SYRIA PEACE NOW! سلام لسوريا الان

Tracking the Syrian Civil War, and demanding a peaceful resolution. تتبع الحرب السورية الاهلية، والمطالبة بحل سلمي.

[yallair7al]

A message from Hama, Syria to the world …. 

[syriapeacenow-blog]

• 10,800 people have been killed, 4,500 people are missing, 1m people have left

• 2.4m people (out of a population of 2.5m) are living in areas needing humanitarian assistance

• 511,900 people are internally displaced

• 2.2m people are in danger of not having enough to eat; 240,000 do not have enough access to water

• Over half of all private buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

• In 28 of the 52 neighbourhoods electricity has been off for at least six months.

• The education system has "collapsed."

• Only four of seven hospitals in the city are functioning.

...

Stop this bloody war!

[syriapeacenow-blog]

SPN Editor comment: Invaluable guide to the armed Syrian opposition

[syriapeacenow-blog]

“The time has come to declare before the people of Syria and the whole world, that Jabhat al Nusra is nothing more than an extension of the Islamic State of Iraq, and a part of it,” said the purported voice of Islamic State of Iraq leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in an audio message.

...

Some Syrian rebel fighters not affiliated with Nusra spoke with open hostility Tuesday about the group.

Abu Azzam, an opposition fighter, said other Syrian rebel groups were uniting against Nusra “so as to stop this cancer.”

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So this is what the Syrian revolution has come to: Al Qaeda vs. Bashar vs. the FSA.

That's OK, guys, the SPN editor wasn't planning on being happy today anyway.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

SPN Editor: Indiscriminate slaughter of civilians is no longer the purview of the regime.

Via Syriacomment, 3/29/2013:

Rebel Mortar Attack Kills Students at Damascus University

Today I spoke by phone with the director of the university’s architecture department, a personal friend. Yesterday’s mortar attack hit a cafeteria located just outside the architecture building. The death toll is between 15 and 20, all students, with more than 30 injured. 12 of the dead were architecture students, all studying together in the same department. Mortars have become quite common in eastern Damascus, where attacks launched from Jobar and Qabuun regularly hit the Christian neighborhoods of Bab Tuma and Qasaa’. (In fact, the mortar that killed the university students was only one of at least 6 mortars in Damascus yesterday: friends reported 3 in Qasoor [north of Abbasiyiin] and 2 in Qasaa’.) But for shells to touch down in Baramke (where the university is located) is an emerging phenomenon. (Less than three weeks ago one hit the football stadium in Baramke killing 6 civilians and injuring near 30.) As rebel activity has moved inward into neighborhoods like Yarmouk, the number of areas from which mortars can be fired into the center of Damascus has increased. It is difficult to say exactly where the mortar that killed the students yesterday was launched from, since they supposedly have a range of about 8km. –MTB

[syriapeacenow-blog]

More than 300,000 Christians have fled their villages and towns to escape the war, but also UN refugee camps, said Issam Bishara, regional director of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

Speaking to AsiaNews, he said that none of the displaced families is in UN refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, where displaced people are registered as rebels and used for photo ops.

"In Lebanon, about 1,200 families have found shelter with friends or relatives," Bishara said. In fact, most Christians are not on the lists of the High Commissioner for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). They refuse to be identified as part of the mostly Sunni opposition.

Christians prefer to be neutral, above the conflict between Muslim rebels and Bashar al-Assad's Alawis. For this reason, they have been surviving without any substantial aid from major donors like the UNHCR and the Red Cross. Still, "They they need everything," Bishara explained. "The only support they get is from CNEWA."

You can give to support CNEWA's relief efforts here.

[m-iskeen-deactivated20141214]

The Bombing of Al-Bara- 36 minutes

Al Bara, Idlib Governorate, northern Syria

Whatever your view on Syria may be, this must be seen, if only from 5:00-8:00.

This is what is happening to the people of Syria- the Syrian military is using airstrikes on rebel-controlled towns and neighborhoods, with little or no effort to limit civilian casualties. As you can see at 11:00, the fighter planes return and drop another bomb on the other side of the village. Watching this, I found it honestly difficult not to begin crying.

At 29:00-32:00, we see the other side of the conflict- the Free Syrian Army fighters threaten to murder ‘Alawi civilians, and civilian bystanders are clearly being instructed by the FSA fighters what to say to the journalists.

Regardless- this is what northern Syria has become.

This is what is happening to our people.

Free Syria.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

A New York Times graphic of recent clandestine arms shipments to Syrian rebels.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

No way this will end badly:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

...

As it evolved, the airlift correlated with shifts in the war within Syria, as rebels drove Syria’s army from territory by the middle of last year. And even as the Obama administration has publicly refused to give more than “nonlethal” aid to the rebels, the involvement of the C.I.A. in the arms shipments — albeit mostly in a consultative role, American officials say — has shown that the United States is more willing to help its Arab allies support the lethal side of the civil war.

...

“A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,” said Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who monitors illicit arms transfers.

“The intensity and frequency of these flights,” he added, are “suggestive of a well-planned and coordinated clandestine military logistics operation."

[syriapeacenow-blog]

"Imagine, these people used to be our neighbors," said the 40-year-old farmer, perplexed by the transformation. "Now they want to kidnap and kill us."

The predominant narrative of the Syrian war is that of a tyrannical government largely run by members of a Shiite sect, the Alawites, brutalizing a people yearning for freedom.

However, in the largely Shiite towns and villages of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, people who have fled Syria tell a different story. They speak of an "ethnic cleansing" campaign carried out by rebels intent on creating an Islamic state run by Syria's Sunni majority.

In the face of rebel attacks, Shiites in dozens of villages just inside Syria have fled here to a part of Lebanon dominated by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, the villagers and Hezbollah representatives say.

...

In the adjacent town of Hermel, Ali Haydar Kheyr Din, 46, recounted how he was kidnapped by rebels on a Syrian road and held for four days. His captors went through his cellphone contacts one by one and accused him of being a Hezbollah operative, said Din, who says his family owns a factory in Homs.

"You're Shiite, of course you're Hezbollah," said one of the captors, according to Din.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

Sheik Hanaoui told Syria Deeply that the people of Swaida have become enraged and feel that everyone has become a target for abduction.

“Our people get stopped at checkpoints and are asked which sect they belong to. Once the militias hear that they are from Swaida, our men disappear,” Sheik Hanaoui said.

...

[Jubhat al-] Nusra [kidnapped] 17 people from Swaida including Sheik Abu Khaled Jamal Iz al Din, a respected Druze leader, and refused to release them until its fighters were freed. This YouTube video from Dec. 27 showed the hostages held by Jabhat Al Nusra pleading for Druze religious and tribal leaders, including Sheik Hanaoui, to cut a deal with the group.

Sheik Hanaoui said he led a delegation from Swaida and met with four Nusra fighters in Om Walad village in Daraa province. After hours of talks, the delegation came to an agreement with Nusra to release the hostages, Hanaoui said, but added that Nusra then broke the agreement for unknown reasons.

...

“Jabhat Al Nusra sees the Druze as infidels, therefore they see attacking and kidnapping them as justified,” said Zoabi, the Daraa activist. The group “has no local reference here, and their excommunicating ideology is catastrophic in societies like Syria.”

[syriapeacenow-blog]

CBS News: Christians Under Attack

200,000 Christians have fled Syria.  They are 1/5 of Syrian refugees, but only 1/10 of the Syrian population.

Father Fadi al-Homsi:

"They killed him because he is a Christian.  They refuse to have any Christians in Syria.

"I'm not afraid.  My uncle died.  He is immortal now.  I can be like him."

[syriapeacenow-blog]

SPN Editor: There are less than 50 Jews left in Syria, but apparently Judaism still represents a threat significant enough to justify synagogue-burning:

The 2,000-year-old Jobar Synagogue in the Syrian capital of Damascus was looted and burned to the ground.

The Syrian army loyal to President Bashar Assad and rebel forces are blaming each other for the destruction of the historic synagogue, according to reports on Sunday.

The rebels said the Syrian government looted the synagogue before burning it to the ground, Israel Radio reported Sunday.

The government said the rebels burned the synagogue and that so-called Zionist agents stole its historic religious items in an operation that had been planned for several weeks, the Arabic Al-Manar Television reported, citing the Arabic Syria Truth website.

...

The Jobar synagogue was built atop a cave that, according to tradition, was used by the prophet Elijah to conceal himself from prosecution. The synagogue is said to have been built by Elijah's successor, the prophet Elisha, and repaired during the first century by Eleazar ben Arach.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

Please Excuse the Long Absence

Sometimes, the SPN editor has to travel in sub-Saharan Africa for weeks at a time.  When this happens, the blog is not updated.  Unfortunately, the war goes on.  So we're back, until it stops, insha ALLAH.

If you'd like to contribute to the blog so this doesn't happen again, send me a wave.

[kill-oppression]

Thanks for your help, America.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

Syrians have an awesome sense of humor.  They deserve better from us.

[damasian1]

[syriapeacenow-blog]

"We will also provide the Free Syrian Army with one and a half kilograms of Nestle milk powder."

Tell John Kerry: night-vision goggles and body armor handouts are not a strategy for peace.

[syriapeacenow-blog]

"While neither the regime nor the rebels is capable of destroying the other, in combination they are more than capable of destroying Syria - and may even have already done so."

- Tony Karon