Syria crisis: rebels hail 'decisive' battle for Aleppo - Thursday 27 September 2012
This article is more than 11 years old
LCC claims 343 people were killed in a single day Cameron says Syrian bloodshed is a 'terrible stain' on UN Morsi warns against military intervention in Syria
A Free Syrian Army fighter holds a rocket-propelled grenade launcher while taking cover after a tank blast in Aleppo, Syria. Photograph: Manu Brabo/AP Photograph: Manu Brabo/AP
A Free Syrian Army fighter holds a rocket-propelled grenade launcher while taking cover after a tank blast in Aleppo, Syria. Photograph: Manu Brabo/AP Photograph: Manu Brabo/AP
Brown Moses, a regular in our discussion threads, has been looking more closely at the case of the dodgy defector (see earlier post).
It seems that Yasser Fawzi Abd, allegedly a former rebel who now supports the Assad regime, has changed his story since first coming into the limelight in March.
During a TV appearance then, he "confessed to assassinating businessmen Mahmoud Ramadan and Mahmoud al-Sourani, in addition to committing acts of killings, robbery and sabotage in Aleppo Province and its countryside" – according to a report by the government news agency.
This seems to rather contradict many of the claims made in the press conference [this week], particularly al-Abd's claims at 2:00 in the video of his speech to the conference where he says that he voluntarily handed in his weapons after the calls of the Minister of National Dialogue. You'd also imagine a murdering, Salafi terrorist would at best still be in prison (if not executed), not attending press conferences and receiving rounds of applause.
The Free Syrian Army has announced the start of what it claims will be a "decisive" battle for Aleppo. Our colleague Mona Mahmood called Bashir al-Haji, commander of Tawheed brigade in Aleppo, via Skype, and asked him to explain. The sound of the shellfire could be heard as he spoke.
The decisive battle for Aleppo started at 4pm local time. We wanted to suprise the Syrian army which had started to creep forward towards the southern neighbourhoods. The Tawheed brigade was enticing the Syrian army forward to face all the fighting brigades in the city.
We have been reconsidering this a battle for a week. The plan to launch the battle today was top secret, and now the mosques in Aleppo are praying for the FSA.
There are 6,000 fighters of the Tawheed brigade taking part in the battle now, in addition to a few other brigades like al-Fatah and Ahfad al-Fatiheen for the Turkmen. We have prepared good ammunition for the battle, we have confiscated a lot of weapons from Masaken Hananou belonging to the Syrian army. We have Russian weapons used by the regime and we will use them against the Syrian army.
After every liberation of a military barracks, we confiscate weapons to attack the Syrian army – we are killing them with their [own] weapons. Though we wish that the Syrian army will fight on the ground we know that they will resort to aerial shelling to support their army. In fact, the planes have never stopped striking the city. They have been shelling for almost 24 hours and they get even more active if there is any action by the FSA.
He denied that the FSA had proclaimed "decisive" battles for Aleppo before.
We are not aiming to liberate the whole of Aleppo with this battle but to regain control of most of the city and get back as many neighbourhoods as we can.
It is a retaliation battle against regime's forces and to get a foothold at the centre of the city where there are security bases for the Syrian army. Fighters of the FSA are no longer scared of the planes, they are treating them now like guns.
We are doing our best to launch our attacks and battles in areas empty of civilians. We are helping civilians who need to get out of the site of fighting. We do not know how long the battle might last.
We only need anti-aircraft rockets to control the way from Aleppo to Damascus.
The video below appears to show an FSA commander in Aleppo briefing his fighters today as the "decisive" battle was beginning.
The media and activist groups need to be clearer about reporting headline death toll in the Syrian conflict, an expert in casualty recording told the Guardian.
Hana Salama, who co-ordinates the Every Casualty unit for the thinktank the Oxford Research Group said using the term “unverified” to describe death tolls in Syria was misleading, as the figures were often corroborated by many different groups.
In an interview with the Guardian she suggested such figures could be referred to as “early” rather than unverified. “There are always revisions over time,” she pointed out.
To begin to be verified, organisations like the LCC, need to disclose their records and have them compared with other organisations collecting casualty figures, Salama said. To do this she stressed the importance of making available names, places and other details to allow casualty figures to be corroborated.
We need to consider these figures seriously and judge them on how they were collected. I receive information every day from activists in Syria claiming the day before was the bloodiest day, so we just have to follow up on that.
What is important is not the actual number, it’s the records themselves – the names and the place of death, not only for the international community but for the families.
Salama did not see a link between high casualty figures reported by activists and UN meetings, as critics allege. “It is important for the UN to know the facts,” she said.
The fact that sometimes the media portrays it as being unverified can make it more difficult for decision makers to assess the information they receive. They could do more research into how these numbers are collected.
She said she could not vouch for the reliability of figures reported by the activists group, the Local Co-ordination Committee, but she said its figures were frequently used by a number of casualty recorders.
I can’t tell you about their reliability but it is important that those figures are out there. There is an amount of uncertainty, but regardless of that if you have the numbers and you have the records you can always look back and check. We don’t know when that could happen because of the intensity of the conflict.
Salama has studied the methods of a number of activist and human rights groups collating casualty figures in Syria, including Insan, based in Lebanon and Syria Tracker. She said:
Most of the recorders don’t have greatly varying figures. Some of the groups we work with have a clear political agenda, but we judge them based on their method of collection.
A lot [of information] comes from citizens, activists and social media. These records must contain names and places and identifiers that can be used for corroboration.
The conflict is now too dangerous to corroborate casualty figures with families, she pointed out.
The crisis hasn’t ended so there hasn’t been a chance for independent verification.
A lot of the groups take each other’s numbers and try to corroborate the names. The fact that there is differentiation [between the groups] must be in the way they define who they will record ...
I feel the media must do more to define what it means by verified. It could be internally verified – if different organisations have different lists of people, then they can verify it that way, through corroborating. If the media means external verification through independent, for example UN, observers then that’s another issue. But it doesn’t mean the numbers themselves don’t check out or are untrue. The term can be used in both senses, it is a matter of clarifying what we mean ...
With casualty records, the media, and other actors in this conflict need a very high standard of proof which can only be obtained sometime after the conflict has ended, because [then] you can interview people on the ground.
Only a few schools remain open in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province, a teacher living in the town says. Other schools have been damaged by shelling, so students are concentrated in two or three of them. Even so, he says, "there is no real study" because of a shortage of books and equipment.
Speaking to our colleague Mona Mahmood via Skype, the teacher – who gave his name as Osama Humam – continued:
Also, owing to the shelling, the kids can't go to school every day. I'm a teacher in a primary school and I have not been in the school since the outbreak of the uprising. My son Ali went once to school, but then he could not for fear of being hit by shells while he is walking there.
Describing the general situation in Khan Sheikhoun, he said:
We have more than 16 checkpoints around the town. Movement is so restricted, it is like being in a big prison. We have power for only four hours a day. Water comes and goes. There is a shortage of fuel and if you can get some it will be very expensive.
All the members of FSA [Free Syrian Army] are based in the suburbs. They are engaged in clashes with the Syrian army most of the time. They come downtown only if they set up an ambush for the Syrian soldiers near the checkpoints. They can't be inside the town all the time, because if one bullet fires against the checkpoints that means a great risk to the life of the civilians.
FSA men operations are limited here for the lack of ammunition. They wait for donations by some rich people here or get it from other towns. Also, they have contact with some Syrian army soldiers who would sell them weapons from the Syrian army stores – they are ready to do anything for money – in addition to weapons confiscated after attacks.
Early morning today shelling started against some buildings in Khan Sheikhoun town. There were no any causalities but an hour ago planes began to drop barrels of explosives at random, killing six people and wounding a few others. Some victims are still under the rubble. People are trying to recover them.
The video below is said to show rescue efforts following an air strike in Khan Sheikhoun today.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia organisation, has stepped up support for the Syrian government by sending "military advisers", the Washington Post reports citing US and Lebanese government officials.
Most of the article's sources are far from impartial but it does cite some independent evidence in the form of obituaries for Hezbollah militants in the Lebanese media which do not mention the circumstances of their deaths.
Most of those who die are given a quiet funeral at Hezbollah's behest – to the disappointment of their families in some cases, the article says.
There has been one notable exception to these discreet burials, according to Lokman Slim, a political activist who runs Hayya Bina, a civic initiative that aims to make Lebanese politics less sectarian, and is a frequent critic of Hezbollah.
In early August, a senior Hezbollah military commander named Musa Ali Shehimi was killed in Syria, according to Slim, and a large funeral was held for him in Lebanon without specifying where or how he was killed.
But the bodies of a handful of Hezbollah militants who were killed at the same time as Shehimi were returned to the families at different times, Slim says, in order to avoid unnecessary attention.
Syrian commentator Camille Otrakji, who describes himself as a "mild regime supporter", puts forward a power-sharing compromise deal for resolving the crisis. Under his transition plan, outlined on Bloggingheads TV, the opposition would appoint a prime minister following elections to be in charge of all domestic policy, but the current regime would retain responsibility for foreign policy, defence and security monitored by neighbouring countries. "If we get to that stage we have to recognise that the regime and the opposition will keep doing things that will disappoint people for a while. It will be a difficult process," Otrakji said.
The continuing bombardment of Rastan, north of Homs, is forcing people to seek shelter in the countryside as aid deliveries are blocked, a resident of the town told the Guardian.
Evacuees face a bleak winter and now even schools are being hit, resident Suhaib Muhammed told our colleague Mona Mahmood.
The aerial bombardment of Rastan resumed again today. Yesterday several barrels of explosives were dropped on residential areas in the centre of Rastan. Seven people from the Farazad family were killed. Three were women.
People do not know where to go. Even the schools are being shelled.
Most of the people who fled to the countryside to escape the shelling are facing a big problem as Winter comes. These people have lost their homes due to the continuous shelling by the Syrian army. They have been able to survive during the summer. But now that the weather is getting colder the situation is getting really bad.
The whole city is under a complete siege. The humanitarian situation here is terrible, nothing can be delivered to the town. Thank God we have the countryside for vegetables and some grain. But all the wounded have to be treated at home. There is no way to transfer them outside for treatment.
There have been some aid deliveries of food and medications from Homs, but now the route is full of checkpoints so no cars can get through.
There was a route through the country side, the al-Tarma route. But it is no longer safe. There rocket brigades of the Syrian army shoot anything that moves.
The route from from Homs to Aleppo has been completely blocked to stop the supply of food and medications t between these cities.
Schools have been used as shelter for those who have lost their homes.
But the day before yesterday a secondary school for girls with four floors was hit by barrel explosives. It flattened the whole building, but luckily it was empty at the time.
Activists from the area uploaded this footage showing the aftermath of the latest bombardment of Rastan.
The announcement that 11 FSA fighters have defected back to the Assad regime has provided a modest public relations coup for the Syrian government. But it may not be quite what it seems.
One of the defectors (seen on the far right in Russia Today's photograph) has been identified as Yasser Fawzi Abd, whose defection to the regime was first announced six months ago.
The syrian4all group has compiled the video evidence ...
Eight Syrian refugees have been arrested in Jordan following the riot at the Za'atari camp on Monday night in which 26 police were reportedly injured.
The arrested refugees were taken into custody and transferred to a state security court, AP reports citing a Jordanian prosecutor.
The rioters were protesting at the harsh living conditions in the camp – which the UN and Jordanian government are now reportedly planning to improve.
Several hundred "prefabricated living units" are due to arrive later this month as part of a $125m donation from the Saudi government, the Jordan Times says.
'The prefabricated units are being constructed and we hope to have them at Za'atari later this month,' UNHCR Representative in Jordan Andrew Harper told The Jordan Times.
According to the UNHCR, the trailers, part of a batch of 2,500 currently being constructed and assembled in Amman, will be reserved for the 'most vulnerable' of the camp’s 30,000 residents.
Harper noted that due to an ongoing funding shortfall, relief officials will be unable to upgrade the living facilities for the bulk of camp residents, calling for greater international support to better prepare refugees for the upcoming winter season.
'Many Syrians are arriving in Jordan with just the clothes they are wearing – which is most often T-shirts and jeans,' Harper said.
'They are completely unprepared for the cold weather ahead and we have to address that.'
A Lebanese TV station has broadcast footage of Syrian government troops driving rebels from a building they had occupied after a military compound in Damascus was attacked by car bombs, AP reports.
The images came from Lebanon's Al Manar TV station, whose correspondent was with Syrian troops on Wednesday on what was described as an assault to retake army command headquarters.
Flames engulfed the headquarters after rebels detonated two car bombs in carefully orchestrated attacks followed by over three hours of gunbattles in and around the compound. Four Syrian guards and a reporter for Iranian TV were killed according to the Syrian government.
The footage showed the bodies of three rebels inside the building after government troops took control. The bomb attacks highlighted the regime's growing vulnerability as rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad grow bolder.
'Rajab and the Khawajas have remained committed to holding officials accountable and seeking justice for those traumatized and victimized since the uprising began, proving considerably more adept than the formal opposition at drawing international attention. In the absence of more credible leaders, Rajab and the Khawajas have become de facto symbols of popular opposition and for a platform that blends political opportunity with social justice.'
Earlier this week Amnesty International appealed for the protection of Bahraini human rights activists. It called on the Bahraini authorities, who have come under international criticism for their detainment of opposition activists, to ensure the safety of civil society members who received threats of reprisals after participating in the 21st session of the UN human rights council in Geneva earlier this month. Citing the UN declaration on human rights defenders, Amnesty's report states that:
Amnesty International is concerned that Mohammad al-Maskati and other members of Bahraini civil society who participated in the UPR (Universal Periodic Review) exercise are being targeted on account of the peaceful and legitimate exercise of their right to freedom of expression and their role in exposing evidence of human rights violations.
Bahraini protesters hold posters with images of jailed activist Nabeel Rajab during a gathering outside hi home on Wednesday. Photograph: Hasan Jamali/AP Photograph: Hasan Jamali/AP
It confirmed that it expects the number to increase to 700,000 by the end of the year.
The UNHCR's figures also showed:
The number of people crossing the border into neighbouring countries has reached up to 3,000 people every day.
Women and children make up three-quarters of the refugee population.
The UNHCR needs to raise £301m to cope with the extra numbers. So far it has raised £87m.
Panos Moumtzis, UNHCR's regional co-ordinator for Syrian refugees, urged the international community to do more to help. He said:
Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey have set the example, keeping their borders open for Syrians fleeing violence. The neighbouring countries cannot do this alone. The international community must continue to demonstrate solidarity.
Syrian troops enter Lebanon, destroy house – report
Syrian troops crossed into Lebanon this morning and destroyed a house belonging to Mohammed Akil al-Radi in the Qaa region of the Bekaa, the Lebanese National News Agency reports.
The agency's correspondent also reported of heavy machine gun fire on this region from the Syrian side.
There have been previous Syrian incursions in the area.
It quotes President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telling a press conference at the UN:
We do believe that through a national dialogue and a national understanding and consensus, they can, the various Syrian sides, reach a more solid conclusion, a more tangible and long-lasting conclusion.
Therefore, we strive to pave the way for national dialogue and national understanding between the two sides and we are working hard to stand up and shape a contact group from various countries.
He gave no more details about which countries would be involved. Iran has been repeatedly accused of supplying weapons, soldiers and cash to Syria to prop up the Assad regime.
A 27-year-old rape victim was summoned by an investigating judge in Tunisia on Wednesday to face charges of "indecency", al-Jazeera reports.
The charges have been brought by two police officers who are accused of raping the woman.
This is the first time that a woman allegedly raped by police has taken a case to court, al-Jazeera says quoting the Tunisian Equality and Parity organisation – and the "indecency" claim is seen as an attempt to persuade the woman to drop the rape charges.
The case comes among intense debate in Tunisia about the drafting of a new constitution, and in particular Article 28 which refers to women. The first draft described women as "complementary" to men rather than "equal".
The number of refugees fleeing Syria could reach 700,000 by the end of the year, the UN refugee agency said, far surpassing its previous forecast of 185,000 reached in August.
About 294,000 Syrian refugees fleeing 18 months of conflict in their homeland have already crossed into four neighboring countries – Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey – or await registration there, it said.
"This plan provides for up to 700,000," Panos Moumtzis, regional refugee coordinator for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, told a news briefing.
Syrian refugees carry their belongings to their tent after arriving at the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. Photograph: Reuters Photograph: Handout/REUTERS
A Saudi was among 28 people killed in the Aleppo area on Tuesday, according to the opposition Aleppo News Network.
The website named him as Abdul Kareem al-Zaid Abu Saif. It said he went to Aleppo 25 days ago and was killed during clashes there.
In a report for the Guardian from Aleppo on Sunday, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Aleppo referred to "a babble of different languages" heard among fighters in the city – Chechen, Tajik, Turkish, French, Saudi dialect and Urdu.
The fighters sat outside the house in the shade of the trees, clutching their guns and discussing the war. Among them was a thin Saudi, dressed in a dirty black T-shirt and a prayer cap, who conversed in perfect English with a Turk sitting next to him. He had arrived the week before and was curious about how the jihad was being reported abroad.
The Saudi fighter had walked across the border from Turkey to the small Syrian town of Atmeh.
There, in a hilly landscape flecked with olive groves, the recruits were received by a Syrian who runs a jihadi camp and organised into fighting units. Each team was assigned an Arabic speaker and given 10 days' basic training, the point of which was not to learn how to shoot but to learn to communicate and work together.
The fighters were then dispersed among the different jihadi organisations, including Ahrar al-Sham ("the Free Men of Syria") and Jabhat al-Nusra ("the Front for the Aid of the People of the Levant").
Abdul Kareem al-Zaid Abu Saif, a Saudi national reported killed in Aleppo. Photograph: Facebook Photograph: /Facebook
Syria: 'a death-feud between Islamists and Ba'athists'
The Syrian uprising is only the latest, if by far the most violent, episode in a long war between Islamists and Ba'athists, which dates back to the founding of the secular Ba'ath party in the 1940s, veteran Middle East commentator Patrick Seale writes.
"The struggle between them is by now little short of a death-feud," he says.
Seale, who wrote a biography of President Bashar al-Assad's father, does not deny that other grievances such as poverty and the regime's brutality have contributed to the rebellion, "but beyond all this is the decades-long hostility of Islamists for Syria’s Ba'ath-dominated regime.
Today’s civil war – for that is what it has become – has deep roots in modern Syrian history. The rebellion has increasingly taken on an Islamist colouring, as the Swedish writer Aron Lund explains in an informative 45-page report on Syrian Jihadism, published this month by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
It is striking, as he points out, that virtually all the members of the various armed insurgent groups are Sunni Arabs; that the fighting has been largely restricted to Sunni Arab areas only, whereas areas inhabited by Alawis, Druze or Christians have remained passive or supportive of the regime; that defections from the regime are nearly 100% Sunni; that money, arms and volunteers are pouring in from Islamic states or from pro-Islamic organisations and individuals; and that religion is the insurgent movement’s most important common denominator.
The British-based organisation, which monitors violence in Syria through a network of activists, said in a report released on Thursday that 55 people were killed in rural areas around Damascus. They included at least 40 who appeared to have been shot in cold blood in the town of al-Dhiyabia, south-east of the capital. Other activists have put the death toll in al-Dhiyabia as high as 107, blaming Assad's security forces for what they said was a massacre.
Welcome to Middle East Live. Syria continues to be the main focus after activists reported the highest daily death toll so far, and world leaders remain divided over the crisis at the UN.
Syrian commentator Camille Otrakji, who describes himself as a "mild regime supporter" puts forward a power-sharing compromise deal for resolving the crisis. Under his transition plan, outlined on Bloggingheads TV, the opposition would appoint a prime minister following elections to be in charge of all domestic policy, but the current regime would retain responsibility for foreign policy, defence and security monitored by neighbouring countries. "If we get to that stage we have to recognise that the regime and the opposition will keep doing things that will disappoint people for a while. It will be a difficult process," Otrakji said.
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