Protests in Syria

[JStone]

Syria Violence: Despite Cease-Fire Agreement, Government Troops Launch Assaults On Several Towns

BEIRUT — Syrian troops launched a fierce assault on a Damascus suburb Thursday, days ahead of a deadline for a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, with activists describing it as one of the most violent attacks around the capital since the year-old uprising began.

The operation in Douma, along with other offensives around the country, bolstered the opposition's claim that President Bashar Assad is only intensifying violence ahead of the April 10 deadline to implement the truce. Activists say Assad wants to make gains on the ground before the cease-fire is supposed to take effect.

There are other signs as well that the government has no intention of abiding by the truce deal brokered by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.

The pro-government daily Al Watan quoted an unnamed official saying the government is not bound by Tuesday's deadline for a cease-fire because that day marks "the beginning of army units' withdrawal and not the end. It is not a deadline by itself."

Syria Violence: Despite Cease-Fire Agreement, Government Troops Launch Assaults On Several Towns (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Arabs have been killing each other for 1400 years. Welcome to their world

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Violence: Despite Cease-Fire Agreement, Government Troops Launch Assaults On Several Towns

BEIRUT — Syrian troops launched a fierce assault on a Damascus suburb Thursday, days ahead of a deadline for a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, with activists describing it as one of the most violent attacks around the capital since the year-old uprising began.

The operation in Douma, along with other offensives around the country, bolstered the opposition's claim that President Bashar Assad is only intensifying violence ahead of the April 10 deadline to implement the truce. Activists say Assad wants to make gains on the ground before the cease-fire is supposed to take effect.

There are other signs as well that the government has no intention of abiding by the truce deal brokered by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.

The pro-government daily Al Watan quoted an unnamed official saying the government is not bound by Tuesday's deadline for a cease-fire because that day marks "the beginning of army units' withdrawal and not the end. It is not a deadline by itself."

Syria Violence: Despite Cease-Fire Agreement, Government Troops Launch Assaults On Several Towns (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Arabs have been killing each other for 1400 years. Welcome to their world

Their world is totally fucked up.

 

[JStone]

Syria Violence: Despite Cease-Fire Agreement, Government Troops Launch Assaults On Several Towns



Syria Violence: Despite Cease-Fire Agreement, Government Troops Launch Assaults On Several Towns (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Arabs have been killing each other for 1400 years. Welcome to their world

Their world is totally fucked up.

It used to be arab custom to bury their female babies alive because they reflected poorly on the father's "manhood" Today, they murder their children in honor killings

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Violence: Government Forces Step Up Offensive In Damascus Suburbs

BEIRUT — Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad shelled two restive central cities and sent tanks and snipers into battle against rebels in the capital's suburbs on Friday, broadening an offensive that appeared aimed at crushing pockets of opposition less than a week before an internationally sponsored cease-fire is to take hold, activists said.

With fighting escalating, the stream of Syrians fleeing to neighboring Turkey picked up considerably this week. Turkey's disaster management agency said more than 2,700 refugees arrived on Thursday and early Friday, pushing the total to nearly 24,000.

Thick black smoke billowed from a residential area in Syria's central city of Homs as the sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions could be heard. "Intense shelling by Assad's gangs," a man could be heard saying while filming what appeared to be a house on fire. "May God help us."

Regime forces also struck the town of Rastan, just north of Homs, with heavy machine-guns and mortars, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Ground troops later tried to push their way into the city, clashing with opposition fighters, the group said.

The government has been laying siege to Rastan since rebels took control of it in late January. Rebels are in control of Rastan town – but not the strategic Rastan bridge, which is the main link to the country's north. Over the past year, the rebels have tried repeatedly to overrun the bridge and break the siege.

Government forces also broadened an offensive in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saqba and Arbeen, exchanging fire with rebels, activists said. The Observatory said three members of the military were killed.

Tanks patrolled deserted streets in the sprawling Douma district, about 8 miles (12 kilometers) outside Damascus, said activist Mohammed Saeed. Snipers set up positions atop a 12-story medical building.

Troops had entered Douma on Thursday in what activists described as one of the most violent raids near the capital since the uprising against Assad began more than a year ago.

Plumes of smoke rose above Saqba, and activists said regime forces torched at least one house.

Syria Violence: Government Forces Step Up Offensive In Damascus Suburbs (VIDEO)

 

[JStone]

Syria Violence: Government Forces Step Up Offensive In Damascus Suburbs

BEIRUT — Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad shelled two restive central cities and sent tanks and snipers into battle against rebels in the capital's suburbs on Friday, broadening an offensive that appeared aimed at crushing pockets of opposition less than a week before an internationally sponsored cease-fire is to take hold, activists said.

With fighting escalating, the stream of Syrians fleeing to neighboring Turkey picked up considerably this week. Turkey's disaster management agency said more than 2,700 refugees arrived on Thursday and early Friday, pushing the total to nearly 24,000.

Thick black smoke billowed from a residential area in Syria's central city of Homs as the sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions could be heard. "Intense shelling by Assad's gangs," a man could be heard saying while filming what appeared to be a house on fire. "May God help us."

Regime forces also struck the town of Rastan, just north of Homs, with heavy machine-guns and mortars, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Ground troops later tried to push their way into the city, clashing with opposition fighters, the group said.

The government has been laying siege to Rastan since rebels took control of it in late January. Rebels are in control of Rastan town – but not the strategic Rastan bridge, which is the main link to the country's north. Over the past year, the rebels have tried repeatedly to overrun the bridge and break the siege.

Government forces also broadened an offensive in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saqba and Arbeen, exchanging fire with rebels, activists said. The Observatory said three members of the military were killed.

Tanks patrolled deserted streets in the sprawling Douma district, about 8 miles (12 kilometers) outside Damascus, said activist Mohammed Saeed. Snipers set up positions atop a 12-story medical building.

Troops had entered Douma on Thursday in what activists described as one of the most violent raids near the capital since the uprising against Assad began more than a year ago.

Plumes of smoke rose above Saqba, and activists said regime forces torched at least one house.

Syria Violence: Government Forces Step Up Offensive In Damascus Suburbs (VIDEO)

Ah, the masked Arab gunman. Always, a reassuring sign of good things to come

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Violence: Government Forces Step Up Offensive In Damascus Suburbs

BEIRUT — Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad shelled two restive central cities and sent tanks and snipers into battle against rebels in the capital's suburbs on Friday, broadening an offensive that appeared aimed at crushing pockets of opposition less than a week before an internationally sponsored cease-fire is to take hold, activists said.

With fighting escalating, the stream of Syrians fleeing to neighboring Turkey picked up considerably this week. Turkey's disaster management agency said more than 2,700 refugees arrived on Thursday and early Friday, pushing the total to nearly 24,000.

Thick black smoke billowed from a residential area in Syria's central city of Homs as the sounds of heavy gunfire and explosions could be heard. "Intense shelling by Assad's gangs," a man could be heard saying while filming what appeared to be a house on fire. "May God help us."

Regime forces also struck the town of Rastan, just north of Homs, with heavy machine-guns and mortars, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Ground troops later tried to push their way into the city, clashing with opposition fighters, the group said.

The government has been laying siege to Rastan since rebels took control of it in late January. Rebels are in control of Rastan town – but not the strategic Rastan bridge, which is the main link to the country's north. Over the past year, the rebels have tried repeatedly to overrun the bridge and break the siege.

Government forces also broadened an offensive in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saqba and Arbeen, exchanging fire with rebels, activists said. The Observatory said three members of the military were killed.

Tanks patrolled deserted streets in the sprawling Douma district, about 8 miles (12 kilometers) outside Damascus, said activist Mohammed Saeed. Snipers set up positions atop a 12-story medical building.

Troops had entered Douma on Thursday in what activists described as one of the most violent raids near the capital since the uprising against Assad began more than a year ago.

Plumes of smoke rose above Saqba, and activists said regime forces torched at least one house.

Syria Violence: Government Forces Step Up Offensive In Damascus Suburbs (VIDEO)

Ah, the masked Arab gunman. Always, a reassuring sign of good things to come

Yup, when you see that things are heading in the right direction.

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Refugee Spillover Causing Major Burdens For Neighboring Countries

WASHINGTON -- With the crisis in Syria showing little sign of abating, the State Department has begun to step up its efforts to assist the tens of thousands of refugees who have spilled into neighboring countries over the past year.

Last weekend, after an international conference of nations supporting the Syrian uprising in Istanbul, the U.S. announced that it was effectively doubling its levels of humanitarian assistance to the region.

But much of that additional funding appeared to be directed to programs inside Syria, or toward efforts to deliver aid and non-lethal supplies to the civilian opposition there, rather than to the refugees who have streamed into host communities in places like Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.

In a phone interview on Wednesday, Kelly T. Clements, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, said that there has been a similarly enhanced effort to deliver funds and supplies to refugees and host communities outside Syria, including a recent $6.5 million contribution to a new $84 million appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In a recent visit to Turkey and Jordan to assess the refugee crisis, Clements met with government officials dealing with the refugee onslaught, as well as many of those who have taken refuge there.

"We had a chance to talk to Syrians in two camps" in Turkey, Clements told HuffPost. "It happened to be the 20th anniversary of the previous violence in Idlib [Syria], which is just across the border from where the camps are in Turkey, so the feeling in the area was quite tense. There was a lot of anxiety, you could even say desperation among the refugees. They didn't see any end to the violence and were very worried about their friends who were still in and around Idlib."

The State Department estimates that some 50,000 Syrians have fled the country as refugees, while another 300,000 have been internally forced from their homes. Exact tallies of the refugees are hard to come by, especially since border crossing counts by individual host countries tend to far outstrip the official registration numbers published by UNHCR.

In Jordan, for instance, local officials have put the number of incoming refugees at approximately 90,000, while UNHCR has only registered about nine thousand.

Syria Refugee Spillover Causing Major Burdens For Neighboring Countries

 

[High_Gravity]

Syrian Uprising: Assad's Forces Shoot At Refugees In Turkey

KILIS, Turkey (AP) - Syrian forces fired across the border Monday into a refugee camp in Turkey, wounding at least five people as a U.N.-brokered plan to end more than a year of violence this week all but collapsed, authorities said.

Syrian activists said two people were killed, but the reports could not be immediately confirmed.

The Syrian soldiers were believed to be firing at rebels who tried to escape to the refugee camp after ambushing a military checkpoint, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, citing a network of sources on the ground.

Turkey shelters thousands of refugees who have fled Syria as the government tries to crush a revolt against President Bashar Assad. The U.N. estimates some 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, when the uprising began.

Monday's shooting bolstered fears that the uprising could spark a broad conflagration by sucking in neighboring countries. There have been similar cross-border attacks into Lebanon, although Monday's shooting was believed to be the first inside Turkey.

The incident began at about before dawn on Monday when rebel fighters attacked Syrian soldiers manning a checkpoint near the Turkish border, killing six soldiers, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, a spokesman for the Observatory.

The troops then kept firing as eight wounded rebels escaped to the camp that is just across the border in Turkey, sending bullets whizzing across the frontier into the camp, he said.

Syrian Uprising: Assad's Forces Shoot At Refugees In Turkey

 

[JStone]

10,000 syrians have been slaughtered and hardly a peep from the international community. Maybe, they're used to arabs slaughtering each other. Boring!

 

[Trajan]

Of course they want new conditions........they will always want new conditions because they don't on fulfilling them anyway and they are quite familiar from having watched it ala Iraq, and Saddam the PLA etc. of the meaingless 'make work' busy bee back and forths the UN loves to enage in...till whatever massacre or particular horrible they are pretending they can fix is over with.

They know that the UN is useless, further-more, now that Kofi Anann, the former Oil for Food Pimp is running around padding the Assad per diem account we are assured ala Rwanda, of absolutely nothing getting done with plenty of Syrian bloodshed to come....



Syria Demands New Conditions
* Updated April 10, 2012, 8:08 a.m. ET

BEIRUT—Syria's Foreign Minister introduced new preconditions to a United Nations endorsed peace plan Tuesday, casting a pall over hopes to resolve the crisis peacefully as Syrian forces continued to shell civilian neighborhoods in violation of a cease-fire.

Walid Muallem demanded that a cease-fire be simultaneous with the deployment of an international monitoring mission, according to state news agency Sana. The new demand is the latest blow to the U.N.-backed peace plan, which would have seen Syrian forces lay down their arms early Tuesday morning and rebel groups follow 48 hours later.

more at-

Syria Demands New Conditions - WSJ.com

 

[JStone]

Those wacky arabs. The mirth never ceases

 

[Jos]

Walid Muallem demanded that a cease-fire be simultaneous with the deployment of an international monitoring mission

Sounds reasonable

 

[High_Gravity]

Syria Crisis: Kofi Annan Urges Regime To Halt Violence In 48 Hours

BEIRUT — Syrian troops defied a U.N.-brokered cease-fire plan Tuesday, launching fresh attacks on rebellious areas, but special envoy Kofi Annan said there was still time to salvage a truce that he described as the only chance for peace.

More than a year into the Syrian uprising, the international community has nearly run out of options for halting the slide toward civil war. On Tuesday, Annan insisted his peace initiative remains "very much alive" – in part because there is no viable alternative.

The U.N. has ruled out any military intervention of the type that helped bring down Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, and several rounds of sanctions and other attempts to isolate President Bashar Assad have done little to stop the bloodshed.

"If you want to take (the plan) off the table, what will you replace it with?" Annan told reporters in Hatay, Turkey, where he toured a camp sheltering Syrian refugees.

Facing a Tuesday deadline to pull back its tanks and troops, the Syrian government had said it was withdrawing from certain areas, including the rebellious central province of Homs. But France called the claims a "flagrant and unacceptable lie," and activists said there was no sign of a withdrawal.

Residents of Homs reported some of the heaviest shelling in months.

"Hundreds of mortar rounds and shells were falling around all day," resident Tarek Badrakhan told The Associated Press. He said a makeshift hospital housing wounded people and dozens of corpses was destroyed in the shelling.

"It's now on the ground," he said.

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, obtained by The Associated Press, Annan said Syria has not pulled troops and heavy military equipment out of cities and towns, and that the regime's last-minute conditions put the entire cease-fire at risk.

The council strongly backed Annan, with all 15 members – including Syrian allies China and Russia – approving a press statement expressing "deep concern" at the failure by Damascus to withdraw its troops and heavy equipment.

"Obviously, members of the council are unified in their grave concern that this deadline has passed and the violence has not only continued but over the last 10 days has intensified," said Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

According to the deal, the pullback of Syrian forces was supposed to be followed by a full cease-fire by all within 48 hours. The halt in fighting would then pave the way for an observer mission and talks between both sides over the country's future.

After 13 months of bloodshed, a revolt that began as a mostly peaceful movement against Assad's stagnant and entrenched regime has morphed into an insurgency.

Syria Crisis: Kofi Annan Urges Regime To Halt Violence In 48 Hours

 

[Ropey]

Of course they want new conditions........they will always want new conditions because they don't on fulfilling them anyway and they are quite familiar from having watched it ala Iraq, and Saddam the PLA etc. of the meaingless 'make work' busy bee back and forths the UN loves to enage in...till whatever massacre or particular horrible they are pretending they can fix is over with.

They know that the UN is useless, further-more, now that Kofi Anann, the former Oil for Food Pimp is running around padding the Assad per diem account we are assured ala Rwanda, of absolutely nothing getting done with plenty of Syrian bloodshed to come....

Syria Demands New Conditions
* Updated April 10, 2012, 8:08 a.m. ET

BEIRUT—Syria's Foreign Minister introduced new preconditions to a United Nations endorsed peace plan Tuesday, casting a pall over hopes to resolve the crisis peacefully as Syrian forces continued to shell civilian neighborhoods in violation of a cease-fire.

Walid Muallem demanded that a cease-fire be simultaneous with the deployment of an international monitoring mission, according to state news agency Sana. The new demand is the latest blow to the U.N.-backed peace plan, which would have seen Syrian forces lay down their arms early Tuesday morning and rebel groups follow 48 hours later.

more at-

Syria Demands New Conditions - WSJ.com

AFP: Syrian Violence Kills 17 on Deadline Day: Monitors

Deadly violence on Tuesday killed 17 people across Syria, including at least seven civilians, on the day the government is expected to pull out from protest hubs as per a UN-Arab League peace plan, monitors said.
Six civilians were killed in shelling that hit the old district of Khaldiyeh, in Homs, and another was shot dead in the neighbourhood of Bab Tadmur, also in the central city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based centre said regime forces shot four people in the village of Kfar Zeita, in the central Hama province, where troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad carried out arrests.
It did not specify whether the dead were civilians or rebel fighters.
The centre had reported earlier that unidentified gunmen killed six soldiers in the northeastern province of Hassakeh, in an attack that occured between the villages of Masaada and Marqada.
It also reported clashes between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebel fighters in the area of Mzeyreeb, in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the dissent movement launched a year ago.

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/ima...ists-say-were-killed-by-the-syrian-govern.jpg

^ Serious Disclaimer - Violent Deaths

All the while Syria demands...

 

[JStone]

Walid Muallem demanded that a cease-fire be simultaneous with the deployment of an international monitoring mission

Sounds reasonable

The Syrian govt murdering 10,000 Syrians sounds reasonable.

 

[Jos]

Reasonable is the deployment of an international monitoring mission and
a cease-fire be simultaneous They should try this in Israel/Palestine
2012/02/03 is the date on ropeys photo,
JStone, your Fake concern for the fate of the Syrian people is fooling no one, you just hate Arabs

http://www.google.es/search?q=gaza+...w&biw=1024&bih=615&sei=BSuFT5aiFeSq0QWDt_S7Bw
^ Serious Disclaimer - Violent Deaths In Gaza

How is this repression different from the slaughter of the people in Gaza by the IDF

 

[JStone]

To be fair to the kid Assad, he's only half as brutal as the old man who slaughtered 20,000 Syrians in Hama some years ago.

Islam, the religion of pieces

 

[Jos]

You love Syrians now?

 

[JStone]

You love Syrians now?

The fewer Arabs in the world, the better.

 

[Katzndogz]

Assad has no intention of a cease fire. He will accept terms with a cease fire in the future. Use the time to kill more Syrians, and then not accept the cease fire. He will do this as many times as necessary.

Meanwhile, he is just about sterilizing the country of Syrians! Would a rebel surrender stop it at this point?