Epstein Secrets

of the army. The collapse of the regime would impact the Arab-Israeli peace process and would have strategic implications for Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as for the power balance in the broader region. EFTA00695504 In a special session on Friday, the UN Human Rights Council conde

ts, demonstrators marched on the streets of the city calling for the downfall of President Assad's regime. Tensions also remain high in the city of Daraa as the military siege continues. On Sunday morning, Syrian security forces, with reinforcements, managed to reach the old quarter of the city and oc

o long, as the case with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya or Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Additionally his positions vis-a-vis Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, two topics that are dear to the hearts of grassroots Syrians, have given him a protective shield that other Arab leaders do not

ential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban gave a press conference at 6 pm on Thursday evening, in response to violent demonstrations in the southern town of Daraa near the border with Jordan. President Bashar al-Assad, she stressed, had given strict orders not to fire at demonstrators with live ammunition - a

g point of the pilgrimage to the Holy Cities, would have been heresy at the time. France would acquire a mandate over the territories of Syria (and Lebanon) in the aftermath of the Great War. The French ruled a turbulent, unhappy country for a quarter century. Urban/Sunni Syria never really took to the

raeli, hence the immunity of his regime. He was at one with his people, he said. Then a group of boys in mid-March, in the forlorn southern town of Daraa, went out and scribbled anti-regime graffiti on the walls. They were picked up and tortured. It was as though the custodians of this dictatorship k

e because of his disclosures. U.S. officials appear to be skeptical of allegations that chemical weapons have been moved outside Syria, to Iraq or Lebanon, as claimed by Sakat and others. So it's best to treat those reports with caution. But Israeli officials are said to believe that the EFTA_R1_0220

security or, perhaps, concealment. Sakat's most compelling information was his account of being ordered to use the toxic chemical phosgene in the Daraa area of southern Syria, a stronghold of rebel support, last year. The Syrian defector said that at the time he supervised chemical weapons for the

--- Article 2. Le Monde diplomatique Is This the End of the Assad Dynasty? Patrick Seale 2011-05-06 -- The disturbances started in mid-March in Daraa, a southern city on the border with Jordan, when a dozen children were manhandled, arrested and carried off to Damascus for scribbling hostile graffi

have believed that the Arab nationalist ideology he inherited, his opposition to Israel and his support for resistance movements such as Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, gave him immunity from popular discontent. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on 31 January, he claimed that Syria could

e an obstacle to their ambitions. But nature abhors a vacuum, and what will come will be unpredictable, at best. The protests started in mid-March in Daraa, in southern Syria, a city that has suffered from drought and neglect by the government in Damascus. The heavy hand of the ruling Baath party was par

lwark against Israeli and American hegemony. With backing from Washington, Israel has sought to smash Hezbollah (notably through its 2006 invasion of Lebanon) and detach Syria from Iran, a country Israel views as its most dangerous regional rival. Neither objective has so far been realized. But now that Sy