Syria Today: Last Chance for Opposition "Unity" in Istanbul Talks

Opposition Representatives at This Week's Talks Oppositions Appeals for Help in Besieged Qusayr and Damascus Suburb

Insurgent commanders in the besieged town of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, have appealed for help and warned of dire consequences if it does not arrive:

If all rebel fronts do not move to stop this crime being led by Hezbollah and Assad's traitorous army of dogs...we will soon be saying that there was once a city called Qusayr.

Malek Ammar, an opposition activist in Qusayr, said, "The town is surrounded and there's no way to bring in medical aid."

Ammar said about 100 of 700 wounded needed oxygen: "What we need [insurgent units] to do is come to the outskirts of the city and attack the checkpoints so we can get routes in and out of the city."

Qusayr has been under sustained shelling and attacks for almost two weeks. On Wednesday, the Syrian military captured the nearby airbase of Dabba, cutting off the town on all sides and bolstering their positions.

Elsewhere, insurgents blockaded in the eastern Ghouta, east of Damascus, appealed for help on Facebook, claiming Assad's forces were "preparing to commit more massacres".

The fighters said they held the opposition Syrian National Coalition, whose members have spent a week arguing in Istanbul over the orgnaisation of the leadership, responsible for their plight.

George Sabra, the acting head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, has confirmed that the group will not attend any international "peace" conference.

However, whereas the Coalition's formal declaration on Wednesday emphasised its demand that President Assad step down as part of any transitional government, Sabra's statement said the condition was the international community's intervention to end the Syrian military's siege of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border.

Then Sabra declared, "The National Coalition will not take part in any international conference or any such efforts so long as the militias of Iran and Hezbollah continue their invasion of Syria."

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Middle East Today: Iraq --- Deadly Bombings Continue

Egypt: Concern Over Effect of Proposed Law on NGOs

Human Rights Watch has expressed concern that a draft law, placed by President Morsi before the legislature on Wednesday, would allow the Government and security agencies to arbitrarily restrict the funding and operation of independent groups.

HRW claims the Associations Law will reinforce and formalise State control over non- Governmental groups by denying them access to both domestic and international funding and giving "complete discretion" to authorities to object to activities of Egyptian and international organisations.

HRW said there were improvements in the draft, notably over the withdrawal of the designation of all NGO funding as "public" and thus open to Government supervision; however, it said the Government still retains excessive powers.

HRW cited the requirement of submission of an annual financial report, as well as copies of all internal decisions and a report on annual activities, to the authorities --- who could object and try to shut down the NGO. Groups also must notify the government in advance every time they wish to raise money through TV campaigns, charity events, or mail campaigns, and a Government committee has absolute discretion to block all access to foreign funding.

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Syria Today: Political "Chicken" and the Russian Missiles

Bashar al-Assad & Vladimir Putin Syrian National Coalition: No Part in Conference Without Assad Exit

The opposition Syrian National Coalition has officially confirmed that it will not participate in a proposed international "peace" conference in Geneva next month without a guarantee that President Assad will leave power.

The committee adopted a declaration amid a week-long meeting in Turkey, "The participation of the Syrians in any conference is tied to the presentation of a deadline for a solution and giving the necessary binding international guarantees."

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Syria Analysis: The Wider Politics of the "Russian S-300 Missiles to Damascus"

Russia answered the Western pressure with the clear signal that it will continue to provide weapons to the "legitimate" authority in Syria. In so doing, it was sending another message: if you want to have an international "peace" conference, that "legitimate" regime will have to be allowed at the table with no pre-conditions on its participation.

Yet, at the same time, Moscow was not going to wear the villain's mantle designed for it by the "West", but was going to maintain plausible deniability. Th message:

Maybe we are supplying S-300s under an old contract, maybe we are not --- you keep trying to figure it out.

Meanwhile, your move, Washington. Your move, London. Are you really going to pour in more weapons to the insurgency, even as you criticise us for supplying our own to the "legitimate" leaders of Syria?

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Syria Today: Europe Lifts Arms Embargo on Insurgents

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Head of Free Syria Army Threatens Attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon

The Free Syrian Army's Chief of Staff, General Salim Idriss, has warned, "If the attacks of Hezbollah against Syrian territory do not stop within 24 hours, we will take all measures to hunt Hezbollah, even in hell."

Idriss continued with the threat to intervene in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, "I will no longer be bound by any commitments I made, if a decision to stop the attacks...is not taken and implemented," said Idriss.

Idriss said, "We are being subjected to a genocide conducted by Hezbollah," and, without giving details of specific operations said he hoped "that everyone will excuse the Free [Syrian] Army" for retaliating.

The principle sticking point involves voting. Existing members of the coalition insist that the inclusion of new members must be based on balloting by existing members only. But this would change little in a monopoly that was made possible by interference from regional countries to begin with, rather than based on consensus among Syrian opposition. The existing members were not chosen by the people to decide whether certain opposition figures should be members or not.

The second issue is the "blocking third", or the veto power held by a third of the members. This idea was advanced by the coalition's secretary general, Mustafa Al Sabbagh, and was clearly meant to maintain the monopoly of the current core group within the coalition.

Hassan argues that this stalemate may cripple the group, and will only fuel the stalemate seen on Syria's battlefields.

On the other hand, The Atlantic's Shadi Hamid argues that the political stalemate can only be solved by progress on the battlefield, and that progress has not happened because the international community is waiting for a unified leadership that will likely never occur:

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Middle East Today: Iraq --- At Least 57 Killed in Bombings on Monday

Iraq: Dozens Killed in Monday Bombings

In the latest deadly spike in violence in Iraq, at least 57 people have been killed and more than 140 wounded in a series of bombings in and around Baghdad.

More than 350 people have been slain so far this month, and more than 700 people were killed in April, the highest monthly toll in almost five years.

Several of the attacks targeted markets and shopping areas in predominantly Shia Muslim areas. Areas struck included Habibiya, near Sadr City in the east of the capital, an open-air market in the al-Maalif area, and the main commercial hub Sadoun Street in central Baghdad.

Deadly explosions were also reported in the largely Shia neighbourhoods of Sabi al-Boor, Bayaa, and Kazimiyah.

In other parts of the country, shootings in the disputed province of Kirkuk killed an anti-al-Qaeda militiaman and a private generator operator, while a police colonel was slain by a roadside bomb in the main northern city of Mosul.

http://m.aljazeera.com/se/201352715214869598

Syria Audio Analysis: Will Europe Give Arms to the Insurgency?

As European Union foreign ministers met today to discuss the lifting of the arms embargo on the Syrian insurgency, I spoke with Monocle 24's The Briefing about the immediate situation and longer-term prospects.

Listen to discussion from the 6-minute mark on The Briefing's homepage or in a pop-out window

1. What is the current position among Western countries --- the US, Britain, France, and other European countries --- regarding arming of the insurgents?

2. What effect does fear of "extremism" have on the arming of the opposition?

3. What is the objective of increased armaments --- pressuring President Assad or overthrowing him?

4. What impact would the EU's lifting of the embargo have?

Syria Today: An Opposition in Disarray?

Opposition Spokesman Louay al-Safi (Akin Celiktas/Reuters)Iranian Lines of Credit to Damascus

The Syrian Central Bank has said that Iran has opened two lines of credit totaling $4 billion to Damascus and plans on opening up a third.

"Iran continues to support Syria, by opening one line of credit worth a billion dollars to finance the import of different items and another line of credit worth three billion dollars to finance the purchase of petrol and associated products," Central Bank Governor Adib Mayale said.

Mayale said Iran was considering an additional loan of $3 billion to bolster the Syrian economy amid war and international sanctions.

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Syria 1st-Hand: Regime "Gas Attacks" in Damascus (Le Monde)

Guerre chimique à Damas by lemondefr

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A chemical attack on the Jobar front, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, doesn't look like anything much at first. It's not spectacular. Above all, it's not detectable. And that's the aim: by the time the rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army who have penetrated furthest into Damascus understand that they've been exposed to chemical products by government forces, it's too late. No matter which type of gas is used, it has already produced its effects, only a few hundred meters from residential areas of the Syrian capital.

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Middle East Today: Israel & Palestine --- US "Peace Plan"? More Rhetoric About "Private Investment"

US Secretary of State John KerryIraq: At Least 33 Killed in Bombings

At least 33 people have been killed in the latest series of explosions in the capital Baghdad.

The attacks targets targeting mainly Shia districts of the city.

Earlier this month, more than 200 people were killed in a week in bombings and other attacks, in the most serious of violence this year.

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