Drumbeat For Action Against Syria's Assad Grows Louder

The ongoing civil war in Syria has led to more than 100,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees situated in grim camps in Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and the entire region is in turmoil, especially after the latest reports indicating that chemical weapons of some kind were used against civilian populations in a Damascus suburb.

It's the latest in a string of scattered incidents involving chemical weapons in the civil war that have pushed the US, France, and others to warn that they may seek military action against Bashar Assad's regime for their violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Russia, along with China, continues working their stalling tactics at the UN as Assad continues his brutal crackdown against rebel forces, meaning that there's little chance of an immediate military response to the chemical weapons attack that may have killed anywhere from 130 to 1,300 people.

The British are putting forth a UN resolution at the Security Council, but Assad isn't going to stop fighting his enemies on the basis of a UN resolution. Efforts by UN inspectors to figure out what actually happened were hampered by a delay in getting access to the site, coming under sniper fire, and the fact that Assad's forces had laid siege to the area with conventional artillery for days before the inspectors could get on the ground there.

With the drumbeat of war growing louder, and the possibility that airstrikes may commence tomorrow, the Jerusalem Post is warning that the Israeli homefront is not prepared for an unconventional conflict - referring to chemical weapons. There’s also reports indicating that if the UN/NATO/US hit Assad targets in Syria, that Syria would retaliate against Israel. Some Israelis aren’t sure that Assad would or wouldn’t attack.

It doesn’t matter that Israel has Iron Dome, Patriot and other missile defense systems available to it; Syria going after Israel if hit by airstrikes would open up a can of worms not seen since the 1991 Gulf War. Back then, Israel withstood the brunt of dozens of scud launches that slammed into Israel without retaliation, but would Israel do the same once again?

I’m not so sure. There are reasons that Assad wouldn’t want to enlarge the fight to include Israel out of practical reasons - if his military can barely scratch out a stalemate against rebel forces, it would suffer badly in a fight against the IDF. And Israel may well respond not only with airstrikes of its own, but could send in its Sayeret Matkal and other special forces to go after specific targets - missions that it might not have considered unless Israel was directly attacked. That’s not to say that Israel hasn’t gone after Syrian targets of opportunity before - the airstrike against the nuclear facility a few years back shows that they’ll act preemptively and with force if necessary.

But there are also reasons Assad would go after Israel - make a muddled mess and further complicate things for the rebels and the West - since affiliations/backing for various groups arrayed against Assad have different motivations and sometimes run counter to each other.

Still, airstrikes will hurt Assad, but they’ll end up having unpredictable outcomes not only for Israel, but for Lebanon, which is where Syria still exerts influence and where Assad’s proxies in Hizbullah continue to hold sway. Hizbullah is a wildcard in this, and they could again make a mess of Lebanon, to say nothing of Northern Israel.

If there’s a callup of Israeli forces, it may also be out of a concern that Hizbullah may well be planning to take the pressure off Assad by launching attacks against Israel to take media pressure off Assad and put the spotlight again on Israel.

The Latest Casualty In Syria's Civil War: Aleppo's Historic Souk

Syria's civil war continues to rage on and the casualties continue rising. As the tally of those refugees displaced by the war grows to a record level in the 21st century, the body count continues rising as the tally from a Syrian military airstrike on a town near Syria's northern border was 21, including eight children. At the same time, among the latest casualties is Aleppo's historic souk, which was a UNESCO World Heritage Site and dates back to the 14th century.

Heavy shelling rocked Damascus and other towns today, just a day after the closing of the week-long United Nations General Assembly meeting, where world leaders spent countless hours calling for an end to the deadly Syrian crisis and Syria’s foreign minister accused members of trying to impose colonial policies on his country.

Anti-government activists reported shelling in Daraa, Idlib, and the Damascus suburb of Douma today, and at least 17 people were killed this morning as a result of the violence, according to the opposition's Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Fierce fighting in Aleppo, which began in the city's Souk al-Medina over the weekend and continued into yesterday, left the Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, smoldering.

At the close of the General Assembly yesterday, no diplomatic resolution was reached on Syria, despite more than seven days of speeches where “Syria was discussed by one country after another,” reports the Associated Press.

Souks are markets that are at the heart of many cities throughout the Middle East. They are wonderous places to behold as merchants ply their wares in stalls and spices and herbs waft through the air as dry goods and foods are sold. The Aleppo souk was destroyed in the course of heavy fighting between rebel forces and Bashar al Assad's forces. Before it was destroyed, it was considered the world's largest covered souk, and fires destroyed more than 1,500 shops. Activists claim that Assad's forces used incendiary rounds in attacking rebel forces in and around the souk.

The UN General Assembly wrapped up business without taking any action on the situation.

Meanwhile, the authenticity of a video purporting to show rebels holding a kidnapped American journalist Austin Tice has been questioned. It appears that Assad's propagandists may have staged the video to discredit the rebel forces.

Joseph Holliday, a former United States Army intelligence officer who tracks Syrian rebel groups for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, told The Post that it seemed strange that the armed men around Mr. Tice were wearing what appear to be salwar kameez, traditional clothing worn in Afghanistan, which looked very clean. “It’s like a caricature of a jihadi group,” he said. “My gut instinct is that regime security guys dressed up like a bunch of wahoos and dragged him around and released the video to scare the U.S. and others about the danger of Al Qaeda extremists in Syria. It would fit their narrative perfectly.”

The video came to light the same day that Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, scolded other countries who “clearly induce and support terrorism in Syria with money, weapons and foreign fighters,” in an address to the United Nations General Assembly.

At the same time, reports indicate that Hizbullah forces are among those killed in Syria. Their identities were revealed by Lebanese security officials upon the return of their remains to Lebanon for burial. While it isn't clear which side they fought for, Hizbullah has been generally backing Assad's regime and could have been bolstering Assad's loyalist militias.

Another one of Syria's neighbors, Jordan, caught four people trying to enter Syria.

Jordan on Tuesday charged four men with illegally trying to cross into Syria after an exchange of gunfire with Jordanian border guards last week, a military prosecutor said.

The prosecutor said three of the men were in custody following their arrest along an isolated stretch of the northern frontier with Syria.

He said the fourth man escaped after the group had shot at a Jordanian border patrol, wounding one officer. The prosecutor spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.

He said the men were all Jordanian and were armed with automatic rifles and ammunition, and had computers and mobile phones when they were arrested.

Syria has become a honey pot for jihadi groups and others seeking the experience of fighting in yet another conflict in the region.

Ahmadinejad Makes Annual Trip To UN General Assembly; Anti-Gay, Anti-Israel Comments Ensue

There's no surprises here. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hates Israel's very existence and doesn't think any better of gays or lesbians. He lets those views air once again in an interview given before he speaks at the United Nations expect that they will be part and parcel of his rants tomorrow when he speaks at the UN General Assembly (which will likely be marked by Israel, the US and other countries walking out on his rants).

During a taped interview with Piers Morgan broadcast Monday night on CNN, Ahmadinejad responded candidly to Morgan's questioning about a statement the Iranian leader once made that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

Speaking through a translator, Ahmadinejad said:
If a group comes and occupies the United States of America, destroys homes while women and children are in those homes, incarcerate the youth of America, impose five different wars on many neighbors, and always threaten others, what would you do? What would you say? Would you help it? ... Or would you help the people of the United States?

So when we say "to be wiped," we say for occupation to be wiped off from this world. For war-seeking to (be) wiped off and eradicated, the killing of women and children to be eradicated. And we propose the way. We propose the path. The path is to recognize the right of the Palestinians to self-governance.

Ahmadinejad also did not fully acknowledge the Holocaust, saying to Morgan, "Whatever event has taken place throughout history, or hasn't taken place, I cannot judge that. Why should I judge that? I say researchers and scholars must be free to conduct research and analysis about any historical event."

That he's going to claim that Israel's existence is an abomination and is an illegitimate state isn't news. He's been doing this routine for years. Ahmadinejad's also been deep in Holocaust denial for years as well.

That he's doing it in a speech scheduled for Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest day, is. Who put together that schedule?

Syrian Civil War Update: Rebels Again Attack Assad's Security Compounds

Despite a relentless pounding from Syrian military and loyalist militias, the rebel forces continue to more than hold their own against a better equipped force. The rebels have once again attacked security compounds in Aleppo and also along the border with Iraq:

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that one of the assaults in Aleppo sparked a firefight that killed and wounded a number of government troops. It gave no figures.

Last month, rebel forces took control of parts of Syria's commercial hub, sparking fierce fighting there.

Also Friday, the monitoring group said government troops and rebels were locked in battle north of the capital, Damascus, and in Albu Kamal, on the Iraqi border. Internet video appeared to show fighting in Homs, Daraa and Damascus.

The fighting continues to inflict casualties on civilians and the war of words over Assad's backers continues as well. Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi again attacked Iran over its support for the Assad regime during the meeting for nonaligned nations taking place in Tehran. Iran subsequently attacked Morsi for his calls for the nonaligned nations to act to bring the civil war to an end. Iranian officials have remained steadfast in their support of Assad.

Part of that reason could be that Assad thinks that he's winning. Despite Assad losing control of significant portions of the country, he thinks his military has the upper hand against the rebel forces. That could be due in part to delusions of grandeur, his military leaders telling Assad what he wants to hear rather than what the situation on the ground really is, or that he believes that the crackdown is working to rid himself of the rebel threat via a meatgrinder.

Turkey is calling for a safe haven, which seems to be a step towards establishing a no-fly zone to protect Syrians from the onslaught of air attacks.

UN Secretary General called on Assad to stop using heavy weapons against civilian populations. The call will go unheeded, as Assad has repeatedly shown that his only interest is preserving his power, not human rights or arranging some form of power-sharing with the opposition.

France is looking at ways of funneling aid to those parts of Syria that are controlled by the rebel forces.

Syrian Civil War Update: Even Bread Lines Aren't Safe From Assad's Attacks

Bashar al Assad is feeling the heat on all fronts. His security forces and loyalist goons can't stop the rebel forces from gaining and holding territory despite having a monopoly on air power and artillery. His backers remain at Iran, Russia, and China, and that may not be enough to keep him in power.

Egypt's new President Mohamad Morsi has called for an intervention in Syria and told Iran that it's thwarting a peaceful transition of power in Syria by backing Assad. Morsi called out Iran on Iran's home turf during a meeting of the non-aligned nations.

It's not surprising that Assad's diplomats walked out during Morsi's meeting. They have few friends among diplomats across the globe, and Morsi's criticism came on Syria's primary backer's doorstep.

Assad's regime keeps trying to play down the slow but steady stream of defectors, but the fact is that support for Assad within his regime isn't what it once was. The civil war rages on, the death toll mounts, and there is disillusionment with how Assad has handled everything - namely preserving power for himself at the expense of more than 20,000 lives across the country. The number of refugees is continuing to rise because the violence continues through the heart of Syria's urban areas. Those refugees are a problem not only for Syria, but the countries where they are seeking refuge. That is likely to inflame tensions and could potentially spur those countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, to take action - closing down the border, military action against Syria, or demanding that the UN take more resolute action than weak worded resolutions that are teethless because Russia and China are blocking anything more constructive.

But most of all, his incessant attacks on civilians will take its toll. You cannot murder dozens of people by carrying out airstrikes against people queued up in lines for bread without all Syrians taking notice.

Dozens were killed when airstrikes over a period of days hit multiple breadlines in Aleppo.

Syrian jets and artillery have struck at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo in the last three weeks, killing dozens of people as they waited in line to buy bread, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, accusing the military of targeting civilians.

The U.S.-based group said the attacks were either aimed at or were done without care to avoid the hundreds of civilians forced to queue outside a dwindling number of bakeries in Syria's biggest city, a front line in the civil war.

"The attacks are at least recklessly indiscriminate and the pattern and number of attacks suggest that government forces have been targeting civilians," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

"Both reckless indiscriminate attacks and deliberately targeting civilians are war crimes."

One attack on August 16 killed around 60 people and wounded more than 70, said HRW, which sent a researcher to the embattled city.

Food shortages in Aleppo - a focal point of the 17-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad - have forced many bakeries to close, meaning huge queues for the food staple outside the remaining shops.

"Day after day, Aleppo residents line up to get bread for their families, and instead get shrapnel piercing their bodies from government bombs and shells," said Ole Solvang, the HRW researcher who visited Aleppo.

That's a textbook example of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the Assad regime. Assad's forces targeted civilian populations and fired indiscriminately on civilian populations. Assad must be held to account for his atrocities.

Is Assad's Regime On Verge of Collapsing?

According to the recently defected former Prime Minister Riyad Hijab, Bashar al-Assad's regime controls no more than 30% of the country and it's on the verge of collapsing.

“Based on my experience and my position, the regime is falling apart morally, materially, economically,” the former official, Riyad Farid Hijab, said at a news conference in Amman, Jordan. “Its military is rusting, and it only controls 30 percent of Syria’s territory.”

He added that many high-level civilian and military officials in Syria — “leaders with dignity” — were waiting to defect. Mr. Hijab said he fled the Syrian capital, Damascus, because the government threatened his family and had no reasonable means to end the violence. He also urged the opposition to unify and to move ahead with plans for a transitional government and “a civilian democratic state that preserves the right, justice and dignity of all Syrians.”

But he said he had no interest in a formal position. “I have sacrificed myself in the campaign of righteousness,” he said. “I don’t want to satisfy anyone but God.”

Mr. Hijab’s claims about the weakness of the Assad government could not be independently verified, and he gave few details to support his harsh assessment. A Sunni technocrat from the eastern city of Deir al-Zour — which has been enduring shelling and fighting for weeks — Mr. Hijab was not a member of Mr. Assad’s inner circle, and he was appointed to the position of prime minister only in June.

There's no way to know for sure just how secure Assad's regime is, but there have been indications that Assad's lost control of vast swaths of the country. His security forces have been hard pressed to retain control of Syria's two biggest cities - Damascus and Aleppo. Rebels managed to assassinate key security members in a bombing several weeks ago. There have been a steady but increasing stream of defections, including Hijab.

It also appears that Assad's brother was grievously injured in that July 18 bombing. A Russian minister also indicated that Assad's willing to give up power:

Quoting Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, the newspaper reported that Maher Assad's condition "is very serious and he is fighting for his life."

The July blast took place during a high-level meeting at the state security ministry in the capital. Among those killed were Defense Minister Daoud Rajha, former Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani, and Assad brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, who served as the country's deputy defense minister. The suicide attack was carried out by a bodyguard for the president's inner circle, a Syrian security source said at the time. Until now it was unclear whether Maher Assad had attended the meeting.

Bogdanov added that President Assad is prepared to give up power, according to the Al-Watan report. "We ask that this issue be dealt with quickly to bring about a solution to the crisis," he said. "We are speaking with the opposition and the Syrian government on a daily basis."

However, Assad's security forces continue the bloodletting and no one within the security establishment is willing to tell Assad that his time is done for the sake of all Syrians. He's apparently content to continue the violence to preserve his power. The Russians have moved to deny Bogdanov's claims, which further suggests that Assad isn't going anywhere - at least for now. They claim that Bogdanov never gave any interview to al-Watan, which other media outlets quickly re-reported.

There are also indications that Russia and Iran are busy propping up Assad's regime, even as Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are assisting the rebels.

At the same time, al Qaeda and other terror groups, including Hizbullah are looking to fill the power vacuum, which is something that Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, and Israel are all keenly hoping to avoid.

Meanwhile, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria from its membership as another UN official envoy is visiting Syria so as to draw attention to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria. The UN mission will fail just as surely as Kofi Annan's attempts did; Assad has no intention of giving up power, or stopping the violence, and rebel forces are just as unwilling to stop their own efforts as they continue to maintain and gain territory, even if those gains come at a significant humanitarian cost or that retribution for being part of Assad's government includes war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kofi Annan Resigns As Envoy as Syrian Civil War Intensifies

The outcome was all but assured. Bashar al-Assad paid lip service to United Nations Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, and his plan to end the ongoing violence wracking Syria for more than a year and a half. So Kofi has quit as envoy.

Assad continues to claim that foreign entities and terrorists are to blame for the violence, but it's Annan's security forces and loyalist goon squads who have introduced the violence and then intensified it as opposition groups moved to defend themselves.

The situation has been a civil war for some time now, as rebel forces have gained and held territory, including parts of Syria's two big cities - Aleppo and Damascus.

Annan's plan has been an abysmal failure though it wasn't exactly his fault. UN monitors could only look on as the violence raged around them; they were themselves targeted on more than one occasion. That ultimately led to their withdrawal. Assad never had any intention of stopping the brutal crackdown since he had no intention of ever stepping down or relinquishing power under any circumstances.

Aleppo is an urban battleground, with Assad's loyalists firing heavy weapons into the city and rebel-held strongholds, while the rebel forces have overrun some of Assad's positions and obtained heavy weapons of their own to return fire. Civilians remain caught in the crossfire.

Video footage seen by the Monitor shortly after the showdown bolstered rebel claims: It showed a Syrian armored vehicle with an RPG hole in its side still smoldering, and a number of Syrian soldiers lying dead at their positions on a wide avenue. Later footage showed burnt tanks.

The assault had been stopped, at least on the ground.

But shortly after came the roar of artillery barrages. Mortars, rockets, and tank shells were unleashed on the rebel enclave and did not end, nor even ease up, until well into the night.

Casualties began to pour in to the makeshift field hospital. Civilians said the intense shelling felt like regime revenge for the earlier military setbacks.

Few Syrians here forget the example of the rebel stronghold of Bab al-Amr in Homs – which was destroyed by weeks of artillery bombardment earlier this year, then declared "free" – or the more recent brutal "cleansing" of rebel turf in Damascus.

The bombardment was so intense that the United Nations estimates that in the last two days alone, 200,000 of the city’s 2 million residents have fled.

Artillery shells and rockets fell every few minutes in Salaheddin, sometimes as often as one a minute and sometimes in groups of five, coming in rapid succession. Some landed so close to the field hospital that shrapnel and debris hit the roof or walls.

Meanwhile, President Obama issued a secret finding authorizing covert aid to the Syrian rebels. He's also arranged for more humanitarian aid to those displaced by the Syrian civil war.

Aleppo Besieged As Assad and Rebels Claim Victories

The fighting in and around Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, continues and the number of refugees is soaring. 200,000 have fled the city as a result of the brutal fighting on the streets and in the buildings of multiple neighborhoods around the city.

Both Assad and rebel forces have claimed victories. Assad's forces have claimed that they've overrun rebel held areas and retaken the city after more than a week's worth of artillery assaults and airstrikes.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, reported heavy shelling in Salaheddine today, suggesting the district or parts of it are still under rebel control. An officer interviewed by the state-run TV channel said “mercenaries” from other countries, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, were helping the rebels in Aleppo.

Troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been battling rebels who seized several neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and its commercial hub, since last week. The army pounded the city with heavy artillery and helicopter gunships, opposition groups say.

Motee al-Bateen, a member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group, said he couldn’t confirm that Salaheddine has fallen into army hands.

“How much territory the opposition holds is not important,” he said by telephone from Istanbul today. “What’s important is to engage the troops in cycles of attack-and- retreat to exhaust them.”

Al-Bateen said the army was using mortars, rocket launchers and tanks to shell areas from a distance and avoid engaging rebels in close combat.

Rebels note that despite the artillery and airstrikes, they've continued to hold on to Aleppo. Moreover, they've noted that Assad's forces haven't invaded the city en masse, precisely because they'd be facing an uphill battle in a brutal urban setting.

Rebel forces also announced that they captured a significant military base near Aleppo. They managed to capture the position after heavy fighting, and gained heavy weapons to supplement their own weapons.

Pro-Assad groups have claimed that Assad's forces have assassinated a Saudi official, Bandar bin Sultan, who they claim involved in plotting to eliminate key members of the Syrian defense and intel establishment earlier this month. However, there's no evidence to substantiate those claims, but it does show the animosity between Syria and Saudi Arabia is growing. The Saudis have been working to bring Assad's regime to an end, both by diplomacy and by covert means.

Meanwhile, another Syrian official has defected. At the same time, a Chinese news outlet is reporting that Assad's continuing to claim that he seeks to carry out the terms of the Arab League/Kofi Annan plan to end the violence. It's just so much talk since Assad could have simply brought the violence to an end by reining in his brutal crackdown. He has no intention of giving up power peacefully, and is seeking retribution against those that questioned his regime.

At the same time, concerns are mounting that al Qaeda and other Islamists are taking advantage of the chaos to gain a foothold in Syria.

Aleppo Under Siege As Assad's Forces Attack From Air and Golan Heights DMZ

Israel is contacting the United Nations over an incursion by more than 500 Syrian soldiers into the DMZ between Israel and Syria in the process of attacking rebel targets near the demarcation line.

Following the incident, in which 500 soldiers and 50 vehicles crossed into the demilitarized zone, Israel filed a formal complaint to the UN secretary general and to the president of the UN's Security Council, warning that the event may have serious ramifications.

Concern in Israel, in light of the situation in Syria, especially over Assad's chemical weapons stockpile and land-to-land missiles, is growing every day. In a meeting on Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consulted the heads of Israel's security establishment, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and other senior cabinet members.

"We are monitoring the events in Syria closely and are prepared for any development to come," Netanyahu said in his opening statement.

At the same time, rebel forces are claiming that Bashar al-Assad's forces have dispersed chemical weapons to airports along Syria's borders as a threat against foreign countries from interfering in the brutal crackdown against the rebels. However, we need to keep in mind distances we're talking about here. The threat is that he's going to disperse and deploy them against foreign targets.

Damascus is 45 miles from the Golan Heights DMZ.

Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are only around 120 miles beyond that.

The distances are so small that the threat is the same regardless of where Assad is putting those weapons if he's going to use them against Israel via aircraft or long range missiles. Artillery delivering such weapons would have a shorter range, but that's something that the Israelis would see via their listening posts on Mt. Hermon. Israel would see something was afoot, though the reaction time would be less the closer to the border.

Dispersing the weapons means that the chances that they could fall into the wrong hands increases (terrorists or those who may have no idea what they're doing) increases. But since Assad is expanding its air campaign against the rebels, it's not beyond the possibility that despite his claims to the contrary, he could be preparing to use them against the rebel forces.

If Assad thought that trying to provoke Israel into engaging in a firefight would help his cause, he's seriously misguided since Syrians would see and respond that he's trying to bluff his way out of his predicament by blaming Israel (something he's done for far too long). And the last thing he wants to do is split his forces between going after the rebel forces and any kind of conflict with Israel and its technological superiority. He would unwittingly be playing right into the hands of rebel forces who lack the capability to neutralize the Syrian air force. If Assad brings Israel into the conflict, it would neutralize his air force, which is one of the few things holding the rebel forces at bay.

Recent reports indicate that Assad's now using fighter jets in addition to helicopter gunships. Until now, Assad's forces have used helicopters and artillery for long range attacks against the rebel forces.

Assad's forces have increasingly relied upon their air force to attack rebel forces, which is also about the only way Assad's loyalists can stay ahead of the rebels, who have managed to carry off spectacular advances in holding territory as well as attacks killing the highest echelon of Assad's security establishment.

Government helicopter gunships attacked Aleppo, the Local Coordination Committees, a network of on-the-ground activists, told NBC News. The Associated Press reported that warplanes circled in the air around the city, while the British Broadcasting Corp., citing one of its reporters near the area, said that fighter jets had bombed eastern parts of Aleppo.
With sequential rebel attacks on the country's two largest cities and a bombing that wiped out some of his top security advisors, President Bashar Assad reshuffled his top security posts, dismissing one general and appointing a national security council chief to replace the one killed in the recent attack.

Syria's rebels, outmanned and outgunned by the regime's professional army, have mounted a surprising pair of offensives over the last 10 days against the country's two major cities — Damascus and Aleppo. Even as the government appears to have snuffed out most of the rebel pockets in the capital, the rebels appear to be fight fiercely in the commercial hub of Aleppo in the north.

The government has instituted tight restrictions on outside news outlets working in Syria, making it difficult to verify many reports from inside the country.

Fighting spreads in Aleppo
The battle in Aleppo has spread from neighborhoods in the northeast and southwest of the city to previously untouched areas like Firdous in the south and Arkoub closer to the center, local activists and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

This is the fourth day of heavy fighting in Aleppo, which also includes a prison uprising that was brutally put down. There's also evidence that Assad's forces are using Iranian-made UAVs in spotting targets.

Rebels Pushed Back In Damascus As They Gain Ground Elsewhere

Bashar al Assad's Syrian military has managed to push back an offensive by rebel forces in the capital of Damascus. It was not without a heavy toll in civilian casualties, which seems to be the norm in the fighting there.

Artillery attacks and airstrikes from helicopters are causing significant damage across the city, particularly in the area of Midan:

On Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, said a group of rebel fighters claimed to have routed government soldiers in a section of Midan neighborhood, taking over a piece of one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. The claim, like most of the reports of fighting and of casualties, could not be independently confirmed.

But on Friday Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory said government forces, fighting back with a superior military machine pitted against an opposition still working predominantly with small-caliber weapons, had retaken Midan, while the number of dead in fighting across the land on Thursday was reported to have risen above 300. Of the dead, 98 were soldiers, 139 civilians and 65 rebels, rebels said.

The figures updated earlier estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights for the death toll on Thursday, claiming that 155 civilians and 93 government soldiers were killed, including nearly 60 civilians in and around Damascus.

The latest tally was among the highest — if not the highest — claimed in a single day since the revolt began in March 2011. It could not be independently corroborated because of the difficulties and restrictions on independent news gathering in Syria.

Claiming victory in Midan, Syrian state television declared: “Our brave army forces have completely cleaned the area of Midan in Damascus of the remaining mercenary terrorists and have re-established security.” Rebels said they had staged a “tactical withdrawal” from Midan to avert civilian casualties.

Neither side appears to bother with worrying about collateral damage; we're talking about heavy combat in a dense urban setting.

At the same time pitched battles are occurring in Damascus, rebel forces claimed to have captured border crossings on both the Turkish and Iraqi borders. That's a significant development since it would enable the rebel forces to regroup and rearm more freely. The rebels were claiming to have briefly held the Turkish border crossing before withdrawing from the area because of concerns over the Syrian military's capabilities in that area; they did so for propaganda purposes.

Meanwhile, there are conflicting reports that the Russians have been informed that Assad's willing to step down. That would be news to the Syrian media, which is controlled by Assad, that denied the allegations.

Russia's ambassador to France said Friday that he believes Syria's president is ready to step down "in a civilized way." But the Syrian government immediately denied it.

Alexander Orlov said that Bashar Assad's acceptance of an international agreement in June for a transition toward a more democratic regime, and his subsequent step of naming a representative to negotiate the transition, meant that he was prepared to give up leadership.

The country is sliding into even further chaos, with fighting around the capital Damascus intensifying two days after the inner circle of Assad's regime was hit by an attack that killed three top Syrian defense officials.

"Personally ... I think it will be difficult for him to stay in office given everything that's happened," Orlov said in an interview with Radio France Internationale.

Orlov spoke a day after Moscow vetoed a Western-backed U.N. resolution aimed at pressuring President Bashar Assad's government to end the war. Friday was the deadline for the U.N. to renew its 300-member observer mission in Syria, or let the mandate expire.

Russia has been busy propping up the Assad regime all while claiming it wasn't doing so. They have repeatedly blocked any United Nations actions, particularly under Chapter VII that allows the use of military force. Yesterday, they, along with the Chinese vetoed tougher sanctions against the regime. That move clearly indicates an intention to prop up the regime, and that spells bad news for Russia when the regime finally is overthrown. The Syrian people aren't going to forget who was involved in propping up the regime or that the Russians, along with the Chinese and Iranians don't have the well being of the Syrian people in mind when they're busy propping up a murderous tyrant. Russia could well lose one of its last remaining allies/clients in the Middle East if Assad falls.

At the same time, a shipment of Syrian-owned refurbished attack helicopters have been offloaded from a Russian cargo ship back in Russia. These aren't new Syrian helicopters, but were part of a deal between the two countries for Syria to refurbish them and had been a part of a row with the US over arming the Assad regime; it would seem the Russians backed away from precipice.

Rumors Rampant That Assad's On The Run

Everything is on rumor at the moment. No one seems to have seen Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad in the past few days, particularly since the attacks began in Damascus proper and especially after the bombing that took out his defense ministers yesterday.

The silence is fueling rumors of his whereabouts and whether he's still in control of the government. However, considering that there were a series of proclamations announcing the replacements to those who were killed in yesterday's audacious bombing of security officials, including the defense minister and his deputy (one of Assad's brothers-in-law), it appears that he's still running the show.

The fact that Assad made no public statement about such a devastating attack quickly fueled rumors that the president himself had been injured or killed. It was also unclear where his wife and children were after the bombing.

One Syrian opposition activist claimed in an interview with Al Arabiya television network that the presidential jet had left the Damascus airport Wednesday for Latakia, echoing a flurry of online claims by activists that Assad had been injured and sent to the Mediterranean port city.

However, Syrian state media reported that Assad had issued two decrees after the Wednesday attack, appointing Gen. Fahd Jassem Freij as defense minister and deputy commander-in-chief of the army.

There are rumors that he's out of Damascus and running things from one of his palaces in Latakia (an Alawite majority town on the coast), and there are rumors that his presidential jet has taken off to points unknown, though it appears that the destination was Latakia.

None of the reports can be substantiated though he's clearly unsure of his personal safety so he's on the move and doesn't know who he can trust. So, there's a measure of safety in the silence/ambiguity.

Yesterday's events have once again raised questions of a post-Assad Syria, and the US is beginning to consider that possibility, including consulting with Israel and other countries.

All this comes as Syrian forces continue attacking Damascus from the air and with artillery.

The army shelled its own capital from the surrounding mountains as night fell on Wednesday. Government troops, having vowed retaliation for the assassination, fired machine guns into the city from helicopters.

Rebels, massed in several neighborhoods, are armed mostly with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

Activist videos posted on the Internet showed bloodied bodies lying in the street.

Striking at the Heart of Assad's Regime

Fighting has intensified in and around Damascus over the past couple of days, but today's news is breathtaking in its consequences. A suicide bomber, who apparently was a bodyguard, blew up at a meeting of high ranking security officials.

Bashar al-Assad's brother in law and defense minister were killed in the blast. At the same time several reports indicate that more generals have defected.

The assassinations were the first of such high-ranking members of the power elite in the 17-month revolt against Mr. Assad’s rule, and could represent a turning point in the conflict, analysts said, confirming that opposition forces have been marshaling their strength to strike at the close-knit centers of state power.

According to state television, the dead included the defense minister, Daoud Rajha, and Asef Shawkat, the president’s brother-in-law who was the deputy chief of staff of the Syrian military. But the television report rejected claims by activists that the minister of the interior also was killed, saying he remained alive and in stable condition.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said all the members of the crisis group set up by President Assad to try to put down the revolt were are either dead or injured. But there was no official confirmation of that account.

With tensions already high in Damascus after three days of clashes between the Syrian Army and rebels near the city center, SANA, the official news agency, described the assault as a “suicide terrorist attack.” Opponents claimed a major victory.

“The Syrian regime has started to collapse,” said the activist who heads the Syrian Observatory. “There was fighting for three days inside Damascus, it was not just a gun battle, and now someone has killed or injured all these important people.”

The Free Syrian Army has claimed responsibility and that they were able to infiltrate the ministry building shows that the opposition has managed to infiltrate the regime and its security measures.

It's premature to call this the beginning of the end of Assad's regime, but it's the beginning of the next phase in the ongoing civil war. Considering that those involved plotting in the brutal crackdown were among those killed, it's going to be interesting to see the strategy that Assad uses going forward. Considering how ignorant Assad is of the plight of his countrymen, I fully expect him to further intensify the crackdown and brutalization of the Syrian people.

We're already seeing that there is widespread shelling of civilian areas, as BBC reports.

The more that he uses violence, the more the country realizes that Assad has got to go. We're already seeing some of those dividends as more military leaders defect rather than stay and fight against their fellow countrymen.

The British Foreign Secretary, in condemning the bombing that took out Assad's defense ministers, also used it as an opportunity to again assert that the UN needs to act under Chapter VII (using force) to solve the crisis there.

Russia continues blocking UN Chapter VII-type actions, but it's again reiterating that it will not prop up Assad. That's rather duplicitous of them, considering that Assad is being propped up by Russia by their stubborn refusal to offer up Assad a golden parachute to exile that avoids the ignominious end that met the likes of Mumar Khadafi.

UPDATE:
I don't have a crystal ball about what will happen, but it might be instructive to look at Yemen's civil war/insurrection for guidance. There, Ali Abdullah Saleh was hit in a bombing and forced to leave the country for medical treatment but he and his regime never broke and he was able to return. The endgame there was that on January 22, 2012, the Yemeni parliament passed a law that granted Saleh immunity from being prosecuted and he left Yemen for treatment in the United States. Saleh stepped down and formally ceded power to his deputy Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi and Al-Hadi will be a caretaker for the government as a new constitution is drafted and new elections are scheduled for 2014. However, the security situation there remains dire as the government is locked in a battle with al Qaeda.

UPDATE:
Video is streaming showing fighting on the streets in Damascus despite propaganda video shown by Assad's media outlets attempting to show calm:

Diplomacy Falls Apart As Syrian Civil War Continues

Hundreds of people have been killed in the past week as the Syrian military loyal to Bashar al-Assad continues its assault against rebel strongholds across the country, which brings the overall tally to more than 16,500. Nearly 70% of the total are civilians. There's even video showing a funeral procession coming under attack, though no one knows who was behind a deadly bombing in Damascus. Victims were buried in a mass grave.

That follows a series of brazen attacks against the government's facilities in and around Damascus that showed just how vulnerable the regime's power has become.

Today, there are reports that Assad's resorted to using helicopters to bombard rebel strongholds. It was those helicopter raids, particularly close to the border with Turkey that sent the Turkish air force to scramble fighter jets towards the border on three separate occasions in the past 24 hours.

Turkey scrambled six F-16 fighter jets in three separate incidents responding to Syrian military helicopters approaching the border on Sunday, its armed forces command said on Monday.

It was the second time in as many days Turkish jets were launched in response to Syrian helicopters flying near the border and comes after a Turkish reconnaissance plane was shot down by Syria late last month.

The jets took off from Incirlik air base in southern Turkey after Syrian helicopters were spotted flying south of the Turkish province of Hatay, the chief of general staff said on the military's website.

Two helicopters had come within 2.5 miles and one had come within 2 miles of the border, it said. Two of the helicopters were MI-8 type aircraft and one was an MI-17, all Russian-built transport helicopters.

On Sunday, Turkey said it had scrambled six F-16s near its border with Syria after similar transport helicopters were spotted flying either within 4 miles of the border or "close" to the border.

Turkey has repeatedly warned Syria that force will be met with force if Syria sends troops or aircraft towards the border following Syria shooting down a Turkey F-4 jet over the Mediterranean Sea.

Syria continues mucking around along its border with Lebanon as well. The Chinese, via the United Nations, are calling on Syria to stop messing around with the border with Lebanon following a series of incursions by the Syrian military to go after the rebel forces in the border region.

Russia has once again sided with Assad to thwart any kind of diplomatic solution, though rebel groups are opposed to allowing Assad to participate in any kind of transitional government since that would likely mean that Assad would be able to game the system to his favor and remain in power.

A New Phase in the Syrian Civil War

I'm going to utilize the term civil war in regards to the situation in Syria. Rebel forces are holding territory in the country despite an onslaught from Bashar al Assad's loyal militias and military forces. The rebels are not only fighting, but gaining territory despite the horrible atrocities inflicted by the regime against those that dare oppose them.

The new from the besieged city of Haffa is grim - the stench of death is everywhere, but there's no way to know the number of casualties as fighting was still ongoing and bodies were apparently policed:

The UN Supervisory Mission in Syria said observers in the town reported finding it all but deserted with a strong stench of dead bodies and almost all government institutions gutted from the inside.

Sky's foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall, who is in Syria, said the observers had also found many cars burned, including police cars.

The observers were escorted into the town by government forces.

The news comes a day after Syrian authorities said the area had been "cleansed" of rebel fighters.

On Wednesday, rebels were said to have withdrawn from the besieged town and nearby villages that had been under intense regime shelling for eight days.

The UN statement said: "A strong stench of dead bodies was in the air and there appeared to be pockets in the town were fighting is still ongoing."
It added: "Most government institutions, including the post office, were set on fire from inside.

"Archives were burnt, stores were looted and set on fire, residential homes appeared rummaged and the doors were open."

It said the number of casualties was still unclear.

The war appears heading into a new phase as France is contemplating providing communications equipment to the rebel forces. That's a significant step and shouldn't be discounted considering just how Assad's regime has fought the insurrection by limiting communications between opposition groups.

New communications equipment would allow the rebels greater coordination in defying the Assad regime, as well as getting their messages out to the rest of the world.

At the same time, Russia is sending a small contingent of combat troops to guard its port facilities in Tartus, Syria. That further complicates the diplomatic efforts and puts Russian troops on the ground in Syria at a time when the West is looking to find ways to oust Assad. US officials also clarified that the Russians were sending replacement parts for Russian-made helicopters, not sending new helicopters, though the outcome is still that Assad can use those helicopters and the replacement parts as part of his ongoing war against the rebel forces.

Having the Russian troops on the ground reduces the chances of an operation to oust Assad and greatly increases the risks for any kind of military operation. It's the most concrete example to date of Russian support for Assad, despite countless examples of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Those crimes include using sexual assaults and rape to further the regime's goals.

The EU has banned luxury goods from being shipped to Syria, but it will be some time before the effects of that ban take its toll on the regime.

The conflict in Syria has repercussions for Israel as well. There, the concern is what happens to Syria's WMD program, particularly chemical weapons that the Syrians are known to possess.

srael’s concern focuses on two stark possibilities.

The first is that the weapons will fall into rogue hands – either al-Qaida or Hezbollah, which is believed to already be working to move some of the advanced military systems it has been storing in Syria to Lebanon out of fear that they will be captured by rebel forces. The takeover earlier this week of an air defense base in Syria by rebels underscores that fear.

The second option – considered more unlikely – is that Assad will use the weapons against Israel if he starts to think that his end is near. This way, he will try to divert attention away from the massacres his military forces have been perpetrating throughout Syria and instead have his people rally behind him in a war against Israel.

Syria’s chemical weapons program began in the mid 1970s. According to Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yehoshua Saguy, who served as head of Military Intelligence from 1979 to 1983, Egypt assisted the Syrians in starting the program.

“It was after the Yom Kippur War which they ultimately lost, and there were rumors about Israel’s purported nuclear capability,” Saguy recalled this week. “It was a totalitarian regime so they just diverted funds, purchased some basic capabilities from Egypt and later, with the help of experts from the former Soviet Union, began to build their own independent infrastructure.”

It took only a few years for the program to take off, and in 1982 the world witnessed what a dictator with chemical weapons was capable of doing. Hafez Assad ordered his military to quell Muslim Brotherhood protests in Hama. In addition to heavy shelling, the forces also used poisonous gas to kill the protesters.

Those concerns were amplified following reports that a Syrian military base was overrun by rebel forces. Israeli officials also believe that Hizbullah may be trying to get their advanced weapons out of Syria and into Lebanon before everything completely goes crazy in Syria.

Assad Continues Crackdown While World Watches

Bashar al Assad continues to put his own spin on his father's Hama rules guide to dealing with insurrection. Assad continues murdering those opposed to his regime at a frightening pace, but it's a slow bleed. A dozen here, a dozen there every few days, with larger massacres interspersed. That compares with his father, who killed tens of thousands in a brutal burst when eliminating the Muslim Brotherhood's presence in the city of Hama.

Hama, both the city and province, continue to be a thorn in Assad the younger's side, as it remains a center of opposition to Assad's regime.

While the world can do little but issue sternly worded letters and UN observers can't intercede and their own safety is put at risk by both sides to the conflict, the US has started to increase its rhetoric against Assad's patron in Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Syria was receiving helicopters from Russia, but what wasn't stated is that those helicopters were getting maintenance and refurbishment - they weren't exactly new to Syria's fleet.

What Mrs. Clinton did not say, however, was whether the aircraft were new shipments or, as administration officials say is more likely, helicopters that Syria had sent to Russia a few months ago for routine repairs and refurbishing, and which were now about to be returned.

“She put a little spin on it to put the Russians in a difficult position,” said one senior Defense Department official.

Mrs. Clinton’s claim about the helicopters, administration officials said, is part of a calculated effort to raise the pressure on Russia to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, its main ally in the Middle East. Russia has so far stuck by Mr. Assad’s government, worried that if he were ousted, Moscow would lose its influence in the region.

In response to Mrs. Clinton’s allegations, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused the United States of hypocrisy on Wednesday, saying it had supplied weapons that could be used against demonstrators in other countries in the region. Mr. Lavrov, during a visit to Iran, repeated Russia’s claim that it is not supplying Damascus with any weapons that could be used in a civil war.

It's still a bad situation and the optics don't look good for Russia considering that Assad has been using those helicopters in going after the rebel forces.

Lavrov's criticism is accurate; the US has provided weapons to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the years and they were utilized in the crackdowns and suppression of dissent during the course of the Arab Spring.

Yet, the level of violence perpetrated by Assad is on a different scale, and the US wasn't providing those weapons shipments in the middle of what even the UN concedes is a civil war. Amnesty International has reported once again that Assad's forces are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The London-based rights group called for an international response after claiming it had fresh evidence that victims, including children, had been dragged from their homes and shot dead by soldiers, who in some cases then set the remains on fire.

“This disturbing new evidence of an organised pattern of grave abuses highlights the pressing need for decisive international action,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera on the release of the 70-page report entitled Deadly Reprisals.

The advocacy group interviewed people in 23 towns and villages across Syria and concluded that government forces and militias were guilty of “grave human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

UN observers finally reached one of the towns under fire, Haffeh, only to find it battered and deserted.

The diplomatic situation is further complicated by the fact that China is also thwarting actions at the UN alongside Russia.

It's a disturbing pattern of behavior by Assad's backers/patrons, all while the Syrians continue to suffer at the hands of his regime.

New Massacre Reported In Syria; Assad's Goons Thwarting UN Observers; UPDATE: Observers Take Fire

Multiple reports are coming in from Syria that Bashar al Assad's goons have committed yet another massacre near the city of Hama. More than 70 were killed, with at least half that number being women and children. Despite the presence of UN observers in the country, the bloodletting continues and Assad's forces are blocking the observers from seeing the scene of the war crimes for themselves.

The commander of United Nations monitors seeking to gain access to the site of a reported mass killing in central Syria said on Thursday that his forces were being blocked by army checkpoints and civilians in a standoff that seemed to mirror a looming diplomatic stalemate over the crisis.

If verified, the massacre, reported on Wednesday, would be the fourth in less than two weeks, threatening to inject a new surge of angry momentum into the growing international effort to isolate President Bashar al-Assad and remove him from power.

But efforts to establish what happened in the village of Qubeir, the site of the reported mass killing, suffered a severe setback on Thursday as United Nations monitors were “being stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back,” according to Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the observer team, in a statement issued by the United Nations office in Geneva.

“Some of our patrols are being stopped by civilians in the area,” the statement said, an apparent reference to armed militiamen controlled by the government and known as shabiha.

General Mood also said that, while United Nations observers were still trying to gain access, “we are receiving information from residents of the area that the safety of our observers is at risk” if they seek to enter the village.

The developments on the ground echoed a deepening standoff in international diplomacy, suggesting that hitherto intractable differences over the crisis were likely to endure or worsen.

Assad continues to claim that the reports are baseless all while blaming this and other mass casualty incidents on the rebel groups.

As with the Houla massacre, it appears that the Hama massacre involved multiple executions with knives and close weapons. Many of those killed appeared to be from a single extended family.

Assad continues playing by the Hama rules - conducting massacres and brutal crackdowns in drips and drabs rather than one fell swoop. In the process, he doesn't completely piss off his patrons in China, Russia and Iran who continue backing his regime and thwarting more serious action at the United Nations. However, the body count is piling up and it is an inescapable conclusion that Assad must go - and the rebel forces will need more than just talk to make that happen.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Assad to go, but unless the US backs those words with military power and/or assistance to the rebel groups, that's all it will be - talk.

UPDATE:
UN observers were shot at while trying to reach the scene of the latest massacre in the Hama province. They don't have the authority or ability to fight (let alone defend themselves) and aren't peacekeepers, so they're in the worst kind of position imaginable. They can only bear witness to the atrocities committed by Assad and his goons, as well as those carried out by the rebel forces.

There's no way to know who fired on the observers, but expect Assad to blame the rebels for this attack, even though the rebels have every reason to want the UN to see this if Assad's forces were behind the massacre. But then, Assad blames all the casualties on the rebel forces, even though there's little evidence that the rebels have the kinds of artillery needed to open fire at a distance (as reported in each of these massacres), when militias then finish the task with execution style murders.

Assad's Loyalists Blame Houla Massacre On Rebels

Last week, more than 100 people were murdered in Houla. It's been reported that artillery was fired and subsequently roving militias came through to finish the job - executing dozens at close range with knives and small arms fire.

Is it any surprise that Bashar al-Assad's loyalists are claiming that the massacre was the result of rebel forces - not the government. The Assad-backed "investigation" claims that those killed were Assad loyalists and were unwilling to cooperate with the rebels, which is why they were targeted.

Meanwhile, China wants to give the failed Annan plan more time to work, even though the plan has been a miserable failure from the outset. It hasn't stopped the violence, and massacres continue. Human rights violations abound, and there's nothing that the UN observers can do to thwart war crimes or human rights violations because countries - like China and Russia are preventing anything more harsh than a strongly worded letter from being adopted by the Security Council.

That's even as the UN Secretary General concedes that war crimes and civil war are likely if both sides refuse to abide by the Annan plan. The fact is that UN observers aren't there to do anything more than observe. They can't force anyone to lower their weapons; they too have been targeted by both sides. The UN is in a no-win situation because Russia and China refuse to take stronger action against their client Assad.

I'd say that Syria is already seeing a civil war, and that war crimes and crimes against humanity are ongoing. Assad is doing everything within his power to stay in power - and that includes murdering those opposed to his regime.

Syrian Conflict Enters New Deadly Phase

The cease fire that UN Envoy Kofi Annan didn't amount to much and diplomats had been trying to paper over its failures for the past couple of weeks even as Syria's thug in charge Bashar al Assad's forces continue attacking rebel forces throughout the country.

All claims to suggest that the ceasefire exists should be repudiated after this weekend's deadly attacks in Houla. Assad's forces shelled the city and his militias then went door to door to murder more than 100 people. Many of those killed were women and children - killed with small arms fire and knives. Those figures are the conclusions of UN peacekeepers, who are unable to do any actual peace keeping but are able to give a rough estimate of how many people are dying in what has been a rebellion/civil war.

The diplomatic response was dramatic as several countries booted Syrian diplomats from their countries. Even Russia had to take the step of denouncing Assad (although they're still blocking any action in the UN beyond a harshly worded letter).

Annan is back in Syria trying to get a ceasefire agreement back on track, but that's a futile measure considering that Assad is unwilling to cede power and will do anything to remain in power. Rebel groups aren't going to relent on their demands that Assad step down and that Assad's forces have to lay down their weapons against civilian groups.

France, which has historical ties to the Levant, has called on Assad to step aside. The French Foreign Minister called Assad a murderer, which is some of the harshest language used against Assad by foreign diplomats to date. However, calling on Assad to relinquish power without actually pushing him out or giving the opposition the means to do so only means that the rhetoric remains just that - talk.

That's even as there are new and additional reports that Assad's engaging in still more war crimes and crimes against humanity, including using rape as a weapon against civilians from cities where the opposition has a foothold. Assad's security forces are carrying out rapes against detainees in detention facilities throughout the country.

The fighting in Syria has also threatened the fragile stability in neighboring Lebanon, where Assad's loyalists hold sway. The kidnapping of 11 Lebanese Shi'ites may spark a new round of violence there, as have several rounds of cross-border attacks into Lebanon from Syria.

The Syrian crisis already has spilled across the border into Lebanon over the past three weeks, sparking deadly violence in a country that remains deeply divided over the 15-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

But the Shiites' abduction is potentially explosive, in part because it enflames Lebanon's fragile Sunni-Shiite fault line. It could also spark retaliatory attacks against the thousands of Syrians in Lebanon.

In recent days, members of Lebanon's powerful Shiite militant group, Hezbollah, have deployed at the entrances of Beirut's southern suburbs, a heavily Shiite area, to prevent any moves by angry protesters.

Hezbollah is a staunch ally of the Syrian regime, where a predominantly Sunni uprising is trying to oust the Assad family dynasty. The families of the kidnapped Shiites blame Syria's Sunni rebels for abducting the men.

"The kidnapping is clearly intended to drag Hezbollah into the Syrian quagmire," said Ziad Baalbaki, a 37-year-old Lebanese insurance broker in Beirut. "The whole thing is fishy, everyone is worried what will happen if they are not released or they turn out to be dead."

The Lebanese men were on their way back from a pilgrimage in Iran on May 22 when gunmen intercepted their buses in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, according to the women on the pilgrimage who were allowed to go free and arrived in Lebanon hours later.

The Syrian Civil War Grinds On Despite "Cease. Fire!"

The fighting in Syria rages on despite the fact that there's supposedly a ceasefire in place between rebel forces arrayed against Bashar al-Assad's security forces.

Bombings are increasingly common. A pair of bombings today killed at least 55 people and injured more than 400 others.

The explosions struck at rush hour in the Al Qazaz neighborhood and tore through a crowded intersection near a military intelligence branch, injuring 372 people, both civilians and members of the military, officials said. The blast was heard and felt throughout the city.

In a statement released by his spokesman, Annan reiterated his call to all parties to adhere to the weeks-old cease-fire. Previous calls for a stop to the violence have gone unheeded as President Bashar Assad's security forces have continued a brutal crackdown on dissent and some opposition fighters have taken up arms again.

The UN has tried to broker a ceasefire deal, but Assad's refused to stop his brutal crackdown against those opposed to his regime.

The pair of blasts were apparently two vehicles loaded with 2,200 of explosives and driven by suicide bombers.

So, what's next? That's the question being framed by NPR.

The U.N. plan is most publicly supported by the Russians, who believe there is still a way to mediate an end to the crisis in Syria. The Russians, long-time allies of the Syrian government, have opposed strict U.N. sanctions and calls for foreign intervention.

But a growing number feel the peace plan has failed.

They include Wissam Tarif, who runs the Beirut office of the activist group Avaaz, which does extensive work on Syria. He and others say the Syrian regime is simply not willing to stop the violence, which means it will never be able to reach a negotiated solution.

That's why Tarif calls the U.N. plan a "necessary failure" — meaning that the more the Russians see the regime's violations, the more likely they will be to go along with tougher measures against the Syrian leadership.

"Having said that, it's very important to note that this failure is very expensive and it's by the Syrian people's blood because hundreds continue to be killed in the country," Tarif says.

The Russians have blocked any more stringent actions against Assad, but the US doesn't want to get bogged down in another attempt at nation building coming off the heels of the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences.

Sanctions aren't stopping Assad, and he's finding ways around the sanctions.

This leaves Assad with the ability to crush the rebellion and do so with a free hand since there's little chance that he would see NATO forces prepare the battlefield in the manner that they did with the Libyan civil war.

Truce and Lies

No surprises here. Bashar al-Assad's regime is saying that they're complying with the terms of ceasefire offered up by the Arab League and UN envoy Kofi Annan. The facts on the ground indicate something else entirely.

Assad's security forces have again intensified their assaults on rebel areas and increased the body county.

Syria's assurance that its forces are complying with a cease-fire deal have been condemned as a "blatant lie" by France, as 32 people were reportedly killed even after guns were supposed to be silent.

In scarcely diplomatic language, the French foreign ministry spokesman said: "The Syrian foreign minister's statements this morning, affirming an initial implementation of the Annan plan by the Damascus regime, are a fresh expression of this blatant and unacceptable lie.”

"They are indicative of a feeling of impunity against which the international community absolutely must react," the spokesman, Bernard Valero, told reporters in Paris.

Visiting Moscow, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem had earlier said troops were already pulling back from cities in line with a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan.
But, citing Syrian sources and satellite images, Valero said "none of the elements" of Annan's plan had been implemented.

"There is what the regime's representatives are saying and then there is the reality," he said. "On average 100 people are dying each day and it continues. Today, Syrian security forces are still firing on populated areas and using heavy weapons, armored vehicles and helicopters. That's the reality."

Homs remained under constant fire from Assad's forces, and the bulk of those killed or injured were in the city. Assad can continue killing dozens of Syrians daily and there's not a thing anyone seems willing to do as long as Russia and China continue supporting the regime and thwarting stronger measures at the UN.