Islamists Execute Boy Barista in Aleppo

The BBC is reporting this morning that Syrian troops are preparing for a major assault on the rebel-held northern city of Aleppo. This is in line with reporting from over the weekend that says the rebels are in free fall, that the opposition forces that remain on the ground are foreign mercenaries.

To make matters worse for the rebels both the BBC and the New York Times are reporting this morning that Islamist fighters in Aleppo have summarily executed a 15-year-old boy in front of his parents. This from Hwaida Saad and Hala Droubi of the New York Times:

Hezbollah has portrayed the fight in Syria as necessary to preserve Hezbollah’s ability to strike at Israel, by keeping open the conduit for arms from Iran that Mr. Assad’s government provides, and to protect Lebanon from extremists among the Syrian rebels. In an indication of the threat, such extremists were accused by fellow opponents of Mr. Assad on Sunday of killing a 15-year-old boy in Aleppo, in northern Syria, after the boy invoked the name of the Prophet Muhammad in a way that the extremists considered blasphemous.

Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad watchdog group based in Britain, gave an account of the boy’s death that he said came from a member of his group who witnessed some of the events. 

He said Islamist rebels overheard the boy, who came from a poor family and sold coffee from a street cart, as he argued with some friends who wanted him to lend them money. The boy told his friends he would not do so “even if Muhammad comes back to life, “ Mr. Abdulrahman said, adding that “he just used a common Syrian expression that people use when they are adamant about something.” 

The gunmen beat and tortured the boy, he said, and then brought the boy to a public square, where they declared that those who insult the prophet deserve the same punishment as infidels. He said they spoke in classical Arabic, possibly indicating that they were foreigners. In front of a crowd that included the boy’s parents, Mr. Abdulrahman said, the men shot the boy in the head and neck. 

“His mother is veiled,” he added. “She went up to them, uncovered her hair and begged them to leave him and kill her instead.” 

Mr. Abdulrahman provided what he said was a photograph of the boy, with what appeared to be a bullet exit wound through his mouth.

The fact that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, is publicizing this execution is significant. We'll see if it disappears down the Western memory hole like Carla Del Ponte's allegation that rebels used sarin. At this point, short of a massive intervention by Israel and/or the West, the Syrian Coalition looks like it is on its last legs.

Syrian War Expands

Al Jazeera is reporting this morning that two pro-Hezbollah Sunni Lebanese leaders have come under attack.

Hwaida Saad and Hala Droubi report this morning of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley increasingly feeling like a war zone:

On Sunday, Israeli warplanes buzzed over Lebanon, violating its airspace and deepening the sense of anxiety. In Baalbek, a resident said that the overnight clashes between Hezbollah and the rebels were only the latest sign of a growing crisis. The resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said gunfire around Baalbek from nearby villages had become routine as had the funerals, for both Hezbollah and opposition fighters killed in battles across the border.

Anne Barnard reporting from Damascus has a piece, "Rushing to Aid in Syrian War, but Claiming No Side," worth reading about the work of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. There are no good guys and bad buys in this civil war story. Just emergency medical technicians doing their job. One interesting and dispiriting note is struck at the end of Barnard's report. She interviews two brothers who work for the Red Crescent in Damascus. They predict that the city is going to be devastated:

Yet their outlook is also dark. They debate whether rebels will “take revenge” on Damascus for not rising up sooner; Hamza says yes, Mohammed no. They worry that rebel sleeper cells will fight newly armed government militias, and that if rebels enter the city, the government will shell it. 

“We are waiting for this bubble to explode, and we know it will,” Mohammed said.

“The waiting is killing us,” Hamza added. 

That, they say, is why they volunteer in central Damascus, not in “hotter” areas. They want to be here to help, when the storm comes.

John McCain was on Face the Nation yesterday calling for an act of war, U.S. missile strikes on Syria. There is no appetite in this country for yet another war. Of course that doesn't stop elites from doing as they please.

Al-Assad Says Syria Has S-300 Missile Batteries

The big story this morning being reported by Anne Barnard from Beirut, "Assad Says Syria Has Received Advanced Missiles From Russia," was widely predicted to be the outcome of the European Union's decision to lift its arms embargo on Syria. -- Russia would respond by shipping the S-300 air defense missiles. And so it has come to pass, though Israel denies that any shipment has been made. Here's what "Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of strategic and intelligence affairs, told an audience of reporters and diplomats in Jerusalem on Tuesday":

He said that the Russian S-300 systems were not just defensive weapons but could also be used offensively. With a range of around 125 to 185 miles, he said, they could threaten civilian and military aircraft deep inside Israeli territory.

The question now is whether Israel will make another bombing run, adding to the three it has made so far this year. Israel says it will. If so, how will Syria and Hezbollah respond?

These are the questions the West and the Gulf monarchies want us to be asking ourselves. They prefer people to be transfixed by the fear of force rather than making an accurate assessment of the situation. An accurate assessment would surely take note that news of equal weight to delivery of the S-300s is the shift in positions by the Syrian opposition meeting since last week in Istanbul. In Bernard's story she says that Assad's departure is now an opposition prerequisite for peace talks. Just yesterday Hala Droubi and Rick Gladstone reported in "Chances of U.N. Peace Talks on Syria Appear Dim as Both Sides Dig In" that

The Syrian Coalition, the main umbrella opposition group, said that it welcomed the idea of negotiations but that Mr. Assad and his security and military subordinates must “step down and be excluded from the political process.” 

While the Syrian Coalition statement did not call those demands preconditions to negotiations, it did not commit to attending an international conference under United Nations auspices in Geneva, which both the Americans and the Russians have been pressing to hold as early as next month.

The story by Droubi and Gladstone is worth reading to get a sense of the bloated gravy train that the Syrian Coalition is. It has many masters, many funders. The West is trying to garnish the group with moderates. At this point the opposition has less to do with the democratic aspirations of working people than an upscale brothel in Doha:

A bloc of four leading anti-Assad activist organizations issued a statement strongly criticizing the Syrian Coalition, asserting that it had “failed to fulfill its responsibility to represent the great Syrian people’s revolution at the organizational, political and humanitarian levels.” 

Samir Nachar, a member of the Syrian Coalition, said in a telephone interview that the opposition was under pressure by supportive foreign governments to add new liberal members “to bring internal balance to the group.” Others said that of 23 new names suggested, participants in the Istanbul meeting had agreed on only eight of them.

The resolution passed yesterday in Geneva by the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for an end to the fighting in Qusayr and criticizing the intervention of foreign fighters on behalf of the Assad government is an absurdity. Everyone knows that foreign fighters and arms are what makes the rebellion possible at this point. Without foreign fighters and arms the Syrian uprising would have gone the way of Bahrain long ago.

This is statecraft on full display. And what does one see? Not to be too Blakean here, but one sees the operation of dark Satanic Mills. Great Powers thrive on war. With peace talks scuttled by the demands of a farcical opposition -- an opposition fed and clothed by the West and its monarchical allies in the Persian Gulf -- it is clear the West desires more war.

Twelve years after 9/11 and with war winding down in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- or so Obama assured us last week -- great diplomatic effort is being spent ginning up the next war. The Arab Spring seems a distant memory.