The conflict in Syria was effectively declared a civil war by the Red Cross on Sunday, as the "most intense" fighting since the start of the uprising was reported in Damascus.

The Red Cross had previously designated Idlib, Homs and Hama as war zones, but the change in status means international humanitarian law applies wherever fighting occurs throughout the country

Combatants will now be officially subject to the Geneva Conventions, and will be more exposed to war crimes prosecutions, after the ICRC declared that the conflict was a "non-international armed conflict", or in lay terms a civil war.

Sean Maguire, a spokesman for the ICRC, said that both sides would be reminded of their obligations "to protect civilians from fighting, treat the wounded and sick without discrimination".

The categorisation was made after the ICRC determined that the armed opposition to Bashar al-Assad's regime had reached a sufficient level of organisation and capability.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy clashes in the capital in what was described as the "most intense" fighting there since the start of the anti-regime revolt in Syria.

"The regular army fired mortar rounds into several suburbs" where rebels of the Free Syrian Army are entrenched, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "They have never been this intense."

Kofi Annan, the international envoy of Syria, and Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, set off on a trip to Russia and China on Monday in a bid to persuade them to back tougher action against Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, but hopes for a breakthrough are slender.

The Syrian government went on the offensive yesterday by attempting to claim a propaganda victory after UN observers called into question opposition claims of a civilian massacre in the village of Tremseh.

Local activists had accused regime forces of slaughtering as many as 220 civilians in what would have been the worst massacre of the 16-month uprising against Mr Assad.

Although a team of monitors that reached the scene encountered scenes of heavy destruction and found evidence of mass fatalities, they concluded that the vast majority of the dead were rebels or opposition activists.

Their findings were swiftly trumpeted by the Assad regime, which accused Western leaders and Mr Annan of rushing to draw fallacious conclusions.

But while the observers' report suggested that the government's narrative was closer to reality than the opposition's, the events that unfolded in Tremseh last Thursday remain murky.

Nor was the regime's position entirely vindicated. The UN stood by its accusation that government forces had used tanks and helicopter gunships in breach of a pledge made by Mr Assad a week ago not to use heavy weapons.

Reaching the village 48 hours after the killings, the observers spoke of encountering scenes of devastation and seeing chilling traces of the ferocity of the government's onslaught amid the ruins.

"There were pools of blood and blood spatters in rooms of several homes together with bullet cases," said Sausan Ghosheh, a spokesman for the monitoring team.

"A wide range of weapons were used, including artillery, mortars and small arms."

The findings appeared to suggest that a number of the victims were shot at close range, echoing opposition claims of execution-style killings carried out by the pro-Assad Shabiha militia, whose ranks are largely drawn from president's Alawite minority.

But the observers also reported that the attack appeared to target "specific groups and houses, mainly of army defectors and activists" -- a significant departure from the narrative of some opposition activists.

Tremseh lies along the same sectarian fault line as two other Sunni villages – Howl and Qubeir – whose inhabitants were allegedly massacred by army soldiers and militiamen from surrounding Alawite communities.

In both cases, photographic evidence was produced to show a large number of women and children among the dead. But video footage from Tremseh indicated that nearly all the dead were men of fighting age.

If, as now seems likely, the killings were the result of a lopsided battle, they would represent one of the most catastrophic rebel defeats of the campaign.

Opposition sources conceded that most of the dead were fighters and confirmed that the battle had been triggered by a rebel ambush on an army convoy.

But they claimed that few of the dead were formal rebels, saying that most were male inhabitants of the village who had taken up arms to prevent an Alawite attempt to "cleanse" Tremseh.

Lacking the sophisticated communications equipment that most rebels in the Free Syrian Army have, the rebels were unable to call for reinforcements resulting in a heavily one-sided battle, one activist said.

The death toll remained in dispute, with the government saying that 37 opposition fighters and two civilians were killed. Opposition activists said that between 100 and 150 died, but conceded that they only knew of "at least seven" civilian fatalities.

Presented with a rare opportunity to portray itself as misrepresented, the Syrian government launched a public relations offensive to absolve itself of guilt.

"What happened in Tremseh was a military operation, not as massacre," Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian foreign ministry's spokesman, told a press conference."

He also furiously denounced a letter written by Mr Annan to the United Nations Security Council that urged members to unite in action against the regime for its use of heavy weaponry in Tremseh. A similarly worded letter was sent to the Syrian foreign ministry.

"The least that can be said about this letter about what happened in Tremseh is that it did not rely on facts," Mr Makdissi said. "As diplomatically as possible, we say that this letter was very rushed."

The dispute over Tremseh is likely to complicate international efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis, with Russia almost certain to seize on it as evidence that the opposition, rather than the regime, is responsible for most of the bloodshed.

The mandate for the 300-man observer mission to Syria is due to expire on Friday with no sign of an end to international divisions.

Russia wants the mandate to be renewed for a further three months. But it is resisting Western efforts to bolster it with a Security Council resolution threatening the Assad regime with sanctions if it fails to take steps to end the violence and form a transitional government with the opposition.

Meanwhile, the president of Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, stepped up pressure on America to take action by accusing President Barack Obama of stalling so as not to jeopardise his November re-election prospects.

"We cannot understand that a superpower ignores the killing of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians because of an election campaign that a president may win or lose," Abdelbasset Sayda told CNN.

BLOB: A Russian ship, making a second attempt to deliver arms to Syria mysteriously returned to port yesterday. The MV Alaed was prevented from making its delivery of refurbished attack helicopters in June after Britain ensured that its insurance cover was withdrawn.

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LONDON (AP) -- As violence began racing through Syria last year, two European contractors were putting the finishing touches on an encrypted radio system that Syrian officials intended for their security forces, according to leaked company emails and three senior employees involved in the project.

The documents - made available to The Associated Press and other media organizations by the WikiLeaks organization - show that Greece's Intracom S.A. and Italy's Selex Elsag spent years building a Syria-wide communications network and equipped the government with thousands of walkie-talkies, motorcycle-mounted radio units and avionic transceivers used in helicopters.

The leaked documents give an unusually detailed look at the communications help Western companies have been providing Syria's regime - something activists find disturbing.

"This kind of technological assistance is highly undesirable because it is used to repress people," said European parliamentarian Marietje Schaake, who has pushed for tighter export controls on authoritarian governments. "The fact that these are EU-based companies doing all this hurts our credibility."

Most sanctions-watchers interviewed by the AP say that Selex and Intracom likely acted lawfully, and the companies themselves denied wrongdoing.

Intracom said in a statement that it had supplied the Syrians with a civilian telecommunications system "in full respect of relevant export regulations," adding that it was no longer involved in operating the system and therefore had no control over how it was used. It said that its work in Syria had since been suspended due to the situation there.

Selex owner Finmeccanica S.p.A. echoed Intracom's statement, saying its communications system was intended "exclusively for civil, and not military use." The Rome-based defense contractor also claimed that the project was completed "prior to the outbreak of the country's internal conflicts."

Both statements seemed hard to square with evidence that elements of the communication system were designed with the military in mind, or emails showing that Selex and Intracom had been providing technical support to Syrian officials as recently as February - a time when government forces were using artillery to pound rebel-held areas of the Syrian city of Homs.

Intracom spokesman Alexandros Tarnaris refused to answer a series of detailed questions about the apparent discrepancies between his company's statement and the evidence seen by the AP; Selex spokesman Carlo Maria Fenu also declined to answer questions.

---

The companies' role in Syria is difficult to disentangle. In 2008 they jointly announced a (EURO)40 million deal to build a mobile radio system for the Syrian Wireless Organization, an arm of Syria's Ministry of Communication and Technology. Selex supplied the radio terminals; Intracom built much of the network's infrastructure.

The type of system they were building is called a terrestrial trunked radio, or TETRA, a technology employed the world over to provide resilient, long-range communication for emergency workers, transport services and private industry. In Britain, it's used everywhere from the country's coast guard agency to London's Heathrow Airport and the capital's sprawling subway.

But the technology - considered more secure than conventional cell phone networks - has law enforcement and military applications as well. Police agencies across Europe use the standard to communicate, while Israel uses a Motorola-built TETRA network for its army.

"Like any technologies it can be used for good or evil," said Marcus Carey, a researcher with Boston-based security company Rapid7. "While an emergency organization can save lives with . TETRA networks, an oppressive regime can coordinate violent actions against dissidents."

The leaked documents provide a partial picture of how the companies saw TETRA being used in Syria, but they make clear that a large chunk of their equipment was earmarked for the country's police force - much of it shipped even as revolt against Damascus was gathering steam.

"This is going to Muadamia Police warehouse," says an Intracom email dated May 7, 2011 - the same month that New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that officers were subjecting political opponents to a campaign of arbitrary arrests, intimidation, and torture.

The email, which refers obliquely to the "current situation," itemizes what appear to be several hundred radios destined for the Damascus suburb. Among them are shock-resistant Selex VS3000s, which a company brochure advertises as being "compliant with most military-standard environmental conditions."

Although there's ample evidence that Intracom knew much of the companies' material was destined for the security forces, the AP has not seen any direct evidence that Selex knew where its equipment was going.

Itemized bills give a feel for the scope of the construction work involved in building the TETRA network - although crucial details such as timing are hard to work out.

One bill sent by an Intracom employee and dated May 10, 2011, lists more than (EURO)100,000 worth of equipment installed at two separate Damascus police sites, including antennae, microwave radio equipment and air-conditioning systems.

Another itemized list - this one attached to an Intracom email sent Feb. 2, 2012 - notes (EURO)300,000 worth of costs associated with a Police Administration Center in the Syrian city of Aleppo, as well as references to work carried out at a police academy in Damascus, two further traffic police sites in the capital and a fourth police site in the Damascus suburb of Barzeh.

Also in that sloppily-spelled list - and highlighted in red - is a Damascus-based site labeled "Militiry."

---

That note was one of a handful of references to the military in the leaked documents. One senior manager who worked with Intracom to set up the network said that the army's needs played a major role in the project.

"It's used by the military," he told AP, adding that many of the project's mobile radio terminals were intended for installation in army vehicles.

He spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he didn't want to draw attention to himself.

The notion of an army link to Intracom's work is backed by the leaked emails.

A May 19, 2011, email to Intracom employees from a subcontractor refers to the drafting of a "report for the Installation of the radio Terminal in military Car." A July 2011 survey document notes the contact details for a radio repeater simply as: "Army." In another email, sent in March 2011, Intracom employee Ghassan Nakoul tells co-workers that "we are going to connect the network with military exchange."

Nakoul, who spoke briefly when reached by phone, confirmed having been told "one or two times" by the Syrian Wireless Organization that Intracom was doing work for the military but said he had "honestly no idea" for whom the TETRA network was really meant.

Nakoul suggested that officials at the organization may have been exaggerating the seriousness of the project in order to get it finished more quickly.

"They sometimes raise (their) importance," he said. "Sometimes they say `this is (for) police,' `this is (for) the military.'"

One Intracom employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to make his role in the project known, confirmed the broad outlines of the work in Syria, acknowledging that it had a "public safety" aspect.

It's not clear what role, if any, Selex played in discussions over the technology's military applications.

The nature of the Syrian Wireless Organization - whose website couldn't be located - is obscure. Emails sent to Maamoun Haj Ibrahim and Riad Naouf - men listed by the U.N. as directors of the organization - were not returned. Calls to the group rang unanswered for days.

Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said he didn't know anything about the matter and didn't respond to an email requesting comment from someone who did.

---

Building a nationwide TETRA network was a major undertaking.

Intracom manager Mohammad Shoorbajee's profile on the professional-networking site LinkedIn - which he has since modified to remove all reference to his work - said the project included the construction of 130 base stations, four command-and-control centers, dispatch stations, core switches, and the delivery of some 17,000 Selex radios across Syria.

A billing document dated Oct. 19, 2011, broke the equipment down, listing more than 11,000 walkie-talkies, 3,500 mobile radio units for use in vehicles, 1,600 radio dispatch consoles, 1,400 motorcycle-mounted units, 60 marine units for use on sea, and 30 avionic transceivers for use in helicopters.

Several lawyers and activists said the shipments likely weren't in breach of EU sanctions, first imposed on Syria back in May of 2011 and repeatedly strengthened since.

Zia Ullah, a London-based attorney with Pannone LLP, said he believed the shipments were on the right side of the law, adding that conflicts like the one in Syria put economy-conscious Europeans in a tricky spot.

"To the extent that equipment is being used or supplied to the Syrian regime, is that politically what the EU wants to see?" he said. "On the other hand, for many of these companies, it's a lifeline commercially, particularly in countries like Greece and Italy."

But Matthew Parish, a Geneva-based attorney with U.K. law firm Holman Fenwick Willan LLP, said that the vagueness of EU sanctions law meant that the situation was "very arguable either way."

"Given the ambiguity of the language in the EU decisions, I think what you can say that what they did in the past is borderline," he said.

Borderline cases have received an increasing amount of attention as pro-democracy uprisings in the Arab world have torn the lid off the machinery of state surveillance. Last year The Wall Street Journal revealed that Syrian officials were using Internet filtering devices made by California's Blue Coat Systems Inc. In November Bloomberg reported that Italian company Area S.p.A. had been using U.S. technology to equip Damascus with a powerful mass surveillance network. Blue Coat has said it didn't know its technology was bound for Syria; Area has said it's considering how to pull out of its contract.

Schaake, the parliamentarian, said she thought those companies were just the tip of the iceberg.

"There are far more companies whose name we don't know," she said.

---

Intracom and Selex's work in Syria has continued until recently. On Dec. 29, 2011, Intracom's Ilias Moschonas wrote to his team to say that there were still problems with the TETRA network and that engineers might be needed to provide on-the-job training in basic repairs and other skills in Damascus early in the new year.

Around the same time, Intracom's Nakoul described a trip to provide tech support at a petroleum facility near the Syrian city of Deir el-Zour, a trip he did not seem eager to repeat.

"Deir alzor is not calm city (armed people everywhere) and my opinion is to have a clear solution for this case before we go over there again," he warned his colleagues.

On Feb. 2, 2012, Moschonas wrote again to inform his colleagues that Selex engineers would be in Damascus that month to deliver equipment needed to fix Syria's helicopter transceivers and train local employees on how to make repairs.

The leaked emails don't go further than March 2012, so it's not clear whether the engineers ever made it to the Syrian capital.

It's also unclear whether Intracom or Selex's work in the country continued beyond that date, although draft warranty documents circulated by Shoorbajee and others envisioned both companies acting in tandem to provide tech support, software updates, and repairs.

Moschonas did not return emails seeking comment and neither Intracom nor Selex have said whether they were still replacing damaged parts, uploading new software, or helping fix faulty equipment.

Nakoul denied that he or his company had taken sides in the conflict gripping Syria, saying that he'd already received death threats from rebel sympathizers after WikiLeaks published his email address.

"We are just technical people," he said. "We are just working on a project.

"We are not on any side."

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There’s an underlying problem with reporting about Syria: The media continue to treat as human rights violations what is actually authority clamping down on people it considers, rightfully or not, revolutionaries or terrorists.

You might disagree with that government. You might find that government repressive, even odious, and want those involved in the uprising to succeed. But to call yourself reasonably objective you would have to admit that all governments respond with force when their survival is threatened. And, because they have the army and its might, they use it. It’s nasty, and a lot of people die.

Any regime considers itself authorized to do whatever it takes to put down insurrection. And when foreign powers are helping the uprising, the regime believes it has even greater cause for muscular action.

That’s the basic issue in Syria. Yet, because the West, which wants the Assad regime gone, does not have a policy of generally supporting uprisings against authoritarian, repressive regimes (see Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain) it cannot invoke that argument.

Instead, to justify intervention, it must make its case by presenting a growing litany of increasingly egregious human rights violations, being visited upon the people for no reason beyond an inherent monstrousness. That’s basically the only valid basis for ousting Assad.

The Monster Grows

Thus, the playbook of “psychological operations” requires that monstrousness be on constant and increasingly vivid display.

One of several such stories concerned the massacres at Houla, which as we previously pointed out have turned out to be murky, without hard evidence that the Assad regime was responsible.

A few days ago, we heard of new atrocities by Assad’s government. This time, in the village of Tremseh, near the city of Hama, the alleged numbers topped a previously “most grotesque” scenario, and therefore got top billing.

However, now there are doubts about the accuracy of that story—but how many people will remember the original, graphic and horrible account, and how many will fully absorb the more nuanced correction?

Here’s the original story in the New York Times:

Syrian opposition activists said more than 200 people were killed in a Sunni village on Thursday by government forces using tanks and helicopters, which, if confirmed, would be the worst in a series of massacres that have convulsed Syria’s increasingly sectarian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian government also reported a mass killing in the village but said it was committed by armed terrorist groups, the official description for Mr. Assad’s opponents. It said at least 50 people were killed.

And here’s the Times’ more recent one:

New details emerging Saturday about what local Syrian activists called a massacre of civilians near the central city of Hama indicated that it was more likely an uneven clash between the heavily armed Syrian military and local fighters bearing light weapons.

[snip]

There were also new questions about the death toll, with initial figures from activists of more than 160 and other reports putting the toll at more than 200. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain that has a network of contacts in Syria, said that it had been able to confirm only 103 names, and 90 percent of them were young men. There were no women’s names on the list of 103 victims obtained from activists in Homs.

[snip]

After the high toll was announced from Tremseh, as was the case with Houla and other similar episodes, Western leaders lined up to condemn the mass killings of civilians. Col. Riad al-Assad, based in Turkey as the ostensible leader of the loose coalition of fighters called the Free Syrian Army, told the Arabic television network Al Jazeera on Thursday that there had been no opposition fighters in the town.

Although what actually happened in Tremseh remains murky, the evidence available suggested that events on Thursday more closely followed the Syrian government account.

“Mohammed” For the New York Times

In the original article The Times had noted, almost in passing, that the UN Security Council was due to meet and that harsh sanctions against Syria were in play.

Much more attention was focused, of course, on the alleged atrocities by the Assad regime. Among witnesses, the paper quoted a local man, identified only by his first name, whom it reached by telephone:

Mohammed accused the government and armed militiamen, or shabiha, of carrying out the massacre, since the residents were opposed to the government. “I swear these were shabihas and the Syrian army, why would we want to burn our own houses? 150 houses are burning, why would we want to kill our own people?”

Mohammed doesn’t seem to really have any information himself, beyond the apparent cause of death. He says that the Assad side is responsible, based on logic. “Why would we want to kill our own people?”

By the same token, why would Assad commit atrocities of this sort just as the Security Council prepares to meet?

These things are complicated. There’s a long history of brutal murders of civilians by militias loyal to governments. But there is also a long history of employing provocations to justify interventions—including putting your people into the uniforms of the opposition—and even tolerating the killing of innocent people if it will advance the cause.

See, for example, Operation Northwoods, proposals that the United States attack itself and blame it on Cuba. There are many other such examples. We know that JFK vetoed Northwoods. We do not know that all presidents have rejected such proposed schemes. And if the US Joint Chiefs of Staff could consider it worthwhile to perpetrate terrorist attacks on American citizens, with  expected innocent deaths, why would it be impossible that the reverse could happen in Syria?

We don’t know the answer. But we should at least be asking these questions.

As for the reporting, when the New York Times interviews a person only identified as “Mohammed” who we are told lives in the town, we should be told more. How did the paper settle on this person? Where did it find his phone number? Did someone provide it? What about other residents? Did it try to reach others and fail? And what more about Mohammed? Where was he when the killings took place? How does he know who did the killing? Etc. We need a lot more detail—and much of it can be provided to us by two steps:

1. Ask  more and better questions of sources
2. Be more transparent with the public on how your news organization gets its information

“Come Out With Your Hands Up”

If the “see the evil” story is a staple of psychological warfare, another old standby is the “everyone hates them” story. We’ve had a bunch of stories recently about Assad loyalists bailing out. One was a general, one was an ambassador. Now we have someone from the field.

“In Fleeing Pilot, Hints of Trouble for Syria’s Assad” is the latest of what are generally sympathetic accounts concerning defectors.  The message is obvious: Assad’s power is crumbling.

Such messages are effective. But they leave out one thing: People defect for many reasons, not always just for honorable purposes. Sometimes they read the writing on the wall. And money or the promise of compensation is frequently in play but of course rarely acknowledged.

Still, these defection stories often work, because at some point you hit critical mass, and then everyone scrambles out.

Spreading word of defections is crucial. And not just for people in Syria. The more the world can be convinced that Assad is getting weaker, the more everyone is likely to jump onto the winning team. And with the Security Council under pressure to act, how surprising can this raft of defection reports be?

Psychological operations to win over the public are an essential part of warfare. Because the United States and its allies are much more experienced and sophisticated in such things, and because they can count on the lion’s share of the media to go along without much resistance, it is an uneven match.

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The Syrian army and rebels continue fighting in the capital of Damascus, with pro-government forces using helicopters to strike rebel targets, as seen in the AP-verified video below. 

Explosions resulting from bombings by helicopters, seen at 25 seconds, seem to be the main mode of attack at the moment.

WATCH:

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A deadly attack rocked a high level meeting at the National Security Building in Damascus this morning, killing Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha and General Assef Shawkat, the deputy defense minister and Bashar Assad's brother in law.

According to Reuters, the two men were at the center of a military crisis group tasked with crushing the rebellion.  

Reports differ on the details of the attack. Reuters reports that a bodyguard assigned to Assad's inner circle carried out a suicide bombing. The leader of the Free Syrian Army Riad Al-Asaad claimed, in a phone interview with AP, that it was not a suicide attack and that his group had planted a bomb in the room.

An Islamist rebel group called Liwa Al Islam, or "the Brigade of Islam" claimed responsibility as well, telling Reuters that it had planted explosives in the building as part of a month long plot.

Al Arabiya reports that Colonel Hafez Makhlouf, Bashar Al-Assad's cousin and a member of his inner circle has been killed as well, citing an anonymous source. That headline has appeared on its website, and has been tweeted through its official twitter handle @AlArabiya_BRK:

مصادر للعربية: مقتل حافظ مخلوف رئيس فرع التحقيق في المخابرات العامة

— Al Arabiya Breaking (@AlArabiya_Brk) July 18, 2012

 SEE ALSO: Troops Are Piling Up On Both Sides Of The Syria-Turkey Border As Tensions Escalate >

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Moscow will not give up Damascus, as Russia’s foreign minister has made clear – despite rebels’ latest success in targeting the heart of the Assad regime. At stake here, beyond Syria, is the restoration of Russian power in relation to the west.

Russia’s relations with Syria date back to the emigration to Turkey and Syria of Circassian minorities in the 19th century and this link still influences Russia’s perception of the Syrian crisis. The fear is that chaos in Syria, if followed by an Islamist victory, might radicalise the Russian Caucasus. Moreover, Syria has traditionally been a counterweight to Turkey, especially when Turkish-Syrian relations were troubled. If the Damascus regime fell, Moscow’s southern flank would be weakened. Indeed, the regime’s fall would cut Russia out of the Middle East, where it has met with one setback after another over the past 50 years.

Read the rest at the Financial Times >

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The battle to freeze Bashar al-Assad's assets is on, with banks in the UK and Switzerland moving to freeze assets that the Syrian president and his allies hold in the country.

Unfortunately what has been recovered so far may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Business intelligence firm Alaco told the Guardian that assets held by Assad and relatives and friends is probably in the region of $1 billion to $1.5 billion, and stored in tax haven islands and other holdings in Russia and Hong Kong.

That figure, of course, doesn't take into account the fact that Assad's inner circle controlled around 60-70% of assets within Syria. Alaco explains that due to the country's civil war, these assets will be difficult to liquidate.

The $1.5 billion figure shows the incredible wealth that autocrat leaders can build and keep hidden from the world. Forbes rarely includes world leaders on its wealth lists, for example, but recent estimates have put the wealth of Vladimir Putin as high as $70 billion (which would make him the richest person on earth).

Another incredible report said that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was worth $200 billion.

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A Virginia man was sentenced Friday to 18 months behind bars on charges he collected video and audio recordings for Syrian intelligence agencies about people protesting the Syrian government.

Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 48, recruited people living in the U.S. to record dozens of protests against the Syrian government, as well as supplied the government with contact information for its biggest critics, the Department of Justice said Friday.

He also provided the government with details about who was financing the opposition movement, the movement's future plans, and information about protests and meetings, according to the Justice Department.

“Mr. Soueid betrayed this country to work on behalf of a state sponsor of terror,” U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a written statement. “While the autocratic Syrian regime killed, kidnapped, intimidated and silenced thousands of its own citizens, Mr. Soueid spearheaded efforts to identify and intimidate those protesting against the Syrian government in the United States.”

The FBI narrowed in on Soueid after he allegedly wrote a letter in April 2011 to a Syrian official expressing his support for violence against dissidents. He also allegedly accepted a laptop from the Syrian government, which he used to spy on people.

Soueid, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Syria, ultimately pleaded guilty to six counts of acting as an agent for a foreign country, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Friday.

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It's been a huge day in Syria, with great live coverage from the Guardian. Here are some of the highlights:

• Brazil has pulled all of its diplomats out of Syria.
• A video has surfaced of a group calling themselves "Soldiers of the Omar Farouq Brigade in Syria" encouraging Muslims to join a jihad against the Assad regime. 
• The Syrian Brigadier General who defected has put his name forward as a possible leader of a provisional government to replace Assad. The video release is believed to have been filmed in Paris. 
• Half of the UN's 300 observers have left Syria as the violence intensifies.  
• Syria's envoy to Cyprus has defected. 
• According to Reuters, Syrian Government troops are marching on Aleppo to stage a counteroffensive against the rebels. 

We'll keep you posted, but those are the major events that occurred before dawn in the United States. 

In the meantime, here's a full rundown of Syria's military might >

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Spot the difference in these two pieces about the wife of the Syrian president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad:

"Asma al-Assad is a glamorous, young, and very chic - the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She's a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement... She's breezy, conspiratorial, and fun."

Asma al-Assad is "a good-looking woman of 35... as brisk as a prefect, as on-message as a banker, as friendly as a new acquaintance at a friend's cocktail party... like the kind of young Englishwoman you'd hear having lunch at the next table at Harvey Nichols... the first lady of hell."

The first quote was from a Vogue article in March 2011 headlined "A rose in the desert." The second from a Newsweek/Daily Beast article on Monday headlined: "Mrs Assad duped me." The writer in both cases was Joan Juliet Buck, an experienced fashion journalist and one-time editor-in-chief of French Vogue.

Her first article, published as Syria's government started to attack citizens, was met with a wave of criticism. Both Buck and Vogue's editor, Anna Wintour, were accused of taking part in a public relations campaign on behalf of the Syrian regime.

Within a month or so, the article was removed from the magazine's website. Almost a year later Wintour broke her silence on the matter to explain that "we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society" but "as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue."

Buck's contract with Vogue was not renewed and that's when she decided to offer an a 5,000-word explanation for her original sin.

It suggests that she was the victim of of manipulation from beginning to end. She initially rejected the assignment; claimed she didn't know she was going to meet a murderer; and was taken in by Asma al-Assad's glossy presentation of herself as a cosy, modern, relaxed person.

But Styleite writer, Hilary George-Parkin, is not impressed with Buck's mea culpa. She writes:

"It is not hard to imagine this kind charade fooling a rookie journalist. But, of course, that is hardly what Buck was at the time. She goes on, however, to reveal further manipulation by those surrounding the Assads, including a hacked computer, carefully-monitored cell phone given to her at the start of her trip, and leaked emails between PR reps discussing the need to conceal any potentially damaging information. None of these points were mentioned in the profile... raving about Asma al-Assad's elegant wardrobe, posh stature, and democratic parenting style."

And Homa Khaleeli, writing in a Guardian blog, was also contemptuous of Buck's attempt at exculpation: "The mea culpa is almost as disastrous as the initial interview", she writes.

"It's hard to tell if Buck asked Asma – or Bashar whom she also met – any real questions at all. Certainly not why anyone would marry a man whose father slaughtered 20,000 people in three weeks... She did not ask why her phone and computer were bugged, or even why she had spotted something that looks like a mobile prison in the souk."

Khaleeli continues: "To be fair to Buck she does explain that she had not wanted to meet the Assads, but Vogue told her they wanted no focus on politics at all... It seems clear that Vogue is equally to blame for the controversy."

Sources: PresidentAssad.net/Daily Beast/Guardian/Homa Khaleeli/Styleite: (1) and (2) /Gawker/Daily Telegraph

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A British photojournalist has spoken for the first time about his capture and wounding by Islamist militants in northern Syria last month.

John Cantlie and Dutchman Jeroen Oerlemans were held for a week before being rescued by a Free Syrian Army group, part of the opposition trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

Cantlie said they were "constantly threatened with death" and both were shot and wounded during an abortive barefoot escape attempt.

"My feet, cut pretty badly when we attempted to escape over granite boulders and shrubs, are healing quickly, while the left hand is still problematic," said Cantlie, a troublespot veteran.

"We were both shot during our dash for freedom (it was doomed from the outset but we both wanted to give it a go) Jeroen in the hip and me in the arm. My ulna nerve was damaged and I've lost feeling in about 30% of my left hand."

But he had had surgery from "a great doctor called David Gately" on Wednesday and "we hope to get some of the feeling back", Cantlie wrote on his website.

Oerlemans, who was wounded in the thigh, spoke last week of the pair's experience. He said there was no Syrian in the group that captured them on 19 July. "They were all youngsters from other countries, African countries, Chechnya. They said they thought we were CIA agents. But then it quickly became apparent they wanted to trade us for ransom."

Cantlie, who said he would be writing about the capture in the Sunday Times this weekend, gave an early flavour of what happened, even if "what we went through was nothing". He continued: "People are kidnapped and held for ransom for months, even years. Our ordeal was just one week, but it was the most intense, fearful week of my life.

"Those bastards constantly threatened us with death, always cocking their weapons, getting us to stand as though we were being led out for execution, sharpening knives for a jihadist beheading and generally playing with our minds. When you're constantly handcuffed and blindfolded in a stinking tent in 35 degrees and covered in flies, the imagination can run riot."

Cantlie paid tribute to the "immense" support, unbeknown to the pair at the time, from family, friends, colleagues and the Foreign Office. "It was a week you would describe as less than ideal.

"It's not just the person who's kidnapped that suffers, either. It's their whole circle of friends, family and colleagues."

He added: "Right now I'm out of the game. Both Jeroen and I had all our kit taken, both of us had around £8,000-worth of equipment and I can't afford to replace mine.

"We'll see what happens, but this experience has only made me wiser. I'm desperate to get back into Syria and work alongside those gracious, hospitable people as they pursue their dreams of revolution. Lord knows they've earned it."

Cantlie did not describe their rescue but Oerlemans has said that the two men were in a tent, blindfolded, when they heard a group of men he assumed to be from the Free Syrian Army come in. "They were shouting at everyone, saying, 'How long has this been going on; this is outrageous,' yelling at the jihadis, and then they told us, 'You are free.' Our hearts leapt, of course."

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Even after 17 months the Syrian conflict continues to elicit shock and concern. The death toll rises with every passing day and the civil war becomes more entrenched and protracted as the rebels defend urban centres and launch desperate counterattacks against the full might of Bashar al-Assad's forces, who are attempting to crush the rebellion once and for all.

In recent weeks more information has emerged as to who is helping the rebel forces, how they are helping and the depth of the assistance provided. Time and again the same three countries are named: Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The motivations for two of these countries are clear. Turkey is a neighbouring state and as such faces critical stability and security concerns. Saudi Arabia largely views the conflict through the Iranian lens, and the larger geostrategic game that plays out between the two purported leaders of the Muslim world.

But what of Qatar, a tiny Gulf state whose main strategic goal is to keep the Strait of Hormuz open so that it can export its liquefied natural gas across the world, bringing it untold riches? Syria plays no part in Qatar's strategic calculations, so why is Qatar getting so deeply entangled in a conflict into which even the great powers seem afraid to tread?

Qatar, it seems, is driven in this particular endeavour by the force of the emir and his prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani. Both men feel that Qatar has a role to play in reconstructing the Arab world after the upheavals it has experienced. Wherever and whenever it can, Qatar then will seek to have an influence on the process of events in the region around it.

The trouble is that apart from his prime minister and perhaps a handful of advisers no one really knows what the emir wants. We in Doha play a guessing game trying as best we can to interpret Qatar's actions within a foreign policy framework. Many of my meetings are replete with shoulder shrugs and "don't knows": it is a frustrating business.

So here is my guess. The emir wants to secure a legacy for himself as the man who took the Arab world into a more activist phase of multilateral action. As the man who pushed a lethargic, divided region to stand up and solve Arab problems with Arab action, backed by the use of force for those who don't seem to get the message. A certain Mr Gaddafi and Mr Assad being the primary targets who needed "education".

For what it's worth, I do believe that Qatar sees both the Syrian and Libyan interventions in a moral light. Many Qataris are deeply angry that Syrians are being shot and shelled by their own government and don't possess the means to defend themselves. While I cannot speak for the emir, this is certainly a factor in the thinking of Sheikh Hamad.

There are some who think Qatar has bitten off more than it can chew. A tiny state whose entire civil service numbers less than the staff of Saudi Arabia's interior ministry cannot surely be expected to make the correct strategic calculations in such a complex and violent conflict. But persevere it has, and now Qatar is deeply engaged on a number of fronts, supporting disparate groups comprising the Free Syrian Army along with its Turkish and Saudi allies.

It is a dangerous task and, as I have previously warned, the winds of the Syrian conflict may yet blow back upon Qatar. But for Sheikh Hamad the expense is worth it in the long run, for what will emerge from all Qatar's activism is a more decisive Arab arena, shorn of the weaknesses and divisions that have so long plagued it.

Will the emir's dream become a reality? Who knows, but for now the man is putting his money where his mouth is, and opposition fighters in Syria are receiving the benefits.

• This article first appeared in Open Democracy's Arab Awakening section

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Amnesty International has released satellite images to back up its accusation of war crimes by the Syrian government.

President Bashar al-Assad promised to “ purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite."

The images below show residential neighborhoods full of artillery impact craters and other signs of total war. 

As the case for war crimes builds, so does the likelihood that foreign powers will be dragged into Syria.

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Kofi Annan has just three weeks left to serve out his time as the UN envoy for Syria. Understandably disappointed at the failure of what others had called "mission impossible" – a description he came to agree with – he lamented two aspects of the crisis: its increasing militarisation and the disunity of the security council. Earlier, in a Guardian interview, he had deplored the "destructive competition" of the five big powers who still sit round the world's "top table" on New York's East river.

It bears repeating that Syria is first of all a human tragedy, with thousands of dead and many thousands more lives ruined in the bloodiest chapter of what in happier or more naive times and circumstances was called the Arab spring. Feelings are running high. For some, however, principled objections to western policy clearly weigh more heavily than the suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of a government that used deadly force from the moment protests erupted in Deraa in March 2011.

It is a moot point whether diplomacy could ever have succeeded in ending the carnage. Syria, it has been wisely observed, is where the Arab uprisings met the cold war and the Sunni-Shia divide. Regional and international rivalries worsened by the Libyan crisis last year, sectarian incitement and a fight to the death for regime survival all make for a toxic mixture.

For most elements of Syria's fractured opposition, Assad's acceptance of Annan's six-point peace plan was only ever a way to buy time, exploit divisions and carry on killing. The regime barely observed a ceasefire that notionally began in April or implemented any of the plan's other five conditions. The armed opposition accepted it but carried on fighting even as mass peaceful protests continued.

Yet the cartoon book claim that "the west" (conspiring with compliant Arabs) has malevolently blocked an agreement that a principled Russia tirelessly supported does not stand up to scrutiny. (Nor does the closely related and deeply patronising notion that Syrians who are prepared to risk all for freedoms others take for granted are mere puppets in the hands of others.)

In June, Annan decided to try to jump-start a political transition. In his draft statement of principles for the Geneva conference on 30 June, the key passage sought the widest possible consensus on forming a unity government in Damascus – a negotiated way out of the escalating confrontation. The language he proposed was deliberately vague and fudged the burning question of whether Assad had to go. It was a model of diplomatic ambiguity that could mean different things to different people but – perhaps – serve as a basis for movement. Russia rejected it. The final Geneva text was even blander, accommodating Moscow's objections to say that a transitional unity government could be formed by "mutual consent". Annan hailed the agreement. But the truth was that it gave Assad and his supporters a veto over their own departure. It was hardly going to convince their opponents that a deal could be done.

Violence on the ground rapidly outstripped this agonisingly convoluted diplomacy. No element in the opposition is currently prepared to even consider Annan's plan, the Geneva principles or a transition that leaves Assad or his closest supporters in place. That is as true of groups such as the National Coordination Bureau and Building the Syrian State, which once advocated talks with the government, and still spurn violence and foreign intervention, as it is of the Muslim Brotherhood or extremist Salafis now fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army.

In mid-July Britain drafted a new UN resolution that repeated the call for a "Syrian-led political process" (language supported by Russia). Nowhere did it advocate "forced regime change" as the blame-the-west brigade falsely claims. It was tabled under chapter 7 of the UN charter to trigger sanctions in the event of noncompliance with Annan's plan – specifically the withdrawal of heavy weapons. It used article 41, which excludes military action. Russia and China vetoed the resolution. The US, Britain and France supported it. Pakistan and South Africa, nonpermanent members of the council, abstained. India, not part of the nefarious "west," was among the 11 others that supported it.

Annan, insist UN diplomats, also wanted a security council resolution – and told Vladimir Putin so – since without it there was no means of applying any pressure to Assad. And lest there be any doubt about where he stood, Annan stated publicly when he announced his resignation that Assad would "sooner or later" have to go. He singled out the Syrian government for blame and castigated Russia, China and Iran for failing to use their influence with Assad.

No one can be sure whether unity at the world's "top table" could have stopped the downward spiral of this terrible crisis. Syria's agony certainly shows no sign of ending any time soon. The blame game may be useless. But it is worth stating for the record who did what and who was largely responsible for the most recent failure of diplomacy by what passes for the international community.

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This footage, reportedly from the Syrian town of Daraa and filmed yesterday, appears to show a rebel funeral being interrupted — but not stopped — by shelling.

WATCH:

(Via @YTHumandRights)

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Veteran fighters of last year's civil war in Libya have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organize rebels under conditions far more dire than those in the battle against Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan-Irish fighter has told Reuters.

Hussam Najjar hails from Dublin, has a Libyan father and Irish mother and goes by the name of Sam. A trained sniper, he was part of the rebel unit that stormed Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli a year ago, led by Mahdi al-Harati, a powerful militia chief from Libya's western mountains.

Harati now leads a unit in Syria, made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit. He asked Najjar to join him from Dublin a few months ago, Najjar said.

The Libyans aiding the Syrian rebels include specialists in communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons, he said. They operate training bases, teaching fitness and battlefield tactics.

Najjar said he was surprised to find how poorly armed and disorganized the Syrian rebels were, describing Syria's Sunni Muslim majority as far more repressed and downtrodden under Assad than Libyans were under Gaddafi.

"I was shocked. There is nothing you are told that can prepare you for what you see. The state of the Sunni Muslims there - their state of mind, their fate - all of those things have been slowly corroded over time by the regime."

"I nearly cried for them when I saw the weapons. The guns are absolutely useless. We are being sold leftovers from the Iraqi war, leftovers from this and that," he said. "Luckily these are things that we can do for them: we know how to fix weapons, how to maintain them, find problems and fix them."

In the months since he arrived, the rebel arsenal had become "five times more powerful", he said. Fighters had obtained large caliber anti-aircraft guns and sniper rifles.

Disorganization is a serious problem. Unlike the Libyan fighters, who enjoyed the protection of a NATO-imposed no-fly zone and were able to set up full-scale training camps, the rebels in Syria are never out of reach of Assad's air power.

"In Libya, with the no-fly zone, we were able to build up say 1,400 to 1,500 men in one place and have platoons and brigades. Here we have men scattered here, there and everywhere."

LACK OF UNITY

Although many rebel units fight under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, their commands are localized and poorly coordinated, Najjar said.

"One of the biggest factors delaying the revolution is the lack of unity among the rebels," he said. "Unfortunately, it is only when their back is up against the wall that they start to realize they should (unite)."

Syria's uprising has evolved into an all-out civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting the mainly Sunni rebels against security forces dominated by Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad is backed by Shi'ite-led Iran and opposed by most Arab states, which are ruled by Sunnis.

"This is not just about the fall of Assad. This is about the Sunni Muslims of Syria taking back their country and pushing out the minority that have been oppressing them for generations now," Najjar said.

The presence of foreign fighters is a sensitive issue for Syria's rebels. Assad's government has taken to referring to the rebels as "Gulf-Turkish forces", accusing the Sunni-led Arab Gulf states and Turkey of arming, funding and leading them.

Harati's unit is known as the Umma Brigade, referring to the global community of Muslims. Najjar said thousands more Sunni fighters from the Arab world were gathering in neighboring countries prepared to join the cause.

Harati is reluctant to enlist them because he does not want his cause tarnished by the perception that foreign Islamists are linked to al Qaeda, Najjar said, but he said that many of the foreigners were making their way to Syria on their own.

The Umma Brigade's Facebook page shows a picture of Najjar aiming his rifle in what looks like an open field. In another he is posing with Harati and rebels. A YouTube video shows Harati leading an attack on a checkpoint in Maarat al-Numan in Syria.

Najjar said militancy would spread across the region as long as the West does not do more to hasten the downfall of Assad.

"The Western governments are bringing this upon themselves. The longer they leave this door open for this torture and this massacre to carry on, the more young men will drop what they have in this life and search for the afterlife," Najjar said.

"If the West and other countries do not move fast it will no longer be just guys like me - normal everyday guys that might do anything from have a cigarette to go out on the town - it will be the real extreme guys who will take it to another level."

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The embassies of several Gulf states in Beirut, Lebanon, are telling their citizens to leave the country immediately as Syria's civil war spills over the border.

The UAE received information about its nationals being targeted "because of the difficult and sensitive circumstances in Lebanon."

Saudi Arabia cited "reported threats to kidnap Saudi citizens" in Lebanon, according to BBC News.

In May Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait (along with the UAE) issued similar travel warnings, urging their citizens to avoid traveling to Lebanon – which lies along the western border of Syria – and that those in the country leave immediately.

The evacuation orders come amid reports that armed Shiite clansmen in Lebanon kidnapped more than 20 Syrians "and will hold them until one of their relatives seized by rebels inside Syria is freed," according to AP.

The kidnappings (or associated threats) may be in response to a Syrian rebel strategy to abduct those perceived as supporters of the embattled Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, specifically Iranians and Lebanese Shiites.

In May the predominantly Sunni rebel force kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shiites as they crossed into Syria from Turkey and earlier this month rebels captured 48 Iranians near Damascus.

From AP:

Lebanon is deeply divided between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime. The country, which was devastated by its own 15-year civil war that Syria was deeply involved in, has witnessed clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian groups over the past months, mostly in the northern city of Tripoli.

Assad's minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is being actively supported by Shia-dominated Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon while predominantly Sunni nations such as Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have strongly supported the rebels.

SEE ALSO: Syria Is Looking At A Complete Free-For-All If The Assad Regime Falls >

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Bashar al-Assad's enforcer brother Maher lost a leg in a bomb attack on the Syrian leader's security cabinet on July 18, according to Reuters sources. 

The Syrian president's younger brother – known as the "most feared man in the country," "the Butcher of Dera'a" and "the enforcer" –  is the commander of the Syrian army's Republican Guard and 4th Division, which are elite formations largely composed of troops from the Assads' minority Alawite sect.

From Reuters: 

"We heard that he (Maher al-Assad) lost one of his legs during the explosion, but don't know any more," a Western diplomat told Reuters.

A Gulf source confirmed the report: "He lost one of his legs. The news is true."

A Saudi paper had previously reported that a Russian deputy foreign minister told them Maher Assad lost both legs, but Russia denied the report.

The July 18 attack on a meeting of Assad's security chiefs in Damascus killed four members of the president's inner circle: his defense minister, who was the highest ranking Christian in the regime; his brother-in-law, who was deputy commander of the military; his military adviser to the foreign minister; and his national security chief.

Maher has not been seen in public since the attack while Assad has only been seen on recorded clips broadcast on television.

An Islamist rebel group called Liwa Al Islam, or "the Brigade of Islam," told Reuters that it had planted explosives in the building as part of a month long plot, and video of the attack seems to confirm their claim.

The civil war in Syria has already claimed the lives of at least 18,000 people and has begun to spill over its borders amid sectarian tensions.

SEE ALSO: Syria Is Looking At A Complete Free-For-All If The Assad Regime Falls >

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The United States and its allies are discussing a worst-case scenario that could require tens of thousands of ground troops to go into Syria to secure chemical and biological weapons sites following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad's government, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.

These secret discussions assume that all of Assad's security forces disintegrate, leaving chemical and biological weapons sites in Syria vulnerable to pillaging. The scenario also assumes these sites could not be secured or destroyed solely through aerial bombings, given health and environmental risks.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to explain the sensitive discussions, said the United States still had no plans to put boots on the ground in Syria. President Barack Obama's administration has, in fact, so far refused to provide lethal support to the rebels fighting to oust Assad's regime and the Pentagon has played down the possibility of implementing a no-fly zone anytime soon.

"There is not a imminent plan to deploy ground forces. This is, in fact, a worst-case scenario," the official said, adding U.S. forces would likely play a role in such a mission.

Two diplomatic sources, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said as many as 50,000 or 60,000 ground forces may be needed if officials' worst fears are realized, plus additional support forces.

Even a force of 60,000 troops, however, would not be large enough for peacekeeping and would only be the amount required to secure the weapons sites - despite some of the appearances of a Iraq-style occupation force, the diplomatic sources cautioned.

It is unclear at this stage how such a military mission would be organized and which nations might participate. But some European allies have indicated they are unlikely to join, the sources said.

The White House declined comment on specific contingency plans. Spokesman Tommy Vietor said that while the U.S. government believes the chemical weapons are under the Syrian government's control, "Given the escalation of violence in Syria, and the regime's increasing attacks on the Syrian people, we remain very concerned about these weapons.

"In addition to monitoring their stockpiles, we are actively consulting with Syria's neighbors - and our friends in the international community - to underscore our common concern about the security of these weapons, and the Syrian government's obligation to secure them," Vietor said.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

POTENTIALLY DOZENS OF SITES

While there is no complete accounting of Syria's unconventional weapons, it is widely believed to have stockpiles of nerve agents such as VX, sarin and tabun.

The U.S. official said there were potentially dozens of chemical and biological weapons sites scattered around the country.

Securing them could not be left to an aerial bombing, which could lead to the dispersion of those agents, the official said.

"There could be second-order effects that could be extremely problematic," the official said of aerial bombing.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that it was important that Syrian security forces be held together when Assad is forced from power, citing, in particular, their ability to secure chemical weapons sites.

"They do a pretty good job of securing those sites," Panetta said in an interview with CNN in July. "If they suddenly walked away from that, it would be a disaster to have those chemical weapons fall into the wrong hands, hands of Hezbollah or other extremists in that area."

The United States, Israel and Western powers have been discussing the nightmarish possibility that some of Assad's chemical weapons could make their way to militant groups - al-Qaeda style Sunni Jihadi insurgents or pro-Iranian Shi'ite Lebanese fighters from Hezbollah.

Some Western intelligence sources suggested that Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards, both close allies of Syria, might try to get hold of the chemical weapons in the case of a total collapse of government authority.

Syria began to acquire the ability to develop and produce chemical weapons agents in 1973, including mustard gas and sarin, and possibly also VX nerve agent.

Precise quantities and configurations of chemical weapons in the Syrian stockpile are not known. However, the CIA has estimated that Syria possesses several hundred liters of chemical weapons and produces hundreds of tonnes of agents annually.

The Global Security website, which collects published intelligence reports and other data, says there are several suspected chemical weapons facilities in Syria.

Analysts have also identified the town of Cerin, on the coast, as a possible production site for biological weapons.

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Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests.  Their involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long bloody conflict that will know no frontiers or limits.

Ongoing disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February of 2011 have set off alarm bells in Riyadh.  The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests and fear that the problems will spill over the twenty-five kilometer long COSWAY into  oil rich Al-Qatif, where the bulk of the two million Shia in the kingdom are concentrated.  So far, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations a serious as those in Bahrain, but success in the island kingdom could encourage the protestors to become more violent.

Protecting the oil is the first concern of the government.  Oil is the sole source of the national wealth and it is managed by the state owned Saudi Aramco Corporation.  The monopoly of political power by the members of the Saud family means that all of the wealth of the kingdom is their personal property.  Saudi Arabia is a company country with the twenty-eight million citizens the responsibility of the Saud Family rulers.

The customary manner of dealing with a problem by the patriarchal regime is to bury it in money.  King Abdullah announced at the height of the Arab Spring that he was increasing the national budget by 130 billion dollars to be spent over the coming five years.  Government salaries and the minimum wage were raised.  New housing and other benefits are to be provided.  At the same time, he plans to expand the security forces by sixty thousand men.

While the Saudi king seeks to sooth the unrest among the general population by adding more government benefits, he will not grant any concessions to the eight percent of the population that is Shia. He takes seriously the warning by King Abdullah of Jordan back in 2004 of the danger of a Shia Crescent that would extend from the coast of Lebanon to Afghanistan.  Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and the Shia controlled government of Iraq form the links in the chain.

When the Arab Spring reached Syria, the leaders in Riyadh were given the weapon to break the chain.  Appeals from tribal leaders under attack in Syria to kinsmen in the Gulf States for assistance could not be ignored.  The various blinks between the Gulf States in several Syrian tribes means that Saudi Arabia and its close ally Qatar have connections that include at least three million people out of the Syrian populations of twenty-three million.  To show how deep the bonds go, the leader of the Nijris Tribe in Syria is married to a woman from the Saud Family.

It is no wonder that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in February that arming the Syrian rebels was an “excellent idea."  He was supported by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani who said, "We should do whatever necessary to help [the Syrian opposition], including giving them weapons to defend themselves."  The intervention has the nature of a family and tribal issue that the prominent Saudi cleric Aidh al-Qarni has turned into a Sunni-Shia War by promoting Assad’s death.

The Saudis and their Qatar and United Arab Emirate allies have pledged one hundred million dollars to pay wages to the fighters.  Many of the officers of the Free Syrian Army are from tribes connected to the Gulf.  In effect, the payment of wages is paying members of associated tribes.

Here, the United States is not a welcomed partner, except as a supplier of arms.  Saudi Arabia sees the role of the United States limited to being a wall of steel to protect the oil wealth of the Kingdom and the Gulf States from Iranian aggression. In February of 1945, President Roosevelt at a meeting in Egypt with Abdel Aziz bin Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, pledged to defend the kingdom in exchange for a steady flow of oil.

Since those long ago days when the U.S. was establishing Pax Americana, the Saudis have lost their trust in the wisdom or the reliability of American policy makers.  The Saudis urged the U.S. not to invade Iraq in 2003 only to have them ignore Saudi interests in maintaining an Iraqi buffer zone against Iran.  The Saudis had asked the U.S. not to leave a Shia dominated government in Baghdad that would threaten the Northern frontier of the Kingdom, only to have the last American soldiers depart in December 2011.  With revolution sweeping across the Middle East, Washington abandoned President Mubarak of Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s favorite non royal leader in the region. 

Worried by the possibility of Iranian sponsored insurrections among Shia in the Gulf States, the Saudis are asserting their power in the region while they have the advantage.  For thirty years, they have been engaged in a proxy war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Syria is to be the next battlefield, but here, there is a critical difference from what were minor skirmishes in Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere.  The Saudis with the aid of Qatar, and the UAE is striking at the core interests of Tehran; and they have through their tribal networks the advantage over an isolated Islamic Republic.

Tribal and kinship relations are being augmented by the infusion of the Salafi vision of Islam that is growing in the Gulf States.  Money from the Gulf States has gone into the development of religious centers to spread the fundamentalist belief.  A critical part of the ideology is to be anti-Shia.

Salafism in Saudi Arabia is promulgated by the Wahhabi School of Islam.  The Wahhabi movement began in the eighteenth century and promoted a return to the fundamentalism of the early followers of the Faith.

The Sauds incorporated the religious movement into their leadership of the tribes.  When the modern state of Saudi Arabia was formed, they were granted control of the educational system and much else in the society in exchange for the endorsement of the authoritarian rule.  

When the Kingdom used its growing wealth in the 1970s to extend its interests far from the traditional territory in the battle against the atheistic Soviet Union, the Wahhabi clergy became missionaries in advancing their ideology through religious institutions to oppose the Soviets.  More than two hundred thousand jihadists were sent into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet forces and succeeded in driving them out.

There is no longer a Soviet Union to confront.  Today, the enemy is the Islamic Republic of Iran with what is described by the Wahhabis as a heretical form of Islam and its involvement in the Shia communities across the region.  For thirteen centuries, the Shia have been kept under control.  With the hand of Iran in the form of the Qud Force reaching into restless communities that number as many as one hundred and six million people in what is the heart of the Middle East, the Saudis see a desperate need to crush the foe before it has the means to pull down the privileged position of the Saud Family and the families of the other Gulf State rulers.

The war begins in Syria where we can expect that a successor government to Assad will be declared soon in the Saudi controlled tribal areas even before Assad is defeated.  The territory is likely to adopt the more fundamentalist principals of the Salafists as it serves as a stepping stone to Iran Itself.  It promises to be a bloody protracted war that will recognize no frontier and will know no limits by all of the participants.

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