http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/08/05/Assad-vows-to-stamp-out-terror-in-Syria-with-iron-fist.html
The rebels raided 10 different Alawite villages in the mountains, sparking retaliation from Syrian Army artillery and battling with Alawite militias that oppose a rebel takeover.
Assad’s solution to Syrian conflict: striking ‘terror with iron fist’
Al Arabiya
In a rare speech broadcast on Syrian state television late Sunday, President Bashar al-Assad said the crisis in his country could only be solved by striking terror with an “iron fist.”
“No solution can be reached with terror except by striking it with an iron fist,” Assad said.
“I don’t think that any sane human being would think that terrorism can be dealt with via politics,” he added.
“There may be a role for politics in dealing with terrorism pre-emptively,” said Assad, adding that as soon as “terrorism” has arisen, it can only be struck out, according to AFP.
“There may be a role for politics in dealing with terrorism pre-emptively,” said Assad, adding that as soon as “terrorism” has arisen, it can only be struck out, according to AFP.
In his 45-minute address, the president also dismissed the political opposition to his regime as a “failure,” adding that could play no role in solving the country’s conflict.
“This opposition is not reliable ... and it has no role in solving the crisis,” Assad said.
He accused the Syrian National Coalition of “being on the payroll of more than one Gulf country,” and of “blaming the (Syrian) state for terrorism rather than blaming the armed men,” or rebels.
He accused the Syrian National Coalition of “being on the payroll of more than one Gulf country,” and of “blaming the (Syrian) state for terrorism rather than blaming the armed men,” or rebels.
He meanwhile stressed the need for the army to fight on against the rebellion.
“It is true that there is a battle being fought in the media and on (the Internet), but the crisis will only be solved on the battlefield,” said Assad.
He also said that any efforts towards a political solution should be combined with continued military operations.
“There cannot be any political efforts or political progress if terror is striking everywhere. Therefore terror must be struck in order to get the political process moving on the right track,” Assad said.
“That does not mean that there cannot be parallel tracks. There is no reason why we shouldn’t strike terror while at the same time working politically,” he added.
He also said that any efforts towards a political solution should be combined with continued military operations.
“There cannot be any political efforts or political progress if terror is striking everywhere. Therefore terror must be struck in order to get the political process moving on the right track,” Assad said.
“That does not mean that there cannot be parallel tracks. There is no reason why we shouldn’t strike terror while at the same time working politically,” he added.
The regime has unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent, while systematically labeling dissidents and rebels as “terrorists,” since a widespread protest movement calling for political change in Syria broke out in March 2011.
Assad refuses recognize the existence of a popular revolt.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2013/08/05/Assad-plays-the-Kurdish-card-.html
Assad plays the Kurdish card
The Kurdish issue was not brought into the spotlight again by coincidence. It's there there for a reason.
Why have the Kurdish Democratic Union and Al-Nusra Front decided to confront it now?
To answer this question, one must search for the two parties’ “references.” It's more likely that their reference is one with two faces. It’s one that sponsored the two parties’ "coexistence" for months without huge problems and then decided that the time has come for the party to expel this front from its area.
It's true that there are many suspicions surrounding al-Nusra and that no one desires to be its neighbor after its “al-Qaeda face” was exposed.
Closer to the truth is that the Kurdish party's move to expel al-Nusra from Ras al-Ayn provided it with an opportunity and an excuse to act in North Syria.
There's no doubt that the regime wants to exploit this experience and build upon it according to what serves its divisional scheme.
This was first evident a few weeks ago in the Hasaka province.
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/08/04/clashes-in-western-syrian-mountains-kill-over-30/
Clashes in Western Syrian Mountains Kill Over 30
Rebels Attacked Several Alawite Villages
by Jason Ditz, August 04, 2013
A new round of fighting in the Latakia Province of Syria has left at least 31 people dead, including 12 rebels and 19 fighters loyal to the Assad government, in battles across a mountainous region.
The rebels raided 10 different Alawite villages in the mountains, sparking retaliation from Syrian Army artillery and battling with Alawite militias that oppose a rebel takeover.
The fighting is just more of the sectarian warfare that his typified the conflict over the past several months, with Sunni Islamist factions in the rebellion chasing Alawites out of much of the northern portion of the nation.
Latakia seems like it may be one of the next battleground provinces, as the military has retaken territory around Homs and may look to press toward the coast as well as Aleppo.
http://www.syriadirect.org/sas/30-reports/682-kurds-move-toward-autonomy-following-ankara-talks
KURDS MOVE TOWARD AUTONOMY FOLLOWING ISTANBUL TALKS
July 29, 2013
By Michael Pizzi and Nuha Shabaan
AMMAN: Having secured the upper hand in several key skirmishes against the al-Qaeda-linked rebel groups Jabhat a-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham, Syria’s three million Kurds may at long last be inching towards autonomy over a wide region that stretches along the Turkish border that includes Arabs, Turkmens and other minorities.
As war rages across Syria, the Kurds have been quietly consolidating their hold over the northeast by edging out hardline al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rivals vying for control of the Turkish border.
The Kurdish bid for autonomy scored a political victory over the weekend as the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party leader Saleh Muslim held talks with intelligence and diplomatic officials in the Turkish government and proposed provisional autonomy over a region largely abandoned by Assad forces.
"We have planted the idea of a provisional administration to ensure delivery of public services, which have been hampered because of the war,” said Muslim on Saturday following two days of meetings in Istanbul.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed to the Andalou state news agency on the same day that Muslim had participated in discussions with officials in Istanbul.
The PYD is the most influential Syrian-Kurdish party and the only one with an armed wing, explores the contours of a resolution with Turkey, which would border much of autonomous Kurdistan, it boasts a support base among its constituency in the north of Syria, garnering political and military legitimacy, if not adoration, among Kurds.
“I don’t want you to think that I support the PYD - I don’t,” says Ismail, a 24 year-old Syrian Kurd who fled his home in Damascus and now teaches Arabic in Istanbul. He asked that his last name not be used. “But they are the only party capable of keeping Kurdistan secure.”
Following four decades of Assad rule, Syria’s Kurds gradually began consolidating control over much of Syrian Kurdistan in July 2012, when the regime’s armed forces pulled out of predominantly Kurdish territories for reasons that remain unclear.
The Assad regime may have gambled on the Turkish government to keep Syrian Kurds in check. Ankara remains deadlocked in peace negotiations with its own Kurdish separatist movement, theKurdistan Worker’s Party in Turkey (PKK), the sister party of Syria’s PYD.
Now, the Kurdish People’s Defense Units, the armed wing of the PYD, is engaged in a struggle with jihadist rebel groups vying to claim the region.
“[The PYD] is taking advantage of the chaos in Syria to implement self-rule,” says Kamal al-Labouani, a member of the Syrian National Coalition, which the PYD refuses to join, who lives in Stockholm.
Steps towards Kurdish autonomy come in the wake of a violent streak of clashes between the party’s armed wing, known by its acronym the YPG, and jihadist fighters in A-Raqqa province, some of which have spilled over into Turkey.
Turkey’s official Dogan News Agency reported over the weekend that a Turkish man was killed and his two children wounded by an errant mortar fired during clashes between the PYD and Jabhat a-Nusra in Syria, just over the Turkish border.
A high-profile prisoner exchange took place in A-Raqqa, in north-central Syria last week when Kurdish forces captured and then released an emir from the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in exchange for hundreds of Kurdish prisoners who had been taken hostage by ISIS jihadists.
“The PYD are the only ones who can provide safety for the people,” says Ismail from Istanbul, who is not a PYD supporter but acknowedges their successes on the ground. “Thanks to them, Kurdistan is the safest area in Syria.”
The infiltration of foreign jihadists, such as those belonging to Jabhat a-Nusra and ISIS have distanced Kurds from the revolution some of them helped spark. Many are fearful that a post-Assad state under the influence of extremist groups might resemble the tiny Islamist emirates already declared by ISIS in some northern towns.
“The Kurds do not accept any kind of political Islam, let alone extremist Islam,” says Jawan Yousef, a Kurdish journalist and former representative in the Syrian National Council, the predecessor to the Syrian National Coalition. “They don’t want to replace one authoritarian regime with another.”
Secession or not?
During the Istanbul talks last week, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan reprimanded the PYD for taking what he called “wrong and dangerous” steps in seizing control of land along the Turkish border. An anonymous source in the Turkish foreign ministry told the pan-Arab dailyAsharq Al-Awsat on Saturday that the government had warned Syrian Kurdish leaders against “secessionist ambitions.”
The PYD has said that an autonomous Kurdish region would remain part of Syria, echoing the reassurances of Kurdish political leaders who say that a breakaway Kurdish state is not in the cards.
“There is no agenda for any Kurdish party to separate from Syria,” says Jawan Yousef, the former SNC member, blaming the Assad regime for spreading rumors in order to splinter the opposition.
In an interview published on Sunday, PYD leader Saleh Muslim told online news site Zaman Alwasl that “the call for a provisional civil administration does not mean separation.”
“The goal is political and economic life and security in the liberated areas,” he said.
Syrian Kurds deny intentions to secede from Syria, citing among other reasons the ethnic diversity of the area.
“Kurdish independence from Syria is impossible because Kurdish lands are not just inhabited by Kurds," says Kamal al-Labouani, the SNC member in Sweden. For this reason, the path towards political independence in Kurdistan “would be bloody,” he adds.
“Kurdish areas are not strong enough to defend themselves,” adds Ismail. “They’re surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, and of course Syria, which is in a civil war.”
Instead, Ismail says, many Syrian Kurds want “an Iraqi Kurdistan, involved in everything [domestically] but with their own military and constitution.”
Despite its success in driving back al-Qaeda fighters, some Syrian Kurds such as Jawan Yousef see both the PYD and hardline Islamists as harming Kurdish interests to varying degrees.
“If we want to compare, there is the bad, the PYD, and there is worse, Jabhat a-Nusra and their Islamist allies,” says Yousef.
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