Livestream out of Syria

Neutral said:
Jesus H Christ...I don't care about any point scoring, but that pic with the little kid is fecking grim :(
Click to expand...

Thats not an isolated incident, they stop buses, seperate the Alawites and have them decapitated in front of their children. They've imported their violent, sectarian crusade all the way from Iraq.

Not all rebels are Al-Qaeda fighters, but if you stand by them shoulder to shoulder then you're practically one of them as far as I'm concerned. The FSA would do well to marginalise and isolate themselves from Al-Qaeda if they want more sympathy for their cause. It'll also help if they don't get involved in their murderous sectarian activities too.
 
Govt forces making some gains in Aleppo, but other districs are still under Rebel control

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has confirmed it has retreated from Salah al-Din, a densely packed area of narrow streets on the south-west side of Aleppo, where rebel fighters had been heavily dug in.

State media had reported the army was in full control of the district, saying it had inflicted heavy losses on hundreds of "terrorist mercenaries".

"We have staged a tactical withdrawal from Salah al-Din," rebel commander Hossam Abu Mohammed of the Dara al-Shahbaa Brigade in Aleppo told the AFP news agency by phone.

"The district is completely empty of rebel fighters. Regime forces are now advancing into Salah al-Din."
Click to expand...
 
I remember a few years ago listening to a documentary about how one man was gradually conserving traditional courtyard residences and communities of historical interest to the world let alone Syria, they were in Aleppo.

People would have Britain and others arm the rebels directly , yet which rebels? Libya was simple compared to this and that has become messy since the media turned its gaze elsewhere.
 
Qatar offered Syrian ambassador $5.8mn for defection

Qatar’s ambassador in Mauritania allegedly offered his Syrian counterpart an advance payment of US$1 million and a monthly salary of $20,000 over 20 years, trying to convince the diplomat to defect and voice support for the opposition.

Hamad Seed Albni was also offered a permanent residence in the Qatari capital Doha, but refused the proposition, claims Lebanese-based Al-Manar TV. The diplomat reportedly called the offer a “blatant interference” in Syria’s affairs and warned not to come up with such initiatives anymore.

Bashar al-Assad’s government has endured a number of high-profile defections recently. Diplomats representing Syria in the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, Abdel Latif al-Dabbagh and Nawaf al-Fares, abandoned their positions and so did the country’s Prime Minister Riyad Hijab. The officials explained their defections, saying they could not work for a regime oppressing its own people

Damascus says Qatar uses its financial resources to promote defections among the ranks of Syrian officials. Doha reportedly allocated $300 million for the purpose, Iran’s Fars news agency claimed.

http://www.rt.com/news/syria-ambassador-qatar-defection-421/
 
VidaRed said:
Qatar offered Syrian ambassador $5.8mn for defection

Qatar’s ambassador in Mauritania allegedly offered his Syrian counterpart an advance payment of US$1 million and a monthly salary of $20,000 over 20 years, trying to convince the diplomat to defect and voice support for the opposition.

Hamad Seed Albni was also offered a permanent residence in the Qatari capital Doha, but refused the proposition, claims Lebanese-based Al-Manar TV. The diplomat reportedly called the offer a “blatant interference” in Syria’s affairs and warned not to come up with such initiatives anymore.

Bashar al-Assad’s government has endured a number of high-profile defections recently. Diplomats representing Syria in the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, Abdel Latif al-Dabbagh and Nawaf al-Fares, abandoned their positions and so did the country’s Prime Minister Riyad Hijab. The officials explained their defections, saying they could not work for a regime oppressing its own people

Damascus says Qatar uses its financial resources to promote defections among the ranks of Syrian officials. Doha reportedly allocated $300 million for the purpose, Iran’s Fars news agency claimed.

http://www.rt.com/news/syria-ambassador-qatar-defection-421/
Click to expand...

And yet me suggesting diplomats being paid to defect is simply my 'Pro-Assad paranoia'...
 
These rebels aren't exactly the nicest bunch around. Hanging little boys and throwing post office workers to their deaths from buildings isn't the right way to win power, unless they want another dictator in charge. The Al Qaeda and Wahabis are taking full advantage of this situation by killing Shia civilians and trying to stir up sectarian violence and practice their version of Islam. fecking animals. Actually animals aren't nearly as bad as these fundamentalist savages come to think of it.
 
Red Dreams said:
Assad did not give the Syrian people a voice. Now these scum have filled that vacum.
The sooner Assad leaves, the sooner what is left of the genuine rebel force can take control of the country.
Click to expand...

Its not as easy as that. This isn't as simple as Assad vs The rebels, its more a case of the Syrian Army vs the FSA + Al Qaeda + The Kurds. Assad leaving won't change anything at this point.
 
Red Dreams said:
should Assad leave the fighting will stop.
Click to expand...

No it wont, not even close.

Assad isn't the only problem - there are the minorities; your Alawites, Christians, Druzes and atheists who'll then be on the radar. Heck, there'll probably be internal conflicts within the FSA, Al-Qaeda won't walk away quietly for starters.
 
How exactly can you tell the difference between an alawite and a shia, for example? Is it by the name only?
 
Plechazunga said:
I believe the standard procedure is to chop their head off and then see what prayers get said at the funeral... while bombing it.
Click to expand...

Ah that's brutal. Problem is though, by the time you've performed all of the above you might notice you have accidentally killed some of your own folks.
 
Mihajlovic said:
How exactly can you tell the difference between an alawite and a shia, for example? Is it by the name only?
Click to expand...

Alawites are a branch of Shia Islam, the two terms often get intertwined when Syria is discussed. Name is usually an obvious indicator, if you're a Syrian with a sharp eye you can also distinguish them physically (Yes, they look slightly different to their Sunni/Christian compatriots).
 
VidaRed which country are you from?

And how do you get across these graphic videos?
 
Airstrike in Syria by military forces have apparently left at least 80 dead in a civilian area in Azaz.
 
You'd think that the torture and consequent murder of a UN official by the FSA would warrant some media coverage, but apparently not:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...d-a-storm-about-to-break-8057364.html?afid=af

"He will not survive," my Syrian friend said, and I think he was right.

The man on the state television was bearded down to his chest, a self-confessed Salafist – nom de guerre "Abu Dolha", real name Ahmed Ali Gharibo. A Syrian – "alas," said my friend – from the Ghouta district of Damascus. He admitted, right there in front of the cameras, that he "regretted" killing 200 people with his own hands.

What did it take to get a man like this to admit such things on television? Sitting up in this breezy villa, 16 miles from Damascus – Bashar's brother Maher lives just round the corner – I could well believe what my friend said: Ahmed Gharibo will not survive.

Like all civil conflicts, rumours turn into facts, facts into rumours. Damascus is almost deserted, near-empty boulevards with more military checkpoints than traffic lights, some "mukhabarat" security, some army, the occasional "shabiha", friendly to me – they would be, wouldn't they, as I drive towards the elite mansions outside town – but a bit down-at-heel.

"How in the West, being advocates of democracy and liberty and freedom, can you support these people?" my friend asks. "Do your readers know that Her Majesty sends weapons and money to these people?"

I am about to point out that HMG claims that it doesn't give weapons at all – the word "claim" is all-important in Syria these days, like the conspiracy theory of history.

"The first step to dismantle Iran is to dismantle Syria – we are isolated and 123 countries are against us; that was the figure of those who gathered for the so-called 'Friends of Syria' conference in Paris."

I begin to think of the Serbs and their total conviction that the world was against them, that their innocence was without question. Ah, but like the old Yugoslavia, you only have to walk the streets of Damascus to realise that the storm has not yet fully broken. Behind the walls of the old French mandate barracks down from Umayyad Square, the burned wreckage of this week's fuel-truck bomb stands below a wizened tree. Was it aimed at the run-down "caserne" that the Syrian army still uses or a little trick for the UN officers in the Dama Rose Hotel across the road? The last 100 military observers are packing for the road journey to Beirut airport on Wednesday. The transit point of Beirut rather than Damascus airport tells its own story. "We are defunct in five days," I heard one of the UN officers say in the lobby. Funny word, "defunct", French for dead.

But maybe the truck bomber wanted the UN dead too? Shortly after the explosion, several aimed shots were fired at the UN's third-floor hotel offices. Is it true that a Syrian camera crew were already on the eighth floor, ready to tape the bomb? That ambulances came within three minutes?

The UN were beginning to realise that their men were increasingly endangered in the provinces. In Aleppo, they started off with a 30-mile radius of the city and within months, their government escorts would not venture beyond the last government checkpoint on the city limits. The rebels were less friendly to the UN, and several of the international observers saw foreign fighters among the "Free Syrian Army".

Last week – the UN has not exactly advertised the fact – a security man working for the UN, a former government security agent, was kidnapped and tortured and then murdered near his home north of Damascus. They found 20 bullet wounds in his body. The UN's men are not talking – rarely have they been so uncommunicative – but they have counted the corpses in Artous, 25 miles west of Damascus, 70 bodies in all, Sunnis, in a mass grave, just two weeks ago. Killed, it seems, by the "shabiha".

The FSA have been well and truly cleared out of the centre of Damascus – the suburbs at night are a different matter – and few Damascenes seem to believe that the armed rebels are winning in Aleppo.

"The Christians are protesting," another Syrian friend tells me. "The Greek Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo has just made an appeal to the Western powers not to send weapons to the fundamentalists. The Syrian Catholic church in Aleppo has now been bombed."

How does one reply to all this? Does the Syrian government really want the UN to leave? "No!" cries my friend. "We want UN pressure here to force these 'people' into dialogue."

The Salafist told his audience today that his enemies were "Alawites [of course, for Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite] and Shiites and Christians". So is that it? War by television? An acknowledgement that the man won't live long beyond this broadcast. And the UN are indeed leaving. There is an idea of a miniscule office remaining in Damascus with a military and a political observer. But otherwise, the great gloomy eyes of the UN donkey will close sleepily on Wednesday; it's the failure of another mission – and not a single international soldier will be left behind to watch the storm burst.
Click to expand...
 
Hardly surprising that people don't like the Alawites after 40 years of brutal, minority rule dictatorship. Time for some to come to grips with the fact that Assad's rule is all but over and Syria isn't going back to the good old days of dictatorship.
 
Raoul said:
Hardly surprising that people don't like the Alawites after 40 years of brutal, minority rule dictatorship. Time for some to come to grips with the fact that Assad's rule is all but over and Syria isn't going back to the good old days of dictatorship.
Click to expand...

I can almost understand why some may dislike the Alawites, but why such animosity towards Syria's Christians? What have they done to deserve being labelled as the enemy of the FSA and to have their churches blown up?

Also, you've being going wax lyrical over Assad's supposed inevitable demise for eons now. You claimed he had 2 weeks at best....2 months ago. Meanwhile, the Syrian army has kicked the FSA out of Damascus and are making key territorial re-gains in Aleppo.
 
RedKaos said:
I can almost understand why some may dislike the Alawites, but why such animosity towards Syria's Christians? What have they done to deserve being labelled as the enemy of the FSA and to have their churches blown up?

Also, you've being going wax lyrical over Assad's supposed inevitable demise for eons now. You claimed he had 2 weeks at best....2 months ago. Meanwhile, the Syrian army has kicked the FSA out of Damascus and are making key territorial re-gains in Aleppo.
Click to expand...

Two weeks, two months, whatever. The main point is he's going down and the country will never go back to what it was 18 months ago.
 
You're right. Its a civil war which means it can end in either the Fascist Salafist Army being victorious, or the Syrian Army restoring full control to Syria.

Unfortunately, a lot of Syrians are going to die and there seems to be no way to quell that.
 
RedKaos said:
You're right. Its a civil war which means it can end in either the Fascist Salafist Army being victorious, or the Syrian Army restoring full control to Syria.

Unfortunately, a lot of Syrians are going to die and there seems to be no way to quell that.
Click to expand...

You can thank Assad for that. Had he ceded power in the early days, none of this would have happened, including the infusion of extremist elements into the mix.
 
Raoul said:
You can thank Assad for that. Had he ceded power in the early days, none of this would have happened, including the infusion of extremist elements into the mix.
Click to expand...

Ceding power to make way for whom exactly? What people don't understand is that these extremists care not for democracy or a more progressive Syria, they want a Wahabi Caliphate and their biggest objection towards Assad is his faith, not his actions. Even if the next leader of Syria was a legitimately elected, secular beacon of hope who shits rainbows, the Wahabis will still want his head if he doesn't abide to their extremist school of thought.

If he packs up and leaves he's also leaving the fate of millions of Alawites, Shias, Christians and secularists at the hands of these Wahabi animals who yearn for the day they can burn alive the aforementioned groups.
 
RedKaos said:
Ceding power to make way for whom exactly? What people don't understand is that these extremists care not for democracy or a more progressive Syria, they want a Wahabi Caliphate and their biggest objection towards Assad is his faith, not his actions. Even if the next leader of Syria was a legitimately elected, secular beacon of hope who shits rainbows, the Wahabis will still want his head if he doesn't abide to their extremist school of thought.

If he packs up and leaves he's also leaving the fate of millions of Alawites, Shias, Christians and secularists at the hands of these Wahabi animals who yearn for the day they can burn alive the aforementioned groups.
Click to expand...

The extremists weren't in business in the beginning of the conflict. It was people protesting for their rights just as they did in the other Arab spring countries. All of the subsequent violence happened under Assad's watch, because he was narcissistically delusional enough to think he could murder his way out of conflict with naked aggression. That merely inflamed the situation and allowed extremists to stick their collective beaks into the mess. When this is all over, Assad will be before the Hague for allowing a country under his stewardship to be destroyed the way it has - that's if he isn't killed first.
 
Red Dreams said:
looks like the US and Britain will finally intervene...
Click to expand...

They're scraping at every excuse to intervene militarily. Funding terrorists isn't quite cutting it since the army is making easy work of them in Damascus and Aleppo.

It's quite touching to see how The US, Britain, France, Al Qaeda and Wahabi fundamentalists are all harmoniously working together. Talk about putting your differences aside for a common goal :)
 
RedKaos said:
It's quite touching to see how The US, Britain, France, Al Qaeda and Wahabi fundamentalists are all harmoniously working together. Talk about putting your differences aside for a common goal :)
Click to expand...

And not for the first time either may i add.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.