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.

The Poverty of Elections

Elections are proving not to be the answer. Look at Obama's solid, one might even argue historic, progressive repudiation of a troglodyte conservative Republican Party. Nothing has changed. The economy remains hobbled with too many unemployed; the national security state grows ever stronger. Even Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama's one great promise -- that he'll wind down the wars in the Middle East -- has turned into a lie as we end up where we began 35 years ago -- arming the mujahideen.

Elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt have done nothing to address the nation's ills. The Mubarak security forces remain ensconced in the Interior Ministry; the economy teeters on the brink; and the society is divided between followers of conservative Islam and everyone else. Violence spiked yesterday in the run up to Sunday's huge planned protest. There could be a full-blown civil war in a matter of days.

Iraq is suffering through daily multiple terror bombings.

Al Nusra Front jihadis are claiming to have taken the Binayat checkpoint from the Syrian Arab Army in the southern city of Dara'a. But even the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights doubts the veracity of the claim. According to the story by Hania Mourtada and Rick Gladstone in this morning's paper,

Video posted on the Internet showed what the rebels claimed to be the destruction of a high-rise building at the checkpoint, along with proclamations of victory by fighters of the Nusra Front “and the Islamic battalions who participated in the operation.” 

Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory, said the insurgents had not taken full control of Dara’a. But in remarks quoted by Reuters, he said the Syrian military’s position in Dara’a was under threat and “this could change the balance of power there.”

An anti-Assad activist from Dara’a who is currently in Jordan agreed in a telephone interview that the seizure of the Binayat checkpoint was a setback for Syrian forces in Dara’a, but cautioned that the rebel claims of victory could be overstated. “The Islamic groups are trying to make a big deal behind this operation, a boasting attempt,” said the activist, who identified himself only by his given name, Taysir, for security reasons.

In other words, an attack on a government checkpoint has, thanks to the power of jihadi magical thinking, turned into the capture of an entire city.

The Guardian is reporting stepped up government activity to retake the Khalidiyah district in Homs.

I woke up this morning thinking that what's happening here is that the Wahhabis are making their move to take control of the Middle East. It's hard to think that in this environment the Israelis are going to budge one inch towards a two-state solution. This is a war for survival.

Are U.S.-Taliban Talks Linked to Rebel Support?

Bloomberg is reporting this morning of a rebel car-bomb attack on the military airport in Aleppo:

The bomb killed at least 12 government loyalists and destroyed several buildings inside Minnigh Airport, which is partially under rebel control, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mail. Syrian government forces, backed by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, launched an offensive earlier this month to try to retake the strategic city, Syria’s largest. 

The attack on the airport came a day after the U.S. and 10 other nations pledged to increase support for rebel forces in Syria, without saying what specific steps they would take or how much firepower may be needed.

Sarah El Deeb reporting for The Associated Press says that the government has begun shelling rebel-held suburbs north of Damascus:

Activists, meanwhile, reported heavy shelling of many districts north of Damascus, apparently an attempt to cut links between rebel-held districts that have served as launching pads for operations against the capital. Three children, including two from the same family, have been killed in shelling of the outlying district of Qaboun since Friday, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on an extensive network of activists in Syria. 

The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, which had a reporter embedded with Syrian government forces in the offensive, quoted a military official as saying that the operation aims to cut rebel supply lines, separate one group from another and secure the northern entrances to the capital. The regime's forces have struggled for months to regain control of these suburbs.

Jeffrey Fleishman has an informative piece, despite a misleading headline, for the Los Angeles Times; he describes how the Arab states are using the Sunni-Shiite divide to distract their restive populations from government corruption and the lack of jobs:

"Arab states see Syria as a place to exhaust Iran's capabilities and keep it distracted from other issues it might be concerned with in the Arab world," said Rabha Alam, a researcher at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "Hezbollah entering the equation has quickened the pace of sectarian rhetoric and turned it into a Sunni-Shiite conflict." 

Hezbollah embodies the fear that Sunni-led nations have of Iran, the preeminent Shiite voice, using the Syrian war to foment wider instability. Syria has become a struggle not just between Assad and the rebels, but for opposing Shiite and Sunni radical networks whose fighters come from as far away as Cairo and Tehran. 

"Hezbollah is part of the Iranian conspiracy which has a strategic objective in the region," said Mustafa Alani, a senior analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Geneva. "It has really changed the rules of the game." 

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah argues a counter-narrative: Before his men arrived in Syria, gulf state-funded Sunni militants, some with ties to Al Qaeda, infiltrated and are now commanding rebel factions. This scenario, he says, endangers Hezbollah's benefactor, Assad, and also threatens neighboring Lebanon with a volatile brand of Sunni extremism.

Political manipulations of Shiite-Sunni enmity, which dates back centuries to a struggle over a successor to the prophet Muhammad, may also be at work. Arab states, according to some analysts, may find it tempting to play on religious suspicion to deflect public attention from economic and social problems. 

Saudi Arabia is contending with a huge population of disillusioned, unemployed young people. Egypt's economy is faltering and political unrest is deepening ahead of demonstrations planned for Morsi's one-year anniversary as president on June 30. Across the Arab world, the broken promises of the uprisings have triggered despair and rising anger. 

Hezbollah's entry into the Syrian civil war "has led preachers and leaders in gulf states to adopt the discourse of 'victory for [Sunnis],'" said researcher Alam. "This keeps populations distracted from internal issues. This provides an important service to the gulf."

"This is happening in Egypt now," she said, as leaders and clerics try to siphon attention away from the government's failings. But there are consequences of rallying the region's young men around the fractious Syrian war and its dangerous religious implications.

"If we are sending our children to Syria, then which banner will they fight under ... what will they be armed with?" Alam said. "Or will we just be sending them off to die."

I'm surprised that so far there have been no stories linking negotiations with the Taliban, a Wahhabi political construct of the Gulf Arab monarchies, and the increased role of the United States in organizing the Syrian opposition. It seems obvious to me that there is a quid pro quo here. The U.S. promises to lead the effort to oust al-Assad as long as Saudi Arabia and Qatar exert influence on the Taliban to bargain with the Western puppet Karzai. But as Javid Ahmad argues on the AfPak Channel, "Peace talks only benefit Taliban." So the U.S. gets wet on both ends of the stick while the Wahhabis laugh all the way to the bank.

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.