Sunday, June 19, 2011

Civil war in Syria

There is in effect a civil war going on in Syria between the majority of the population, which is Sunni Muslim, and the Assad regime, that is dominated by Alawites. These make up ca. 10% of the population and are considered to be a heretical sect of Islam, similar to the Shia. The Syrian Army is being rotated thru various towns and villages, in each case putting down the revolt and killing large numbers of Sunni demonstrators. In several cases, the mob has attacked the local headquarters of the hated secret police (Mubharbarat) and in some cases has sacked the building and killed the occupants. In other places army troops (probably Sunni themselves) have refused to shoot at unarmed protesters and have been shot by the loyal Army, but in official reports these shootings have been attributed to local anti-regime gangs. Those near the borders that can flee have done so, and now there are up to 10,000 people either in camps in Turkey or on the move. Approx. 1,300 have been killed and well over 20,000 arrested or missing. This is a desperate situation, but so far the UN Security Council has been deadlocked, mainly by Russia and China, and nothing has been done about this, unlike Libya.

The situation in Syria affects that in Lebanon directly, because of the close inter-relationship of the two countries. In fact 4 people were killed in Lebanon yesterday in a clash between Sunni and Alawi Arabs. Not many people are aware that the previous PM of Lebanon Sa'ad Hariri was forced to step down by Hizbollah, that is a proxy of Shia Iran and Syria. He is now in France where he has asked for permanent residence, not asylum, in order to avoid an attempt on his life, since his life is always under threat (the Syrians and Hizbollah blew up his father Rafik Hariri). If he were assassinated it might trigger another civil war in Lebanon, that would distract the world's attention from what is going on in Syria itself.

In order to distract the world's attention the Assad regime bussed thousands of Palestinians to the Israeli border for the Nakba and Naksa Days last month, but this was relatively unsucccessful. However, it has been suggested that in order to greatly distract attention Assad might try to trigger an incident with Israel. However, it is felt that he is likely to avoid this approach because an incident with Israel could get out of hand and he knows that Israel could not only defeat his army, but could also cause the downfall of his regime, whcih is what he is trying desperately to avoid. So don't expect any clash between Syria and Israel. It is more likely that the slow steady killing of Sunni activists will continue throughout Syria.

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