STL Suspect Hussein Oneissy at Wissam Hassan Assassination?

Lebanese commentators are abuzz about allegations that a Hizballah operative indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for the assassination of former Premier Rafic al Hariri, was seen at the scene of the assassination of ISF Information Branch chief, Gen. Wissam al Hassan.

 

On November 2nd, Akhbar el Nasher reported on a tweet by journalist Maria Maalouf in which she wrote that Future MP Nohad Mashnouq had informed her that video images captured at the scene of the crime showed Salim Ayyash at the scene.

 

On Novemeber 3rd, a Youtube video published by Radio Sawt Beirut showed what claimed to be Hussein Oneissi at the scene of the explosion.  Meanwhile, journalist Nadim Koteich revealed via twitter that high ranking politicians within the March 14 movement had information that the assassinated Hassan had obtained images of one of the STL indictees and was monitoring his movements, and that that information had been shared with the President's office in Lebanon. 

 

 

The assassination of Gen. Hassan has been widely blamed on the Assad regime, with some noting that the operation would've requried the involvement of a local group allied with the regime, the most proficient of which is Hizballah.  The Information Branch, which Hassan headed, was credited with the disruption of major terrorist cells affiliated with the Assad regime, as well as a large number of Israeli agents and cells.  Most recently, Hassan was believed to have been behind the arrest of former Lebanese minister, and close Assad associate, Michel Samaha, who has confessed to transporting explosives across the Syrian-Lebanese border for use in terrorist and assassination operations at the behest of the Assad regime.

 

In addition, the Information Branch was seen as a uniquely singular organization in which Hizballah and other Assad organs in Lebanon did not have a controlling hand.  This status is believed to have been enshrined in the Doha Accord which came about after the Hizballah invasion of Beirut in May 2008.  Seen from this perspective, the assassination of Wissam Hassan has been viewed as a critical strike by Hizballah aimed at consolidating power in Lebanon amid instability in neighboring Syria and the theat of a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Update: As suspected (pun intended) it was revealed that the person seen in the video was just of an unfortunate resemblence to Hussein Oneissi.  The STL revealed, after examining video evidence of the crime scene that no indictees were visible.  Here is the Naharnet article.

Syrian Regime Using Torture as Primary Weapon

Activists of the international non-governmental organization 'Reporters sans frontieres' (Reporters without borders) based in France demonstrate on May 3, 2011 in front of the Syrian Embassy after splattering the facade with ink in Paris to protest against attacks on journalists in Syria as part of World Press Freedom Day. Grafitti on wall reads: 'Ink must flow not blood.' (Getty Images via Daylife).

The UK's Telegraph reports:

Photographic evidence collected by Western and local rights agencies indicate that children as young as 12 have faced heavy beatings at the hands of Mr Assad's feared secret police, the Mukhabarat. Men and women were said to suffer even more extreme punishment, ranging from electric shocks to the extraction of fingernails.

As Syria braces for an eighth consecutive weekly showdown between the security forces and demonstrators after midday prayers on Friday, graphic testimony is slowly emerging of the price paid for challenging Mr Assad's 11 year-rule.

Unable to quell the unrest through force alone, despite having killed hundreds of civilians, Syria's security forces have instead resorted to mass intimidation. Over the past week, the number of detentions has soared to more than 500 a day, bringing the total to more than 8,000.

With prisons filled to capacity, many of those detained are being transported by bus into schools that have been transformed into makeshift "concentration camps", according to the National Initiative for Change, a newly-formed Syrian opposition coalition.

Inmates who have been released in recent days said they were held in locked classrooms where they were so tightly-packed there was only room to stand. Many were taken down to the cellars where the Mukhabarat has set up instruments of torture.

"They suspended me in the air from my wrists," one protester said in emailed comments. "They demanded that I confess to working for the Mossad, or for the Saudis or for the Lebanese and when I refused they shocked me with a cable whose wires were sticking out."

Some inmates, according to testimonies collected by rights groups, had their finger nails pulled out, their toes smashed with hammers or their tongues squeezed and pulled with pliers.

Deprived of water for days at a time, many inmates were allegedly reduced to drinking from lavatory bowls.

The vast majority of detainees are usually released within three days, a deliberate tactic, opposition activists say.

"They torture them brutally and then release them into the community as messengers of fear," said Ausama Monajed. "But it is not working. It only fuels anger and makes the people more determined.

Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, telephoned Mr Assad yesterday to protest "the possible violation of human rights" in Syria.

His call came as the Syrian army announced it was pulling out of Deraa, the southern city that has seen some of the worst bloodshed during a week-long siege where snipers frequently shot at anyone leaving their homes.

...

Rami Makhlouf Speaks ... Confirms his Detestability

An excellent piece by Anthony Shadid on the Syrian regime's thinking and tactics in confronting the Arab Spring's arrival in Syria. The piece includes rare comments by a notorious regime insider, Rami Makhlouf. Abridged version below but the full article is well worth a read:

Syria’s ruling elite, a tight-knit circle at the nexus of absolute power, loyalty to family and a visceral instinct for survival, will fight to the end in a struggle that could cast the Middle East into turmoil and even war, warned Syria’s most powerful businessman, a confidant and cousin of President Bashar al-Assad.

The frank comments by Rami Makhlouf, a tycoon who has emerged in the two-month uprising as a lighting rod for anger at the privilege that power brings, offered an exceedingly rare insight into the thinking of an opaque government. Beset by the greatest threat to its four decades of rule, the ruling family, he suggested, has conflated its survival with the existence of the minority sect that views the protests not as legitimate demands for change but rather as the seeds of civil war.

“If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel,” he said in an interview Monday that lasted more than three hours. “No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime.”

Asked if it was a warning or a threat, Mr. Makhlouf demurred.

“I didn’t say war,” he said. “What I’m saying is don’t let us suffer, don’t put a lot of pressure on the president, don’t push Syria to do anything it is not happy to do.”

His words cast into the starkest terms a sentiment the government has sought to cultivate — us or chaos — and it underlined the tactics of a ruling elite that has manipulated the ups and downs of a tumultuous region to sustain an overriding goal: its own survival.
...
“The decision of the government now is that they decided to fight,” Mr. Makhlouf said.

But even if it prevails, the uprising has demonstrated the weakness of a dictatorial government that once sought to draw legitimacy from a notion of Arab nationalism, a sprawling public sector that created the semblance of a middle class and services that delivered electricity to the smallest towns. The government of Mr. Assad, though, is far different than that of his father, who seized power in 1970. A beleaguered state, shorn of ideology, can no longer deliver essential services or basic livelihood. Mr. Makhlouf’s warnings of instability and sectarian strife like Iraq’s have emerged as the government’s rallying cry, as it deals with a degree of dissent that its officials admit caught them by surprise.

Mr. Makhlouf, a childhood friend and first cousin of Mr. Assad whose brother is the intelligence chief in Damascus, suggested that the ruling elite — staffed by Mr. Assad’s relatives and contemporaries — had grown even closer during the crisis. Though Mr. Assad has the final say, he said, policies were formulated as “a joint decision.”

“We believe there is no continuity without unity,” he said. “As a person, each one of us knows we cannot continue without staying united together.”

He echoed an Arabic proverb, which translated loosely, means that it will not go down alone.

“We will not go out, leave on our boat, go gambling, you know,” he said at his plush, wood-paneled headquarters in Damascus. “We will sit here. We call it a fight until the end.” He added later, “They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone.”

Mr. Makhlouf, just 41 and leery of the limelight, stands as both a strength and liability of Mr. Assad’s rule, and in the interview he was a study in contrasts — a feared and reviled businessmen who went to lengths to be hospitable and mild-mannered. To the government’s detractors, his unpopularity rivals perhaps only that of Mr. Assad’s brother, Maher, who commands the Republican Guard and the elite Fourth Division that has played a crucial role in the crackdown. Mr. Makhlouf’s name was chanted in protests and offices of his company, Syriatel, the country’s largest mobile phone company, were burned in Dara’a, the poor town near the Jordanian border where the uprising began in mid-March.

The American government, which imposed sanctions on him in 2008, has accused him of manipulating the judicial system and using Syrian intelligence to intimidate rivals.
...
“Maybe they are worried about using this money to support the regime,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe. But the regime has the whole government, they don’t need me.”

He said he was aware of the anger, but called it “the price I have to pay.”

More than just an icon of outrage, Mr. Makhlouf represents broader changes afoot in the country. His very wealth points to the shifting constellation of power in Syria, as the old alliance of Sunni Muslim merchants and officers from Mr. Makhlouf’s Alawite clan gives way to descendants of those officers benefiting from lucrative deals made possible by reforms that have dismantled the public sector.

He serves as an instrument, too, in Mr. Assad’s vision of economic modernization, where Syria serves as a crossroads of regional trade and a hub for oil and gas pipelines that link Iraq and the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and Europe. Cham Holdings, a vast conglomerate with a portfolio of $2 billion, in which Mr. Makhlouf owns a quarter of the shares outright, is at the forefront of that faltering scheme.

Turkey’s recent anger at Syria’s crackdown has fed feelings of betrayal in the government because Turkey was viewed as a centerpiece in that vision. Concerns are growing, too, over the uprising’s economic impact, deepened by Syria’s growing isolation and flight of capital — a legacy that may very well prove more threatening to the government than the protests.
...

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Lebanese Police Bulldozer Burns

A bulldozer that was used by Lebanese police to demolish illegal buildings, burns after it was set on fire by owners protesting the demolishing process in the southern town of Adloun, Lebanon, Tuesday, May 3, 2011. Illegal construction is common in Lebanon, where many poor who cannot afford to buy land or apartments end up building on state-owned property (AP Photo via Daylife).

US Senator Joe Lieberman 05.05.11: Bashar Assad Must Go

The Syrian Regime Insiders

Dated April 22 2011, the video shows a group of pro-government armed men roaming the streets of Homs and shooting arbitrarily.

An informative "factbox" by MSNBC on the Syrian leadership and the inner circle of the ruling Assad family:

Power in Syria is concentrated in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad, his brother and several aides who have acted as guardians of a 48-year old autocratic Baathist system under challenge by pro-democracy protesters.

Members of the pervasive security apparatus underpin the power structure and enforce decisions taken at the top.

Here are the big names who make up Assad's inner circle:

MAHER AL-ASSAD

* Assad's brother, who commands the Republican Guard and is the second most powerful man in the country. He also controls the Presidential Guard and the Fourth Armored Division, units which form the state's security backbone.

* Last week, the 4th Division stormed the southern city of Deraa, where the unrest first started, shelling the old quarter to quell protests calling for the downfall of Assad, more political freedoms and an end to corruption.

* W. Andrew Terrill, research professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War college and a specialist in Syrian military affairs, said of Maher:

"Some observers consider (him) to be excessively violent and emotionally volatile. It appears that President Assad views his brother as totally trustworthy."

* Diplomats say Maher shot his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, in the stomach during an argument in 1999. Shawkat was reportedly flown to France for treatment and survived.

* He was named in a preliminary U.N. report investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri as one of the people who may have been behind the killing.

RAMI MAKHLOUF

* Assad's influential cousin, and one of the first names protesters chanted against in demonstrations, for his reputation as being corrupt. He is owner of the country's largest cellphone company, Syriatel, and several large firms in the construction and oil sectors.

* In 2008, the United States imposed sanctions on Makhlouf whom the U.S. Treasury department said "improperly benefits from and aids the public corruption of Syrian regime officials." His brother, Hafez, a senior official in the General Intelligence Directorate, is also under U.S. sanctions.

* The tycoon insists his businesses are legitimate and provide professional employment for thousands of Syrians.

ASSEF SHAWKAT

* Former head of military intelligence, now deputy chief-of-staff of the armed forces. Born in the port city of Tartous and married to Assad's sister, Bushra.

* He has been sidelined in the last several years.

* Shawkat was also named in the preliminary U.N. report which implicated him in Hariri's killing.

* The United States imposed sanctions on him in 2006, following the Hariri assassination. At the time, Shawkat was head of military intelligence and Syria had not yet ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon.

"Shawkat has been a key architect of Syria's domination of Lebanon, as well as a fundamental contributor to Syria's long-standing policy to foment terrorism against Israel," the U.S. Treasury said, when sanctions were imposed.

ADULFATTAH QUDSIYEH

* The head of military intelligence, formerly head of air force intelligence.

* The agency's prime perogative is to ensure the loyalty of the army and in countering foreign espionage.

JAMIL HASSAN

* Head of Air Force intelligence since 2009. He previously served as a security official in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor and was promoted to become a key figure in Syria's security apparatus.

* Air Force intelligence, which is also in charge of securing Syria's airports, is of particular significance since Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, mounted his 1970 coup from within the air force.

ALI MAMLOUK

* Head of General Security directorate, and one of the figures whom Washington most recently imposed sanctions on following the unrest gripping the country.

* A leaked WikiLeaks cable dated February 2010 showed Mamlouk had been the surprise guest at a meeting with U.S. officials during which he discussed efforts to increase joint security cooperation with the United States.

Mamlouk's attendance at the meeting was "extraordinary and did not occur even with friendly countries like Britain and France," Syria's ambassador to the U.S. was quoted as saying in the cable, at a time when Washington was actively working to rehabilitate relations with Syria.

* Mamlouk said his department had been more successful at fighting terrorism in the region because "we are practical and not theoretical," according to the cable.

ZUHAIR HAMAD

* Deputy head of General Security directorate, considered a rising star within Syria's security organs. Human rights activists say he played a major role in a campaign of arrest of opposition and independent figures that intensified in the months leading up to the unrest.

MOHAMMED NASSIF KHEIRBEK

* Deputy vice president for security affairs and one of the most senior advisers who has the ear of Assad. He is reported to have medical problems and wears a pacemaker.

* Pointman for Syria's relationship with Iran, its closest ally in the region, according to a leaked WikiLeaks cable.

HISHAM IKHTIAR

* Head of national security bureau of Baath party, Ikhtiar was initially charged with quelling protests in the southern city of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against Assad family rule.

* In 2007, he was included on a list of Syrians forbidden to enter U.S. soil. Washington imposed financial sanctions in 2006.

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Images from Illegal Construction Confrontations

Top: Lebanese soldiers deploy to disperse residents at a street in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 21, 2011. Two civilians were killed during clashes between residents and security forces over the illegal constructions on public lands in Tyre, southern Lebanon, the National News Agency (NNA) reported (source).  Second: A police car is set on fire by residents in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 21, 2011. ...(source).  Third: Residents seize a police car in Tyre, southern Lebanon, April 21, 2011. ... (source).  Fourth: A man stands at the entrance of a shop in the building of an illegal construction site in Beirut's southern suburb of Ouzai, Lebanon, Thursday, April 21, 2011. Security officials say a dispute over a building permit in southern Lebanon has descended into a gunbattle that killed two people. Illegal construction is common in Lebanon, where many poor who cannot afford to buy land or apartments end up building on state-owned property (source). Bottom: A set of replica rockets which have been set up by Hezbollah in front of a picture of disappeared imam Moussa al-Sadr and a site where laborers are working at an illegal construction site in Abu Aswad near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, April 21, 2011. ... (source).

Syrian Baath Party Resignations Amid Massacres

Al Arabiya reports:

Some 203 members of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling Baath Party resigned late Wednesday, bringing the total to 233 loyalists who have quit in April, according to Al Arabiya and other news reports.

Meanwhile, a convoy of at least 30 Syrian army tanks was seen moving on tank carriers on the Damascus circular highway on Wednesday, a witness said, as a rights group said that 453 civilians were killed during almost six weeks of pro-democracy protests.

The tanks were coming from the southwest of Damascus near the Golan Heights frontier with Israel and passed on the highway at about 0500 GMT, the witness told Reuters.

They were heading in the direction leading to the northern suburb of Douma and to the southern city of Deraa, where President Bashar al-Assad sent forces to crush peaceful protests against his autocratic rule.

Republican Guards units are based all around Damascus. Another mechanized division is stationed 20 to 30 kilometers southwest of the capital, in charge of defending the occupied Golan Heights frontier with Israel, which has been relatively quiet since a 1974 ceasefire brokered by the United States.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, meanwhile, said it had collected the names of at least 453 civilians killed during pro-reform protests in the geopolitically strategic country of 23 million.

...

In the meantime, the United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Syria on Friday, a UN spokesman said.

...

The request, filed by the United States, was jointly submitted by 10 European states, as well as Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Senegal and Zambia. No Arab countries were among those requesting the session, which requires one-third of the forum’s membership of 27 countries to proceed.

France summoned Syria’s ambassador in Paris to the foreign ministry Wednesday to repeat its demand that Damascus halt the use of military force against political protests, the ministry said, according to AFP.

In addition, Syrian ambassadors were summoned to foreign ministries in Rome, Madrid, Berlin, and London.

...

Germany on Wednesday said it would strongly back European Union sanctions against Syria over its bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters.

...

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Easter Weekend Massacre: Enforced Disappearance in Syria

Al Jazeera English reports:

At least 221 Syrians have gone missing in the past three days of the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests, said Insan, a Syrian human rights organisation, with many feared forcibly disappeared.

Working with a team of human rights researchers inside Syria, Insan said it had documented the names of 221 Syrians missing since the early hours of Friday morning, none of whom the authorities had acknowledged holding in detention.

"We are not counting people who we know have been detained. We are strictly talking here about people whose families do not know if they are dead or alive. People who have disappeared," said Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan.

The rights group and its network inside Syria had spoken to close family members of all 221 missing persons, said Tarif, and while some had yet to make contact with the security services, most families had been told by authorities that their relative was not being held.

'Abused, beaten, detained'

"Family members have been shouted at, abused, beaten and even detained when asking at political security branches for the whereabouts of their relatives," said Tarif.

Under the terms of an international treaty, enforced disappearance is defined as the arrest, detention or abduction of a person by the state or agents of the state followed by the refusal of authorities to acknowledge the whereabouts of the missing person, thus placing them outside the protection of the law.

Enforced disappearance is a crime against international law, according to Amnesty International, the London-based human rights watchdog.

"The circumstances of each disappearance vary," said Insan. "Many were kidnapped from the streets after or during anti-government demonstrations. Others were kidnapped from the streets of their neighborhoods by security forces or by members of the recently established local Baath Party community watch."

...

"We expect that some of the people on the list are dead. We know there are bodies being held in Tishreen military hospital and in the military hospital in Aleppo," said Tarif of Insan.

The majority of the missing people disappeared during the wave of protests across towns nearby the capital and its suburbs, while some 68 people went missing in the central city of Homs alone. A further 41 people have disappeared from Daraa and its surrounding villages.

In a meeting last month the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance discussed the case of thousands of Syrians who vanished during the rule of late Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad.

In a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council, Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies, put the number of Syrians who disappeared between 1980 and 1987 at some 17,000.

Easter Weekend Massacre in Syria

The Financial Times reports:

...
According to rights groups, around 90 people were killed by security forces on Friday while a further 12 were reported killed at funerals for the victims the next day that were attended by tens of thousands.

The events of the past three days – the most deadly yet in the month-long uprising – have left a negotiated solution for reforms short of Mr Assad’s departure looking increasingly unlikely.

Patrick Seale, an expert on Syrian politics, said: “By using live fire against demonstrators, he has crossed a red line. Either the uprising will be crushed in the next week or two or it will go on sapping the authority and legitimacy of the regime to the point when it would be difficult for the president to remain in power.”

The government on Sunday arrested dozens of people in different cities after two days of intense demonstrations that resulted in at least 100 deaths, rights activists said.

Protesters condemned the violence but vowed to continue to demonstrate against the repressive regime overseen by Mr Assad for more than a decade and by his father Hafez for almost 30 years before that.

In the southern town of Nawa on Sunday, thousands of people gathered for a funeral for protesters killed by security forces and chanted “Down with Bashar!” and “Leave, leave. The people want the overthrow of the regime”, witnesses told Reuters.
...
Both Human Rights Watch and an independent commission of jurists have called for an international investigation into the violence, which prompted the resignation of two Syrian MPs from the southern city of Deraa, a protest flashpoint.

UK foreign secretary William Hague said he was “appalled” by the killing of demonstrators by security forces, and urged British nationals to leave Syria while in the US the violence drew calls for the Obama administration to do more.

Joe Lieberman, a hawkish independent senator, said the United States was “not doing anywhere enough to support the freedom fighters in Syria” and urged Barack Obama, US president to apply sanctions to “tie up the [Assad] family’s wealth” and push for a UN arms embargo.
...
Analysts said Mr Assad did not appear prepared to make any further concessions and was limited in what he could do by the draconian intelligence apparatus his Ba’ath party has used to crush dissent during its near half-century rule.

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Syrian Intelligence Memo (English Translated Version)

English translation is mine (feel free to send in corrections). Original Arabic version here (read it!!):

There is a growing trend in the low literacy segment of society to imitate what happened in Tunisia and Egypt by taking advantage of economic conditions in the country and the regional atmosphere which is conducive for popular movements.

It is necessary that we take advantage of past experiences in dealing with the hostile Muslim Brotherhood movement, and benefit from the mistakes of the Tunisian and Egyptian especially given that they had to neutralize the power of the army and Republican Guard from the outset and allowed the media to cover every move until events got out of control.

We don't expect things to progress to a point of serious danger to public order and the country or to threaten the continuity of the status quo. We expect things to continue for several months and after which it will die out and the regime will come out more powerful than ever.

The reduced security committee ... met on 23 3 2011 with regard to protests and demonstrations and it discussed all aspects of the situation - from security to politics to media - and has developed a series of measures and actions. The emphasis of the response will be three-pronged: security response; media response; and an economic-political response.

The detailed plan: the plan depends on three integrated components: information - a security and performance of field - political, economic.

Media

• The demonstrations and protests must be linked to generally despised figures and personalities of Lebanese and Saudi Arabian origin.  In addition, a link should be established between these demonstrations and Zionism and/or America. There is a plan prepared by the security services to implicate Bandar bin Sultan through certain sites using credible and persuasive information.

• An intensive media campaign accusing the protesters of being conspirators on behalf of  Saudi Arabia, Israel and America. Should any killings take place security services media organs must repeatedly accuse armed gangs or extremist of carrying them out and portray security services and the military as helping to maintain security and stability.

• An indirect campaign aimed at sowing a fear of sectarian strife in the Christian and Druze  communities will be conducted away from TV cameras and through private channels. These communities should be made to fear the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups, which they will face if they did not take part in ending the protests in the Sahel .  In addition, the Allawite community will be alerted to the need to defend their regime and their lives that will be threatened by Sunni extremism.

• Assigning agents from the various security agencies to create fake Facebook accounts in order to respond and jam messages, pages and groupings hostile to the regime.  These agents are to attack and discredit opponents of the regime, as well as revealing groups and movements hostile to the President and the country.

• Preventing the media from being present in places of riot, and punish those who convey any news that does not serve the regime, do not show any laxity in this matter.

• Should the protesters be able to transmit any videos and/or images security service media organs should seek to discredit them manipulating/editing these images so that their credibility with the general public is lost.

Second page summary: The second page details the deployment of Christian and Druze military officers into areas of protest and luring them into situations where they have to defend themselves.  In addition, Army units in which most of the rank and file comes from non-protesting areas should be deployed to protesting areas so as to reduce the possibility of rejection of carrying out orders, rebellion and mutiny.

Should the situation become critical a choice between security, stability and  protesters' demands for freedoms should be forced - wherein the choice of security and stability should prevail. This can be implemented with assassinations along sectarian and clan lines , and/or the bombing of places of worship in areas with high [sectarian] tensions.

Political and Economic Measures

• A massive outpouring of support and protest in support of the President of the Republic should be held before his address to the people so that the speech is in response to the demands of these pro-regime masses only. Strict instructions are to be issued to government institutions, trade unions and schools to mobilize staff and students, as well as the distribution of new flags and banners to them.

• The President's speech is to be postponed as much as possible, this delay will project the image of a powerful state in control, along with a lack of interest or worry in the events taking place.  This will also clear the atmosphere and allow for a determination as to the amount of political  and public relations action required.

• The regime should appear unified and coherent, and all developments should seem as no surprise to the regime which should appear to be in control of the situation and all its organs.

• Actions that can be declared in the presidential address before Parliament: increase the salaries of state workers and the development of a plan for the return of financial stability through a  3 month period - especially as this increase may lead to the disorientation of economic interests . The launch of a promise to create new job opportunities throughout the provinces.  Commodity price reductions as well as a partial change of government and a campaign to expose corruption at a ministerial level (this requires a security committee to choose a minister who must be sacrificed) thereby contributing to efforts to persuade the general public of the seriousness of the authorities' reform and anti-corruption drive.

• Ostensibly reduce tariffs on mobile calls (lost revenue can be recovered  through hidden fees).

• Personal and public benefits should be extended to those Muslim and Christian clerics close to the regime.  They should be used to publicly denounce, decry, defame and discredit anti-regime protesters, highlighting religious verses and sayings aimed at deterring the general public from participating in the protests.

• Delegate official [regime] figures marginally acceptable to the [regime-sponsored "official"] opposition in order to launch a dialogue with them.  Of course some of them will immediately accept the overture while others will place conditions  and others still will reject the offer of dialogue.  This will be useful in order to create a continuous sense of controversy and disagreement, depriving those opposed to the regime of the ability to project themselves as a cohesive, compatible and effective bloc are compatible and effective, and additionally keeping them away from the protesters.

• Responding to some Kurdish demands as they relate to naturalization and citizenship.  This action is to be followed only in so far as it does not affect the status quo of the Syrian state and society. This should be construed as a countermeasure to their potential recruitment by foreign actors should the situation deteriorate further than expected. The North Eastern region is the only area open to this possibility.

• Instruct Syrian embassies abroad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to continuously issue assurances to the American and European countries, reminding them of the possibility for turmoil on the Golan front should extremists take hold of the situation.

• Syrian embassies in all countries should closely monitor Syrians communities, their actions and behaviors (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be instructed to act in this regard).

The expected hot spots: Dara - Deir ez Zor - Hama - Banias - and some neighborhoods in various other cities.

Needs: Put on secret alert the various security and media organs.

Note: There will not be a single organ in charge of a detailed plan , its implementation will be carried out by the various branches and sections.

Given that media outlets will be prevented from covering events as they unfold on the ground, we expect them to rely on eye witness accounts, which will become available as some citizens will dare to telephone satellite TV channels with their eye witness accounts. As such, it becomes incumbent on the state security apparatuses' media organs  to mobilize trained agents to call into both state-sponsored media organs and these satellite TV channels as [false]  witnesses in order to undermine and discredit the testimonies provided by civilians. Through these actions on the ground eye witnesses accounts can thus be discredited.

• Assign some members of the People's Assembly to respond to the protesters, instructing them on how to respond.

• Assign some state officials from the affected regions to respond to the local protests in their region.

• If the situation deteriorates and the level of hostility increases to the point where it is hard to ignore, it is necessary to transform and maintain the image that these protests and demands are merely local/private and are not on a national scale.

• Convoys of vehicles carrying pictures of the President of the Republic, to which Syrian flags can be added, should be encouraged among security agents, their friends and children of officials, providing some of these cars with emergency service sirens (ambulance sirens, etc...) in order to create awe in the hearts of passers-by and residents.

• Hosting some opposition members on Syrian television, giving us a chance to be courteous with them, thereby reducing their demands and transforming the [aggressive] demands into a simple request made to and met by the President, this is useful in creating splits among the leaders of the opposition.

• Issuing the Ministry of Education strict instructions and warnings for schools and students about the use of Facebook.

• Assigning some known artists or performers loyal to the regime to speak to the protest areas or to respond to the dissidents and protesters, according to what we tell them to say.

Security element and field performance:

• Zero tolerance to attacks on the symbols of the regime [presumably, such things as statues and posters of Bashar al Assad and/or his father, Hafez al Assad], no matter the cost, as such actions would signal a willingness/readiness among protesters to overcome all red lines.

• It is expected that protesters will gather in high density residential areas in order to draw attention and encourage others to join them.  It is necessary when such events take place, we besiege/cordon the affected area as best we can, while using security agents in civilian clothing to infiltrate the protesters, stirring up controversy and divisions among them and spoiling their assembly as quickly as possible, and should the situation deteriorate to arrest some of the main agitators among them.

• Mandate Information Branch of the Department of Scientific Research Center, in collaboration with two mobile phone network operators, to closely monitor the landlines and mobile lines of known opposition figures.

• Use of intimidation measures among the youth in order to create a sense of dread and a reluctance to participate in protests.  This should include arrests of some youths along a with a general mobilization of the armed forces reserves in order to of fatigue young people and activists and force their integration into military society.

• Fatigue opponents and symbols of resistance through lawsuits of all shapes and  soil and discredit their moral/religious standing/reputation, previously prepared materials and methods can be used in this regard.

• Influential figures in the Syrian opposition should be barred from travel under any circumstances.

• The military's security apparatus should initiate intensive monitoring of all officers of middle or high rank, especially those of the Sunni faith.

• To get clashes between the army and the protesters a clear no-firing order must be  issued to the army.  However, such an order will not apply to clandestine elements of the security services  as well as two special forces battalions [black/secret forces?].  Snipers from these battalions should fire from undisclosed locations, ensuring that the source of fire is indiscernible.  Snipers are permitted to target/shoot soldiers and officers in the Army, as such mobilizing/turning the armed forces them against the civilian protesters.

Any place wherein protests get out of control:

• Isolation of the protest area through a security forces and army cordon, cutting off electricity and telecommunications and the Internet.

• Arrest of some influential figures from this place, and if conditions are critical, orders to kill such figures.

• Introduction of smugglers and criminal gangs into the restive area [exact text is to flood the area with smugglers and criminals] in order to create a state of chaos. 

• Clandestine security agents in civilian clothing are to be inserted into the area of ​​protest and will proceed in convincing protesters to use weapons against the military and security forces.

• Send in security forces and the two clandestine special forces battalions, using snipers to target the protesters.  The death toll from each confrontation should not exceed twenty as this might uncover the operation and expose the regime to foreign intervention.

Related Posts:

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• Released Syrian Activist Speaks Out
• HRW Condemns Syrian Regime for Killing Civilians
• American Student Describes 15 Days in Syrian Prison 
• Don't Expect Change from Bashar al Assad
• Video: Woman Attacks Bashar al Assad's Car After Speech

Looting in Abidjian

In this photo taken on Sunday, April 3, 2011, looted streets can be seen in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (AP Photo/Jane Hahn via The Atlantic: In Focus).

Images from Inside Roumieh Prison

Police work to get inside Roumieh prison after inmates took several guards hostage overnight Tuesday. They have since been released. (Photo released by Lebanese Internal Security Forces, via NOWLebanon Blog)

HRW Condemns Syrian Regime for Killing Civilians

A crowd chants anti-regime slogans during a funeral procession for a protester killed in Dara, south Syria in this still image taken from video March 20, 2011. Syrian security forces killed a protester in the southern city of Dara on Sunday, residents said, as the authorities tried to contain three days of protests demanding freedoms and the release of political prisoners. At least five civilians have been killed by Syrian security forces since protests erupted on March 18. (Reuters TV via Yahoo!News)

Human Rights Watch has called on Syria's President, Bashar al Assad, to immediately order a halt to the use of lethal force against the country's pro-democracy demonstrators.

The group called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to schedule a special session to address human rights violations in Syria.

...
"For three weeks, Syria's security forces have been firing on largely peaceful protesters in various parts of Syria," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Instead of investigating those responsible for shootings, Syria's officials try to deflect responsibility by accusing unknown 'armed groups.'"
...
Under the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, security forces may use lethal force only when strictly necessary to protect life, and force must be exercised with restraint and in proportion to an imminent threat. Protesters throwing rocks cannot justify such deadly force, Human Rights Watch said.
...
At least eight protesters from the town of Douma were killed and were buried in a large funeral in the town on April 3. They are: Fouad Ben Ahmad Eid Baleleh, 27; Khaled Mahmoud al-Baghdadi, 37; Orfan Abdel Majid al-Durrah, 19; Haydar Ben Ali Izzeldeen, 39; Ibrahim Ben Muhammad al-Mubayyed, 39; Naim Muhammad al-Mukaddem, 33; Yasser Jamal Abu Aisha, 37; Ahmad Ben Abdel Raheem Rajab Fawwaz, 27. According to Syrian human rights activists, seven additional protesters died on April 1 in Douma but were buried outside the town. Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm their deaths independently.

These deaths bring the total number of demonstrators and bystanders killed since anti-government protests began in Syria on March 16 to at least 100, according to lists compiled by Syrian human rights groups.
...
At least eight demonstrators and possibly as many as fifteen were killed on April 1, 2011, when men dressed as civilians opened fire at a largely peaceful anti-government protest in Douma, a suburb of Damascus. Two Douma protesters told Human Rights Watch that they believed the gunmen were from security services because they were standing with their weapons behind the riot police. Some of the protesters threw rocks at the police, but none carried any firearms, the two protesters said. "I saw a man that looked like mukhabarat [security services] use a Rusiye - with my own eyes," one of the protesters told Human Rights Watch. Rusiye, Arabic for Russian, is commonly used in Syria to refer to a Kalashnikov.
...
In Douma, after Friday prayer on April 1, protesters emerged from the Great Mosque and found hundreds of riot police and men dressed in civilian clothes, probably from the security services, waiting for them, two witnesses told Human Rights Watch. "The police and the mukhabarat started beating us and launched teargas canisters to force us to disperse," one of them said. Security services detained many protesters as they emerged from the mosque.

Other groups of Douma protesters gathered in neighboring areas and marched toward the main square. The two protesters who spoke with Human Rights Watch said that the protest was peaceful and people were chanting "salmiyya, salmiyya" ("peaceful, peaceful"). One of them said:

"At 300 meters from the square, at the level of the women's prison in Douma, the security forces started firing teargas canisters directly at us, and some of their units would rush forward and try to beat us with sticks. Some of us started throwing rocks at the police.
...
Suddenly, at around 3 p.m., we heard live bullets being shot. I saw one protester die and I started running away and found shelter in the stairwell of a neighboring building. For the next two hours, I heard shots being fired. It sounded like they were firing their Kalashnikovs. At around 5:30 p.m., the situation calmed down."

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Images from Roumieh Prison Riot

Images via Daylife. Top: Smoke rises from Roumieh prison, east of Beirut, April 5, 2011. Inmates at Lebanon's largest prison took three guards hostage on Tuesday to protest against overcrowded conditions and lengthy detentions without trial, security sources said (Reuters Pictures). Second: Smoke billows from the compound of the central Roumieh prison, where inmates have been rioting for several days, in Roumieh east of Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday April 5, 2011 ... (AP Photo). Third and Bottom: Some 70 family members of prisoners demonstrate outside Lebanon's largest jail in Rumieh where three guards are being detained as inmates demanding amnesty and better conditions have been rioting since two days (Getty Images).

What Happened at the Airport?

A Lebanese general security (front) and Hezbollah security are seen standing outside the home of former Lebanese Brigadier-General Jamil Sayyed (poster) following his arrival from a trip to Paris, on September 18, 2010. Sayyed, who was jailed for four years in Lebanon without charge in connection with the killing of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005, accused current premier, Saad Hariri, earlier in the week of selling his father's blood in order to frame Syria for the killing, prompting the country's top prosecutor to summon him for questioning. (Getty Images via Daylife)

NOWLebanon's Ana Maria Luca details Hizballah's coercive use of its arms and militiamen at Beirut International Airport:

When Major General Jamil as-Sayyed stepped off his plane from Paris at the Beirut International Airport on September 18, he was welcomed by Hezbollah gunmen, who drove onto the runway in vehicles without license plates and took him to the airport’s VIP lounge. Although he no longer holds an official position in the Lebanese government, the former head of General Security ... held a press conference in the Foreign Ministry’s lounge, designated for heads of state and ministers. Then he was escorted home by the same armed men.

Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Ministry of Interior was asked for permission for the armed guards to have access to the airport runway and the VIP lounge. But nobody moved a finger to stop them.

Some say that the event was a power play on Hezbollah’s part to send a message to the government that it has the military strength to fight back in case some party members are indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon .... Hezbollah’s representatives defended the incident, saying the party acted within its rights.

...

A source in the airport, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear he would be harmed, confirmed that the airport security officers had orders from high-ranking politicians not to intervene when the Hezbollah escorts drove their tinted-windowed cars onto the tarmac. The source also said the airport security officers were afraid that if they tried to stop the Hezbollah agents protecting Jamil as-Sayyed, they might have opened fire at them.

According to Moukalled, the event was one of the rare occasions when Hezbollah vehicles and the party’s armed security officers are shown on television. “This is the first time we see them after May 7, 2008,” she said. “They don’t usually let us film them. Even on May 7, 2008, they closed TV stations, stopped journalists from filming and confiscated some of the footage so that they wouldn’t be seen on camera. Everything was planned. The media knew hours before that there were going to be Hezbollah bodyguards at the airport. It was a clear power play.”

...

According to Minister of State Jean Ogassapian, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud submitted a report during last Tuesday’s cabinet session asserting that “the armed men who entered the airport were MPs’ bodyguards.” Ogassapian said he found it a weak excuse and argued that the government should have dealt with the incident differently.

Baroud answered back in a short statement issued by his office after the cabinet meeting, saying that he wants to keep the Beirut International Airport safe.

Hezbollah’s response to the controversy came from Loyalty to the Resistance MP Nawwaf al-Moussawi, who said that "What happened at the airport was our right as MPs and political sides to open the VIP lounge and to be present there because we are the makers of honor. There will be no compromise on defending ourselves from false accusations, and we have the right to use what we believe appropriate for that.”

...

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Syria's Allies Take Their Allotted Places

Michael Young's Thursday editorial echoes some of the sentiments expressed in my last post while elaborating on the Hizballah-Ahbash clash in Beirut and the Syrian-Iranian maneuvering over Lebanon:

...
It is ironic that Berri’s stalwart defense of the Lebanese state and its sovereignty should only serve to strengthen the hand of Syria in the struggle over Lebanon’s future, the same Syria that ravaged both the state and its sovereignty during its 29-year military presence.

In that light, it appears increasingly clear that the Burj Abi Haidar incident last week was less a Hizbullah signal directed at Damascus that it would not bend in the face of Syrian pressures, than a message from Syria to Hizbullah. As the fighting began, there was military mobilization in Sunni neighborhoods around Burj Abi Haidar, with Syria’s allies there bringing out their weapons. Hizbullah was reportedly bewildered by the sudden proliferation of armed groups lining up against the party, even as its units were being bussed into the area where the clashes were occurring. Hizbullah not only had to swallow the killing of two officials, it was unable, or not allowed, to enter the perimeter around the Ahbash mosque in Burj Abi Haidar.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad tends to work from the same template as his father when it comes to Lebanon. In 1985-86, Hafez Assad engineered a return of Syrian soldiers to western Beirut, from where they had been compelled to withdraw by the Israelis in 1982. Assad managed this by allowing pro-Syrian militias in that part of the city, principally Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party and Berri’s Amal movement, to go at each other with vicious abandon. Western Beirut effectively reverted to a state of nature, until the Sunni elite asked Assad for help. He was glad to oblige, and in 1985 he deployed intelligence agents in the capital, and a year later his army returned.

It was lost on no one what Wi’am Wahhab announced after the Burj Abi Haidar incident. Wahhab’s sole reason for existing, evidently, is to issue statements clarifying the Syrian mindset, or at least that of the intelligence agencies, and he warned that Syria would intervene using all possible means to prevent a Sunni-Shiite conflict in Lebanon. Not surprisingly, Berri and Jumblatt simultaneously played up the sectarian nature of the Burj Abi Haidar incident, at a moment when Hizbullah was busily trying to portray it as a personal quarrel.

It would be too simplistic to suggest that the Syrians provoked the Hizbullah-Ahbash confrontation in order to bring their army back to Lebanon. Bashar Assad would like to do so, because only a military presence allows him to truly control the country and regain the Lebanese card regionally. However, such a process requires time, careful preparation regionally and internationally, and patience. For now the Syrians are focusing on gaining leverage against Hizbullah, which holds the political and military initiative in the country.
...
It is interesting that Hariri should have raised the issue of demilitarizing the capital. ... Demilitarization of the capital is Hariri’s indirect way of indicating that he will support Hizbullah as a resistance force in south Lebanon, but not the party’s takeover of the rest of the country. The Syrians probably agree with this, because ultimately their objective is to use Hizbullah in the south, too, while they themselves take over the rest of the country. However, by making Hariri play down his demilitarization demand, Assad was plainly suggesting that Syria alone is entitled to raise that matter.
...

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Syria's Message: Us or Hizballah

Lebanese mourners walk past a portrait of the late founder of the Islamic republic in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, during the funeral of Hezbollah member Mohammed Fawaz in the village of Tibnin in southern Lebanon on August 26, 2010, two days after he and two other Lebanese men were killed in clashes in Beirut's Burj Abi Haidar district, between two pro-Syrian movements, the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the Sunni Muslim al-Ahbash group. (Getty Images via Daylife)

Hanin Ghaddar comments on the recent Hizballah-Ahbash clash in the Abi Haidar neighborhood of Beirut.  As always, the article is worth reading in full, excerpts below:

...
Thus, the clashes must be seen as a message from Syria to Hezbollah that Damascus is back and that the Party of God no longer single-handedly controls the political scene in Lebanon. It is also worth mentioning that this happened immediately after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that he would visit Lebanon on September 11 and 12.

Using a Sunni militia to deliver the message is interesting, as Syria might also be sending another message to the Saudis and Prime Minister Saad Hariri that it can protect the Lebanese Sunnis. As for the international community, Syria was clearly telling it that it can hurt Hezbollah, and that it should be given back Lebanon as a reward.

... The Lebanese in general and the Sunnis in particular are being given two options: Hezbollah’s control or the return of Syrian hegemony. This means that the Lebanese have to pay for the Syrian-Iranian alliance and for when this alliance weakens.

... The day after the clashes, Al-Ahbash officials went to Damascus to meet senior Syrian general and former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon Rustum Ghazali, a clear indication that Syria sponsors and controls Al-Ahbash. Of course, this does not mean that Syria and Iran are no longer allies. When Imad Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus, ... many laid the blame on the Syrian regime, claiming Mugniyah had been killed to sever the tie linking Hezbollah to the Hariri assassination.
...

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Iran and Syria: Lebanon Tug of War

 

People check damages to their shops a day after street gun battles in Beirut's residential area of Bourj Abu Haidar, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010.(AP Photo via Day Life)

Michael Young spells it out in an editorial for the Daily Star, extensive quoting below:

You had to agree with the pro-Hizbullah daily Al-Akhbar when it observed in its Wednesday edition that one could only “naively” assume that the Burj Abi Haidar fighting the previous evening was the result of a personal dispute between supporters of Hizbullah and the Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, known as the Ahbash.

... most media outlets agreed that tension had been brewing in the neighborhood for some time. The Ahbash are close to Syria, not to say the Syrian intelligence services, which has long employed the group as a counterweight to Sunni militant groups the Syrian regime considers threatening, above all the Muslim Brotherhood. In the postwar period, the Syrians used the Ahbash against the Hariri family – indeed Ahbash members were suspected of involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri – and to undercut the authority of the mufti and the Sunni religious establishment.

... Here was, perhaps, the first armed confrontation between Iran and Syria in Lebanon, through proxies, to determine who will dominate the country in the future. More specifically, the Syrians, in endeavoring to revive their hegemony, have entered into a struggle for power with the only force that can stand up to them locally, Hizbullah, on which Damascus seeks to impose its priorities. Not surprisingly, Hizbullah has refused to surrender the political gains it accumulated during the past five years – gains, above all, in the service of Iran.

The heart of the problem is the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. A decision is expected from the institution in the coming months – whether indictments or the identification of suspects. Hizbullah feels it will be targeted by such a step and has raised the heat on the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri to immediately end Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal. Hariri has refused, and can afford to buy time. That’s because Hariri knows that Syria intends to use any tribunal decision as leverage over Hizbullah, to push the party to surrender to Damascus key posts it controls in the public administration and the security and military apparatus.

In light of this, Syria, like Hariri, is waiting for the tribunal to come out with something first, before opening negotiations with Hizbullah; while Hizbullah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, keen to avoid any such bargaining, is out to create an intolerable situation on the ground so that Hariri is left with no choice but to scuttle the tribunal before its findings push the party into a corner.

Initially, Hizbullah felt that it had a range of options to intimidate Hariri. Party spokesmen ominously mentioned a return to May 2008, when Hizbullah and Amal overran western Beirut militarily and forced the government of Fouad Siniora to annul two decisions that the party regarded as threatening. Hizbullah officials also raised the possibility of bringing down the current government. However, at a summit in Beirut several weeks ago, President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and President Bashar Assad of Syria signed on to a statement that effectively ruled out both measures.

...

What will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks is what happens on the margins of the Syrian-Iranian struggle over Lebanon. The Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, whose allegiances are with Syria, must yet be very careful of how he manages his relationship with Hizbullah. It was indicative of Berri’s dilemma that during the Burj Abi Haidar incident Amal issued a statement saying it was not involved, even as some of its men fought on Hizbullah’s side.

Walid Jumblatt is another politician who must play the Syria-Hizbullah rivalry very carefully. He has been especially vocal recently in calling for the tribunal to be abandoned. That’s because it only exacerbates the tensions between Damascus and Hizbullah, and Jumblatt and his community happen to be caught in the middle. The Druze leader has been the target of repeated condemnation in Al-Akhbar lately, principally because Hizbullah views him as particularly vulnerable (which Jumblatt is), and wants to keep him in line.

...What divides Syria and Iran is power, which is something neither is presently inclined to share in Beirut. Even if Hizbullah and Syria avoid episodes like the one on Tuesday, there will be other outbursts of violence or political altercations as the tribunal nears the time when it takes some sort of action.

Particularly revealing is the extent to which Hizbullah feels confident that it can out-maneuver Syria in Lebanon. Damascus was never very good at anchoring itself among the Lebanese without its army and intelligence services around to enforce its dictates. Ironically, Hizbullah has become the principle bulwark resisting a Syrian comeback, because the party wants to preserve Lebanon for Iran. What abysmal choices we Lebanese are left with.

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