The Daily Monitoring Report – Saturday – 07-07-2012

                                                                                   July 7^th, 2012

- On Friday, some 89 people were martyred at the hands of the Assad battalions, mostly in Rif Dimashq, Daraa and Idleb. In addition, anti-regime demonstrations erupted across the country under the slogan of the “Friday of People’s Liberation War” in spite of the heavy shelling against many regions nationwide on the part of the Assad troops.⁽²⁾

Field Mobility

- Yesterday (Friday), some 632 demonstrations erupted nationwide, of which 140 demonstrations in Hama, 93 in Aleppo, 75 in Idleb and 61 in Daraa, according to the Local Coordination committees.⁽²⁾

- Evening demonstrations took place in many regions of the Syrian capital such as Al-Mezzeh, Qudssaya, Bab Sraijeh, Kafr Sousseh, Al-Zahera and Al-Midan in support of Daf Al-Shouk and Al-Tadamon. Moreover, the demonstrators called for staging a general strike in the capital on Saturday and Sunday.⁽²⁾

Political Mobility

- Chairman of the Syrian National Council (SNC) Abdul Basit Sida called on participant in the Friends Of Syria Conference to take a decision imposing a no-fly zone and opening humanitarian corridors in Syria. Addressing the Conference, Sida said “such measures must come within a decision to be issued by the United Nations Security Council as per Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter which permits international sanctions and the resort to force. He underlined that the regime of Bashar Al-Assad began to become weak saying “the regime will collapse and will lose control on the ground”. He also added that the solution to the Syrian crisis should start with the Assad departure.^(1)(2)(4)(5)

- Media reports said that Moscow would receive two prominent Syrian opposition key figures, namely chairman of the Syrian National Council (SNC) Abdul Basit Sida and the Syrian intellectual Michel Kilo next week.⁽¹⁾⁽⁴⁾

Internal Situation

- An official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that a fire in a Syrian refugee camp in southern Turkey killed two children and injured six others. He went on to say that the fire erupted after a gas bottle used for cooking exploded inside the Yayladağı Camp for the refugees, asserting that the fire was under control later.^(1)(2)(3)

Activities of Civil Organizations

- Thousands of families in Syria have fled their homes in the past two weeks due to heavy fighting between government forces and rebels and many face food shortages, the United Nations said on Friday. More than 10,000 Syrian refugees have been registered in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey in the past two weeks, bringing the total registered in those countries to more than 103,000, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OCHA.^(1)(4)(5)

Political Stances

Syria

- Source close to the Assad authorities said, “It seems that Brigadier General Manaf Tlass have defected three days ago and left Syria.” The sources pointed out that Tlass left to Paris to join his wife and sister, Nahed Ojjeh, widow of Saudi billionaire arms dealer Akram Ojjeh.⁽²⁾⁽⁴⁾

Arab

- Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani called on the Paris “Friends of Syria” conference not to issue useless statements without result. In his speech to the conference, Al-Thani said it is possible to do more outside the UN Security Council, citing previous incidents in which the international community has already done so. He added, “We want a safe way out for the Syrian leadership to leave the Syrian people without restoring to the scorched earth policy.”^(1)(2)(3)

- The next “Friends of Syria” conference will be held in Rabat, as the Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Eddin Othman invited all bodies concerned to participate in the conference to be held in the Moroccan capital.⁽²⁾

International

- Friends of Syria conference calls for a UN Security Council binding resolution on Syria under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the departure of Bashar Al-Assad, as well as increasing aid to the Syrian opposition. The proposed resolution falls under Article 41 of Chapter VII, whose means of pressure are limited to the imposition of sanctions.^(1)(2)(4)

- Participants in the Friends of Syria conference are unanimous that Al-Assad should depart. The conferees stressed the need to exclude people whose presence might threaten credibility of the transitional process.^(1)(2)(4)

- In his speech to the Friends of Syria conference, French President Francois Hollande said the Syrian conflict has become a threat to international peace and security. Hollande called on the conference to adopt five commitments on the situation in Syria, and hoped that the Paris meeting speeds up research for a political solution.^(2)(6)(7)

- The five commitments includes; rejecting “impunity for crimes,” pushing “the real and effective application of economic sanctions,” securing greater support for the opposition including “giving them means of communication,” providing more humanitarian for the Syrian people, and making a pledge to help the Syrian people to “rebuild his country.”⁽²⁾

- A senior French diplomat says gains that have recently achieved on the ground by the opposition fighters in Syria created indicators that urged even Moscow to consider a post-Assad Syria. The diplomat added that situation on the ground has remarkably changed over the past three weeks, as it was impossible for the Assad security forces to reach some areas controlled by the rebel fighters. “Now we hear things by political and military circles in Russia that astonish us and we have not heard before,” added the French diplomat.⁽³⁾

- The Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said defections prove that the Syrian government is crumbling, adding, “Every day, generals, colonels, officers are coming, and we have, I think, around 20 generals and maybe 100 high-rank officers.”⁽³⁾

- In her speech to the Friends of Syria conference, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for resorting to the UN Security Council to issue a resolution on the transition process in Syria according to Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Clinton urged the conferees to directly and urgently make it clear that Russia and China will pay a price because they are holding up progress and back the Assad regime.^(1)(2)(3)(4)

- The United States welcomes defection of Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, a senior officer in the Assad army. Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. John Kirby said, “He is a senior officer in the Assad army and a friend of Al-Assad, so we don’t believe this defection should be taken lightly,” adding that the United States “welcomes this defection and thinks it is important.”^(1)(2)(4)

- The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended to the UN Security Council on Friday that its Syria monitoring mission shift focus from observing a non-existent ceasefire to securing a political solution to the conflict in Syria, in parallel with reducing military observer component. Ki-moon hoped that capacities of the UN observer mission be increased to maximum in order to facilitate political dialogue between the Assad regime and its opponents. The mission should be redeployed from the field to Damascus to minimize risks, added Ki-moon.⁽³⁾⁽⁴⁾ 

- In response to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said she was contradicting the common strategy agreed by the world powers at Geneva last week to end the bloodshed in Syria.⁽²⁾⁽³⁾

Sources

1	Asharq Al-Awsat
2	Aljazeera net
3	Reuters
4	AFP
5	AP
6	Guardian
7	Telegraph