Syria opposition says army attacked rebels with poison gas

AFP: Syria opposition says army attacked rebels with poison gas.

And why not? After all, the first myriad instances of poison gas use got the regime a much needed break with the international community, and served to re-legitimate itself? So, why not go down that road again? The possibility of taking action against the Assad regime at this stage is next to nothing. It, Iran, and its other tools and allies, seem to have been a carte blanche to reshape the entire region whatever the cost involved. Whether this is the intention of the Obama Administration, or a simple byproduct of its apathy, is beside the point.

A Genocide Hidden In Plain Sight

By reporting on a civil war, a sectarian war, and a proxy war, by focusing on the extremist groups taking advantage of the breakdown of the state and international indifference while ignoring the links between the Assad regime and these groups, by focusing on the concerns of minority communities in the country and the removal of chemical weapons, and by providing continuous coverage of a political process in Geneva that is unlikely to produce serious results, the reality of what is taking place in Syria, namely the genocide that is being perpetrated against the majority Sunni Arab population is being hidden in plain sight: the war is visible, the genocide is not. The very word is seldom used even as stories of concentration camps and starvation campaigns break out.

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Notes on Current Developments in Syria: January 13, 2014

For long activists have contended that the one true concept that captures the essence of what’s really happening in Syria is: Genocide. They referred to regime prisons as concentration camps dedicated to the liquidation of prisoners, most of who civilians, relatives of activists and rebels, and the peaceful pro-democracy activists themselves, the overwhelming majority of whom hail from an Arab Sunni background. Now, this horrific image currently making round on social media sites seem to capture this truth: the numbers on the rotten cadavers, denote the security branch responsible for this massacre. In this case, it’s the infamous Section 215 of the military intelligence apparatus. The emaciated bodies of the dead underscore the living conditions prevailing in the camps. The picture was reportedly smuggled out by a defector, and while its authenticity is yet to be confirmed, it’s consistent with the myriad eyewitness accounts given to Human Rights Watch, among other organizations.

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Notes on Current Developments in Syria: January 11, 2014

The battle between Islamist rebel groups and Al-Qaeda’s affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is intensifying, but there is more going on than the increasing number of casualties and bodies of the injured piling up in the hospital.

The way the battle is unfolding indicates that carving up territories is what’s stake at this stage than achieving a straight out victory of one side over the other. This might not have been the intention at the beginning, but this is where things seem to be heading at this stage on account of the logistics involved, the actual military capabilities of each side, and the involvement of the regime in the matter, which, as expected, is working out in favor of ISIS, in the city of Elbab north of Aleppo, for instance, the regime resumed bombardment of the city as soon as ISIS was kicked out, allowing ISIS troops to halt their retreat, regroup and lay siege to the city. This may not be highlighted by the media at this stage, but this is what activists on the ground are reporting.

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