Assad's Bloodletting Continues Unabated

It would appear that there's been a serious escalation in the level of violence as the military forces are dealing with apparent defections from the military.



The violence is centered on areas of historic uprisings, Homs and Hama. There are widespread arrests and detentions as the body count continues climbing.

13 more people were killed across the country today by Bashar Assad's thugs.

The human rights abuses continue throughout Syria as Assad continues his violent and bloody crackdown against opposition protesters. Human Rights Watch has called on the Arab League to suspend Syria from the group, but I have little doubt that the Arab League will simply shrug off the suggestion no matter how warranted it is.

The authors of the report called on the Arab League, scheduled to meet in Cairo on Saturday, to suspend Syria's membership and urge the United Nations Security Council to enact an arms embargo and sanctions.

Although the Syrian government has blamed armed gangs for fomenting the country’s unrest, saying they have killed hundreds of soldiers and police, the Human Rights Watch report found that there is likely widespread government-sponsored violence. HRW drew on interviews with 110 victims and eyewitnesses. Foreign journalists are banned from the country so many reports are difficult to independently verify.

Homs – both the city and the governorate by the same name – has been one of the main centers for opposition against the Assad government. The BBC reports that the situation became more armed and violent as government forces began defecting to the opposition. Between mid-April and August, Syrian forces have killed at least 587 civilians in Homs and a recent UN report found that as many as 3,500 Syrians have been killed since the up rising began.

Add to the misery the fact that Syria continues sowing its border with mines, and one of those mines took the life of a Lebanese man in a town along the border.

Despite the bloody crackdown, who's backing Assad besides his Alawite minority? Well, some Christian groups, including the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo. However, even there, the support was conditioned on an end to the bloodshed. Some of these groups are calculating that their standing in Syria will suffer should a democratic government take over for Assad and would be outnumbered by a Muslim majority. However, the longer that these same groups support Assad, the more likely the outcome for a bloody end - and bloody retributions will occur should Assad's regime fall.