Improved Reporting of Syrian Civil War + ISIS Terror Bombing

As Anne Barnard has been on assignment in Damascus, Ben Hubbard and Hwaida Saad have taken over the daily coverage of the Syrian civil war and there has been a marked improvement in the reporting. Take this morning's offering for instance. In "Across Syria, Violent Day of Attacks and Ambush," the most newsworthy items are placed at the top of the story -- a significant government victory in the town of Adra and ongoing clashes between Kurdish militia and rebels on the northern border with Turkey -- while the news -- bloody fighting in the coastal province of Tartus heavily populated with Alawites and Christians -- that seems to be more like opposition propaganda and is sourced only to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is placed at the bottom. This order would likely be reversed if Barnard had written the story, and without the caveats that "The account could not be independently confirmed."

It's a refreshing departure for the New York Times, putting it more in line with the reporting provided by Reuters and The Associated Press. Here are the important paragraphs in Hubbard and Saad's story. First, on the rebel setback in Adra:

In the deadliest attack, government forces ambushed a group of rebel fighters in the town of Adra, northeast of Damascus, and left dozens of dead bodies lying in the sand, according to video broadcast on Al Manar, a television station run by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party that supports President Bashar al-Assad. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group based in Britain that tracks the conflict through a network of contacts on the ground, said on Monday that 65 people had been killed in the countryside around Damascus, including 58 insurgent fighters. The ambush in Adra accounted for 49 rebel deaths. 

It was another blow to the rebel movement. The momentum in the civil war has shifted in favor of Mr. Assad, whose forces have rolled back a number of rebel gains near Damascus, the capital, and elsewhere. Infighting among rebels who took up arms to topple Mr. Assad has allowed his forces to solidify their hold on central Syria and gradually expand their reach.

Next, the Kurds vs. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS):

Clashes have been raging for days across the ethnically mixed strip of land along the northern border with Turkey, pitting mainstream rebels and extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda against Kurdish militias. The Kurds, Syria’s largest ethnic minority, seek greater control of their own areas and fight to keep the rebels out. 

On Sunday, Kurdish fighters surrounded the local leader of one of the groups linked to Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, inside a school he and his fighters were using as a base near the border town of Tel Abyad. Activists said the Kurdish fighters did not storm the school to detain the group’s leader, who is known by the nom de guerre Abu Musab, because they feared he would blow up the school. 

To push the Kurds to grant him safe passage, rebels and the group’s fighters detained hundreds of Kurdish civilians. The two sides finally reached a deal and the group’s leader was released in return for the 300 detained Kurdish civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory group. 

Syria’s Kurds have used the erosion of state control during the civil war to push for greater autonomy in their areas. This has increased tensions with the area’s rebel fighters, many of whom hope to found an Islamic state. Other rebel groups resent the extremists who have joined the fight in Syria to serve their own ends.

With ISIS blowing up mostly civilians throughout Iraq, 250 people have been killed since the start of Ramadan, there has been sparse New York Times reporting from Baghdad. Tim Arango, who had been reporting from Iraq, hasn't been heard from since he covered the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul this June. This is a big failure for the Gray Lady. There is an obvious connection between the violence in Iraq and Syria; it's a regional jihad bankrolled no doubt by wealthy Wahhabis. I am reminded of the Rumsfeldian neoconservative wisdom, "When you've got a problem, often the way to solve it is to first make the problem bigger." Or something to that effect. But if the Times accurately covered the regional nature of the jihad and whose money is making it possible that would queer the anti-Assad pitch of the U.S. State Department that the paper has been parroting in its daily reporting.