International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is attempting to broker a temporary ceasefire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is next week.
A Syrian government newspaper said today that the biggest obstacle to a ceasefire is the lack of a unified leadership on the rebel side which could sign such an agreement. However, Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi was more non-committal and said the government would welcome any "constructive initiative" from Brahimi.
New York Times journalist C J Chivers – a former Marine – comments on today's video of a helicopter apparently shot down in Syria.
Syria’s air force, for all of its lethality and for all of the fear and anger it has caused in rebel territory, is getting weaker. This is in part because of the strains related to [operating] tempo and in part because the rebels have been getting stronger.
Last August, Chivers wrote that Syria’s fleet of Mi-25 Hind-D attack helicopters, which numbered 36 at the start of the conflict, was insufficient to hold back the rebels.
He also cited estimates that only half the regime's helicopter fleet may be operational at any given time – "maintenance technicians are struggling to keep the machines aloft" – and that some of the original 36 helicopters have been cannibalised for spare parts.
Four people have been arrested in Bahrain for "misuse" of social media, the interior ministry announced today:
The Acting General Director of Anti-Corruption, Electronic and Economic Security announced on Wednesday the arrest of four people wanted for the act of defaming public figures on social media. Those arrested confessed to their crime. The search for a fifth suspect continues.
The arrests were made as part of the recent monitoring of social media networks to tackle the misuse of such platforms.
The Acting General Director said that freedom of expression is protected by the Bahraini constitution and the law. However, freedom of speech does not include the defamation of others. He stressed the importance of using social media responsibly and ethically.
The Syrian parliament has condemned two members of the Kuwaiti parliament who are said to have entered Syria illegally via Turkey, "spread sedition among the united Syrian people".
The government news agency, Sana, says the Syrian parliament "looks forward to an explanation by the Kuwaiti parliament regarding the infiltration of the two MPs into the Syrian territories in the manner of takfiri terrorists, gunmen and weapons smugglers".
A senior rebel leader has denied claims that the Manaf Tlass is set to join the Syrian National Army - a rebranded version of the Free Syrian Army (see earlier).
In an interview with the journalist Zaid Benjamin, Brigadier Mohamed Anwar, a spokesman for SNA, said Tlass, a former friend of Assad who defected in July, had had no contact the group.
Anwar said he welcomed Tlass defection, but added: "The subject of Manaf Tlass joining the revolution has not been talked about at all."
The claim comes after a 26-year-old man who was last week arrested at Heathrow airport on suspicion of terror offences was charged with kidnap of a British journalist and a Dutch colleague in Syria.
Reuters reported Fabius made his comments ahead of a closed door conference in Paris with civilian members of rebel councils that run areas seized from central government control.
They included representatives from Maarat al-Numan, a town whose seizure last week cut the main route from Damascus to Aleppo.
Reuters quoted Fabius as saying:
In a certain number of these zones, Bashar al-Assad is bombarding them with MiG fighter jets, and what is particularly horrible is that he is bombarding them with TNT. But at the same time there are now weapons that are forcing the planes to fly extremely high, and so the strikes are less accurate.
His comments came as activists posted videos of what they said was a Syrian military helicopter spiralling to the ground and exploding in flames.
The video is said to have been filmed in Maarat al-Numan where rebel fighter told the Guardian a helicopter had been shot down (see earlier).
Brahimi urges regime to take first step towards truce
International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is sounding a little more hopeful regarding prospects for a temporary ceasefire in Syria – though he says the Syrian government would have to make the first move. AP reports:
Brahimi said Wednesday in Beirut that if the government takes the first step, everyone he has talked to in the opposition will also observe the truce.
But AP points out that previous ceasefire attempts have come to nought, and says Brahimi acknowledged that such a truce, even if respected, would be a "microscopic" step towards ending the conflict.
Tough battles are reported today between FSA brigades and the Syrian army in Hiesh and Besida – two small towns 10km south of Maarat al-Numan which was seized by rebels last week.
The area is hotly contested because it lies on the strategic north-south highway. If rebels succeed in clinging on to it they will be able to block the government's main supply route between Damascus and Aleppo.
Dhiya Najem, a rebel fighter with the Misha'al Tamou brigade in Hiesh has been talking via Skype with our colleague Mona Mahmood. This is what he told her:
An hour ago we were able to shoot down a Syrian army helicopter. We believe the pilot was killed inside the helicopter.
There is a military convoy heading to Maarat al-Numan to recapture it from the FSA, but the FSA fighters are not allowing the convoy to progress at all.
The Syrian army has sustained heavy losses in soldiers and equipment, being stuck in this place and receiving all sorts of rockets from the FSA.
Hiesh town is under heavy shelling from the Syrian army and most of the people fled to another areas. All the villages and towns on the highway are under heavy shelling by warplanes.
The FSA fighters are using Hiesh town as a base to attack the convoys because it has a rocky nature and fighters can hide from the warplanes' shelling.
None of the [government's] reinforcement convoys has been able to get to Maarat al-Numan up till now.
There are a few [government] checkpoints on the highway near Maarat al-Numan. The Syrian army are trying to gather their forces there and launch an attack against Maarat al-Numan but they have not been able to not reach these checkpoints for a week now.
We do not how many fighters have been killed or wounded so far, as the battle is still continuous, but seven people have been killed and 27 houses devastated by the ferocious shelling.
International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is attempting to broker a temporary ceasefire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is next week. This morning he was in Lebanon and is expected to travel to Damascus later today.
A Syrian government newspaper said today that the biggest obstacle to a ceasefire is the lack of a unified leadership on the rebel side which could sign such an agreement. However, Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi was more non-committal and said the government would welcome any "constructive initiative" from Brahimi.
The Syrian opposition should set up an alternative government inside Syria to avoid the current civil war lasting for years, according to the blogger and Middle East commentator Karl Sharro.
Speaking to the Guardian from Beirut, Sharro said: “The opposition needs to produce credible political leadership, with a clear narrative about where it wants to take Syria, for it to carry the day, rather than see a protracted civil war.”
He criticised the exiled opposition for failing to try to set up a base inside the country.
There are huge swaths of Syria now that are not under government control .... open for the Syrian National Council to go back and administer them and try to build an alternative political force within Syria, but it is not doing that. That is the clearest indication of their lack of political will and initiative. They are simply disconnected from the real activists and the grass roots organisations ...
Look at examples from history - any alternative political force trying to unseat a long-standing power would seize on any opportunity to galvanize its political support. That kind of political support is not going to happen in Paris or [Washington] DC.
Why not seize the initiative? There are practical problems with it, but if there is political will you can see how things can be over turned. But you don’t see any attempt at doing that - We have seen very few visits by SNC leaders.
If credible a leadership does not emerge inside the country, Syria faces five more years of civil war, he warned. Syrians will give up on the uprising if they don’t get clarity from the opposition about the alternatives to the Assad regime, he argued.
Calls by the international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi for a ceasefire are a “cosmetic” exercise to try to show that something is being done, Sharro added. The countries backing Brahimi’s mission are also "fuelling the fire" in Syria, he claimed.
The current international squabble for regional dominance over Syria is frustrating the emergence of opposition leaders, Sharro argued. Saudi Arabia, for example, should stop funding Salafist groups, because they are distorting the conflict, and thwarting the growth of a more organic opposition inside Syria.
Sharro called for the conflict to become “deinteranationalized”.
He criticised the west’s “reluctant meddling” on Syria as stuck between neither fully committing to arming the rebels, nor finding a peaceful solution. “Both the US and the international community are making matters worse,” he said.
Members of the current regime, such as vice president Farouq al-Sharaa, could play a role in an alternative government to avoid the disaster that occur in Iraq following de-Ba’athification, Sharro said. But other former members of the regime, such as Manaf Tlass, lack political credibility, he claimed.
Sharro said the key question is:
Would Syria rather face five [or] ten years of all-consuming conflict that is increasing becoming sectarian in certain areas, or would you rather have a political solution that allows a transition to a better future?
The Syrian government has poured cold water on Lakhdar Brahimi's efforts to broker a temporary ceasefire during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha later this month, the Associated Press reports.
The regime's objection appears to be that the rebels on the other side have no unified leadership to agree to it.
Syria's state-run al-Thawra newspaper, a government mouthpiece, said Wednesday that the biggest obstacle to the truce was the lack of an authority to sign for the rebels.
"There is the state, represented by the government and the army on one front, but who is on the other front?" the paper asked in an editorial.
Brahimi, the joint UN-Arab League envoy, arrived in Beirut on today as part of a regional tour.
Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said in a statement to the state news agency that the government was waiting for Brahimi to come to Damascus to convey to officials there the results of his tour. It would welcome any "constructive initiative," Makdissi said.
Amid moves to unite Syria's divided rebel fighters under a joint leadership, a huge question mark hangs over defected general Manaf Tlass and whether he will have any role in it.
Tlass, who defected last July, was once close to Bashar al-Assad. After his defection, he was touted by some as a possible replacement for Assad, though he is by no means universally popular.
Yesterday, there were claims on Twitter that the cigar-chomping general, who has been in exile since his defection, will return to Syria to take on an combat role after Eid al-Adha (26 October), the Muslim holiday marking the end of the Hajj.
However, Zaid Benjamin, of the US-funded Radio Sawa says the Free National Army (a new name for the FSA) denies having discussions with Tlass.
#BREAKING: No discussions were held with Manaf Tlass regarding his joining to the Free National Army – FNA Spokesman #Syria#Assad
Syria's foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi gave a qualified response to Brahimi's call for a truce.
The state news agency reported that Makdissi as saying that "Syria has already shown commitment to Arab and international initiatives that were ultimately foiled by armed groups and the countries that influence them."
Brahimi is meeting the Lebanese president, but will he hold discussions with Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah? asks al-Jazeera's Rula Amin in Beirut.
Ibrahimi in Beirut for meetings w\ lebanese president,PM & speaker of parliament, but no word on a meeting with #Nasrallah so far #syria
A drive along thevalley's bustling main thoroughfare and the string of towns that line it, shows where the region's Shia and Sunni loyalties lie.
In predominantly Shia Baalbek, one of the Bekaa's larger towns, a downtown billboard shows Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah next to Assad, who is decked out in a military uniform and aviator glasses. "They will not weaken our resolve," reads a defiant caption.
The presence of Iran, the region's Shia power and a patron of both Hezbollah and Assad, is also visible: A poster of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the slogan, "We can," hangs from roadside poles along a four-lane highway that signs boast was partially funded by Tehran.
A turn off the highway and down a winding uphill road, leads east toward the Syrian border and Arsal.
Homes here are bare-bones, made of raw grey cinderblock, without stone facades. A spray-painted Syrian rebel flag – with green, white and black horizontal stripes and three red stars on the white – decorates one of the walls in the centre of town.
Brahimi's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said: "We are striving to stop the bloodbath in Syria."
Brahimi has visited almost everywhere but Syria in his current tour. It has included stops in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Cairo and now Lebanon.
UN-Arab League peace envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi is welcomed at Beirut international airport October on Wednesday. Photograph: STRINGER/REUTERS Photograph: STRINGER/REUTERS
Welcome to Middle East Live. Turkey and the Pope have backed calls for a ceasefire in Syria, but the rebels and the Assad regime show no interest in peace as fierce fighting continues.
Here's a roundup of the latest developments in more detail:
The delegation, expected to depart for Damascus next week, will express the solidarity of the Pope and the Synod Fathers with the entire Syrian population. They will also communicate their spiritual closeness to Christians in Syria. Finally, as part of their commission, the delegation will encourage those engaged in the peace process.
We find it difficult to discern any consistency of logic behind the government's policy in not taking a public stance on the Bahrain Grand Prix but implementing at least a partial boycott of the 2012 Uefa Football Championship matches played in Ukraine ... Given the Bahraini authorities' brutal repression of demonstrators in February and March 2011, we believe that Bahrain should have been designated as a country of concern in the FCO's [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] 2011 report on human rights and democracy.
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