With deadly attacks on protesters continuing in the city of Homs, there are growing fears of a “bloodbath” in the offing after reports that the regime issued an ultimatum to the city.
The ultimatum, as reported by defector Lt. Col. Hamdo, was given by pro-regime forces on Saturday, and cautioned that if the pro-democracy protests did not end by Monday night, the city would have full-scale “bombardment” by the military.
Syria’s state media made no mention of such a deadline, but then they have also left that violence in Homs almost entirely uncovered, reporting only on the deaths of pro-regime forces and terming the opposition, as usual, “armed terrorist groups.”
Opposition figures claim that Homs has been virtually sealed off from the rest of the nation, and that electricity has been cut in some parts of the city. The city has been at the center of the opposition movement for months.
Where is the west as thee is no oil and Asad is an Israeli agent to keep in power.
It is really shameful that this supposedly antiwar website continues to beat the war drums on Syria…
Not only that but this reporter in particular must think antiwar readers are quite stupid…
He notes above that the Syrian media is reporting only the deaths of pro-regime forces and terming the opposition armed terrorist groups…
Well excuse me but if 1100 security personnel have been killed already, as is well established by numerous agencies and has been reported on this website by credible writers like Pepe Escobar, then how can these “protesters” be “unarmed” as this reporter would have us believe…?
It is a contradiction on its face…plain and simple…
Not only that but we get no context in terms of the sectarian issues involved nor the history…we get no info that Homs and a couple of the other flashpoints of the violence…yes violence caused for the most part by armed insurgents, not merely protesters…has long been a center of sectarian extremism and played a leading role in a previous insurrection a generation ago…
The majority of Syrian people want first of all these armed insurgents to stop…they want peace in their land, not some foreign fueled insurrection based on sectarian hatreds…
The real story here is that the US along with its imperial proxies like Saudi Arabia are using sectarian violence to spread instability and foment civil war…
It is absolutely shameful that antiwar sweeps all of this context under the carpet and simply parrots the MSM line about the bad Assad regime killing innocent protesters…
What we are seeing is the Evil Empire pulling the strings of divide and conquer, same as in every other place that the empire has sown death and destruction…from India (encouraging Muslim separatists and the splitting of the country into a Muslim entity Pakistan in the wake of British colonial rule collapse) to North Korea, to Vietnam, to Yugoslavia, to Libya (tribal rivalries) and of course Iraq, where the divide and conquer caused a massive human tragedy that may never be healed…
For my part I am absolutely disgusted with this website and this reporter in particular…there is no excuse for ignorance of history or context…
And judging by the many comments on this story many readers are too…Really I hope next time this website appeals for money that the decent folks who support it think hard about what they are really supporting…
Please give the Arabs some credit.
You treat them as if they have nothing to do with their own endeavors; as if they merely sit around waiting for orders from Langley.
Arabs are capable of their own initiative just as anyone else is. And it just so happens that Syrian Sunnis are increasingly fed up for 40 years of often brutal rule by Shiite Alawites.
Now obviously regional powers have their own interests in mind. Iran and Hezbollah want to prop up a Shiite ally; the US and Israel want to break Iranian influence in the region; the Saudis want rid of the Alawites; Turkey wants to demonstrate its new-found regional power.
All of this foreign meddling makes an already dangerous situation even worse – a conflict that could literally treat the whole region apart.
But the prime actors here are the Syrians. Both sides in that conflict have reasons for doing what they are doing even without no outside influence.
Problem is that the foreign interference is escalating the conflict and pouring gasoline on the fire…
If the Syrian Sunnis have had enough of Alawite rule then a civil war is not the answer…
But that is not the point…we have had a civil war here from the get-go because the opposition has been armed and using violence freely…
But the MSM reporting has been a complete concoction about unarmed protesters being massacred…
Only now when it is no longer possible to keep up this charade, the story line is transitioning ever so seamlessly to "well now it is a civil war, but who can blame them after being massacred when they tried peacefully first…"
That is the tried and true propaganda storyline…it was used to create civil war in Yugoslavia and then blame only one side, the Serbs…likewise in Libya…now Syria…
Enough of this BS…People should have common sense enough to see trough this and we should demand a stop to it because it is God-awful to watch these countries convulsing in civil wars and awful bloodshed and knowing that we are the ones who lit this fire…
And that is where this website comes in…they are helping to light the fire of civil war in Syria because of their irresponsible coverage of this story…people who read this website are against war and they are against our governments igniting civil wars for their own geopolitical grand schemes…
Enough already…either start writing honestly about what is going on in Syria or just reprint the MSM garbage like you do anyway…
So let's say the foreign hand of America and Israel were to vanish. What would change? Not a whole lot.
You'd still have Sunnis tired of Alawite rule. You'd still have a terrified Alawite minority fearing for their lives. You'd still have weapons flowing in from Sunnis in Lebanon. You'd still have Iranian support for Assad, and you'd still have a regime with a solid track record of wasting its own people.
Again, to blame all this on outsiders is to deny the realities of Syrian/Arab politics.
Well said, Gordon.
By the way, here's a selection of quotes from the person who wants you to "give the Arabs some credit":
"Arabs are – and have always been – the best when it comes to killing Arabs."
"Let's face it: a secular(ish) tyranny is as good as it gets for a nation like Syria or Libya."
And the give-away…
"It's a shame that so many people are willing to cheer on the removal of US-backed regimes while at the same time praising regimes like Iran, Syria and Libya for their anti-Israel stance."
"Arabs are – and have always been – the best when it comes to killing Arabs."
TRUE.
"Let's face it: a secular(ish) tyranny is as good as it gets for a nation like Syria or Libya."
Likely TRUE, given who is waiting in the wings.
"It's a shame that so many people are willing to cheer on the removal of US-backed regimes while at the same time praising regimes like Iran, Syria and Libya for their anti-Israel stance."
TRUE, as is the same in reverse (those who cheer on protestors in Syria and Iran usually oppose them in Egypt, Bahrain etc.)
Any other complaints?