Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Fighting Escalates in Aleppo and Damascus

Claimed footage of Free Syrian Army fighters inside the Hanano army barracks in Aleppo in Syria

See also Bahrain Video Discussion: The Conflict and the Regime's Public-Relations Effort
Egypt Feature: Who Speaks for the Workers?
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Shelling Returns to Damascus

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2020 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees report 172 people have been killed by security forces today, including 89 in Aleppo Province, 55 in Damascus and its suburbs, and 14 in Daraa Province.

State news agency SANA reports amnesty for "227 persons who were misled into getting involved in the recent events [and] whose hands are clean of the Syrians' blood...after pledging to not bear arms again".

According to SANA, some of those released said that they turned themselves in after realizing the scope of the conspiracy targeting Syria in implementation of foreign agendas".

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: At Least 250 Civilians Die on Monday

See Also Today's Bahrain Live Coverage: Will High-Profile Activists Receive Court Verdicts Today?
Jordan Feature: The Government's Threat to Internet Freedom (Tarawneh)
Bahrain Opinion: You Can Imprison the 13 Activists. You Cannot Imprison Their Ideas.
Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: At Least 1600 Killed in the Deadliest Week

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2034 GMT: Syria. A second video claiming to show the jet downed in Idlib:

Another video of the MiG that was downed in #Idlib today. youtube.com/watch?v=7kquGa… The pilot was shot in the head while parachuting. #Syria

— Abdullah Aldahhan (@SyrianSmurf) September 4, 2012

The Blogger Brown Moses adds this context:

The man talking to the camera in the video is Jamaal Maaruf, the leader of Shuhada Jebel al-Zawiya Battalion (thanks for Asher Berman for that ID, who explains that the battalion has been attacking Abu Dhuhur air base for 6 days, and the jets are being used to attack civilians.

According to Brown Moses, the jet in question appears to be a Mig 21, based on pictures he has posted on his analysis.

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Iran Snapshot: Head of State TV Admits Mis-Translation of Egyptian President's Speech on Syria (Press TV)

Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Ezzatollah Zarghami, has accepted a mistake in the translation of the Egyptian president’s address to the 16th Summit of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran.

“The shortcoming was only in the one case of translating the name for Syria into Bahrain in one of the [IRIB] television channels,” Zarghami said on Sunday. He added that, while Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was addressing the summit, a technical mistake occurred during the IRIB Channel 1’s live broadcast of the speech and therefore another translator was replaced, who made the mistake.

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Iran Interview: Ali Larijani on the Nuclear Issue, Syria, and Detained Opposition Leader Mousavi (Slavin)

While in Tehran to cover the Non-Aligned Movement's summit, Barbara Slavin of Al Monitor spoke with Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani.

Larijani's line on Iran's nuclear programme is the expected one. So is his assurance that sanctions are not hampering the Islamic Republic and his appeal to leave Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alone.

What may be more interesting is Larijani's effective declaration that opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi --- held under strict house arrest, without criminal charge, for 18 1/2 months --- will remain in limbo.

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The Latest from Iran (31 August): The Failure of the Charm Offensive

See also Iran, Syria, and the Non-Aligned Summit: 5 Questions and Answers
Iran Special: Regime Show Collapses as Morsi Gives Tehran an "Islamic Awakening" on Syria
The Latest from Iran (30 August): The Big Names Arrive at the Non-Aligned Summit

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Photo: Hamid Forootan/ISNA/REUTERS1543 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani took the podium today to convince the faithful of the success of this week's displya in Tehran, "Holding the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Iran was a show of power and political manoeuvre for Iran under conditions that the country is facing various threats. Such moves foil all plots and destroy them.”

The cleric called for expanded influence for the organisation, "This movement should be deepened and should move towards providing security in the world."

There is no indication that Emami Kashani spoke about the address by Egyptian President Morsi or the remarks of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

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Iran, Syria, and the Non-Aligned Summit: 5 Questions and Answers

Ban Ki-moon Said Iran should have an important role in the solution of Syria crisis. What is your opinion? Can Syria be settled down without Iran’s involvement? Why？

Ban Ki-Moon's attitude is similar to that of Egyptian President Morsi, with the added condition that Iran must stop giving military assistance to the Assad regime.

There is no political resolution of Syrian crisis, with or without Iran, at this point. The regime is committed to defeating insurgents; insurgents are committed to fall of Assad.

Instead, the planning is over what form of aid should be given to insurgents, including a possible "buffer zone" in Syria, and over a transitional government.

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Iran Special: Regime Show Collapses as Morsi Gives Tehran an "Islamic Awakening" on Syria

Iran's Ahmadinejad with Egypt's MorsiWhen the Egyptian President took the podium yesterday, he was delivering a message to the Islamic Republic that cut through all the pomp and propaganda around the summit: "You want to be part of the discussion of Syria? Then halt the political and military support for an Assad regime that is killing its people."

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The Latest from Iran (30 August): The Big Names Arrive at the Non-Aligned Summit

Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi at the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement this morning

See also Iran Document: The Supreme Leader's Speech to the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement
The Latest from Iran (29 August): Side-Stepping Syria at the Summit

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1630 GMT: Summit Watch. We have already noted that Iranian media have censored Egyptian President Morsi's remarks on Syria (see 1520 GMT). Now it appears that outlets are re-writing the speech....

Khabar Online claims that Morsi issued a warning of "sedition" against the Syrian people and said all should hope that the "popular" regime remains in power.

There is also scepticism over the headline of Fars that Morsi, soon after his provocative statement at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit criticising "bloodshed" in Syria and supporting the opposition to the "oppressive" regime, "Egypt Thinks of Iran as a Strategic Partner".

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Assad Says, "The Situation on the Ground is Better"

2134 GMT: Syria. US journalist Austin Tice is still missing in Syria, and his news agency, McClatchy, has released a statement that it is now believed that Tice is in the custody of the Assad regime:

Statements in recent days by Czech diplomats, information from Syrian rebel supporters and reports from people inside Syria indicate that the 31-year-old Houston native, who contributed to McClatchy Newspapers, The Washington Post and CBS News, was detained by Syrian government forces near the Damascus suburb of Daraya, his last known location.

The U.S. State Department says the Syrian government has not responded to inquiries about Tice that were made through official channels and that U.S. diplomats were “working through our Czech protecting power in Syria to get more information on his welfare and whereabouts.” A Syrian official in the United States declined to comment Thursday...

On Monday, the Czech ambassador to Syria, Eva Filipi, told a Czech television interviewer in Prague that “sources” had informed her mission that Tice was in detention, though further information had been hard to come by because of an Islamic holiday at the time. The Czechs, who oversee U.S. interests in Damascus because the U.S. closed its embassy there in February, sent a formal diplomatic note about Tice to Syrian counterparts, she said.

“Our sources report that he is alive and that he was detained by government forces on the outskirts of Damascus, where the rebels were fighting government troops,” Filipi said in response to a question about Tice. “Our additional steps were halted by the fact that the report came at the beginning of the final holidays of Ramadan and therefore we had a week off in Syria and some our contacts were not in Damascus.”

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The Latest from Iran (29 August): Side-Stepping Syria at the Summit

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon meets the Supreme Leader today

See also The Latest from Iran (28 August): The Propaganda Display at the Summit

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2040 GMT: Summit Watch. Looks like the meeting between United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Supreme Leader was quite feisty for a diplomatic encounter....

Ayatollah Khamenei replied to Ban's concerns on the nuclear issues (see 2015 GMT) with the challenge that the United Nations is "defective", given the "dominance" of the US and its allies in the Security Council.

The Supreme Leader also spoke at length on Syria and "the victimisation of the innocent people of this country", criticising "a flood of weapons" to "irresponsible groups" and the opposition for a "proxy war".

Ayatollah Khamenei's website did not present his responses to Ban's comments on human rights issues and "offensive and inflammatory statements" on Israel.

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