Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 173

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.

WASHINGTON — The much-anticipated Syria peace conference was threatened by diplomatic disarray on Monday, less than 48 hours before the scheduled start, as the United States said it expected the United Nations to withdraw an invitation to Iran to attend.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, extended the invitation to Iran on Sunday, surprising American officials. The invitation also angered the Syrian opposition and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival and a major backer of the Syrian insurgency, and they threatened to boycott the talks, which are to commence on Wednesday in Montreux, Switzerland.

The United States’ longstanding position has been that Iran, a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, must publicly endorse the mandate of the conference, which is outlined in a communiqué from a 2012 meeting in Geneva. That mandate says that the conference’s purpose is to negotiate the establishment of a transitional administration that would govern Syria by the “mutual consent” of Mr. Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition.

“Since Iran has not publicly and fully endorsed the Geneva communiqué,” a State Department official told reporters Monday morning, “we expect the invitation will be rescinded.”

Syrian Kurds has declared an autonomous state in the northern Syria.

The admisntration was named Cizre Canton and will have 20 different ministers.

The capital of the government wil be in the city of Qamishli, with Ekrem Heso serving as president.

About a month ago, Salih Muslim, the leader of Syria’s most dominant Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), announced that Syrian Kurds are looking to establish three separate autonomous federal states in the country’s north.

The two other provinces are excepted to be Kobani and Afrin.

On January 22 2014 12:43 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:
Honestly this isn't surprising at all. This isn't the first time that Kurds have taken advantage of a chaotic situation and attempted to affirm their own independent state. Most famously, in the hopes of gaining an independent state, Iraqi Kurdish radicals held large-scale insurgency during the Iran-Iraq War. Seeing as Iraq had its hands tied, it was almost as good an opportunity for Kurdish rebellion as is happening in Syria right now.

However, I don't see the sides here being as stubborn as Khomeini. At some point, there will be peace talks without going to the extreme of the stubborn party(ies) (which unsurprisingly, is by far the jihadist factions here) facing imminent conquest. If and when these peace talks happen, I highly doubt Kurdish separation will be part of the deal, as much as it would superficially and short-term benefit the political interests of the US were it to happen.

Moreso, I don't understand how disorganized people with limited political and economic structure can decide to split off from a country and expect to be well off.

On January 22 2014 13:28 DeepElemBlues wrote:


They're probably expecting big help from the Kurds in Iraq... who have about the only truly functioning state left in the Middle East.

A Syrian opposition group reported a loud explosion late Sunday night in the coastal city of Latakia, a major port and pro-Assad stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.

According to the Local Coordination Committees in Syria, residents reported “a huge explosion” in the Shekh Daher neighborhood of Latakia.

Around the same time, Lebanese state media reported Israeli warplanes flying over the city of Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley region.

(Reuters) - Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials.

The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets.

The deliveries do not include weapons such as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs, which could shoot down military or civilian aircraft, the officials said.

The weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on September 30, two officials said.

The apparently steady weapons flow contrasts with the situation last summer, when lethal U.S. aid to the Syrian rebels dried up for a time due to congressional reservations.

Congressional committees held up weapons deliveries for months over fears that U.S. arms would not prove decisive in the rebels' efforts to oust President Bashar Assad and his government and could well end up in the hands of Islamist militants.

The Turkish armed forces attacked a convoy of al-Qaeda-linked rebel vehicles in Syria in retaliation for cross-border fire on Tuesday, destroying three vehicles, Turkish media said.

Turkish troops opened fire on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positions in northern Syria after a mortar shell fired from Syria landed in Turkish territory during clashes between ISIL and the Free Syrian Army, broadcaster NTV reported.

It said a pick-up truck, a lorry and a bus were destroyed in the Turkish retaliation on Tuesday evening.

There were no reports of casualties and NTV did not say exactly where along the border the attack occurred.

Turkish newspaper Todays Zaman retracted a report that claimed that Turkish fighter jets had hit the ISIL convoy in northern Syria.

The battle lines of the Syrian civil war are edging closer to Krak des Chevaliers, the most famous Crusader castle ever built. The massive walls and towers of the great fortress on its hilltop glistened white in the sunshine yesterday, as the Syrian Army fought rebels in the valleys below.

The rebels hold the castle and the two nearby villages of al-Zara and al-Hosn while much of the rest of this area, 25 miles west of Homs city and just north of the Lebanese border, is inhabited by Christians who support the government. The 13th century castle was damaged by a Syrian air force attack and mortars last year and the Syrian government says it is eager to prevent further damage.

“We launched an operation to retake this area last week,” the governor of Homs, Talal al Barazi, told The Independent. He said that so far the army had taken 50 per cent of al-Zara “and we think the rest of it will be in our hands within a week.” Syrian army officers on the spot were more cautious on how long the fighting was going to last, saying it might be a week or two.

The reason why the Syrian army is attacking has less to do with Krak des Chevaliers’ strength as a defensive position and more to do with strategic importance of the area in which it stands. This commands the main road between Homs and Tartous on the coast, just as it did in the 13th century when the castle was rebuilt in its present form by the Knights Hospitaller (its original and less romantic name was Crac de l’Ospital).