SYRIA – News
HAVING DESTROYED BABA AMR ASSAD’S ARMY MOVES ON TO OTHER CENTRES OF RESISTANCE:MINOR CRACK IN ASSAD REGIME’S FRONT AS ASSISTANT TO OIL MINISTER CALLS ON COLLEAGUES TO “ABANDON THIS SINKING SHIP”:
ASSAD’S MOTHER APPARENTLY BLAMING HIM AND HIS BROTHER FOR “THE MESS THEY HAVE CREATED IN SYRIA”:
US SAYS IT WILL NOT ACT UNILATERALLY BUT BEHIND THE SCENES PRESSURE FOR MILITARY ACTION GROWS:
TIMELINE – 8th March 2012 12.26 GMT:
Having overrun the Baba Amr district of Homs, Assad’s military have turned their attention to other centres of resistance.
Activists reported heavy fighting in Herak, a town in Daraa province, between the Syrian Army and forces of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), with shells hitting residential areas where some of the army defectors were based. One report said that an army tank fired at the Abu Bakr al-Saddiq mosque after local residents took shelter there, blowing off the door and shattering its windows.
Syrian Army Tank in Herak
In return the FSA are reported to have attacked and destroyed an armoured personnel carrier, killing five soldiers and wounding a number of others.
A 15 year old boy in the town is said to have been killed by snipers.
Activists are also reporting 23 people killed in Homs on Tuesday and a further 3 on Wednesday, including 13 members of two families who appear to have been executed with knives.
A further 22 at other locations across the country were reported dead over the same 2 day period.
While the Assad Government keeps the International Red Cross firmly out of Baba Amr (despite telling them they could go in), they did allow the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, to enter the area along with the Syrian Red Crescent organisation for about 45 minutes.
While Amos reported the area as “completely devastated”, it was devoid of residents and clear that it had been heavily “cleansed” and “sanitised” over the last 3 days. The BBC has a video report of the “clear-up”HERE:
Despite being told by Syria’s Foreign Minister, Walid Muallem, that she could go “anywhere in the country”, Amos was stopped from going into any areas still held by the Opposition. Most of the families from Baba Amr have fled it seems to other Sunni districts of Homs or into surrounding villages. More than 1,500 are reported to have crossed the border into Lebanon.
Child Refugees from Baba Amr Flee to Lebanon - bbc.co.uk
Those fleeing to Lebanon, a 3 day walk, say that their husbands and sons were taken away as they passed through checkpoints and they do not expect to see them alive again.
The BBC’s Paul Wood has a chilling report from inside Syria, HERE:
MINOR CRACK IN ASSAD REGIME’S FRONT AS ASSISTANT TO OIL MINISTER CALLS ON COLLEAGUES TO “ABANDON THIS SINKING SHIP”:
A video has appeared on YouTube in which Abdo Hussameddin, aged 58, a deputy Oil Minister in Assad’s Government, announces his resignation from both his job and the ruling Ba’ath Party.
In his statement he said, “I am joining the revolution of the people who reject injustice and the brutal campaign of the regime…..I do not want to end my life servicing the crimes of this regime”, adding that he had served 33 years in various government positions.
Deputy Oil Minister Defects from Assad's Government
Advising his colleagues “to abandon this sinking ship,” he said he had made his decision “knowing full well that this regime will burn my home, persecute my family and make up a lot of lies”.
However, while the video is believed to be authentic, it has been pointed out that Ministers in Syria have several assistants each known as Deputies and there are more than 100 altogether.
Husameddine is not well known and therefore not too much should be read into the defection at this stage, but hopefully it will become a growing trend.
Last August, Muhammad al-Bakkour, the attorney general for Hama also declared his resignation on YouTube in protest against the suppression of street demonstrations and the storming of the city of Hama by tanks, but has not been heard from or seen since. You can see the Hussameddin video with comments by Reuters, HERE:
