Syria Poison Tea Party we See
Is the Mad Hatter Terrorist Tea!
Hail, Haul, Terror Gangs All There
Multiple Threats Cause Great Fear
Iran, Hizbullah, And Terrorists Near
From them Bashar protects his Rear
Hoping his Head they will fail to Sear,
And His Life Isn’t taken He holds Dear!
April 8, 2011
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt from Window International Nations (WIN)
SYRIA
Population: 19,314,747
Political Leader: President Bashar al-Assad
Religions: Islam 90.3%, Christianity 5.1%, Non-Religious 2.9%, Other 1.7%
Number of Terrorist Groups: 16
Acts of Terrorism: 43; Casualties: 102
Percent of Corruption: 71%
% of People in Poverty: 11.9%
Terrorism:
The Syrian government continued to provide political and material support to Hizballah and political support to Palestinian terrorist groups.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command among others, base their external leadership in Damascus. The Syrian government insisted that the Damascus-based groups undertake only political and informational activities, but Palestinian groups with leaders in Syria have claimed responsibility for anti-Israeli terrorist acts.
Begin Excerpt from Ha’arez
Syria forces kill three in Daraa as thousands gather
for anti-regime protests
Security forces fire tear gas, live ammunition at people in demonstration against Baath Party rule despite overtures by Assad to end three weeks of unrest.
By News Agencies Israel news Syria
Published 15:44 08.04.11
Syrian security forces killed at least three protesters
on Friday when they fired at a demonstration against Baath Party rule in the southern city of Daraa, witnesses said.
“I saw pools of blood and three bodies in the street being picked up by relatives in the Mahatta area,” one of the witnesses said.
Syrian security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition as thousands of protesters gathered in a tense southern city despite overtures by Syria’s president to end three weeks of unrest, witnesses said.
An eyewitness said the shooting started after thousands of people marched out of the mosque in Daraa, which has become the epicenter of the country’s protest movement.
The sound of shooting could be heard through the telephone, but the witness said it was not clear whether security forces were shooting at the protesters or in the air.
Like most activists and witnesses who spoke to The Associated Press, he requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Another activist in touch with protesters in the northeastern town of Amouda said a demonstration was starting there.
The reports could not be independently confirmed because Syria has restricted media access since the protests began three weeks ago. Human rights groups have said at least 100 people have been killed in the security crackdown.
Protest organizers have called on Syrians to take to the streets every Friday for the past three weeks, demanding reform in one of the most authoritarian nations in the Middle East. The protests have rattled the regime of President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for nearly 40 years.
Assad has made a series of concessions to quell the violence, including sacking his Cabinet and firing two governors.
On Thursday, he granted citizenship to thousands of Kurds, fulfilling a decades-old demand of the country’s long-ostracized minority. But the protest Friday in Amouda — a Kurdish city — suggested the population still was not satisfied.
An activist in Douma, a Damascus suburb where at least eight people were killed during protests last Friday, said he was expecting a large turnout Friday. Hundreds of activists and residents have met this week to prepare for the demonstration.
But telephone lines to Douma appeared to be cut Friday. Activists in Damascus, quoting people who came from Douma, said thousands of people were demonstrating outside the suburb’s Grand Mosque.
Despite the regime’s gestures, many Syrian activists remain skeptical about the regime’s concessions.
“All these decisions are cosmetic, they do not touch the core of the problem,” Haitham al-Maleh, a leading opposition figure, told the AP on Thursday.
Al-Maleh, an 80-year-old lawyer and longtime rights activist who spent several years in jail, said the protests that began in Syria will “continue to snowball until real changes are made.”
He said Syria must take steps including: lifting the state of emergency, which has been in place since 1963 and gives the regime a free hand to arrest people without charge; allow the formation of political parties; and allow free elections.
Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile
In first Damascus firefight, 2 Syrian policemen, 15 demonstrators shot dead
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
April 5, 2011, 9:05 PM (GMT+02:00)
The Syrian uprising took a new turn Tuesday, April 5, when armed protesters ambushed and shot dead two policemen in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna. Syrian troops then opened fire and killed 15 inhabitants.
Monday, police opened fire on the funeral procession for 10 protesters killed in demonstrations in the Damascus suburb of Douma.
The fact that armed elements have taken over and are willing to use violence against Assad regime – and in the capital yet – marks a new and dangerous spiral of violence in the two-week long protest. Until now the violence came from regime forces against protesters. Now that the opposition is resorting to arms, the government may well escalate its crackdown on dissident demonstrations.
The Syrian uprising took a new turn Tuesday, April 5, when armed protesters opened fire for the first time on security forces from a well-laid ambush in a Damascus suburb. Two policemen were killed according to first reports. The fact that armed elements have taken over and are willing to use violence against Assad regime – and in the capital yet – marks a new and dangerous stage in the two-week long protest.
Syria’s banned opposition groups and Muslim Brotherhood, under the combined new banner of “The Syrian Revolution 2011,” earlier announed a fresh round of demonstrations against President Bashar Assad starting Tuesday, April 5, and lasting until next week, DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report.
Both sides of the conflict realize that the Assad regime is not yet at the tipping-point for its survival after street protest rallies and bloody crackdowns centering on Daraa in the south and Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, in which 110 demonstrators died. However, a mass, nationwide uprising could badly shake its stability because it would seriously overtax Assad’s loyal military and security troops.
The opposition and the regime are meanwhile playing cat and mouse to see which holds the balance. The protest movement has already made an important gain: Even if Assad weathers the storm, his regime will never recover its old stability, arrogance and confidence. After 11 years in power, the Syrian president’s authority will be on the wane.
To knock it over completely, the Sunnis, who are 76 percent of the Syria’s population of 26 million, must join the protest movement en masse. This they have so far avoided doing for fear of the bullets which Assad’s loyalist forces do not hesitate to shoot.
Because it is hard to get ordinary Sunni Muslims out on the streets,
the heads of Syrian Revolution 2011 have instigated a campaign of passive resistance. This week, for example, opposition leaders told the population to stop paying their electricity bills, an act of protest that has caught on in Syria’ s big citie
s.
The Assad regime is therefore confronted both by the “Days of Rage” and quiet civil resistance.
Furthermore, the important port-town of Latakia has split down the middle between two opposing camps – the 300,000 members of the ruling Allawite sect fear to venture into the districts populated by the town’s 400,000 Sunnis – and vice versa. Army control is reduced to keeping open the road linking the Syria’s main import and export port facilities to the highway out of the city.
In the next 48 hours, the opposition is hoping to whip up mass demonstrations in Aleppo and Damascus, the capital. Aleppo, a city of 2.8 million inhabitants is the political and economic hub of
the Syrian Sunni community. Therefore, major outbreaks there would produce a big crack in Assad’s authority.
The Syrian ruler has tried to pre-empt the Aleppo demonstration by pouring substantial armed strength into the city, cutting its Internet links and arresting thousands of people suspected of opposition ties.
But he faces a huge problem. He can’t trust the Sunni rank and file to obey orders to suppress a large-scale Sunni insurrection in Aleppo – only the Allawite units which owe loyalty to the president and the Assad clan. He must therefore rely on the support of the 4th Army Division and the security and intelligence services and they may be too thin on the ground to shoulder the task. He dare not try and loose Sunni troops on the protesters of Aleppo for fear they join the protesters.
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