Some FSA and SNC leaders equivocating on Latakia

Col. Mustafa Hashim (top right) being interviewed in Latakia province last night

I suspect something fishy is going on among Syrian opposition leaders.

Five days into the armed opposition’s spectacular advances on the mountains of the coastal province of Latakia, Bashar al-Assad’s heartland, bigwigs in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Syrian National Coalition (SNC) are believed to be lobbying for cessation of the campaign.

A comment today -- signed by the pseudonym “Sary Alsory” and carried on the SNC’s Facebook page – said: “Some Supreme Military Command and Coalition members revealed their ugly face and betrayal of the revolution and the nation by signing a document calling for a moratorium on the coastal campaign. We hope to publish the names of all signatories of the document.”

Interviewed live on air last night, the Latakia campaign’s field commander of the central western front, Col. Mustafa Hashim, said his men were being deliberately starved of arms and munitions.

“Our (western) front has not been treated on par with the other fronts since our (FSA) meeting in (the Turkish resort of) Antalya” last December, Col. Hashim told Melad Fadl, his interviewer from Aljazeera TV on the Latakia mountains.

The Antalya meeting organized the FSA into five fronts: the northern front (Aleppo and Idlib), the eastern front (Raqqa-Deir Ezzor and al-Hasakah), the western front (Hama-Latakia-Tartus), the central front (Homs-Rastan) and the southern front (Damascus-Dar al-Sweida).

Asked who was starving his western front of arms and munitions, Col. Hashim said cryptically: “The backer countries.

“The Unified Command apportions the military aid it receives. I voiced my objections at previous official meetings, saying I had my reservations about The Command unfairly arming one front at the expense of another. The coastal front has received very little.

“We have been hoarding arms and munitions and planning this offensive (since Antalya).

“The campaign we launched at 5 a.m. on August 4 is ongoing.  The regime’s army has not been able to advance a single meter anywhere. The offensive shall continue until Syria’s complete liberation.”

Reacting to Col. Hashim’s remarks, Egyptian military strategy analyst Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Safwat el-Zayyat told Aljazeera’s news anchor: “Had the armed opposition opened the western front earlier, it could have helped the other fronts immensely.

“The coastal front is the revolution’s success story of the year. It seems the man, Mustafa Hashim, fears being starved of weapons.

“The big question is: Are revolution backers shying away from killing (Assad’s) hopes of a safe haven in a rump coastal state? Are they trying to stave off a sectarian bloodbath (in the Alawite stronghold), which is the regime’s recruitment reservoir, now that mountain villagers have started fleeing to Latakia city?

“True, FSA and SNC leaders might be trying to stave off a sectarian bloodbath. But at the same time, they have to realize the battle for the coastline will force the regime’s hand to defend its last place of refuge, which would greatly reduce pressure on the opposition in Homs, Damascus, Deraa, Aleppo and elsewhere.”

Within 24 hours of the Latakia offensive kicking off, Khaled Yacoub Oweis wrote in a Reuters dispatch, “A senior opposition figure, who declined to be named, said the United States, a main backer of the Free Syrian Army, is against targeting Latakia, because it could spark revenge attacks by Alawites against its majority Sunni population and add to an already huge refugee problem.

“Diplomats say the coastal area and its mountain villages could be the scene of a bloodbath against the region's Alawite population if Islamist hardliners end up eventually gaining the upper hand in the conflict.”

In Washington yesterday, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told a press briefing former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford “is in Paris today and tomorrow. He’s meeting with members of the Syrian opposition to discuss the prospects of a Geneva conference.

“We remain committed to helping Syrians negotiate a political settlement along the lines of the June 2012 Geneva communiqué.

“In particular, Ambassador Ford is talking to them about the need for a unified opposition delegation headed by the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, the Syrian Opposition Coalition, which can strongly press the case for its vision of what a transition government – governing body should look like.”

Later in the day, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister said they were continuing to try to find common ground on Syria and other issues

“One thing I would emphasize is on Syria while Sergei and I do not always agree completely on responsibility for the bloodshed or on some of the ways forward, both of us and our countries agree that to avoid institutional collapse and descent into chaos, the ultimate answer is a negotiated political solution," Kerry said.

“Syria indeed is at the top of our agenda," Lavrov said through an interpreter. "The goal is the same we need to start a political process.”

However, Lavrov suggested the main cause for urgency in the Russian view is an influx of Islamic militant fighters into Syria.

“We need to stage Geneva-2 conference and in my view the most important task for Geneva-2 would be to honor the commitment of all G8 leaders...who called for the government and opposition to join efforts to fight terrorists and force them away from Syria,” the top Russian diplomat said. “Especially in light of assessments we've been hearing lately this is of course our top priority.”

Syria: Nubl and Zahra after Minnigh?

Safwat al-Zayyat

Where will Syria’s rebels turn next after seizing control of Minnigh airbase and securing a lifeline from Turkey to Syria?

Would they try and capitalize on their surprise assault on President Bashar al-Assad’s mountain stronghold to attack Latakia city?

Answers from Egyptian military strategy analyst Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Safwat el-Zayyat, commenting last night on Aljazeera TV news channel:

Three types of war are currently being fought in Syria:

1. The cities’ wars, which are attrition wars in the main, such as in Damascus, in Aleppo – where it is into its 384^th day, and in Deraa. Al-Manshieh is the only neighborhood still standing in the armed opposition’s way to win full control of the city.

2. Open field wars, such as over control of Minnigh military airbase. It took the armed opposition not less than 244 days to overrun the airbase, which covers an area of not more than two square kilometers. This is because the regime has the airpower advantage in open field wars to limit rebel advances on the ground.

3. With the rebels’ surprise offensive in Latakia province, we’re now into mountain wars – the combat for hilltops, valleys, narrow pathways, and unavoidable corridors. Such wars reduce the effect of the regime’s air supremacy and gradually limit its use of tanks and armored fighting vehicles. We saw how rebels used their Konkurs anti-tank guided missiles to great effect earlier today (August 6) and yesterday (August 5) to capture mountain villages in their Latakia province offensive.

It took the armed opposition only three days to move into such villages as Baroda, al-Ballouta, and Aramo in close proximity to al-Haffah. The latter is five kilometers from Aramo and 15-to-20 kilometers from Latakia seaport city.

I think the rebels were smart to target al-Haffah, because it is demographically predisposed to welcome them, even at the risk of artillery and air reprisals by the regime.

As regards Latakia city, I believe the armed opposition would prefer to bide its time at this stage. It would suffice to keep the city within its firepower control at this time.

More importantly, and for the first time in 12 months, the armed opposition was able to build a bridgehead in Latakia’s mountain villages to bury the regime’s dream of carving out a statelet in the coastal area.

In another gain in northern Syria, by taking full control of Minnigh airbase the armed opposition has secured a lifeline and key supply route from Turkey into Aleppo. Minnigh is just south of the Syrian town of A’zaz and the neighboring Turkish town of Kilis. The A’zaz-Aleppo highway is thus in opposition hands.

The rebels will as a result refocus on two nearby regime pockets at Nubl and Zahra, two (Shiite-dominated) villages (where Hezbollah fighters have been training loyalist militia).

Whether they turn to Nubl and Zahra or try to overrun Aleppo central prison next, the rebels are poised to win the battle for Aleppo province.

In other words, the regime’s great fanfare about winning the war after retaking Qusayr 61 days ago has been choked back.

Syrian rebels push advance into Assad heartland

Alawite cleric Ghazal in captivity (R) and earlier in military fatigue next to Ural 

Syrian rebels are pushing toward President Bashar al-Assad's hometown of Qardaha in Latakia province.

By Monday, the second day of their surprise offensive in the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite-cum-Shiite sect, the rebels had captured some 11 Alawite villages.

The villages include Aramo, 20 kilometers from Qardaha, and Baruda, where the rebels seized visiting Alawite cleric Badreddin Ghazal, a diehard Assad militant.

You can see above a photo of Sheikh Ghazal in military fatigue standing alongside Mihraç Ural aka Ali al-Kayyali, the man I dubbed in May “the ethnic cleanser of Banias,” who was also suspected of masterminding the twin Turkish bombings in Reyhanli.

There is already talk of a “prisoner swap” underway, which would see Ghazal released in exchange for setting free the women held by Assad’s shabiha in Latakia’s sports stadium.

"The rebels are not far from Qardaha, and the threat to Qardaha has moved from being conceivable to being a real one," Sheikh Anas Ayrout, a member of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) who is from the coastal city of Banias, told Reuters.

Monzer Makhous, the SNC representative to France and future Syrian ambassador in Paris who belongs to the Alawite community, tells the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, “The Free Syrian Army’s advance into the coastal region is vital, if only to prevent the regime from carving out a sectarian canton” there.

Saudi suicide Moaz (R) and the Minnigh explosion

Also Monday, the armed opposition captured the key Minnigh airbase in the northern province of Aleppo after an eight-month battle, seizing several tanks and other munitions and taking the base commander and soldiers prisoner.

Warplanes from the base had struck at villages across northern Syria.

Activists on Facebook today give credit for the Minnigh victory to a young Saudi suicide bomber who used an armored vehicle laden with explosives to breach the airbase defenses.

The Saudi suicide was named as “Moaz al-Abdelraheem.”

Egyptian military strategy analyst Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Safwat el-Zayyat last night described Syrian rebel gains in Latakia province as “very significant.”

He told Aljazeera TV’s Syria news anchor that when the armed opposition is able to move from Salma (a village northeast of Latakia) to within five kilometers of al-Haffah, which is the principal gateway to Latakia city, the questions become: Are the rebels planning to widen their bridgehead? Do they intend winning control of Jabal al-Akrad and the hills overlooking Latakia? Are they after cutting Latakia’s roads to Idlib or Aleppo or both?

“All this,” said Zayyat, “shows the regime has no military presence on the ground. It is unable to handle two battlefronts concurrently.”

Zayyat also took issue with yesterday’s report by Human Rights Watch, saying ballistic missiles used by the Syrian military is killing civilians and many children.

He said the HRW report “comes too late. The regime started using ballistic missiles in December 2012 – first against the rural areas in Idlib province.”

Ballistic missiles, said Zayyat, “are meant to leave what the military call ‘large footprints.’  So the regime using Scud missiles with a speed of mach 4, a payload of half a ton or more, and a lethal circuit of some 200 meters against village homes can only be described as a war crime of the first order.”

Syrian rebel tanks roll into the frontline

Syrian rebel tanks rolling into the field of battle yesterday

I have seen tank kills by Syrian rebels using anti-tank guided missiles.

I have also seen rebels driving away tanks captured from Syrian army facilities.

But it is the first time I see rebels in a tank formation rolling into Reef Dimashq (see above my screen grabs from a video posted on YouTube yesterday afternoon).

The formation included one or more of the following: T-72, BMP, Shilka and APC.

As I hinted in yesterday’s post, the Syrian rebels seem to have seized back the military initiative, launching major offensives against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on several fronts.

They used tanks and heavy artillery to advance to within 12 miles of the Assad family’s mountain hometown of Qardaha in the province of Latakia, according to activists and human rights groups quoted by the Washington Post.

Videos posted by rebel groups on YouTube showed tanks firing on mountain villages and rebel groups raising their flags over captured government positions in four villages belonging to members of Assad’s minority Alawite-cum-Shiite sect.

The Latakia Coordination Committee said scores of Alawites had fled from the countryside into the city.

Charles Lister of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center said the scale of the offensive, which appeared to be the biggest yet in Assad’s heartland, would come as a blow to the recent confidence displayed by the regime.

Aleppo's central prison under fire

Rebels in the northern province of Aleppo are meanwhile pounding Aleppo’s central prison ahead of storming it to free some 4,000 men and women being held there.

They are also threatening to seize Nubl and Zahra, two Shiite villages loyal to Assad. Activists say Assad’s allies, among them fighters from Iran and Hezbollah, had reinforced both villages.

The rebels had earlier revealed a list of six demands, including the surrender of Assad forces and their weapons, followed by a power sharing deal between the villagers and the rebels.

Assad said yesterday the country's crisis can only be solved by using an “iron fist” to eradicate “terror.”

Speaking at an Iftar meal in the countdown to the end of Ramadan, he also dismissed the political opposition as a “flop” that could play no role in solving the country's brutal war.

“No solution can be reached with terror except by striking it with an iron fist,” Assad said.

“I don't think any sane human being would think terrorism can be dealt with via politics… There may be a role for politics in dealing with terrorism preemptively,” but as soon as “terrorism” rears its head, it has to be struck down.

Also yesterday, Assad got cheering words from Tehran, where his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani said the Islamic Republic’s strong support of the Syrian president is unflinching.

“No force on earth can destabilize or undermine the deep-rooted, historic and strategic relations between the two friendly peoples and countries," Rohani told Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki, who was in Tehran for the Iranian president’s inauguration.

In New York, Human Rights Watch today said in a press release: “Ballistic missiles fired by the Syrian military are hitting populated areas, causing large numbers of civilian deaths, including many children.

“The most recent attack Human Rights Watch investigated, in Aleppo governorate on July 26, 2013, killed at least 33 civilians, including 17 children.



“Human Rights Watch has investigated nine apparent ballistic missile attacks on populated areas that killed at least 215 people that local residents identified as civilians, including 100 children, between February and July.

“It visited seven of the sites. There were no apparent military targets in the vicinity of seven of the nine attacks investigated by Human Rights Watch. In two cases there were nearby military objectives that may have been the government force’s intended targets, but were not struck in either attack…”

“I saw al-Qaeda kill my FSA commander”

The al-Qaeda-linked "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant"

Free Syrian Army (FSA) Lt.-Col. Abu Ahmad was by the side of Kamal Hamami -- aka Abu Baseer al-Ladkani -- when the FSA Supreme Military Council member was gunned down by militants linked to al-Qaeda in Latakia’s rural area Thursday dusk time.

Speaking live last night from an FSA outpost near the Turkey-Syria border, Abu Ahmad gave this witness account of the killing in a long-distance interview with Aljazeera TV news channel:

Q. Lt.-Col. Abu Ahmad, since you were accompanying Kamal Hamami, put us in the picture of the circumstances surrounding his killing.

A. The late Abu Baseer had deployed his al-Izz bin Abdessalam Brigade in the midmost of Naba’ al-Murr (in Latakia province’s north).

I was alongside Commander Abu Baseer, God bless his soul, on his frequent inspection visits to his brigade.

Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, we chose to return there to break our (Ramadan) fast together with members of al-Izz bin Abdessalam Brigade.

While heading there, we were stopped at a checkpoint sign reading the (al-Qaeda-linked) “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.”

The man in charge of the checkpoint said, “No entry.”

Abu Baseer told him, “Why are you denying us access? We are sons of this area, of Syria and of this township.”

The man in charge said, “These are the orders of the (Islamic State’s) Emir.”

Abu Baseer: “We would like to meet this Emir. Where is your Emir?”

Abu Baseer is a leading figure in Syria’s coastal region. He doesn’t need an introduction. All (opposition) brigades deployed in Syria’s coastal area since the start of the revolution know him.

We waited for the Emir to make his way from the easternmost part of Latakia’s rural area to its westernmost, where the checkpoint is situated.

The whole thing was premeditated.

Q. You said, “Premeditated”?

A. Yes, because they had us wait for their Emir, who goes by the name of Abu Ayman (al-Baghdadi), for over one-and-a-half-hours.

During the one-and-a-half-hour wait we were conversing with the fighters manning the checkpoint.

One of them was Moroccan.

Abu Baseer told him, “Since you hail from Morocco and are now in Syria, the checkpoint sign should read Syrian Arab Republic. This is Syrian territory and no one else’s.

“If you want to be on our side and help us, you are welcome. But to come here with alien ideas you wish to impose on this land is something we cannot let happen -- not while we are here.”

Abu Ayman launched into provocative remarks as soon as he arrived.

Our retinue wanted to intervene, but Abu Baseer, God bless his soul, ordered them to put away and lock up their arms in the car. He then turned to Abu Ayman and said, “I wouldn’t point my weapon at a fellow Muslim.”

Abu Ayman didn’t seem to be all ears. He gave no heed to the remark. He simply told Abu Baseer, “We won’t allow the FSA to operate here.”

Abu Ayman then turned to us and said we were all Takfiris.

“I am killing Abu Baseer,” he blurted out as he shot him dead.

Three members of our escort were also wounded.

Q. Was Abu Baseer’s a targeted killing or was the plan to assassinate any FSA commander and thus send a message to the whole FSA command?

A. The specific target in this instance was Abu Baseer, yes.

Abu Ayman told me in the face, “We shall wipe out all the FSA leaders. None of them will be spared.” That’s what he said.

In truth, we don’t want these aliens in our midst. We don’t need them. We don’t want fighters from outside Syria.

If properly armed, the Syrian people are able to liberate their country without outside help. Had the international community given us the required weapons and ammunitions, we would have brought down the regime long ago.

Q. The FSA says the assassination was a “declaration of war.” The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has specifically shut out the FSA from all over the Latakia region – and perhaps from throughout northern Syria. How does this affect you and the Syrian revolution?

A. What operations did these people ever mount in Syria’s coastal region? Abu Baseer was among the first officers and revolutionaries to establish a presence there. He liberated the Jabal al-Kurd and the Turkmen Mountains.

These people came into the liberated areas but nowhere else. Did you ever see them in Qusayr, Tel Kalakh, Deraa or Homs? They only turn up in liberated areas, bringing with them alien ideologies that they want to impose on the Syrian people.

Q. What do you intend doing after Abu Baseer’s assassination?

A. We want these people out. We don’t want them in the Syrian people’s areas.

If they wish to fight for the objectives of the Syrian people’s revolution, fine. But if they came to serve their own agendas and be a thorn in our flesh and a torn in the side of the revolution, then we won’t give them any chance whatsoever.

Al-Qaeda turns against the FSA in Syria

The FSA's late Kamal Hamami, known by his nom de guerre Abu Baseer al-Ladkani

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) Supreme Military Council will meet shortly to discuss the “treacherous assassination” of one of its 30 members by Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda.

The announcement was made on air this afternoon by Louay al-Mekdad, the FSA’s political and media coordinator.

In remarks to Alarabiya TV news channel, Mekdad confirmed militants from the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” a hardline Islamist group, killed Kamal Hamami in Latakia port city’s rural area yesterday after luring him to a meeting to discuss battle plans.

Kamal Hamami -- better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Baseer al-Ladkani – was in charge of a key brigade within the FSA, namely the al-Izz bin Abdessalam Brigade.

Mekdad said “mercenaries” belonging to the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant did not suffice to assassinate Abu Baseer only, but also attacked FSA fighters trying to retrieve his body and detained some of them.”

Reuters later this afternoon quoted Mekdad saying Abu Ayman al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State's Emir of the coastal region, personally shot dead Hamami and his brother at the roadblock.

He said a fighter who was travelling with them was set free to relay the message that the Islamic State considers the FSA heretics and that the Supreme Command is now an al-Qaeda target.

"If these people came to defend the Syrian revolution and not help the Assad regime, then they have to hand over the killers," Mekdad said, adding that the bodies of the two men were still with the al-Qaeda affiliate.

While FSA units sometimes fight alongside Islamist militant groups such as the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” rivalries have increased and al-Qaeda-linked groups have been blamed for several assassinations of commanders of moderate rebel units.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said the FSA and the Islamic State have had violent exchanges in several areas of Syria over the past few weeks, showing growing antagonism between President Bashar al-Assad’s foes.

“Last Friday, the Islamic State killed an FSA rebel in Idlib province and cut his head off. There have been attacks in many provinces,” the Observatory’s leader Rami Abdurrahman said.

Two of Hamami’s men were wounded in yesterday’s attack, he said by telephone.

Young Syrian female activist dies under torture

Fatima Khaled Saad

The opposition group Syrian Shuhada puts the number of females killed in the uprising at 3,349

Ms. Fatima Khaled Saad, the 22-year-old Syrian activist and citizen journalist snatched by President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces from her home in Latakia last June, is feared to have died under torture.

The Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights believes she passed away last Tuesday, October 23, at a Damascus branch of the General Security Directorate.

The directorate is the regime’s most important civil intelligence service and plays a key role in quelling internal dissent.

Fatima, who was a qualified nurse, was known in Syrian revolution circles by her assumed name, “Farah el-Rayes.”

She lived in Latakia’s poverty-stricken and densely populated suburb of Qnainis, where she volunteered to offer first aid training to residents after the torching by regime forces of the community’s sole public clinic.

Security forces arrested Fatima, her father and her brother during a search of their home in Qnainis last June 28, seizing her digital camera, memory card and mobile phone.

Her father and brother were released a few hours later. But Fatima was held after images on her digital camera showed her with a group of friends holding the Syrian revolution flag and chanting against the regime.

The Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights says Fatima was rushed to Latakia military hospital suffering from a liver injury after her lengthy interrogation at the Latakia branch of the General Security Directorate.

She was later transferred to the headquarters of the General Security Directorate in Damascus where she died after being subjected to considerable physical and psychological violence to reveal the names of other activists figuring on her camera.

The Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights says Fatima’s death takes to 1,125 the “documented” number of Syrians killed under torture by security services since the start of the uprising in mid-March 2011.

The West’s three big lies about Syria

This think piece, appearing today in the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, was penned in Arabic by Michel Kilo, a Syrian Christian considered a leading light of the Syrian opposition

Michel Kilo

The West’s politicians and experts parrot three big lies each time they get to talk about Syria. They lie to justify their passive role in Syria’s crisis. They trump up three Syrian “obstacles” that are difficult to surmount.

One

Their first lie is that Syrian society is a jumble of disparate sects and ethnic groups. It is as through the blend is new and did not exist throughout half a century of Baathist rule and a lot earlier.

They overlook the fact that Syria has always been a land of diversity and coexistence, bringing together different sects, religions, civilizations and ethnic groups.

It always welcomed strangers who gradually integrated its social fabric.

For example, the Kilo family to which I belong includes both Muslim and Christian residents of Latakia. And we call Muslim Kilos “cousins” they refer to us as cousins as well. We are united for better or worse and in the good days and bad days.

If you asked a Muslim or Christian Kilo about someone with the same surname, the answer is invariably, “He/she is a cousin.”

We hail from the Kurds Mountain area, which the regime has been shelling for the past month and a half. Although there are no Kurds left there, if you asked any other Syrian there about their place of residence, they would say: “The Kurds Mountain, east of Latakia.” That’s an area where Sunnite Muslims live in peace side by side with Alawites and Christians from all denominations.

My late father, God bless his soul, used to recount the story of a place of worship in the township of Kanasba that was falling apart until Muslims and Christians got together and decided to restore it. It still stands today. The Muslims call it the temple of Prophet Yahya and the Christians call it the temple of Yuhanna (John the Baptist).

Sects were not born under the Baath. It is Baath policies that bred sectarianism. That’s one of the problems afflicting our country today. The allegedly secular Baath Party deliberately reared sectarianism in state institutions to turn any quest for freedom by Syrians into a violent sectarian struggle.

Instead of noting this and recognizing that current sectarian manifestations amongst Syrians will evaporate once the regime is brought down, Western politicians and analysts insist on characterizing diversity in Syrian society as an insurmountable handicap.

Two

Their second fabrication is that the Syrian army is mighty, well trained and disciplined, and has in its arsenal modern and plentiful air defense systems as well as mass destruction weapons at sites dispersed across the country.

When blitzed by the United States, Iraq had no less than 625 air-to-surface missile bases, none of which brought down a single U.S. warplane. The United States was adamant that Saddam’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the world’s fourth largest army.

The West today is inflating the size, hardware and muscle of the Syrian army to steer clear of attacking the Syrian regime.

While I am not urging military intervention in Syria, I am persuaded such intervention was not ruled out because of the Syrian army’s might. Decision-makers on the matter of military intervention simply want the regime to continue pulverizing Syrian cities, towns and villages. Once the destruction is complete, they would start saying the Syrian army is weak, badly trained and equipped and we can put boots on the ground to kick out Assad.

Three

Their third lie is that the opposition is divided and impossible to unify. Except that when the Syrian National Council (SNC) was founded, the West was saying the Syrian opposition has sufficiently pulled together as to give national cover for external military intervention.

When the SNC urged Western powers to intervene, they backed off claiming the Syrian army was tough, the opposition fragmented and so was the whole of Syrian society.

Once Syrian opposition groups got together (at Arab League headquarters in early July) and thrashed out a detailed and all-inclusive roadmap to a new democratic, free, pluralistic and civilian Syria, the Western powers concocted a new lie about al-Qaeda having infiltrated the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

They fail to remember that they recently paved all al-Qaeda’s way from Benghazi to Tripoli. They turn a blind eye to the fact that the tens of thousands of people who have taken up arms against the regime are ordinary Syrians who have nothing to do with al-Qaeda.

Gentlemen, be honest. Had your interests warranted your intervention you would have said Syria’s is whole in its diversity, its army is crippled and its revolution is untouched by al-Qaeda.