Civil Conflict in Syria: News & Discussions

[Solomon2]

---

---

Syria: A drop in violence!

28/04/2012
By Diana Mukkaled

Twenty, or perhaps thirty, people were killed in Homs.
This is how news headlines appear when handling the Syrian situation. The number in the headline could be less or more, but this does not matter except when an incidental phrase such as "including three children" is added.

Slowly, but in a semi-systematic manner, news items about the revolution in Syria have shifted into focusing on figures and statistics, rather than details, names or stories.

Is there anything more inhumane than this?

The most dangerous thing a revolution or an ordeal - like that which the Syrian people are experiencing - can inflict is when its cause, tragedies or stories shifts into a mere accumulation of statistics. This is a situation whereby we become indifferent to what is happening, and seek only to have a brief and uninformative summary that does not even reveal what is really happening on the ground.

The manner in which we are covering and keep track of the situation in Syria has been shaken.

Isn't it true that the majority of us turn our faces away from internet links of “cruel” footages and videos that contain images of injured people or even children dying in Syria? Here, we return to an essential point in covering the Syrian revolution; namely that these images that we avoid are images of real people with stories, tales and tragedies, not a mere accumulation of statistics.

Every Syrian citizen must have his own story; hence we can get away from the statistics regarding the number of killed and injured.

The child who was killed in Homs should have his own story told to the world, as should his mother and family. This also applies to the girl in Idlib and the child in Deraa.

This is with regards to the technology utilized in covering the revolution. As for the ultimate objective of covering the news of the revolution, we feel disgraced and disappointed in admitting that the Syrian regime is successful in remaining in power thanks to tyranny as well as to the world's failure in alleviating the Syrian people's suffering. It is an equation in which the media has been an utter failure; the media has shifted the news of the Syrian ordeal from a story about living flesh and blood into mindless statistics. The Syrian news item has become a tedious tragedy which we do not want to pay attention to for fear that it could befall us, as happened in the past year of the revolution.

In news, for example, it is said that "thirty-four people were killed yesterday, in an indication of the decrease in violence thanks to the presence of international observers."

The revolution is becoming weaker with the more time that passes. This is the source of the evil Syrian regime’s success. Thirty deaths do not represent a drop in violence, but rather the regime’s persistence and clear determination to continue with the killing. To deny 30 victims their minimum right of equity by refusing to condemn the regime that has killed them means that we have entered a perverse stage where we are grateful that the killer was content with taken “only” 30 lives.

This is precisely the logic behind this statement that violence has decreased thanks to the presence of international observers. In fact, this represents a real injustice to the victims of those killed on the day that “violence decreased.”

What would you feel if it was your own family member who was killed on this day, and the media lauded the “decrease in violence”? Does this not truly represent a terrible injustice against the victims?


Diana Mukkaled is a prominent and well respected TV journalist in the Arab world, thanks to her phenomenal show "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" (By The Naked Eye), a series of documentaries around controversial areas and topics which airs on Lebanon's leading local and sattelite channel "Future Television". Diana also is a veteran war corrependent, covering both The War in Iraq and in Afghanistan, as well as the Isreali "Grapes of Wrath" massacre in southern Lebanon. Daring to do superb investigative work in Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen and Iraq (prior to the collapse of the Saddam's regime) and dedicating entire episodes of "Bil Ayn Al Mojarada" to issues such as "Honour Crimes" in Jordan, Diana has gained world wide recognition and was named one of the most influential women in a special feature that ran in Time Magazine in 2004. Diana writes a weekly coloumn for Asharq Al Awsat Media's Supplement, where she discusses current affairs in Arab and world media.

[BLACKEAGLE]

Inside Syria's broken city of Homs
The eccentricity of terror is drawn in dust-covered colours in the homes of Baba Amr.

The neat blast hole in the ceiling of one family's dining room was sufficient explanation for the broken furniture and rubble with which it was filled. Wires dangled loosely. Against one wall stood a chest, its glass front shattered. But inside, the neat row of inverted Turkish coffee cups, eight red and eight yellow, sat unmoved and undamaged. There was even an intact light-bulb sitting on top.
The chest could be a symbol of the whole city of Homs, the focal point of the Syrian uprising. Parts are in good enough order, apart from painted-over graffiti. The five-star hotel that is the new base of the United Nations monitors is empty but smart and functioning.
Yet from a few hundred yards' distance comes the sound of automatic gunfire, and a two-minute drive away you are on what remains a hot front line despite the dominance of regime forces and despite the ceasefire the monitors are here to observe.
And in this compact town, the destroyed streets of Baba Amr, scene of one of the conflict's heaviest and deadliest bombardment, are a short walk away.
Along the main thoroughfares, the blackened holes of the apartment buildings stare down at the piles of broken bricks and burned out cars. Each building has its own sign of war – the smashed shutters of the shopfronts, the collapsed roof, the bedroom exposed to the daylight.
RELATED ARTICLES
Syria: 15 troops killed in Aleppo 02 May 2012
Syria army suffers deadliest day since ceasefire 02 May 2012
Syria: nine members of same family killed by Assad regime troops 01 May 2012
34 children 'killed in Syria' since ceasefire 01 May 2012
Syria: biased West is calling for war, says regime 30 Apr 2012
Stepping inside stirred a further eddy of dust from the crumbling concrete.
At first, it seemed like an empty film set. But we walked on, among the first journalists allowed in since the end of one of the most fearsome sieges of modern times, the few hundred residents who have not fled peered out from their broken walls.
A handful of black-clad women clustered around an outpost of the Red Crescent. A few more gathered around a man who had been allowed by the army to bring in a small selection of vegetables.
Children pointed excitedly to the ruins, their new playground, running in and out of the piles of detritus.
Few people were prepared to talk, but one man was upset enough on learning he was talking to a Briton to damn the perfidy of David Cameron, who had seemed to want to help but had "done nothing".
"He is a liar, a liar," he said. "It was just talk, talk, talk. Nobody helped us. The whole world was against us."
Another man described how he had been held in prison for 50 days – though not long enough to avoid the savagery of February's bombardment that finally drove the Free Syrian Army's Farouq Battalion from the suburb. It was a humiliating retreat which may have marked the turning point of this war.
"Every day for thirty days the shells came. They started at six in the morning and ended at eight at night. In between, there was not a minute's peace."
Ask where the FSA went, and there is a nervous silence. Some things still can't be discussed. "We lived here, they killed us, and they will kill us," said one resident, succinctly. The army SUVs and pickup trucks come in threes, driving without stopping down the centre of the road.
But it is no secret where the "armed groups" went. Many went to Khaldiyah, which touches on the city centre and which, though heavily shelled, seems a tougher nut to crack.
Walk up from the clock tower in the central square, between the governor's offices and the Lord Suites Hotel – "spotlessly clean and modern" according to the Lonely Planet guide, a comic thought now – and soon the bullets are cracking. From a side street comes the thud of a rocket-propelled grenade.
It is not clear why: there is no advance on either side, and regime officials may be right in claiming some of the firing is for show, to herald the monitors' arrival.
The heaviest shooting, though, is at night, long after the monitors have retreated to their hotel.
An army major reckons there are 4,000 fighters holed up in the suburb.
That, too, contradicts the official line that the FSA is nothing more than a handful of criminals, bolstered by foreign fighters and jihadists.
But then the official line is flexible, and perhaps has to be now the monitors are here to see for themselves. The government is now prepared to admit it shares in the responsibility for the disaster that has befallen a city where now smashed open-air cafés and rooftop restaurants speak of a more relaxed past.
The governor of Homs, Ghassan Abdul-Al, looked embarrassed as he claimed the army's treatment of Baba Amr was proportionate to the rebels' use of rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms.
But he was only appointed a year ago, after his predecessor was sacked because of his initial response to the protests, and he was prepared to go beyond the standard formula that "some mistakes were made".
He hoped things might have been different if he had been in charge. "I think I might have been less aggressive," he said. "Because we see – and as you find – there is a big reason for this uprising. We did not serve the people, not as they should be."
For Syria to serve the people of Homs now seems almost impossible. Mr Abdul-Al said there were plans to redevelop Baba Amr – the reason, he said, pictures of a brieze-block wall along one side of the suburb have circulated the internet. It is not a "New Berlin Wall", he said, but merely a replacement for a protective barrier by the railway line.
Baba Amr certainly looks like a place that needs to be levelled. But before anything new can rise from the ashes, its people must be reconciled to those who reduced it to this state. That task lies beyond the building of walls.

More than 34 children 'killed in Syria' since ceasefire
More than 34 children have allegedly been killed in Syria since a shaky truce between President Bashar al-Assad's security forces and opposition groups took hold on April 12, the UN special envoy for children and armed conflict has claimed.



"Since a truce was agreed on April 12 ... and despite the deployment of United Nations ceasefire monitors, more than 34 children have allegedly been killed," special envoy Radhika Coomaraswamy said in a statement.
"I urge all parties in Syria to refrain from indiscriminate tactics resulting in the killing and wounding of children," she said.
Nine members of a single family were among 10 civilians killed in a dawn bombardment by Syrian government forces on Tuesday of a village in Idlib province in the northwest, according to a rights group, it was reported earlier.
12 troops were also killed in clashes with rebels just hours after a new UN call for all sides to respect a troubled truce.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said it was vital that government and opposition alike cooperate fully with a hard-won UN observer force as it fans out in its mission to shore up the ceasefire agreement that took effect on April 12.

[lem34]

i don't care about Ireland and the Brits, why u bring offtopic realted stuff.

i don't know the history behind them nor any incident. stay on topic wich is Syria.

clearly the word analogy is not in your dictionary

[500]

BMP defects in Homs:


Palestinian girl in Bethlehem hols combination of Syria rebel flag and Palestinian:


Students in Aleppo form rebel flag:

[silko]

clearly the word analogy is not in your dictionary

the brits and irish are off no importance to me. they are 3-4000 km away from Turkey. Syria is right next to us. what happens in Syria affects us, what happens in a island far away from Turkey does not affect us whatsoever.

clearly interests and geopolitical analogy is not in your dictionary.

[Al Bhatti]

[Mootaz-khelifi]

Appearance of the angels fighting with Syrian Free Army

[lem34]

Why do you not add Saudi and Bahrain not so Royal families aka as American lapdogs to this list.

[500]

Why do you not add Saudi and Bahrain not so Royal families aka as American lapdogs to this list.

There is no civil war in Bahrain unlike Syria.

Ben Ali and Mubarak were US/Saudi lapdogs and they are in list.

Suicide car against checkposts:




IED against BMP-1:


FSA fighters pose near burning T-62 and BMP-1:


Checkpost ambushed:

[Mootaz-khelifi]

hey Israeli are u with or against Syrian revolution

[BLACKEAGLE]

Why do you not add Saudi and Bahrain not so Royal families aka as American lapdogs to this list.

Why don't you add them yourself and put the picture in your bedroom, so you can pray day and night, and cry rivers for God, so they meet the same fate of the toppled Arab leaders. It will take time my friend maybe Millenniums or if u are lucky centuries. Try, afterall, you wouldn't lose but your health and maybe sanity. God help you. I support your cause 100%...

[Al Bhatti]

Why do you not add Saudi and Bahrain not so Royal families aka as American lapdogs to this list.

All our politicians and top generals deserve the place

[Gin ka Pakistan]

Iran is the main issue and Syria is paying the price.

Iran should stop interference in Qatar and Saudi Arab and in return Qatar and Saudi Arab should stop aiding Sunni fighters in Syria.

Talk about Western interests , the same Sunni fighter USA is killing all over the world are now good guys in Syria.

[Syrian Lion]

Freedom! Peaceful ! ya right.

Tunisian Sources: Tunisian Terrorists Arrested in Syria

[Mootaz-khelifi]

---

---

Freedom! Peaceful ! ya right.

Tunisian Sources: Tunisian Terrorists Arrested in Syria

anther assadian lie it's lie no Tunisian terrorist and the terrorist ur fake news They mentioned that they might be from the Tunisian community there and you want is to discredit Tunisia reputation mother revolutions