Saudi Arabia and Iran must end proxy war in Syria (Gulf News)

After last week’s suspension of non-lethal aid to the Free Syrian Army by the US and UK,
western strategy towards the country lies in tatters. Washington and London were forced to
act after Islamist rebels, including the Al Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,
took over the headquarters and warehouses of the western-backed Free Syian Army (FSA) and
reportedly seized anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, some of which are said to be American-
supplied.

This humiliating defeat shows the rise of the Islamist rebels, most of whom oppose political
dialogue with President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and call for the establishment of a Quranic-
based state. It also demonstrates the near-collapse of the FSA, which the west had hoped
would unify the rebels, lead the campaign to topple Assad, and then take on Al Qaida. Many of
the armed groups, including the powerful Islamic Front, say they do not recognise the
western-backed political opposition, the Syrian National Coalition, as a legitimate
representative and warn it against participating in next month’s proposed peace conference in
Geneva.

In the past year warfare among the armed rebels has overshadowed the bigger fight against Al
Assad, allowing his forces to gain the upper hand and make tactical gains in Homs, Damascus
and even the rebel stronghold Aleppo. Emboldened, Al Assad and his henchmen, with the
backing of Iran and Russia, have repeatedly reminded the opposition they will not go to
Geneva to hand over power to a transitional government.

Last week, the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, conceded that Washington’s approach to
Syria is in disarray. Even Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, called on the rebels to
“avoid discord and unite”, reflecting Moscow’s anxiety that the opposition’s fragmentation
does not bode well for the peace talks.

Hopes buried

After almost three years of urban warfare, the uprising has mutated and produced unintended
consequences. It has been hijacked by religious hardliners, criminal warlords and regional
rivalries. The early hopes and dreams of millions of Syrians of an open, inclusive and
pluralistic post-Al Assad government are now buried in the country’s killing fields.
From the beginning, the odds were against the nationalist opposition. It was always
overwhelmingly dependent on regional powers for military and financial support, which left it
vulnerable to external manipulation.

Alongside this, the Obama administration’s initial grandstanding insisting that Al Assad must
step down and that his days were numbered was not matched by credible strategic planning
or an accurate assessment of conditions on the ground. Britain and France repeated the US
line without preparing for the fact that Syria could implode and trigger a catastrophic
humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by the recent freezing temperatures, and a regional war.

Syria is now mainly a battlefield where Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging a proxy war, with
devastating sectarian repercussions. It is doubtful the peace talks can be even convened, let
alone produce results, without an implicit understanding between the two warring Gulf
powers. While Saudi Arabia exercises considerable influence on Islamist rebels, Iran is crucial
to Al Assad’s survival.

Both have much to gain from preventing Syria’s implosion. Under its new president, Iran may
be willing to cut the umbilical cord with Al Assad, who has become a big liability for Tehran in
the Arab world. Similarly, if Saudi Arabia can use its influence, it may avoid militant Islamist
rebels haunting Syria’s neighbours for years to come. It is a tall order, but the stakes for the
Syrian people and the international community are huge.

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Syrian children play with snow in the Arsal refugee camp on (CNN)

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British surgeon dies in Syrian jail (REUTERS)

A British surgeon who was arrested last November within 48 hours of
arriving in Syria to offer his services as an emergency doctor has died in
jail, his family said on Tuesday.

The family of Abbas Khan, 32, an orthopedic surgeon from south London
who had planned to volunteer in rebel-held Aleppo, was told he would be
released this week, his brother Afroze Khan told the BBC. But when his
mother went to visit him in prison in Damascus on Monday she was told he
had died, he said.

The BBC reported that a Syrian government official said Khan, a father of
two, had committed suicide. But his brother said that was impossible, given
that he was preparing to go home with his mother who had spent the past
four months in the Syrian capital to be near her son.
“He was happy and looking forward to being released,” Khan said. “We are
devastated, distraught and we are angry at the Foreign Office for dragging
their feet for 13 months.”
The British foreign office said it was “extremely concerned” by the report,
and defended its actions.
“If these tragic reports are true, responsibility for Dr Khan’s death lies with
them (the Syrian authorities) and we will be pressing for answers about
what happened,” it said in a statement.

The foreign office said officials had frequently sought consular access to
Khan as well as information on his detention, both directly and through the
Russians, Czechs and others. Britain closed its embassy in Damascus in
February 2012.
“These requests have consistently been ignored,” it said.
Khan said when his mother arrived his brother weighed just 32 kg (70
pounds) and was barely able to walk. In letters Abbas Khan wrote to British
Foreign Secretary William Hague, he said he had been tortured in detention
and kept in isolated, squalid conditions.

Reuters was not able to reach the Khan family for comment.
Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International’s Syria campaigner in the United
Kingdom, said the British government should denounce Khan’s death and
ensure that those responsible were brought to justice.
A second Briton, 23-year-old Ifthekar Jaman, was reported to have been
killed in Syria at the weekend after joining a rebel extremist group opposed
to President Bashar al-Assad.

The foreign office said it was aware of the report and was seeking
clarification, but added again that its options for supporting Britons in Syria
were “extremely limited”.
“We continue to advise against all travel to Syria,” it said.
A partnership of five universities based at King’s College London reported
on Tuesday that between 3,300 and 11,000 fighters from more than 70
nations, including a rising number from Western Europe, have joined the
struggle in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad.

After security forces repressed peaceful protests against more than 40
years of Assad family rule in 2011, an armed revolt ensued with an
increasingly sectarian element.
Well over 100,000 people have been killed and millions forced from their
homes.

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A Syrian man feeds his child in the Arsal refugee camp in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Sunday, December 15. Thousands of Syrian refugees living in makeshift camps in Lebanon weathered a winter storm that brought snow, rain and freezing temperatures to the country. (CNN )

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Washington Post: Terrorists' Camps to train Syrian children to carry weapons (Syrian Arab News Agency)

Washington, (SANA) – U.S. journalist Joby Warrick, a
Washington Post reporter, revealed a video footage showing
young boys being trained at camps affiliated to the "Islam
State of Iraq and Sham".

In a report published on Washington Post Newspaper under
the title " Extremist Syrian faction touts training camp for
boys", Warrick said that the video shows hooded recruits in
camouflage shoot at targets or march in formation under the
black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, adding that all
of the trainees are young boys.

" But look closer and the “fighters” appear quite small. The
tallest are barely chest-high to their instructors, and the
shorter ones wear ill-fitting uniforms and appear to struggle
under the weight of their weapons. A photo of the recruits
without their hoods confirms that all of them are young
boys," he wrote.
"They are “Zarqawi’s Cubs,” the youth brigade of Syria’s most
fearsome Islamist rebel group and one of the newest
manifestations of al-Qaeda’s deepening roots in rebel-
controlled sections of the country. Building on earlier efforts
to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radical Islamists
appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train
children, some as young as 10, according to independent
experts who have studied the phenomenon", he added.
The reporter goes on saying that " The establishment of the
Zarqawi’s Cubs camp — revealed in a video posted last month
by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — is viewed as
particularly worrisome because of the similarities to Iraq’s
“Birds of Paradise.” That brigade was created a decade ago by
the same terrorist group, in its earlier incarnation as al-Qaeda
in Iraq, to train children for military missions, including
suicide bombings".

Last month, The Syrian Ministry of Expatriates and Foreign
Affairs sent two messages to the Secretary-General of the UN
and Chairman of the UN Security Council, saying that children
are being exposed to many types of crimes at the hands of the
armed terrorist groups, including recruiting, abducting and
killing them. The Ministry added that the terrorists are also
occupying schools and using them as torturing centers.

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Don't let Syria become another Afghanistan - IRC's Miliband (REUTERS)

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The world must stop Syria
becoming "another Afghanistan", the head of a major aid agency
warned Monday as the United Nations launched a $6.5 billion
appeal for the Middle East country.

David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee
(IRC), also said that starvation is now threatening large numbers of
Syrians after the first winter storm of the season.
He told the BBC News channel that Syria was facing “an absolute
catastrophe – a middle-income country dissolving in front of our
eyes”.

Miliband, a former British foreign secretary in the Labour
government, said the international community was failing Syria and
called for world leaders to “step up several gears” to address the
enormous humanitarian needs.
“We cannot afford the creation of another Afghanistan in the (heart)
of the Middle East,” he told the BBC. “For the world to turn away is a
terrible mistake.”

More than three decades of conflict in Afghanistan has caused a
massive humanitarian crisis with millions of refugees fleeing into neighbouring Pakistan and
Iran. The Afghan refugee population reached 6.6 million in 1990. It is down to 2.58 million now
but is still the world's biggest refugee crisis although the Syrian refugee population is
expected to overtake it soon.

The U.N. appeal for Syria, the biggest in history for a single emergency, coincides with the
release of an IRC study which shows that bread prices in some areas have risen 500 percent in
two years. Four in five communities surveyed said food was their greatest need.
“These findings show that starvation is now threatening large parts of the Syrian population,”
Miliband said in a statement. “With polio on the loose, and a sub-zero winter already here, the
people of Syria now face months of more death and despair.”
Other goods are also in short supply. Blankets are unavailable to buy in 95 percent of the
communities surveyed, the IRC said. Where they are available, the $27 cost is more than 90
percent of the average monthly income. The study also showed there was limited access to
clean water and severe shortages of basic medical items such as antibiotics, painkillers, and
gauze in many regions.

Miliband also said international humanitarian law was being broken in Syria with pregnant
women subjected to sniper fire and doctors and aid workers targeted.
The United Nations estimates nearly three-quarters of Syria's 22.4 million population will need
humanitarian aid in 2014.

“We’re facing a terrifying situation here where, by the end of 2014, substantially more of the
population of Syria could be displaced or in need of humanitarian help than not,” U.N. refugee
chief António Guterres said at the launch of the appeal.
The United Nations is seeking $2.3 bln to help 9.3 mln people in Syria next year, and another
$4.2 bln to help 4.1 mln Syrian refugees and host communities in five neighbouring countries -
Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and Iraq.

  In photo-   Syrian refugees sit by their tent in a Syrian refugee camp on the Lebanese border town of
Arsal, on December 15, 2013. REUTERS/Ahmad Shalha

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‘Slaughtered like sheep’: Eyewitnesses recount massacre in Adra, Syria (Russia Today)

New details of atrocities carried out by Islamist rebel
fighters in the town of Adra, 20 kilometers north of
Damascus, continue to pour in from survivors of the
massacre there, in which reportedly at least 80 people lost
their lives.

"The decapitators" is how the Adra residents, who managed to flee the violence there, now call
the people who currently have the town under their control. Adra, a town with a population of
20,000, was captured by Islamist rebels from the Al-Nusra front and the Army of Islam last
week, following fierce fighting with the government forces. The town’s seizure was
accompanied by mass executions of civilians.

RT Arabic has managed to speak to some of the eyewitnesses of the atrocities. Most of them
have fled the town, leaving their relatives and friends behind, so they asked not to be
identified in the report for security reasons.

An Adra resident said he escaped from the town “ under a storm of bullets.” He later contacted
his colleagues, who described how the executions of civilians were carried out by the
militants.

“They had lists of government employees on them,” the man told RT. “ This means they had
planned for it beforehand and knew who works in the governmental agencies. They went to
the addresses they had on their list, forced the people out and subjected them to the so-
called “Sharia trials .” I think that’s what they call it. They sentenced them to death by
beheading. ”

A woman, hiding her face from the camera, told RT of the beheadings she had seen.
“There was slaughter everywhere ,” she said. “ The eldest was only 20 years old; he was
slaughtered. They were all children. I saw them with my own eyes. They killed fourteen people
with a machete. I don’t know if these people were Alawites. I don’t know why they were
slaughtered. They grabbed them by their heads and slaughtered them like sheep .”
It’s been reported that 80 civilians were killed in the massacre. The death toll could still grow,
as currently the information coming from Adra is scarce. The town has been surrounded and
isolated by the Syrian army, who have been trying to force the extremists out.

“Civilians told us that the workers of an Adra bakery were all executed and burned during the
first hours of the attack. Whole families were massacred. We do not have an exact estimation of
the number because we are unable to get into the town, but the number is high, ” Kinda
Shimat, Syria’s Social Affairs Minister, told RT.

Details of the executions are trickling out of the town as eyewitnesses tell their stories.
“They killed everyone at the Adra Ummalia police station ,” another fugitive from the town told
RT. “ And they killed everyone at the Adra Ummalia hospital where my sister works. She stayed
alive only because she didn’t show up for work that day. There are about 200 people at the
police station. They are civilians. The militants are hiding among them, using them as a shield
to prevent the Army from bombing the police. ”

The events in Adra are a further example of the shift that has taken place within the Syrian
Qrebel forces which has lately been dominated by Islamist extremists, according to Michel
Chossudovsky, director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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The Daily Star: 75 Swedish fighters joined al-Qaida-linked groups fighting in Syria

Sweden's security police "SAP" said that at least 75 people have left the country to join al-
Qaida-linked groups fighting in Syria since mid-2012.

Those who travel from Sweden are mainly men aged between 18 and 30. Many are new recruits,
who haven't been involved with militant Islamist groups before.
In April SAPO said it believed around 30 fighters had left Sweden for Syria.

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A car suffering mostly cosmetic damages sits among a pile of debris as residents gather on the hazy streets following the attack. Locals said Syrian government helicopters dropped barrels laden with explosives in at least 10 different districts across Syria's largest city (RT)

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Exclusive - Syria region where polio found excluded from 2012 vaccination drive (REUTERS)

(Reuters) - The Syrian government excluded the largely rebel-
held province of Deir al-Zor - where polio broke out this year -
from a 2012 vaccination campaign, arguing that most residents
had fled although hundreds of thousands were still there, a
Reuters investigation shows.

Public health researchers say missing out the Syrian province
contributed to the reemergence there of polio, a highly
infectious, incurable disease that can paralyse a child within
hours but has been wiped out in many parts of the world.
In November, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said 13
cases had been found in the province. Two more have since
been recorded there and the virus has surfaced in Aleppo city
and near Damascus, the first outbreak since 1999 in Syria,
where civil war has raged since a crackdown on protests in
2011.

A Dec 6, 2012, WHO statement said it, in conjunction with the
Syrian Ministry of Health and the United Nations Children's
Fund, had launched a campaign to vaccinate "all children below
the age of five against polio".
It said the campaign, involving 4,000 health workers and
volunteers, would cover roughly 2.5 million children in 13 of
Syria's 14 governorates except for Deir al-Zor as "the majority
of its residents have relocated to other areas in the country".
It was not possible to contact the Syrian government for
comment on its reported decision to leave out Deir al-Zor, a region of roughly 1.2 million
people, where more than 600,000 under 15s were living in 2012, according to WHO data.
By December of that year, rebels had taken territory in other provinces as well.
While international agencies support such vaccination campaigns, designed to fill gaps left
when emergencies prevent routine vaccinations, it is a country's government which
decides when and where they will take place.
Asked to comment on researchers' allegations aid groups should have raised the alarm
earlier and prepared better, Chris Maher, who is coordinating the regional polio response
for the WHO, said it had warned vaccination rates were falling.
The Dec 2012 and the Oct-Nov 2013 campaigns were planned and organised in response to
that, he said. "In a complex emergency setting, it is not that easy to continue routine
campaigns."

PARTIAL VACCINATION LATER
Maher said it was reported that 67,000 children under the age of five were subsequently
vaccinated in Deir al-Zor in January 2013.
Public health researchers say that is a coverage rate of around 50 percent, insufficient to
prevent polio from spreading, based on census data. The actual population is hard to
establish; some residents fled while other people fled into Deir al-Zor from elsewhere.
Repeated vaccinations and high coverage levels are needed to interrupt transmission of the
virus and prevent outbreaks.
"There was a lack of a proper campaign to vaccinate children across the country over the
past two years," said Dr Adam Coutts, a Lebanon-based public health researcher who has
been studying the humanitarian response in Syria.
"With the breakdown of the health system, sanitation and nutrition, the exclusion of Deir
al-Zour from the vaccination campaign provided the ideal conditions for an outbreak to
occur."
It was not clear why the remote province near Syria's border with Iraq was singled out.
The city of Deir al-Zor is partially controlled by Syrian government forces while the
countryside around it is in the hands of rebels fighting to remove President Bashar al-
Assad.
Maher did not say whether there were other vaccination campaigns in Deir al-Zor during
2012 but confirmed that there was one in October this year, around the same time that
polio cases were found in Deir al-Zor.
Asked if he thought leaving a gap in the 2012 campaign allowed polio to take hold in Deir al
Zor, Maher said: "There are unimmunised kids all over Syria."
"I have no information that that particular area was higher risk than anywhere else given
the general deterioration of immunisation rates during the conflict."
He said polio vaccination coverage had dropped across Syria from more than 90 percent in
2010 to below 70 percent in 2012.
United Nations humanitarian agencies work in Syria with the permission of the Syrian
government, which has blocked aid convoys to some areas of the country. Opposition
fighters and clashes have also hampered access for aid work.
Despite dramatic progress many parts of the world thanks to a 25-year-old campaign to
eradicate the disease, Polio is still endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
There is no cure and it can only be prevented through immunisation, usually three doses.
The WHO's long-standing and repeated warning on the disease is that as long as any child
remains infected, children everywhere are at risk.
"Questions remain as to why WHO did not better prepare for this, given their own
recognition about the risk of outbreaks," said Coutts, whose colleague Dr Fouad Fouad
shares his concern.
The WHO says the largest-ever immunisation response in the Middle East is under way,
aiming to vaccinate more than 23 million children against polio in Syria and neighbouring
countries.
"Inside Syria, the campaign aims to reach 2.2 million children, including those who live in
contested areas and those who were missed in an earlier campaign. Many children in Syria
remain inaccessible, particularly those trapped in sealed off areas or living in areas where
conflict is ongoing," it said.
The WHO says almost 2 million children in Syria have already been vaccinated, including
600,000 in contested areas of the country, in the first of several rounds.
Coutts says public health professionals in the region are concerned that this response is
"too little too late and is exposing a deeper failure of regional health agencies and systems
to respond to a very predictable health crisis".

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