border, through eleven rebel checkpoints, where the soldiers had come to think of him as a local, a lawyer whose wartime misfortunes included a commute on their section of the road. Sometimes he brought them snacks or water, and he made sure to thank them for protecting civilians like himself. Now, on a summer afternoon, he loaded the truck with more than a hundred thousand captured Syrian government documents, which had been buried in pits and hidden in caves and abandoned homes.

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/160418_r27994-320.jpg

Sur la présence forte d’al-Nousra à Alep :
Nusra tightens grip in Syria’s Aleppo, despite civilian opposition
Al-Qaeda’s affiliate has a growing presence in city, with weekly parades by supporters and a grudging tolerance among other rebels
MEE / 08.04.16
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/nusra-aleppo-ceasefire-1772863533

The black flags of the Nusra Front were held high as supporters paraded down the streets of the rebel-controlled eastern part of this city.
Traffic ground to a halt as crowds gathered to fire Kalashnikovs in the air and chant for al-Qaeda’s affiliate: “We are the soldiers of God... democracy is for infidels.”
Since the start of the year, such marches have become an almost weekly event in Aleppo, a city that has become a flashpoint of Syria’s war - attacked from the air by Russia, pressed on the ground by Syrian government forces.
An internationally agreed ceasefire between “moderate” rebels and Syrian government forces does not include Nusra, placing pressure on their fighters to withdraw from civilian areas as they face continued bombardment.
In neighbouring Idlib, the group’s stronghold, pro-democracy protesters clashed with Nusra supporters last month.
But in Aleppo, Nusra appears unmoved by counter-marches by moderates and an apparent growing opposition among residents to its presence.
The signs are that Nusra is in Aleppo, and it is staying in Aleppo.
Mustapha al-Maghrebi, who sells clothes in the east of the city, told Middle East Eye: “The protests target those who oppose them.
“They call for the establishment of a caliphate and sharia law instead of ’infidel’ rule,” he added - a reference to moderates currently running rebel-held areas.
“They have no other goal but to remind the public and the Free Syrian Army that Nusra is present, strong and not going anywhere.”
Arif al-Ahmed, an English teacher, added: “Of course. Who lives in Aleppo and hasn’t seen Nusra protests in the streets? They’re targeting areas without much religious education. God will punish them for this."

#c'est_qui_l'patron?

Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption · ICIJ
►https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html

A massive leak of documents exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies.

The leak also provides details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.

The cache of 11.5 million records shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.

These are among the findings of a yearlong investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations.

The files expose offshore companies controlled by the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the king of Saudi Arabia and the children of the president of Azerbaijan.

They also include at least 33 people and companies blacklisted by the U.S. government because of evidence that they’d been involved in wrongdoing, such as doing business with Mexican drug lords, terrorist organizations like Hezbollah or rogue nations like North Korea and Iran.

One of those companies supplied fuel for the aircraft that the Syrian government used to bomb and kill thousands of its own citizens, U.S. authorities have charged.

#paradis_fiscaux #corruption

Hillary Clinton Email: Overthrow Assad, Destroy Syria For Israel
▻http://www.inquisitr.com/2922838/hillary-clinton-email-overthrow-assad-destroy-syria-for-israel-2

Clinton specifically mentions Iran’s nuclear program as threatening Israel’s atomic monopoly in the Middle East, and that other “adversaries” in the region could be encouraged to go nuclear as well and threaten the interests of the U.S. and Israel. In true realpolitik Machiavellian logic, this means that Syria must be destroyed.

“Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about — but cannot talk about — is losing their nuclear monopoly.”

She goes on to detail the relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria through Iran’s alleged proxies and proposes toppling Assad will solve this problem.

“It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security — not through a direct attack, which in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel has never occurred, but through its proxies in Lebanon, like Hezbollah, that are sustained, armed and trained by Iran via Syria. The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel’s leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests.”

Chillingly, she also mentions that bringing down the Syrian government by force may open the doors to military action against Iran.

“Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly. Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted. Right now, it is the combination of Iran’s strategic alliance with Syria and the steady progress in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program that has led Israeli leaders to contemplate a surprise attack — if necessary over the objections of Washington.”

Détail important:

It should be noted that the Wikileaks transcript of the email is incorrectly dated to December 31, 2000, which is an obvious error due to references in the text to the Syrian Civil War, which began in March 2011, as well as references to the May 2012 negotiations in Istanbul between Iran and the west over its nuclear program. Most likely the actual date of the email is December 31, 2012. At the time, Clinton was Secretary of State for President Barack Obama.

Le mail d’origine chez Wikileaks:
▻https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18328

Sharmine Narwani sur RT
How narratives killed the Syrian people
▻https://www.rt.com/op-edge/336934-syria-war-conflict-narrative

According to the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, the combined death toll for Syrian government forces was 2,569 by March 2012, the first year of the conflict. At that time, the UN’s total casualty count for all victims of political violence in Syria was 5,000.
These numbers paint an entirely different picture of events in Syria. This was decidedly not the conflict we were reading about in our headlines – if anything, the ‘parity’ in deaths on both sides even suggests that the government used ‘proportionate’ force in thwarting the violence.
But Merhej and Dayoub’s deaths were ignored. Not a single Western media headline told their story – or that of the other dead soldiers. These deaths simply didn’t line up with the Western ‘narrative’ of the Arab uprisings and did not conform to the policy objectives of Western governments.
For American policymakers, the “Arab Spring” provided a unique opportunity to unseat the governments of adversary states in the Middle East. Syria, the most important Arab member of the Iran-led ‘Resistance Axis,’ was target number one.
To create regime-change in Syria, the themes of the “Arab Spring” needed to be employed opportunistically - and so Syrians needed to die.

Reporting (or Not) the Ties Between US-Armed Syrian Rebels and Al Qaeda’s Affiliate
►http://fair.org/home/reporting-or-not-the-ties-between-us-armed-syrian-rebels-and-al-qaedas-affilia

À la fois étiqueter groupe terroriste #al_nusra, et en fait compter sur lui et l’appuyer,

The Obama administration has long portrayed the opposition groups it has been arming with anti-tank weapons as independent of Nusra Front. In reality, the administration has been relying on the close cooperation of these “moderate” groups with Nusra Front to put pressure on the Syrian government. The United States and its allies–especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey–want the civil war to end with the dissolution of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by US rivals like Russia and Iran.

Reflecting the fact that Nusra Front was created by #Al_Qaeda and has confirmed its loyalty to it, the administration designated Nusra as a terrorist organization in 2013. But the US has carried out very few airstrikes against it since then, in contrast to the other offspring of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or ISIS (Daesh), which has been the subject of intense air attacks from the US and its European allies. The US has remained silent about Nusra Front’s leading role in the military effort against Assad, concealing the fact that Nusra’s success in northwest Syria has been a key element in Secretary of State John Kerry’s diplomatic strategy for Syria.

When Russian intervention in support of the Syrian government began last September, targeting not only ISIS but also the Nusra Front and US-supported groups allied with them against the Assad regime, the Obama administration immediately argued that Russian airstrikes were targeting “moderate” groups rather than ISIS, and insisted that those strikes had to stop.

#délétère #Etats-Unis #Syrie

Look back and learn: #Safe_zones in Iraq and Bosnia

A long-standing Turkish proposal to create a so-called safe zone inside Syria, where civilians displaced by fighting could find refuge and assistance without having to leave the country, received a boost last week with an apparent endorsement from European leaders.

▻https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/03/15/look-back-and-learn-safe-zones-iraq-and-bosnia
#zones_sures #Syrie #conflit #guerre #histoire #Bosnie #zones_sûres #Irak #safe_zone #zone_sure
cc @reka

Interpreting the Russian Withdrawal from Syria - Syria in Crisis - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
▻http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=63042

Putin may be telling the truth. The Russian intervention has achieved quite a lot. It has undercut the Syrian opposition, stabilized Assad’s government, and produced a peace process on more favorable terms for Assad than was previously possible. Perhaps Putin was always planning for an intervention of limited duration and kept Assad informed about this. With a truce in place, now is a good time to start scaling it down.

Meanwhile, other forms of support to the Syrian government are likely to continue and, if the peace process collapses, Putin could easily reverse his decision. Remember, the Hmeymim and Tartus bases will remain operational, which leaves Russia with all the infrastructure it needs to resume airstrikes on short notice.

Putin may be bluffing. The Russian government is not above a bit of wartime subterfuge and Putin saying something is not the same as Moscow actually doing it. The Kremlin has very consistently lied about its troop presence in eastern Ukraine and about what insurgent factions are being targeted in Syria. It is possible that the Russian president is simply telling his enemies what they want to hear, in order to mollify critics in the White House and gain time, without any intention of stopping the attacks.

Le PYD kurde annonce unilatéralement la création d’une région fédérale (autonome) au nord-est de la Syrie (Qamishli-Kobané), en pleine discussion à Genève (dont les Kurdes ne font pas partie) :
Dépêche AP :
▻http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:6bfb16dc44214b5bb8fb4bbb204e3589

BEIRUT (AP) — A powerful Kurdish party announced plans Wednesday to declare a federal region in northern Syria, an idea promptly dismissed by Turkey and Syrian government negotiators at U.N.-brokered peace talks.
The declaration was expected to be made at the end of a Kurdish conference that began Wednesday in the town of Rmeilan, in Syria’s northern Hassakeh province.
It comes as the Damascus government and Western- and Saudi-backed rebels are holding peace talks with a U.N. envoy in Geneva on ways to end the devastating civil war, which this week entered its sixth year.
The main Syrian Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), have so far been excluded from those talks so as not to anger Turkey, despite Russia’s insistence that they be part of the negotiations. Ankara views the group as a terrorist organization.

Et dans le même temps le YPG kurde semble mettre un coup de pression au gouvernement en assiégeant le quartier-général des Forces de Défense Nationale (milice pro-régime) dans la ville kurde de Qamishli.

Turkey thanks Merkel for support of #safe_zones in Syria

Turkey’s foreign minister has thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her support of the Turkish government’s demand to establish safe zones inside Syria, while U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed wariness over a safe zone in Syria, saying that up to 30,000 troops would be needed to maintain the area.

▻http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-thanks-merkel-for-support-of-safe-zones-in-syria.aspx?page

Commentaire reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop :

- De facto, since Aleppo bombing by Russian army, Syrians cannot enter any more Turkey. They are stopped at the border. This decision was taken by Turkey without any existence of “safe zone” yet. This means that protection of the population is not the main goal behind this decision of “safe zone” in Syria: stemming the “inflow” of refugees is the main objective.

– Again, militarization of refugee “problems”: refugees will be surrounded by army to “protect” them. According to John Kerry, the deployment of up to 30,000 troops is needed and nobody agreed clearly on such deployment. Merkel agrees on safe zone but it is not sure that such protection can be granted to refugees. And what does protection mean when such troops can be the proper target of armed groups in Syria?

– Merkel still raises her voice to welcome refugees in Europe and faces all other European countries, stuck in the closure of borders. But meanwhile, Merkel agrees de facto on the closure of all Turkish borders: Germany controls NATO operations at sea and support Turkish desire of establishing a “safe zone”.

– Hypocrisy: "This proposal of Turkey was not seriously discussed when we first brought it to the agenda. But even with delay, Turkey’s proposal is now understood”. NO: the idea of safe zones had been rejected by the international community as an irrelevant “solution” that went against refugees safety. It had been seriously discussed and rejected with arguments. “Given the huge refugee problem threatening the EU’s unity”, Germany (and certainly the European Union will follow Merkel) changes her mind. For European ’safety’ and ’peace’, not for refugees’ protection.

#Allemagne #Turquie #réfugiés #asile #migrations #safe_zone #Syrie #safe_zones #zone_sure #zones_sures

Why Assad’s Army Has Not Defected – Article clairement partisan, mais (1) publié dans un canard républicain influent, désormais éloigné des néo-conservateurs, (2) ce paragraphe relativise la ségrégation des sunnites dans l’armée habituellement présentée sur le ton de l’évidence.
▻http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-assads-army-has-not-defected-15190

The Syrian Arab Army has held its own for more than five years; its numbers might have been depleted, as is normal for any wartime military, but a close glance at its military reveals that its core, perhaps unexpectedly to many, is Sunni. The current minister of defense, Fahd al-Freij, is one of the most decorated officers in Syrian military history and hails from the Sunni heartland of Hama. The two most powerful intelligence chiefs, Ali Mamlouk and Mohammad Dib Zaitoun, have remained loyal to the Syrian government—and are both Sunnis from influential families. The now-dead and dreaded strongman of Syrian intelligence, Rustom Ghazaleh, who ruled Lebanon with an iron fist, was a Sunni, and the head of the investigative branch of the political directorate, Mahmoud al-Khattib, is from an old Damascene Sunni family. Major General Ramadan Mahmoud Ramadan, commander of the Thirty-Fifth Special Forces Regiment, which is tasked with the protection of western Damascus, is another high-ranking Sunni, as is Brigadier General Jihad Mohamed Sultan, the commander of the Sixty-Fifth Brigade that guards Latakia.

Ce détail, au détour d’un article sur les comportements extrêmement partisans des journalistes qui couvrent Genève : The media war at Syria peace talks
▻http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-syria-geneva-media-20160204-story.html

Meanwhile, the opposition’s massive media support team, with professionals from a Washington-based public relations firm, the British Foreign Office and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, helped coordinate a steady flow of interviews with various opposition spokesmen well into the night. The Syrian government contingent struggled to keep up.

Under pressure from Turkey, UN excludes PYD from Syria talks
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/turkey-usa-syria-talks-ankara-won-batlle-against-pyd.html

That sentiment — that the United States sold out the Kurds — is not completely off-base. I arrived in Brussels on Jan. 25 to attend the European Parliament’s annual conference on the Kurds, organized by its leftist party bloc, which includes Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi of Iran and Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, as well as controversial American scholar Noam Chomsky.

I was a speaker on a panel with Selahattin Demirtas, Turkey’s popular pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) chairman, and Peter Galbraith, a former American ambassador considered a close friend of the Kurds because of the role he played in the struggles of Iraqi Kurds.

PYD leader Salih Muslim was on the list of speakers for the second day of that conference. But when I arrived in Brussels, I was told Muslim had left for Geneva at the invitation of UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura. He would be back the next day and then would travel again to Geneva for the Geneva III talks, which were set for Jan. 29.

Thanks to my Kurdish sources, who were in constant communication with Muslim, I learned that Galbraith had come to Brussels from Geneva, where he also had met with American officials working on the Geneva III talks. He had been told that the United States was keen on seeing the PYD at the table during the talks.

On Jan. 26, before Muslim was back in Brussels, the news broke: De Mistura had issued invitation letters to the Arab members of the Syrian Democratic Council like Manna. It was assumed that Muslim would be returning to Brussels with his invitation letter in his bag.

Instead, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was in Strasbourg, Germany, said Turkey would boycott the Geneva talks if the PYD was involved.

Some hours earlier, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, had said Turkey objected to the PYD’s involvement because it is a terrorist organization, but would not object if it was included in the Syrian government’s delegation.

Galbraith was texting with Muslim, who informed him that de Mistura had not issued an official invitation to the PYD.

Manna announced that if their Kurdish allies would not be at the talks, the other members of the Syrian Democratic Council would not be participating, either.

The Kurdish sources in Brussels who were in constant contact with Muslim told me the morning of Jan. 27 that they had just spoken to Muslim, who was at that moment in a meeting with the Americans and that the PYD representation was still pending. He said everything would be clear by noon.

By evening, word came from Washington. US State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner declared that the PYD will not be invited to Geneva.

The Road to Geneva: the Who, When, and How of Syria’s Peace Talks - Syria in Crisis - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
▻http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=62631

A new round of Syrian peace talks, known as Geneva III, was supposed to begin on January 25 but ended up being postponed to January 29. Now that the day has arrived, they’re still not quite ready to begin—but UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is putting on a brave face. He has already met with the Syrian government delegation headed by President Bashar al-Assad’s UN representative Bashar al-Jaafari, but other invitees remain absent.

The reasons for these delays are complex, but the primary issue is a dispute over who should be allowed to represent the Syrian opposition and perhaps whether it is useful to think in terms of a single Syrian opposition at all. Opposition groups and individuals who participated in the December Riyadh meeting as well as Russian-backed individuals have been invited in various capacities, while so far Kurdish groups are excluded. And while no one expects any significant progress toward a resolution of the Syria conflict to emerge from the meetings, de Mistura is hard at work trying to establish Geneva III as a framework for conflict management and the mitigation of Syrians’ horrific suffering.

Syria Comment - Syrian politics, history, and religion
►http://www.joshualandis.com/blog

C’est juste le résumé de ses 10 points, très bien développés. En plus, Joshua Landis devait être en forme, il y a un certain nombre de formules assez drôles, sur un sujet uqi ne l’est pas vraiment, on est d’accord...

10. The Death of Zahran Alloush.
9. The Failure of the Southern Storm Offensive.
8. Operation Decisive Quagmire.
7. Europe’s Syria Fatigue vs. Assad’s Viability
6. The Vienna Meeting, the ISSG, and Geneva III.
5. The Donald.
4. The Iran Deal.
3. The Continuing Structural Decay of the Syrian Government. 

2. The American-Kurdish Alliance.
1. The Russian Intervention.❞

#syrie

Selon le site d’al-Jazeera, le porte-parle des SDF, Syrian Democratic Forces (principalement les forces kurdes du YPG), leur a confirmé que l’armée américaine a bien pris le contrôle d’une base aérienne en Syrie. Ceci à la suite d’un accord avec le YPG qu’elle appuie, concomitamment avec les Russes, l’armée US se voit donc octroyer la base de Rmeilan, au nord-est, en zone kurde syrienne, aux confins de la Turquie et de l’Irak.
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/takes-control-rmeilan-airfield-syria-160119141331681.html

US troops have taken control of Rmeilan airfield in Syria’s northern province of Hasakah to support Kurdish fighters against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told Al Jazeera.
The airfield near the city of Rmeilan, which will become the first US-controlled airbase in Syria, was previously controlled by the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The airfield is close to Syria’s borders with Iraq and Turkey.
ISIL in Syria confronted by new alliance of opposition groups
“Under a deal with the YPG, the US was given control of the airport. The purpose of this deal is to back up the SDF, by providing weapons and an airbase for US warplanes,” Taj Kordsh, a media activist from the SDF told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
"This airport was previously controlled by the YPG for over two years now. This strategic airport is close to several oil bases - one of the biggest in this area.
“Rmeilan airport was previously used for agricultural purposes by the Syrian government,” he said.
Previous reports published by the Syrian Local Coordination Committees say that the US has been preparing and expanding Rmeilan airport for a while now.
When asked by Al Jazeera, a US CENTCOM media operations officer did not confirm or deny the reports.
[...]
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor also reported on Monday that the US had taken control of the airbase.
Sourcing activists, the Observatory said the airfield is still being prepared for use by the US.

Avec la base de Bashiqa en Irak, occupée par les forces armées turques et ce malgré l’opposition déclarée de Baghdad, mais avec l’aval du Gouvernement Régional du Kurdistan irakien et l’appui de la milice de l’ex-gouverneur de Mossoul, Nujaïfi, c’est donc la deuxième base militaire étrangère à s’implanter récemment dans la région et ce en violant clairement la souveraineté des Etats syrien et irakien - ou de ce qu’il en reste...

Comment écrire pour Al Jazeera ?
1. Innover dans les concepts en écrivant « massacre » entre guillemets.
2. Préciser, dans le premier paragraphe, que le massacre a eu lieu dans un « quartier tenu par le gouvernement syrien ».
3. Bien préciser, dans le second paragraphe « qu’au moins 80 des tués étaient des miliciens pro-gouvernement ».
4. Ne pas oublier de préciser, dans le quatrième paragraphe au sujet des 400 civils enlevés, « y compris des familles des combattants pro-gouvernementaux ».

ISIL ’massacre’ reported in Syria’s Deir Az Zor
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/isil-massacre-reported-syria-deir-ez-zor-160116192050214.html#

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has been accused of carrying out a massacre in Syrian government-held districts in the eastern city of Deir Az Zor with a monitoring group saying more than 130 people were killed.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday that at least 80 of those killed were pro-government militiamen and the rest were civilians, as the armed group captured the northern suburb of al-Baghaliyeh.

The Observatory added that at least 400 civilians, including families of pro-government fighters, were abducted.

Turkey’s Dangerous Game
▻http://www.unz.com/article/turkeys-dangerous-game

Turkey shot down the Russian plane because Moscow was effective in the fight against the Syrian insurgency, to include ISIS, enabling the Syrian army to recover lost territory. As Turkey is nominally a U.S. ally in combatting ISIS going after another de facto ally would seem to be a strange choice, but it ignores the fact that Ankara has been duplicitous from the beginning in terms of its real objectives. Turkey has been reckless in allowing jihadists to travel through it both coming from Europe and returning from the battlefields of Syria. Turkey’s major strategic goals in the Syrian civil war have everything to do with striking the Kurds and removing Bashar al-Assad from power. Erdogan has no interest at all in defeating ISIS, quite the contrary.

Ankara has studiously avoided attacking ISIS because its true objective is to prevent the formation of any Kurdish State, which would in part be on a considerable piece of Turkish territory if it were fully realized. The animus being directed against Syrian President Bashar al Assad is due to the fact that Ankara believes him to be complicit in supporting anti-Turkish Kurdish rebels along the border. That means the Erdogan is using the war against ISIS as a cover for his own agenda, which is bombing the Kurds and eliminating the Syrian government as a potential supporter of dissident Turkish Kurds who might be using Syrian territory as a safe haven.

Indeed, one might reasonably go a step farther to assert that Turkey has been an ally of ISIS, supporting from the beginning radical Sunni groups that eventually came together to form the terrorist organization. When I was last in Istanbul in July 2014, ISIS supporters were seen in various Istanbul neighborhoods collecting money to support their cause. There have since that time been frequent reports of ISIS militants moving back and forth across the Syria-Turkish border without any interference from Ankara. It has been suggested that wounded militants were routinely treated in Turkish hospitals and allowed to recuperate and rearm inside Turkey. There have also been widely observed movements of weapons into Syria to arm ISIS organized by Erdogan’s government. Recently two well-known Turkish journalists were arrested for reporting on the arms movements. They face years in prison if convicted, which will surely be the case.

[...]

More recently there have been a number of attacks inside Turkey that have been attributed to ISIS but which just as plausibly might be credited to the Turkish intelligence service MIT. One bombing in Ankara in October, attributed alternatively to ISIS and to Kurds, killed 102 and was particularly suspicious coming as it did shortly before elections. The various attacks were exploited to increase government pressure on the Kurdish minority and to weaken the opposition People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which is largely Kurdish. The so-called ISIS attacks also were used to create the impression to the U.S. and NATO allies that Turkey was actually in the fight against the Islamic State even though it really was not. The White House, frustrated by the Turkish inaction, was not fooled by the charade but it felt that it was in no position to contradict Erdogan.

#Turquie #PKK #Syrie #Kurdes

10 facts the government doesn’t want you to know about Syria | Informed Comment
▻http://www.juancole.com/2015/12/government-doesnt-about.html

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Fact 1: The West has been involved in the Syrian conflict since 2012

The dominant narrative, repeatedly pushed by the liberal media, is that the West has declined to get involved in the Syrian conflict, its inaction leading to the conflict escalating out of control.

In the real world the US started helping to arm the Syrian rebels trying to overthrow the Syrian government from summer 2012 onwards. By March 2013 the New York Times was quoting experts who said these arms shipments totalled 3,500 tons of military equipment. Citing Jordanian security sources, in the same month the Guardian reported that US, UK and French personnel were training Syrian rebels in Jordan. Later that year the New York Times noted that US and UK intelligence services were secretly working with Saudi Arabia to deliver weapons to the rebels. The US and UK cooperation with Saudi Arabia was covert, the report explained, because “American and British intelligence and Arab governments… do not want their support publicly known”. By June 2015 US officials told the Washington Post that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had trained and equipped 10,000 Syrian rebels at a cost of $1bn.

Tout l’article est très intéressant.

#syrie

Syrian peace process is taking wings – Indian Punchline - By M K Bhadrakumar– November 15, 2015
▻http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2015/11/15/syrian-peace-process-is-taking-wings

The terrorist strikes in Paris on Friday doubtless administered a shock therapy to the International Syria Support Group [ISSG] meeting in Vienna. The communiqué issued after the meeting on Saturday covered more ground than one would have expected. The document candidly admits that “a unanimous sense of urgency” prevailed during the “constructive dialogue” in Vienna with a view to “accelerate an end” to the Syrian conflict.

The UN secretary-general’s special envoy on Syria Steffan de Mistura, who is an accomplished diplomat, actually used the expression “critical mass” to sum up the outcome of Sunday’s discussions. A plan of action has been drawn up by the ISSG with a definite timeline. Most important, the United Nations Security Council is getting ready to monitor the action plan. Principally, the plan envisages that:

– A peace process involving the Syrian government and opposition representatives will formally commence on 1st January 2016;
– Simultaneously, there will be a nation-wide ceasefire in Syria, which will be monitored by a UN-endorsed ceasefire monitoring mission;
– Meanwhile, confidence-building measures will be taken, especially to ensure “expeditious humanitarian access”;
– On a parallel track, Jordan has been tasked with drawing up a list of irreconcilable extremist groups in addition to the Islamic State and Nusra Front;
– The Syrian-led peace process will establish by end-June 2016 a “credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance” (read transition) and “set a schedule and process” for drafting a new constitution;
– Free and fair elections as per the new constitution will be held under UN supervision “within 18 months” in which “all Syrians, including the diaspora” will be eligible to participate.

Once again, the fate of President Bashar Al-Assad has been sidestepped. Most western analysts tend to see it as a no-go area that diplomats fear to tread. But is it necessarily so? The point is, an overriding principle has now been accepted, namely, it will be entirely up to the Syrian people to accept or reject the new leadership.
(...)
Also, it has been decided to induct the Organization of Islamic Conference into the ISSG. Taken together, this shift opens the way for Islamic parties (such as Muslim Brotherhood) to participate in the future elections under the new constitution. To be sure, this signifies a major concession to Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. (...)

Saudi support to rebels slows Assad attacks : pro-Damascus sources
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/06/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0SV23O20151106#1QuTAv5H04d1o1m0.97

Offensives by the Syrian army and its allies backed by Russian air strikes are going more slowly than expected due to increased Saudi support to rebels, senior sources close to the Syrian government said, as the insurgents pressed a counter attack on Friday.
[...]
In a frank assessment of the situation facing the government side, the two senior sources - neither of them Syrian - said the course of battle had been slowed by more military support to the rebels from Saudi Arabia, which is vying for influence with Iran across the Middle East and wants Assad gone from power.
They cited increased supplies of anti-tank TOW missiles to the rebels as a big factor.
They said the government offensives were still on track although going more slowly than envisaged. Government defensive lines, particularly in the coastal province of Latakia, had been shored up.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب : Take One : how Human Rights Watch justified the placement of Alawite civilians in cages as human shields
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2015/11/take-one-how-human-rights-watch.html

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Et cet autre commentaire n’est pas mal non plus, qui décortique le minable communiqué de HRW. Faut-il préciser qour ceux qui ne le lisent pas régulièrement, que l’auteur dénonce régulièrement les horreurs du gouvernement syrien ?

Take One: how Human Rights Watch justified the placement of Alawite civilians in cages as human shields
1) notice that the headline does not talk about human shields but provides justifications for the war crime: “Armed Groups Use Caged Hostages to Deter Attacks”.
2) Another justification for the war crime: “even if the purpose is to stop indiscriminate government attacks,” said Nadim Houry”.
3) Yet another justification of the practice: “Syrian government forces have repeatedly attacked residential areas and popular markets in Eastern Ghouta”. I defy you to find this: in all the many statements by Human Rights Watch about war crimes of the regime do they ever insert a sentence or a passage to the effect that Syrian rebels also target civilians? The sentence here is merely inserted to justify the war crimes and to engender sympathy for the rebels.
4) The statement then cites a to provide a further justification: “The Shaam video includes interviews with local residents who justify the use of the cages by arguing that this may deter further attacks.”. Imagine if a story by HRW about barrel bombs over Ghuta, from which Syrian rebels shell Damascus indiscriminately includes a statement by a pro-government source in which he/she says that the bombs may “deter further attacks”?
5) they then issue a list of attacks by the government on civilians, of course always based on their pro-rebel sources. Has HRW resorted to this methodology in all of its statements on war crimes by regime? Never.
6) They then provide this statement which has no pictorial evidence whatsoever except a claim on Facebook: imagine if the HRW accepts to rely on a Facebook page to document war crimes by the Syrian rebels: "On September 13, a Facebook page used to spread local news from Fua and Kefraya, two Shia towns in Idlib besieged by Jaysh al-Fateh, a coalition of opposition armed groups including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, posted images of a cage that they claimed contained detained Jaysh al-Fateh combatants that had been placed on top of a building in the besieged communities by fighters defending the towns."  Notice that the HRW statement does not even bother to mention that the two towns of Fua and Kafrayyah are both held hostage by Syrian rebels for no reason except the sectarian affiliation of the residents.

This is one of the few times in which Western human rights organizations have helped and abetted and justified war crimes by rebels—in the case of Syria.

#clichés_arabes (hélas)