A quote in the Wall Street Journal:
The dissidents added that the Assad government uses cigarettes as a form of payment for the irregular military forces and militias, known as the shabeeha, who have had a central role in its violent crackdown. “Cigarettes are a favorite form of payment for the shabeeha,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian dissident and human-rights activist based in Washington.
Quoted by Elliot Abrams From Council on Foreign Relations in his Blog “Pressure Points”
The Syrian dissident and human rights activist Ammar Abdulhamid entitles his very powerful blog entry today at the Syrian Revolution Digest site “Redline and Greenlight.”
What does he mean? Continue reading ““Redline and Greenlight””
A quote in the Christian Science Monitor:
About five Alawite clans, all linked through intermarriage and business interests, control the real power bases in Syria — such as the security apparatus and the military — and there have been no notable defections from their ranks, said Ammar Abdulhamid, an exiled opposition member who is on the Syria Working Group at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, a think tank in Washington.
“They control the key decision-making process in tactical terms,” Abdulhamid said of the powerful Alawite dynasties. “The defection shows that the regime has lost control of an old game: the Sunni fig leaf.”
A quote in VOA:
Syrian human rights activist Ammar Abdulhamid, with the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, says his contacts in Syria tell him there is no evidence of a surge in aid to the rebels.
“I do not really see any intensification of these efforts. I see a lot of leaks, it seems to me, that were sort of primed to show that something is being done. But the reality is, so far on the ground, we have not detected any real involvement by the U.S. in the ongoing military operations in the country,” Abdulhamid said. Continue reading “White House Dismisses Reports of Aid to Syrian Rebels”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 