Thurs. 9 June. 2011

DAILY TELEGRAPH Profile of the Syrian president's feared brother …………..….1 Assad has run out of friends, and out of time ………………..3

GLOBE & MAIL Syria slides closer to civil war – or coup …………………....6

HUFFINGTON POST Israel's 'Faux' Golan Border …………………………….…10

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE Sanctions for Syria. But in Bahrain, it's bring on the Grand

Prix!.......................................................................................14WASHINGTON POST

In Syria, death of tourism ………………………………..…17 ‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ may not be real ………………...…20

HAARETZ Protesters in Syria and on Golan border must be heard …....22

NYTIMES Analysis: Syria's Assad Seeks Israel Diversion …………....25 Sifting Syrian Fact From Syrian Fiction …………………...28

LATIMES Syrian reports suggest divisions in security forces ………...34

JERUSALEM POST Naksa violence shows Assad desperate ……………………37 US: 'We've got problems with Syria on two fronts' …….…40

GUARDIAN Syria: How social media is defending a town from the

regime's wrath……………………………………………...41INDEPENDENT

Where winter is freezing the Arab Spring ………………….42FORBES

An Open Letter to Angelina Jolie on Syria ………………...43

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HOME PAGEMaher Assad: Profile of the Syrian president's feared brother Maher al-Assad, the Syrian president's younger brother, has become a man of many epithets. Adrian Blomfield, Daily Telegraph,9 June 2011,

To the regime's opponents, he is "the most feared man in the country"; "the Butcher of Deraa" or simply "the enforcer".

As Syria's uprising has ground on, Mr Assad's ability to inspire terror has only multiplied.

For the regime, it is invaluable to have in its service a man whose name alone can strike fear into the entire civilian population of a town.

By dissident accounts, the president's brother revels in his unwholesome reputation.

He has, they say, the classic psychopath's appetite for inflicting suffering and a total inability to empathise with the plight of his victims.

Stories abound of his fondness not just for ordering retribution but actively taking part in it.

Last month, a video emerged purporting to show Mr Assad, dressed in a leather jacket, firing a pistol at unarmed protesters in a district of Damascus.

The authenticity of the footage has not been verified, but the man bears a resemblance to the president's brother and the manner in which officers protect him as he shoots points to the culprit being a figure of some note.

It is the second time Mr Assad has allegedly been caught on film revelling in violence.

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In March, disturbing footage emerged on the internet showing a man with Maher al-Assad's appearance photographing the dismembered bodies of regime opponents at a prison near Damascus with his mobile phone.

As the commander of the elite Fourth Division and Republican Guard, Mr Assad was brutally effective in put down protests in Deraa, the wellspring of the 11-week uprising against his brother, President Bashar al-Assad.

Hundreds of people are thought to have died in the operation, among them several children.

Maher's role in the killing led to the United States and the European Union fingering him as one of their first targets for sanctions.

Seen as the leader of a hardline camp in the regime, Maher was blamed by some observers for preventing the president from steering a more moderate course.

But that view is increasingly challenged, with some saying that the regime has deliberately fostered the impression that Bashar al-Assad was a reformer hindered from making concessions by his blood-crazed younger brother in order to protect the president's image.

Under this analysis, it is Maher who gets the blood on his hands, and publicly revels in it, while Bashar keeps a respectable distance from the violence.

The relationship is modelled, proponents of the argument say, on the modus operandi established by Hafez al-Assad, Syria's former president and the two men's father, and his brother Rifaat.

Facing an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, Hafez tasked Rifaat with the job of putting it down. Rifaat did the job so

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effectively that three-quarters of the city was destroyed and an estimated 20,000 died – though he boasted that the death toll was actually 36,000.

Many Syrians see Maher as Rifaat reincarnated.

It is little wonder, then, that thousands are fleeing his advance through the northern province of Idlib on a mission to take vengeance against the rebels of the town of Jisr al-Shughur.

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Assad has run out of friends, and out of time The Syrian regime has its back against the wall now that its people have found their voice, says Rime Allaf. Rime Allaf,Daily Telegraph,8 June 2011,

Up until a few weeks ago, the conventional wisdom in the Middle East was that the Arab Spring had run into the stifling heat of an unexpectedly early summer. Dictators prematurely departing their eternal thrones was, Arab potentates and their allies had decided, the kind of trend that needed stopping – as was the notion of civilians thinking they could dictate their own destiny.

Sure, the cumbersome Gaddafi would be removed – eventually – but other revolutions would be stopped before they gained traction, whether by persuasion, dissuasion or repression. The wishes of millions of Yemenis were ignored; peaceful protests in Bahrain were brutally squashed (with the blessing of leaders around the region, and beyond); and numerous other demonstrations were quickly controlled.

As for Syria, there was no need even for protest: Bashar al-Assad had already brought in economic reforms to address the grievances that sparked the uprisings in Tunis and Cairo. His country was stable, he told the Wall Street Journal, because his

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government’s policies were so closely linked to the beliefs of the people.

There was one problem, however: this was far from enough for the parents of 15 schoolboys in Daraa, who had the audacity to object to the jailing and torturing of their children by the Syrian regime, after they dared to scrawl anti-government slogans on the city’s walls. The result was an uprising that has proved impossible to quell, despite Assad receiving the declared support of most Arab leaders – including the Saudi and Bahraini kings, returning the favour – and the initial silence of the international powers, who hoped that the problem would quickly resolve itself.

Not only have seasoned observers been confounded, but both friends and foes of Assad find themselves in completely uncharted territory. After decades of docility from the Syrian people – partly because of their fear of the regime following the horrific massacre of Hama in 1982, and partly because they genuinely did support its regional stances – they are suddenly unafraid, unbeaten and seemingly unstoppable.

In diplomatic terms, it may seem strange that a government that has been condemned and criticised so often should pose such a dilemma to its critics. But Syria’s shifting position in the region makes its situation – and the effects of any intervention – especially problematic.

Take US-Syrian relations. These had been rocky for decades, but there was a détente in the Nineties, the era of the Middle East peace process, and a modus operandi was reached on various issues, including Lebanon. Under Bush, the relationship turned from cordial to icy, and then outright hostile after the US invasion of Iraq and the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, which many blamed on Syria.

By the time of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in 2006, there is no doubt that regime change in Syria was being openly pursued by the US, Saudi Arabia and France, to name but a few. Many

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thought the process would take mere weeks, and that it would be a simple matter to install the awaiting team of Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former vice-president and the regime’s highest-profile defector to date.

However, when Israel proved unable to defeat Hizbollah militarily, it handed a huge political victory to Syria, the movement’s main supporter, and strengthened the regime’s position. Many countries switched, therefore, to a strategy of engagement: the lead was taken by France, with the support of increasingly influential regional players such as Turkey and Qatar, which had also been cultivating their ties with Iran. The traditional Saudi-Syrian-Egyptian axis disappeared, replaced by a new alliance to balance Saudi Arabia.

Ironically, however, it is the countries that eased Syria’s post-Hariri isolation that have been on the receiving end of its hostility. One by one, the Syrian regime has managed – quite needlessly – to turn Qatar, Turkey and France from influential allies into influential critics. And while Assad’s Ba’athist government continues to claim that it is the only guarantor of a secular state in the face of alleged Islamism, its only remaining allies are religious-based regimes such as Iran, or non-state actors such as Hizbollah.

With no regime-in-waiting to reassure foreign powers, the people of the Syrian spring are dealing the cards themselves – and the regime is suddenly realising that it cannot survive as it did in the Eighties, with only Iran as a powerful friend. Nor can it depend on its population’s support, even if the uprising ends tomorrow. This is why, after weeks of accusations and insults directed at those who have dared criticise it, Syria is now trying to flatter Qatar (by singing the praises of Al Jazeera, which it owns) and Turkey (by suddenly appointing the deputy prime minister as ambassador to Ankara), in the hope that bygones can be bygones.

But even with another reshuffling of its alliances, the regime’s survival is no longer dependent merely on the good graces of its

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neighbours. Nor can it rely on its latest brutal clampdowns on a succession of Syrian towns under the guise of fighting armed infiltrators. The Syrian people want to decide how their country is run: vague promises of “reform” in return for their renewed silence are not an option any more. And if the regime does not end the violence, violence might end the regime.

* Rime Allaf is an associate fellow at Chatham House HOME PAGE

Syria slides closer to civil war – or coup PATRICK MARTIN Globe & Mail,9 June 2011,

People are fleeing the northern Syrian city of Jisr ash-Shughur, making for the Turkish border 20 kilometres away as thousands of elite Syrian troops and scores of tanks converge on the nearly deserted community.

Earlier this week, 120 security personnel were reportedly killed in the city, attacked by well-organized armed insurgents and, according to a government newspaper, the army has lost control of this part of the country.

That’s what the elite troops and tanks intend to address.

In Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be wondering if this all-out military effort to quell the 11-week popular uprising will be his last.

“As of today, even a cautious observer would ask if it’s about over for Bashar,” says Barry Rubin, author of The Truth About Syria. “This looks like the tipping point,” he said.

While Turkey has announced that its border will not be closed to Syrians seeking refuge from military attack, many Syrians were

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left waiting at the frontier Wednesday night. Residents on the Turkish side watched anxiously as people slowly made their way across the buffer zone between the two countries. Some people were picked up by Turkish ambulances and taken to hospital in the nearby town of Antakya.

“There are around 400 people camping among the trees, all from Jisr,” said one 21-year-old Syrian villager, who had slipped past Turkish border guards. “We came here to fetch food. No one can leave their villages. Everyone’s afraid.”

In New York, the United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday to debate a resolution condemning the Syrian government’s actions. France and Britain sponsored the effort to condemn the humanitarian violations that included the killing of some 1,000 protesters since March.

Beyond its domestic concerns, Syria is the linchpin connecting Iran to its Hezbollah client in Lebanon and has provided a haven for many militant Palestinian groups, including Hamas. Any move to force Mr. al-Assad from office will send reverberations across the region.

But Mr. al-Assad isn’t really worried about a Security Council condemnation: Russia has made it clear it will veto any resolution to take invasive action against Damascus. So the Syrian leader really has a free pass to take any action he wishes.

Rather, the problem for Mr. al-Assad comes when he does take drastic action, if it still makes no difference to the growing insurrection.

So far, it’s been like whack-a-mole. The security forces hit one area of protest, and others pop up somewhere else.

The opposition is not monolithic – different areas have different grievances: In the south, people rose up to protest against their miserable poverty; on the coast, jealous Sunnis protested the

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privileges accorded the ruling Alawites, and in the centre and north of the country, in Homs, Hama and now Jisr ash-Shughur, the sleeping lion of Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood has been awakened.

This area has seen this kind of thing before. Between 1976 and 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to remove the president, Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad. The senior al-Assad hit back hard.

In 1980, special forces moved on Jisr ash-Shughur. They attacked armed rebels in the town and killed about 150 people. Hundreds of others were arrested and about 100 of them subsequently executed.

But the Syrian president’s real blow was struck two years later in Hama, when Syrian forces attacked parts of the city and bulldozed them into the ground. Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people were killed. The result was a period of quiet – more out of fear than acquiescence – a quiet that appears to have ended.

It is noteworthy that, in 1982, the president dispatched the only man he thought he could trust to carry out the ruthless mission, his brother, Rifaat al-Assad. Today, too, Bashar al-Assad has dispatched his brother, Maher al-Assad, to command the forces preparing to attack.

The difference, however, is that opposition to the current regime is much more widespread than it was against the previous regime.

“No matter what they do,” Mr. Rubin said, “it’s pretty apparent the opposition isn’t going to melt away.”

It’s also clear that the regime is not going to be ousted.

Syria’s military officer corps is comprised largely of Alawites and Christians, who are prepared to fight to the end to protect their communities’ interests. Both groups, who together comprise about

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25 per cent of the population, fear the consequences of an Islamist regime that regards Alawites as heretics and Christians as infidels.

“As the circle of Bashar’s supporters becomes smaller, their siege mentality and cruelty will increase,” says Mordechai Kedar, a professor of security affairs at Israel’s Bar Ilan University and a veteran of 25 years in the Israeli military. “They no longer will fight for the regime but to keep their heads from rolling.”

If the opposition isn’t going to quit, and the regime won’t lie down and die, “that leaves option three,” said Mr. Rubin: “The regime stays, but Bashar goes.”

“It is possible that at some point a responsible adult high in the ranks of the Syrian army or the head of an intelligence agency will understand that it is worth throwing the public a bone in order to salvage as much as possible,” Prof. Kedar wrote recently. “With the assistance of several armed bodyguards, he will arrest Bashar Assad along with his brother Maher and other relatives, primarily from the Makhlouf family, that of the President’s mother.”

Prof. Kedar foresaw that such a person “will conduct a hasty trial and treat [the Assad family] as the public expects them to be treated, in order to attain calm. He will announce constitutional changes and economic reforms and schedule elections for several months later.”

The interests of the many people who support the regime are not necessarily tied to Mr. al-Assad, says Mr. Rubin, who directs the Global Research in International Affairs Centre in Herzliya, Israel.

“There are two parts to this regime,” he said, “the man himself and his immediate family, and the larger regime, including its military support.”

“Those who depend on it may be perfectly happy siding with the larger regime against the President."

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So as the military deals a punishing blow to Jisr ash-Shughur in the coming days, watch to see if the uprising ends or if it pops up again somewhere else, Mr. Rubin advises. And watch to see if Mr. al-Assad is looking over his shoulder.

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Israel's 'Faux' Golan Border Sharmine Narwani (Senior Associate, St. Antony's College, Oxford University)Huffington Post,8 June 2011,

On Sunday, around 1,000 unarmed civilians marched to the ceasefire line between Syria and the Golan Heights to protest Israel's occupation of Arab lands following the 1967 war. Hours later, in the worst bloodshed since the 1973 war between Israel and Syria, up to 23 civilians were dead and hundreds wounded after Israeli troops opened live fire on the protesters.

In the West Bank, fellow protesters were only injured, as Israeli troops used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds that were only a few feet away from them.

In Majd al Shams on the occupied Golan Heights, however, the Palestinian and Syrian demonstrators were many yards away -- behind barbed wire fences -- never having crossed any ceasefire line.

As was the case with the 11 unarmed protesters in Lebanon killed by Israeli forces on May 15 in Maroun al Ras. Those civilians had not crossed any border either.

Israel's fears are understandable. The notion that Palestinians and Syrians can "just walk home" to their occupied houses and villages could destroy the deterrence barriers that Israel has worked hard to erect since 1948 and 1967. Which is why it was

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important for the Jewish State to teach these populations a lesson, even if it meant killing a few dozen.

That makes Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu no different than Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Syria's Bashar al Assad, Bahrain's Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh -- and other autocrats still waiting their turn.

All fired live rounds at unarmed civilian populations voicing their grievances and exercising their right to congregate in public.

Justifying Civilian DeathJust three weeks earlier, on May 15, Palestinian and Syrian protesters in the Golan Heights broke through the barbed wire fence, poured over the ceasefire line, met up with friends and relatives, and then went home. One particularly determined fellow -- 28-year-old Hassan Hijazi who was galvanized by a Facebook group to join the protests -- even decided to visit his parent's old house in Jaffa and hitched a ride alongside some Israeli soldiers to get there. He later turned himself in to authorities and was duly escorted back to the ceasefire line by security agents.

That very recent incident contrasted sharply on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's portrayal of the Golan demonstrators as "extremist elements" who "are trying to break through our borders and threaten our communities and our citizens."

As the Israeli spin machine went into overdrive, we were subjected to the kinds of drivel we are by now used to hearing from regional dictators on their last legs:

The it-wasn't-us argument: "A Syrian mine exploded, seemingly because Molotov cocktails thrown at (Israeli) forces started a bush fire which caused the explosion of the mine, a number of mines even," an Israeli army spokeswoman said -- ostensibly blaming the deaths on mines and not IDF bullets.

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The deflection argument: "We believe that the Syrian regime is focusing the world's attention on the border with Israel instead of what is happening there," said another military spokesperson.

The extremists-are-involved argument: Oops. Netanyahu did that one himself.

Military spokesman Yoav Mordechai called the killings "a measured, focused and proper response." The only thing that apparently needs "measuring" is his sanity -- the videos of the Golan clashes clearly show protesters behind a barbed wire fence being shot at by Israeli sharpshooters. Like target practice.

Not Israel's BorderThe Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War, remains occupied territory, and is recognized as such by all international legal bodies. In contravention of the Geneva Conventions, Israel immediately began to settle its civilian populations in the area, destroying more than one hundred Syrian villages and farms and handing over that land to Jewish settlers. Today, those settlers number around 20,000, equaling the 20,000 largely Syrian Druze population of the Golan, most of whom have refused Israeli citizenship. After the 1973 War, Syria and Israel agreed on a ceasefire line that has been monitored by an UN observer force since 1974.

When Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, the move was condemned internationally, and all 15 members of the UN Security Council, including the United States, agreed in UNSC Resolution 497 that "the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect."

In other words, Israel has no legal jurisdiction over Golan. The Jewish state, therefore, has no "sovereign rights" in the occupied Golan.

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Fast forward to statements made on Sunday in Israel. "Challenge to our sovereignty" was a theme played up by spokesmen throughout the country, beginning with Netanyahu's announcement at his weekly cabinet meeting: "I have instructed the security forces to act with determination, with maximum restraint, but with determination to maintain our sovereignty, our borders, our communities and our citizens."

It is hard to reconcile this suddenly sovereignty-conscious Israel with the nation that violates Lebanon's territorial integrity every single day in illegal overflights into sovereign Lebanese airspace -- sometimes up to a dozen times a day, over all parts of the country, in defiance of UN resolutions and warnings.

But on Sunday, even the US Department of State jumped on this bandwagon: "Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself."

Defend itself against what exactly? Unarmed civilians who walk over a long-peaceful armistice line into territory that is legally viewed as Syrian to enjoy a cup of coffee with old friends?

There is nothing Israel fears more than this "harmless Arab." And they would be hard-pressed to insist that there is any major threat there -- Syria's Assad family has maintained relative peace on the ceasefire line for 37 years, only to be broken by Israelis on Sunday.

Given that the Golan Heights is occupied Syrian territory; given that the international community recognizes it as such; given that Israel is in violation of Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council resolutions over its conduct in Golan; given that this Israeli government has effectively stated that it will never cede Golan -- even in negotiations... what then prevents today's angry and determined civilian protesters from righting some wrongs? Particularly when the international bodies that are supposed to protect their rights appear utterly paralyzed in implementing

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corrective measures and punishing the Jewish state for its violation of laws?

As the Palestinian nonviolence movement grows in leaps and bounds, Israelis are faced with a real dilemma: what to do in the face of unarmed protesters who are demanding rights that are backed to the hilt by international law?

The Arab Awakening is not just about Arab dictators. It is about correcting the status quo in the broader Middle East, where Israel, too, resides. Until January 2011, shooting at civilians was a surefire way to make crowds disperse. Now, it is the worst thing a regime can do, instantly galvanizing masses to hunker down, regroup and grow bolder in their resistance. We cannot cheer people-power across the Arab World and ignore this very same resistance against a brutal Israeli regime.

Twenty-three down in Golan on Sunday. Question is, how many more hits can Israel take today.

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Sanctions for Syria. But in Bahrain, it's bring on the Grand Prix!Pay no attention to the human rights violations behind the curtain, Mr. Ecclestone. Dan Murphy,Christian Science Monitor,8 June 2011,

(Updated: It turns out, that F1 reversed course again. Apparently, the vote last week to reinstate the Bahrain race violated FIA rules. Mr. Ecclestone told the BBC today there will be no race in Bahrain this year.)

Bahrain's Sunni monarch may have called in mercenaries and Saudi troops to stamp out calls for democracy in his wealthy kingdom, tortured activists demanding more political freedom,

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and systematically discriminated against members of the country's Shiite majority.

But the mandarins of auto racing have a message for King Hamad al-Khalifa and his entourage: "Gentlemen, start your engines!"

Syria and Libya may be facing growing international isolation for their own domestic crackdowns, but Bahrain, a close American ally that hosts the US Fifth Fleet and has the full backing of Saudi Arabia, is back in business.

Formula 1, Bernie Ecclestone's global money machine (it turned a $140 million profit last year), was forced to postpone its scheduled race this spring in Bahrain because of the country's democracy protests and the government's violent crackdown. But F1 has put Bahrain back on the calendar for December, and teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull, their cars festooned with advertising for global companies like Vodafone, Total, and Pirelli, are expected to race.

Why the change of heart? A recommendation from a commissioner of FIA, global motor sports' governing body, whose view of recent events in Bahrain and the human rights situation there is starkly at odds with generally accepted reality. (Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy posted the FIA report and wrote about it yesterday).

FIA commissioner Carlos Gracia helpfully starts his report on his May 30 and 31 visit to Bahrain by recounting his meeting with the minister of tourism where he learned that "from a Cultural (sic) point of view, nothing has changed." He highlights a planned summer tourism promotion dubbed the "Victory of Joy."

He then moves on to the question of crackdown. He recounts his meeting with Interior Minister and royal family member Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa, from whom he learned that "initially peaceful protests turned quickly into a very aggressive situation ... which saw brutal attacks on the police, resulting in four policemen

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being killed and 180 were injured." A hospital was "targeted" by protesters and Mr. Gracia relates that the situation "pushed police to act forcibly in order to restore security." No mention is made anywhere in his report of the at least 30 demonstrators who have been killed.

In his conclusion recommending a return for F1, he writes that he found an "atmosphere of total calm and stability" and that "life in Bahrain is completely normal again."

He should tell that to Ayet al-Gormezi, whose story was told by Caryle Murphy yesterday. In March, Ms. Gormezi was arrested, beaten, tortured with electric shocks, and had a toilet brush forced into her mouth. She's currently awaiting trial for participating in democracy protests and publicly criticizing the king or, as Bahrain has it, "breaching public security." Most Bahrainis that Ms. Murphy spoke with for the story asked her not to use their real names, fearing government reprisals.

At the end of May, as F1 was coming to the conclusion that all was well in Bahrain, Human Rights Watch urged the group to consider “whether a successful Formula One event could be held in an environment characterized by large-scale arbitrary arrests, prolonged incommunicado detentions, credible allegations of torture, and mass dismissals of workers.”

To be fair, the situation in Bahrain is more stable than in Syria, which is lurching toward civil war, or Libya, which is already there. The arrest of 1,000 demonstrators and the use of Saudi and other foreign troops (Saudi Arabia is deeply afraid of the demonstration effect of a monarch being toppled and also fears Bahrain's Shiite majority calling the shots there) has restored order.

Since the protests, hundreds of Shiites have been fired from government and private jobs, in an apparent warning to the community not to dare raise up their voices again. That's all

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helped bring the situation to a point where F1 thinks its time to return to business as usual.

To be fair to Mr. Ecclestone, he's not alone. President Obama hosted Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa at the White House yesterday, in which the younger Khalifa promised a "continuance of Bahrain’s process of meaningful reform."

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In Syria, death of tourism most visible sign of major economic damageThe Washington Post, June 8, 2011,

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Ayenor boutique hotel in Damascus has a fountain splashing in its sunlit courtyard and four-poster beds in $100-a-night rooms that were usually full, until three months ago. Now, every room is empty, and the manager sadly offers discounts to any visitor prepared to brave the violent unrest in Syria and stay in the capital.

The wave of protests and the brutal government response, which human rights activists say has killed more than 850 people, are all but invisible in the center of Damascus. More striking here is the emptiness of streets lined with stores selling pottery, jewelry and carpets. Salesmen sit idly playing backgammon and have time to drink tea and complain that their businesses have been ruined by the “problems.”

The death of tourism is the most visible sign of major economic damage from the protests and crackdowns, damage that could eventually undermine the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The economic instability is forcing the government to increase its deficit to fund promised concessions, though such fiscal problems

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are unlikely on their own to bring down a regime that has survived hard times and diplomatic isolation before. However, economic damage could prove decisive in spurring new sectors of society to join opposition movements.

One Western diplomat said a collapse in financial markets could push the merchant classes in Damascus and Aleppo to join the protesters. Thus far, they have remained largely on the side of the government, perhaps because instability is bad for business. “But if the economy collapses and they don’t have a market to sell to, that could change things quite dramatically and quickly,” the diplomat said.

In recent years, Syria has capitalized on its long history and scenic cities to build a thriving tourist industry. About 12 percent of the Syrian economy last year was generated by foreign visitors, a vital source of revenue as oil reserves, never abundant, dried up.

But after protests spread from the southern town of Deraa to areas around Damascus, the coast and Homs, most embassies warned their citizens to leave. Hotel owners now say they have fired waiters and cleaners, while many shopkeepers are thinking of closing.

Other businesses have also been badly affected by the instability, said a banker in Lebanon who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Internationally funded projects, including two power projects by a Qatari company, have been put on hold, and manufacturing and trade have declined sharply.

Syria had aimed to attract more than $50 billion in foreign investment during the next five years, and had hoped that foreign projects would employ its growing population, as the government’s oil revenue dwindled and it was forced to cut state jobs.

But U.S. and European Union sanctions against the president and the elite, many related to Assad, will discourage foreign

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investment, and the Institute of International Finance now predicts that the Syrian economy will shrink by 3 percent this year.

Syria has long been economically insular; it does not have a credit rating and cannot borrow on the international debt markets. But despite plummeting income, the government has introduced a program of economic concessions after pressure from an angry population.

During the past five years, life has improved for some, but the divide between rich and poor has widened. Business restrictions have been lifted and trade agreements signed; private banks have opened, offering mortgages and loans; and there has been an influx of consumer goods, such as cars, from China — opportunities eagerly seized on by the urban middle classes.

But the removal of subsidies and a flood of goods from outside the country has made life harder for the poor, as prices have risen and factories have shut down. Drought devastated farming, and hundreds of thousands have fled the countryside and now live in slums on the edges of cities.

Syria also ranks even lower than notoriously graft-ridden Egypt on Transparency International’s scale of corruption. Whole sectors — including telecommunications, transport and insurance — are dominated by Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s cousin, whose corrupt network of patronage is reviled by protesters and ordinary Syrians alike.

It is these poor and disgruntled people who made up much of the protest movement, said one Western diplomat in Damascus, and the government has now cut the price of fuel, increased the salaries of government employees and promised more jobs to discourage further demonstrations.

But in the long run, the regime cannot afford the concessions, experts say.

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Joshua Landis, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Oklahoma, said it is “hard to imagine that serious economic difficulties will not appear — cracks in the foundations of this very poor state.”

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‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ may not be real By Liz Sly, Washington Post,June 9, 2011

BEIRUT — Questions emerged Wednesday about the existence and identity of a Syrian American blogger whose eloquent postings on life in Damascus and her purported detention Monday by Syrian security forces had catapulted her to global fame.

The Washington Post was among the news organizations in the United States and around the world that reported on the writings of Amina Arraf and her alleged detention, which was publicized in a posting on her blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus, by a woman who claimed to be her cousin.

But although many Syrian activists said they had corresponded with Arraf online, none acknowledged actually meeting her. A friend in Montreal, Sandra Bagaria, who started a campaign for Arraf’s release and said she knew her well, said she had corresponded with Arraf only by e-mail. Photographs of Arraf released by the friend and on her Web site are of a woman in London, Jelena Lecic, who said her identity had been stolen, according to a statement from the woman’s publicist.

The cousin, Rania Ismail, whose Facebook page identifies her as a “fulltime mommy” in Lilburn, Ga., did not respond to e-mails, although she had previously corresponded with journalists. Spokesman Mark Toner said the State Department was “seeking to confirm the details of [Arraf’s] case — including her citizenship.”

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Syrian activists maintained Wednesday that they were sure Arraf existed, that she had been detained and that she had been using a fake identity to protect herself, as do most of the activists engaged in covert activity against Syria’s government at a time when the country is in the throes of a widespread popular uprising.

But alternative theories flew within the online community, including that Bagaria and Arraf are the same person, that Lecic and Arraf are the same person, and that Gay Girl in Damascus is an invention.

Bagaria, when contacted in Montreal, seemed distraught at the possibility that the person with whom she had established a close relationship online might have been using a false identity.

“I don’t know. I really can’t tell. I would love to tell you I know,” she said. “I just want it to be clarified, and then I will deal with what I should and should not feel. But for now I just want it to be a little more clear.”

If A Gay Girl in Damascus is indeed a hoax, it would be an elaborate one. Arraf’s Facebook page reads like a who’s who of the Syrian opposition movement, and although none of the activists contacted had met her, all of them said they found it difficult to believe she wasn’t real.

“My feeling is that this lady exists and that she’s been risking her life to serve her cause,” said a prominent Beirut-based activist. “But she can’t write under her real name or reveal her identity. I know many activists, and none of them reveals their real identity.”

The saga illustrates the difficulty of establishing what is really going on in Syria at a time when the government is engaged in a brutal attempt to crush the 11-week-old uprising. Most information comes from the state-sponsored media or shadowy cyber-activists who post reports and videos online.

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One activist contacted in Damascus, the Syrian capital, said he doubts Arraf is real and expressed concern that the opposition’s efforts to convey to the world the regime’s ruthlessness will be undermined by the apparent fabrication.

“It’s selfish because it means real issues in the future won’t be taken seriously at all,” he said, speaking via Skype on the condition of anonymity because he fears the consequences of talking to the media.

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Protesters in Syria and on Golan border must be heard We see Bashar Assad's regime slaughtering dozens of unarmed Syrian demonstrators every day, and say he is 'slaughtering his own people.' But when the Israel Defense Forces killed 23 unarmed Syrian demonstrators in one day, we boasted that the IDF 'acted with restraint.' By Gideon Levy Haaretz,9 June 2011,

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime is slaughtering dozens of unarmed Syrian demonstrators every day. In Israel we cluck our tongues in shock and say he is "slaughtering his own people," but when the Israel Defense Forces killed 23 unarmed Syrian demonstrators in one day, we boasted that the IDF "acted with restraint."

Demonstrators in the Syrian city of Hama and protesters on the Golan border are similar not only in their nonlethal means, but also in their aims. Both are trying to change the established order. And the authorities' response in both places - live fire on demonstrators - is amazingly similar.

In Israel people will immediately explain that the IDF makes every effort not to kill the demonstrators, and indeed the number of fatalities in Syria is much higher, but the means are similar - live fire on unarmed demonstrators. And the fatality count might even prove to be comparable if, God forbid, the Golan

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demonstrators persist in their rebellion - and Israeli public opinion wouldn't have any problem with that, of course. Even if we resemble Syria, we don't appear that way to ourselves.

Along the border fence on the Golan Heights, Israel has set up an additional, even more sturdy security fence to protect itself, particularly to block its own awareness of the demonstrators' presence on the border. Through this fence, we have created our own world, the world of our dreams, the illusory contrarian lie we tell ourselves.

In Hama, they are freedom fighters. On the border with the Golan Heights, they are demonstrators for hire, incited mobs and terrorists. Crossing the border into the Golan Heights involves a threat to Israel's sovereignty, even if not one country in the world recognizes such sovereignty over the Golan. The demonstrators on the Golan border are young people lacking any political consciousness who have been goaded into it, while their counterparts demonstrating against the Syrian regime are educated young people with a sense of democracy, people of the enlightened Facebook and Twitter revolution.

In the Golan Heights, Assad leads them by bus to their deaths, and the fault is entirely their own. The IDF has found a way to prove that most of the victims have been responsible for their own deaths or injuries. The thought that those determined young people in the Golan are risking their lives due to precisely the same political and democratic consciousness, identical to what is motivating their colleagues in the Syrian cities in rebellion against Assad's regime, simply doesn't occur to us.

On our border they're rioters. In the Syrian towns, they're demonstrators. There it's admirable nonviolent protest, while that same battle when it's waged on our border is considered violent, its perpetrators having death coming to them.

We have invented a world for ourselves: Assad has trundled out these young Palestinians to distract attention. But truth be told,

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we're being distracted to no less an extent, distracted from the aims of those same young people we're not even willing to listen to.

Has anyone here thought about the Israeli heritage tour one Palestinian-Syrian young man took in crossing the border and making it to Jaffa to visit his family's ancestral home? Maybe we can try to remind the Israeli reader that these are children of refugees, some of whose ancestors fled or were expelled from Israel in 1948 and who were not allowed to return. And others were expelled or fled from the Golan Heights in 1967 and have also been deprived of the right to go back.

Maybe it's possible to mention that, to a great extent, Israel conquered the Golan in 1967 as a result of an Israeli initiative. Maybe it's possible to mention that for three generations these families of refugees have been living in inhumane conditions in their refugee camps. It's true that this is the Syrian regime's fault, but Israel, too, bears responsibility for their fate. Maybe it's also possible to say there is a degree of legitimacy in their struggle, just as their counterparts' struggle against the Syrian regime is legitimate. Both want a life of freedom and dignity. Neither has it.

In the new Arab world taking shape in front of our eyes, at some point these young people in both Syria and on the Golan border will have to be heard, and some of their demands will have to be addressed, particularly if they persist in their unarmed struggle.

But we have gotten beyond that. We will hide our heads in the sand. We'll build another border fence, and another. We'll call day night and night day, forever telling ourselves that we're acting with restraint - killing 23 young people who didn't fire a single shot, with live fire. We'll accuse them and their leaders of responsibility for their deaths. The important thing is that our hands are clean, our ears closed and our eyes shut.

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Analysis: Syria's Assad Seeks Israel Diversion NYTIMES (original story is by The Associated Press)8 June 2011,

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad, buffeted by an uprising against his regime and growing international isolation, is turning to a reliable distraction: archenemy Israel.

Syria keeps tight control along the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, and yet 23 people died this week when Israeli troops opened fire on protesters trying to rush the border. As anti-government violence heats up at home, the Syrian government says more demonstrations against Israel are likely.

By stirring up trouble, analysts said, Assad aims to show that he stands between order and chaos. They said he also may want to remind the world that for 40 years, only his family's authoritarian regime has held things together on one of the world's most precarious frontiers.

"Assad seems to want to raise the specter of potential instability without actually losing control of the situation," said Elias Muhanna, a political analyst at Harvard University.

Syria has a pivotal role in nearly every thorny Mideast issue. A staunch Iranian ally, Syria backs the militant groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It has also provided a home for some radical Palestinian groups and has also exerted influence in neighboring Iraq.

For much of the past generation, the border between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has been one of the quietest in the volatile Middle East, with Damascus and the Jewish state fighting most of their battles in neighboring Lebanon.

But now, for the second time in a month, Syrian authorities have essentially stood by as hundreds of unarmed protesters from Syria,

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many of them the descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1948, surged toward Israeli-held territory and tried to storm through the border.

Syria said 23 protesters were killed Sunday. Five died in a demonstration on May 15.

While Syrian officials say the protests are spontaneous marches planned by young Syrians and Palestinians, those familiar with Syria say there is no way the marches could have happened without authorities' consent or even encouragement.

"The regime is basically saying: Look at all the chaos I can create and if I'm going down I will take everyone with me," said Muhieddine Lathkani, a Syrian opposition figure based in Britain.

Wassim Toutounji, a 36-year-old Syrian dental lab technician who took part in the Golan march on Sunday, exemplified the fervor of those who took part in the anti-Israel protests.

"I felt that there is someone out to destroy my country. Freedom is here, and not in the saboteurs of Jisr al-Shughour," he said in reference to a northern Syrian town where mutinous soldiers allegedly joined anti-Assad demonstrators who rose up against loyalist forces this week.

Timor Goksel, a former U.N. official in Lebanon who is now a professor at the American University of Beirut, said Syrian authorities fully control traffic along the border. He was skeptical that the confrontations with Israeli forces would distract attention from Syria's grave domestic turmoil in the long term.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. believes Assad's government is actively supporting protests near the Israeli border.

"We don't have any hard evidence," Toner said. "But we've seen this kind of behavior before. And certainly it seems in keeping

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with the Syrian regime's actions that they would try to deflect or distract international attention from what's going on internally in Syria by encouraging these kind of protests."

A Syrian government newspaper, Tishreen, said the Sunday march was only an "introduction" and that more Syrians and Palestinians plan to march to the Israeli border. It said Israel should expect hundreds of thousands of refugees to march "at any time" back to villages and farms from where their families were forcefully uprooted.

The continuing intensity of anti-government protests in Syria suggests the Golan violence has not distracted many Syrians from the uprising within their borders.

"This issue did not resonate with people on the street whose priority is the internal situation," said a longtime Syrian political activist said on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal.

"The people are even asking themselves, why are they sending people instead of tanks" to liberate the Golan, he said.

Israel's military said attempts to breach the Golan frontier violate international agreements, and that it will prevent such acts in the future.

"Provocative rioters who breach the Israeli security fence place themselves in danger and must accept the responsibility for their actions," a military statement said.

The uprising against Assad is posing the most serious challenge to his family's long rule. What began as a disparate movement demanding reforms has grown into a resilient uprising seeking Assad's ouster.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. The two archenemies fought another war in 1973

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when Syria regained small parts of land that Israel occupied six years earlier. Periodic peace talks between the two countries have failed.

Since the uprising in Syria began in mid-March, activists have criticized the Syrian regime for sending troops backed by tanks into cities, towns and villages instead of heading to the Golan to fight Israel.

On May 15, unrest in the Golan and on the Lebanon-Israel border occurred on the anniversary of Israel's birth in 1948. Israeli forces killed six on the Lebanon border and five in the Golan.

On Sunday, however, Lebanese authorities prevented protesters from reaching the border with Israel, reflecting Syria's decreasing influence in Lebanon. Syria dominated its neighbor for three decades until it was forced to pull out thousands of soldiers in 2005.

Syria withdrew its troops under local and international pressure following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many in Lebanon blamed Syria for Hariri's death, a claim that Damascus denies.

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Sifting Syrian Fact From Syrian Fiction By ROBERT MACKEYNYTIMES,8 June 2011,

As Syrians brace for more violence in the country’s northwest, where protests and clashes have been reported in recent days, reports produced by Syria’s state-run television channel and a network of opposition activists offer completely contradictory versions of events.

This report from Britain’s Channel 4 News includes graphic video broadcast on Syrian state television, showing dead men in

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uniforms killed in what the government has called a massacre of soldiers by “armed gangs” in the city of Jisr al-Shughour, and video posted on YouTube described by activists as the eyewitness testimony of women from the city who say that it was members of the Syrian security forces who have been doing the killing: (here)

Since the Syrian government has repeatedly suggested that amateur video posted online by activists could have been staged, it is notable that the Syrian state television report backed its claim that soldiers had been massacred by broadcasting footage of the dead men posted on a new YouTube channel, set up just before the clip itself was posted online.

Syria’s state-run media also claimed on Wednesday to have uncovered a plot by members of a domestic terrorist organization who planned to manufacture and distribute fake images of a mass grave in order “to undermine the army and tarnish its reputation.”

According to the report, which was broadcast on Syrian state television (and translated into English by Syria’s official news agency), the plotters discussed their scheme in detail in a phone call that was intercepted and recorded by the authorities.

A Syrian blogger in Lebanon who monitors Syria’s state news broadcasts reported that the voices in the recording could be heard referring to creating a video for Al Jazeera, which broadcasts across the Arab world.

The report was impossible to verify because of a government ban on independent reporting in Syria, but it would fit well with a campaign by Syrian authorities to discredit both the protest movement inside its borders and foreign news organizations which have relied on information posted online by a network of activists and bloggers to report on the uprising.

The version of the report posted on the Syrian state news agency’s English-language Web site concluded:

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The call reveals that not only are these armed groups trained to use weapons, commit massacres, mutilate bodies and steal military uniforms and equipment, but are also trained to participate in the media misdirection against Syria, making the satellite channels that broadcast such videos accomplices in the crimes and massacres committed by armed terrorist groups against civilians, policemen and security and army personnel.

Since the beginning of the uprising in March — when Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, attacked the BBC and CNN for using video posted on YouTube to illustrate reports about the use of force against protesters — Syria’s state media has consistently reported that the protest movement is a cover for violent attacks by “armed gangs” and said that any news that contradicts what Syrian state television reports is part of a foreign plot.

This narrative has been so consistent that on Tuesday, when a French television network broadcast a telephone interview with a woman purporting to be the Syrian ambassador in Paris, who announced her resignation, and Syrian television reported a short time later that the ambassador had not resigned, one Syrian blogger asked if the whole controversy might have been staged by Syria to undermine the credibility of an international news channel.

For foreign journalists, banned from reporting inside Syria, the difficulty of determining what is fact and what is fiction was made very clear by a report posted on the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus on Monday, which said that the blog’s author, who has identified herself as a Syrian-American taking part in the uprising, had been abducted.

As The Lede explained on Tuesday, after it was widely reported by news organizations that the blogger, who writes as Amina Abdallah Arraf, had been snatched off the street in Damascus on Monday, doubts were raised about whether the author of the blog had, in fact, been detained. These doubts were spurred, in part, by

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the realization that all of her prior contacts, whether with friends who had come forward or journalists who had interviewed her, were conducted via e-mail.

The Lede also discovered on Tuesday that another blog attributed to the same author, posted online in 2007, included an introduction stating that the text posted there would be part of an autobiographical novel mixing fact and fiction. Sections of that autobiographical novel were later posted on the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, with a less clear statement that it was at least partly fictional. This seemed to raise the possibility that the blogger could have been merely pretending to be in Damascus all along, and that her accounts of the uprising were fiction, not fact.

Because the blogger described herself as a Syrian-American with dual citizenship, American officials in Damascus and Washington have been seeking to verify her identity since she was first reported missing in a note posted on her blog by someone who identified herself as the blogger’s cousin. A consular official even posted a comment beneath that blog post imploring the blogger’s cousin to call or write to the United States embassy. The official also wrote, on Tuesday: “We have been trying to locate records for Amina but have had no luck so far. We will continue to look and once we have that information and have verified her American citizenship, we can begin discussing the case with the Syrians.”

On Wednesday, the embassy in Damascus told The Guardian that it had not yet been able to confirm that Ms. Arraf is an American citizen. A State Department source who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, told The Lede on Wednesday that officials in Syria have “reached out to contacts, but the personal details they have provided have not matched the records to verify identity or citizenship.” Consular officials in Damascus have also tried to make contact with family members, but have not yet received any response.

One source in Syria’s gay community who communicated with The Lede on Wednesday (whose identity we have kept secret out

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of concern for the person’s safety) claimed that none of the 40 members of a secret, lesbian Facebook group in Damascus had ever met or spoken with the author of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog.

On Wednesday, the mystery surrounding the identity of the Gay Girl in Damascus blogger further deepened when The Wall Street Journal reported that photographs said to show Ms. Arraf were in fact pictures of someone else entirely. As Isabella Steger explained in a post on The Journal’s Web site:

The photos are of Jelena Lecic, who lives in London, according to [a] publicist, Julius Just. A press release he distributed includes a photo of a woman who he says is Ms. Lecic, who appears to be the same woman in the photos accompanying stories about Ms. Araf. Mr. Just said Ms. Lecic’s ex-husband contacted him when he saw that the photos circulating of Ms. Araf were in fact of his ex-wife.

Later on Wednesday, Ms. Lecic herself appeared on a BBC television program and insisted that she did not know the author of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog. She said the photographs appear to be taken from her Facebook page.

Jillian York of Global Voices Online, who made contact with the blogger last year, posted a gallery of photographs Ms. Arraf added to her Facebook page last year under the title “Me!” — which are all of Ms. Lecic.

The Guardian, which conducted an interview with the author of the blog last month, reported on Wednesday that one of the photographs Ms. Lecic said was of her had been “supplied directly to the paper last month by the blog’s author.”

The newspaper also explained that a journalist in Damascus “was given an e-mail for the blogger by a trusted Syrian contact, and suggested in extensive e-mail correspondence that they meet in person or talk by Skype. The contact had never met Araf. Araf, who according to blog posts was living on the run, agreed to meet

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Marsh in person but did not turn up for the rendezvous. In later e-mails she said she had been followed, and so aborted the meeting.”

The Lede, NPR and The Associated Press searched unsuccessfully on Wednesday to find anyone who had ever met Ms. Arraf in person. The A.P. reported that it had also looked for family or friends in Virginia, where the author of the blog wrote that she was born. A.P. reporters “found no public records with her name or her parents’ names, or evidence they were there.”

Andy Carvin, an NPR journalist who has developed a network of sources in the Middle East, spent much of Wednesday trying to find more information about the author of the blog. He posted a link on his Twitter feed to a MySpace page for a woman named Amina whose personal details and educational history seem to match those divulged by the Gay Girl in Damascus blogger.

The MySpace page features a profile picture of a famous Palestinian militant, Leila Khaled, but also includes two other photographs (one of a woman whose face is hidden by her hand) and a link to a dating-site profile for the same woman.

As he searched for some sort of concrete lead to anyone who knew Ms. Arraf in person, Mr. Carvin also stressed that a Syrian blogger and activist with reason to fear for her safety could have intentionally obscured her identity to protect herself. He also observed: “Whether Amina is real or not, do not forget every other Syrian who has been detained. There could be thousands of Aminas in detention.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the anonymous administrator of a Free Amina Facebook page revised it, removing the photographs of Ms. Lecic and adding this note:

Amina’s story has raised awareness about the human rights abuses occurring every day in Syria. It is important that people continue to voice support for the many, many political prisoners held by the

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Syrian authorities. Their stories need to be told and remembered. Over 10,000 people have been detained by authorities within the last few months.

Questions about Amina’s identity have surfaced on the Internet. Reporters and the U.S. Embassy have been unable to verify her identity. At the time this site was created, there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the story. We want to be clear that the administrators of this site cannot verify her identity.

However, we think it is possible that the writer of the blog is indeed in custody, in which case, it is important to continue to support her. Many people in Syria are forced to use alternative virtual identities to protect themselves.

We hope she is safe and that we will read her words again soon.

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Syrian reports suggest divisions in security forces An official Syrian news report says the gunmen who killed soldiers in Jisr Shughur were wearing military uniforms. If true, it lends credence to reports of clashes between security forces loyal to Assad and others who oppose the crackdown on protesters.By Roula Hajjar and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles TimesJune 9, 2011

Reporting from Beirut and Istanbul, TurkeyGunmen in "military uniform and government cars" were responsible for the recent killings of as many as 120 Syrian security forces in the northwestern city of Jisr Shughur, the official Syrian Arab News Agency said Wednesday.

The news agency's statement could signal a dramatic division within Syria's security forces and lend credence to opposition claims of clashes between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and those refusing to take part in a violent crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators.

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However, reports of internal divisions and fighting between branches of the security forces have been trickling out for weeks. But, by and large, Syrian security forces -- unlike those that stood aside or helped revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt -- have remained loyal to the regime. Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, a small Shiite Muslim sect, has staffed the upper reaches of the armed forces' officer corps with co-religionists. The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims.

Thousands of security forces reportedly converged in the northern region Wednesday. Residents of villages near Jisr Shughur said that security forces had massed scores of tanks and armored personnel vehicles on the city's outskirts. Some residents fled and sought safety in mosques, churches and schools, according to reports. There was no way to independently verify individual accounts.

The reports Wednesday followed a particularly violent crackdown on protesters Friday in Jisr Shughur, long a focal point of antigovernment unrest. Residents reached by telephone have told foreign journalists that some security forces refused to fire on the thousands of demonstrators Friday and on other days.

"There is a battle between those who are obeying orders to shoot peaceful demonstrators and those who aren't," said Ahmad, a college student in Jisr Shughur reached by telephone. He asked that his last name not be used for fear of angering authorities.

Ahmad said dozens of civilians had been killed in the city since Friday, when massive protests erupted."They were met by army personnel who didn't assault them," Ahmad said. "But soon security forces arrived and snipers claimed rooftops and began an offensive on army personnel and civilians."

Ahmad said residents had detained members of the security forces, but he rejected allegations that townspeople had been using weapons against the soldiers.

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One amateur video posted on the Internet and dated Monday showed residents of the city holding olive branches and demanding that the army not enter their city.

"There are no criminals here," they declared.

"They are claiming that terrorist groups are taking over whole cities?" Ahmad said. "Don't they know how ridiculous it sounds? "We are simple, hopeful townsfolk. We do not have weapons. And even if some people had any weapons in their homes in the beginning ... the security [forces] have already confiscated everything."

Critics accuse the Syrian regime of twisting facts to match an increasingly implausible narrative that they are promoting. According to reports by state news agencies, "terrorists" allegedly obtained military uniforms and government vehicles and used them to "film themselves committing acts of vandalism" to frame the Syrian army.

"Terrorists attacked the police and security centers as well as other government and private institutions, violated the streets, neighborhoods and houses, and used rooftops to sniper and shoot at citizens and security forces," SANA reported.

Syrian human rights activists based abroad say the fighting in Jisr Shughur might herald a key crack in the security forces. In recent days, Al Jazeera satellite channel has aired an amateur video clip of a young army lieutenant from central Syria saying that he is defecting after being ordered to fire on unarmed protesters.

Another Syrian described as a civilian employee of the security forces told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the job of his organization, the Military Security, was to "curb demonstrations, protect only Bashar Assad, carry out terrorist operations, shoot unarmed civilians and shoot any army member" who defied orders to kill demonstrators.

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The violence in Jisr Shughur has prompted some residents to seek safety just across the border in southern Turkey.

Khalid Alahmed, a resident, said he was taken to a clinic in Antab, Turkey, on Sunday after he was shot in his right shoulder and right leg during a protest. He said he saw nine of his friends shot and killed.

"We were protesting in a peaceful protest," he said, speaking by telephone from the clinic. "We were hit with bullets. We don't know where they came from."

He denied reports that dozens of army soldiers had been killed by armed gangs. He said they were shot after they didn't follow orders to open fire on protesters.

According to Turkey's semi-official Anatolia news agency, by Wednesday 220 people had arrived at a Red Crescent camp on the Turkish border, further alienating the regime in Damascus from a once steadfast ally.

"What's going on in Syria is saddening," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who announced that his nation would welcome any Syrians seeking refuge. "Our concern has risen. I hope the Syrian government makes its stance more tolerant toward civilians."

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Naksa violence shows Assad desperate Israel to date has provided the Assad dynasty with one of its abiding claims to power. Editorial,Jerusalem Post,8 June 2011,

When the heavily state-controlled Syrian TV relays live footage to its viewers, we know that something very orchestrated is afoot.

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Indeed, on this week’s Naksa Day – the newfangled commemoration of the 1967 Arab defeat – the Syrian broadcasters turned ostensibly and uncharacteristically liberal for a short duration and transmitted an uncensored feed from the Israeli border.

That was after the authorities had exhorted the masses – and, according to persistent assertions, also resorted to bribery – to breach the barriers and stream into Israel. The obvious aim was to stage an attention-grabbing media spectacular. Hence the sudden temporary shedding of entrenched Syrian reporting restrictions.

The very same state television, it should be noted, has managed to avoid screening any of the mayhem and mass murder in Syrian cities over the past few weeks of violent protests against Bashar Assad’s ruthless rule.

That failure to cover Syria’s domestic upheavals and the subsequent alacrity to foment and feature clashes with Israeli troops are of course intrinsically interconnected.

Likewise there is an inherent link between deliberately downplaying the numbers of Syrian civilians killed by Assad’s troops and exaggerating the number of casualties in the stage-managed extravaganza on the border with Israel.

There are more telltale signs, apart from Syrian TV’s atypical openness. The vicinity of the border with Israel on the Syrian side has always been a closed military zone where nobody unauthorized could wander inadvertently.

This is how Damascus kept its border singularly calm for decades – decades when calm suited its purposes.

And then, on Sunday, in a repeat of the Nakba Day orchestrations three weeks ago, this area suddenly swarmed with bused-in, flag-waving and placard-hoisting throngs, blaring slogans via

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loudspeakers. Along for the show were cameramen and ambulance crews. There could only be one credible explanation: The entire event was well-organized in advance with sanction from above.

But the biggest giveaway was that the anti-Israel marchers –who are meant to be Palestinians – made it a point to loudly chant their avid, undying support for Assad. There was an unqualified pro-government uniformity, without so much as a single dissenting voice. Assad’s cause is hardly popular among the denizens of his bailiwick these days.

Thus, the bizarre loyalty for him on the Golan appeared strangely incompatible with the mood inside Syria.

Moreover, it serves us to recall that when the assorted autocracies on our doorstep consider it in their interest to impose control and restraint, they know full well how to do so.

For their own purposes – not for the love of Israel – the Egyptians, Jordanians, the Palestinian Authority (both the Ramallah and Gaza branches thereof) and even the Hezbollah-intimidated Lebanese opted to uphold discipline on Naksa Day. Since Assad has a proven record of maintaining order on the border, his uncharacteristic recent “failures” underscore the obvious conclusion that he hopes to gain an advantage from this policy reversal.

ASSAD HAS now entered the nothing-to-lose phase of his travails. On the Friday preceding Naksa Day, tens of thousands of Syrians – maybe more – packed the streets to clamor for his ouster. On Naksa Day itself, while the contrived Golan performance was in full swing, dozens were being shot dead in Syria’s north.

Assad would like nothing more than to have the international community focus on casualties ostensibly inflicted by Israel rather than on what he is doing to his own populace. Therefore, the more

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blood spilled at the border, the better for his purposes. To improve the manipulation’s desired effect, Assad magnified the numbers of alleged Israel-caused fatalities. Nobody can anyhow reliably check or ascertain anything in his totalitarian backyard.

Assad’s crude diversionary tactic wasn’t merely produced for foreign public opinion, but also for the home crowd. Assad needs to replicate his success of yesteryear to unite the very diverse components that comprise Syria’s citizenry by demonizing Israel as the common enemy.

Paradoxically, in this respect, Israel to date has provided the Assad dynasty with one of its abiding claims to power.

The Assad regime, it was inculcated into the Syrian mindset, protects the Arab sphere from ogre Israel.

This is now being ironically thrown back at Assad by opposition protesters, some of whom tauntingly brand him “Israel’s lackey.” On occasion even despotic provocateurs and propaganda-purveyors reap the whirlwind. But that does not mean Assad should be taken any less seriously.

His heightened vulnerability, in fact, makes him all the more desperate and consequently unpredictable.

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US: 'We've got problems with Syria on two fronts' Jerusalem Post,09/06/2011 Deputy Spokesperson for the US Department of State issued a statement Wednesday morning detailing the US's stance that issues with Syria were two-pronged.

Explaining how the US was hoping to combat both Syria's nuclear noncompliance as well as the violent actions of President Bashar

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Assad's regime, Toner said "Syria’s failing... to meet its international obligations on the nuclear front concurrently with its failure to abide by any of its international obligations – human rights obligations – in dealing with legitimate protestors within its own country."

He added, "We’ve got problems with Syria on two fronts."

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Syria: How social media is defending a town from the regime's wrathSocial media and cameraphones used during protests offer glimpse into life at ground level in secretive stateNidaa Hassan,Guardian,8 June 2011,

The Syrian regime's apparent hesitancy to bear down on Jisr al-Shughour may have less to do with a reluctance to push the death toll even higher and more to do with its inability to hide the evidence.

In 1982, when president Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez, ordered a brutal crackdown on an Islamist uprising in the city of Hama, which killed at least 10,000, he was able to hide it for weeks.

Bashar, whose debut into public life was as head of the Syrian Computer Society, faces a modern reality of mobile phones and internet and an increasingly tech-savvy population.

Since the protests started in mid-March, Syrians have shown the world what is going on through a mixture of eyewitness accounts and amateur footage of protests and their violent aftermath. Videos are shot on mobile phones and, in some cases, small cameras that have been smuggled into the country, and usually uploaded by computer shortly afterwards.

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One man in Homs recalled seeing a group huddled around a man on the floor after a demonstration. "I went over as I thought someone was injured, but it was a man with a computer using 3G to upload videos" he said.

Skype is widely used among activists to avoid monitored phone lines and some satellite phones have been smuggled into the country.

The headache for Syria, which has banned journalists, is not just from the protesters; videos taken by members of the army and security forces, often mocking those they are abusing or showing bloody dead bodies, have also leaked out.

There is always the risk that videos have been falsified or come from another country but the majority seem authentic.

Syria is expecting another internet outage this Friday after last week it was turned off across the majority of the country for the day. But the videos still came out in those areas where internet was still working – and from other areas just a day later.

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Leading article: Where winter is freezing the Arab Spring Independent,Thursday, 9 June 2011

President Bashar al-Assad has managed something almost inconceivable in this age of mass communications: by dint of denying foreign journalists entry, he has effectively sealed Syria off from the outside world. But what news emerges veers from the extremely bad to the utterly appalling. Most recent reports focus on the north-western town of Jisr al-Shughour, where 120 people were reported killed. Some, if not most, of the dead may have been troops or members of special forces shot for refusing orders

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to fire on civilians (or, as another version has it, in order to prevent them from opening fire).

Whatever happened in Jisr al-Shughour, however, is just the latest outbreak of violence instigated by a regime ruthlessly clinging to power. And a UN Security Council resolution drafted by the UK and France is little more than an exercise in hand-wringing. It nonetheless risks a veto from China and Russia, which still regard a Syria with its current, ever more repressive, President in place as preferable to a Syria without him. Given that the United States and the Europeans have neither the appetite nor the capacity for new military intervention, this increasingly vicious and costly struggle looks set to go on.

It is not unreasonable to ask why intervention was mounted to protect civilians – and assist anti-regime forces – in Libya, but is ruled out in Syria. The simple answer is: because advocates of that intervention judged it to be feasible, and because there was an immediate, and defined, threat that could be averted. Even with this limited objective, however, it appears they may have bitten off more than they could chew. Syria would be a step considerably too far.

Yet the implications of chaos in Syria must be considered, and urgently. Recent attempts by Palestinians to breach the border with Israel and the swelling stream of refugees arriving in Turkey and Lebanon warn of the potential for unrest in Syria to destabilise the whole region. The time may already have passed when political concessions from the regime to the variegated opposition will make any difference. But without them, the escalation of violence looks impossible to avoid.

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An Open Letter to Angelina Jolie on Syria Anushay HossainForbes,8 June 2011,

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Dear Angelina Jolie,

I am writing to you about Syria and the ongoing bloodshed we are watching across the country every day.

You may have seen the consistent coverage in the news recently about the latest country in the Middle East to join the “Arab Spring.” Despite excitement over pro-democracy movements successfully removing dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, Western leaders have largely remained silent on Syria.

They stayed silent when the bullet-ridden, tortured corpse of 13-year-old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, who was arrested at a pro-democracy protest in a village in southern Syria in April, was returned to his family one month after his arrest. Graphic images and video footage of the young teenage boy, whose kneecaps were shattered and penis cut off, are plastered all over the web.

No leader, Arab or foreign, is saying anything right now as tanks surround the Syrian village of Jisr- al Shughour, and terrified villagers flee for their lives. In fact, no one has said anything over the almost daily deaths of young Syrians being killed for their desire for a democratic Syria.

We have not heard a word from our politicians as news broke of the Syrian-American blogger, Amina Abdallah, the young woman who used her popular blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus, as a platform to criticize the Syrian government, being abducted in Damascus Monday evening, forced into a car by three armed men.

So why am I writing to you, Ms. Jolie?

As an international human rights activist, who not only recently visited Syria and has a close friendship with the ruling family, your voice is needed now more than ever to make the bloodshed in Syria stop.

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The same voice you use to draw the attention of international leaders on Pakistan, on Iraq, for the rights of refugees, women and children, when humanitarian crises go unnoticed, that same voice is needed now as Syrian authorities kill their citizens with impunity over their protest.

The people of the Middle East, especially the youth, have made their desire to have democracy loud and clear. They have shown that they are willing to die for it, and they are. We must support them. And if our governments will not do it, we must use whatever means we have to help stop the bloodshed.

Your voice is needed right now. Please do not join the same politicians you always encourage to speak up in their silence over Syria.

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Christian Science Monitor: 'If Syria's ambassador to France didn't resign on TV, who did?'..

Today’s Zaman: ‘Turkey chides Assad, says doors open to refugees’..

Jerusalem Post: 'The IDF must stop shooting unarmed people'..

Miami Herald: 'Palestinian protests divide village [Majdal Shams] on Israel-Syria border'..

Today's Zaman: 'Turkey's foreign minister rejects foreign intervention in Syria'..

Daily Telegraph: 'Tanks occupy Syrian town of Homs'..

Yedioth Ahronoth: 'UK Jews fight Scottish boycott'..

Guardian: 'Ahmet Davutoglu: regional power broker or dictators' go-between?'..

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Independent: 'Civilians flee for border as Assad forces advance on rebel town'..

NYTIMES: 'In Saudi Arabia, Royal Funds Buy Peace for Now'..

Washington Post: '‘Gay Girl in Damascus’ may not be real'..

Washington Post: ‘Obama loses bin Laden bounce; Romney on the move among GOP contenders’..

NYTIMES: ‘Syrians Flee to Turkey, Telling of Gunmen Attacking Protesters’..

Jerusalem Post: ‘Defying Russia, EU nations draft UN resolution on Syria’..

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