Syria's Christians Flee As Kidnappings, Rapes, And Executions Escalate In Rebel Controlled Areas

Soldiers loyal to the Syrian regime walk near a damaged church in Qusair, Syria, June 6. (CNS/Reuters/Rami Bleibel)

Syria’s Christians Flee Kidnappings, Rape, Executions -- Daily Beast

Running from assault, abduction, and assassination at the hands of jihadists and FSA rebels, Syria’s ancient Christian community fears a religious pogrom is set to erupt.

Traumatized by what they have endured inside Syria and fearful for their future, Christians fleeing the 32-month-long civil war say the persecution of Christians is worsening in rebel-held territories in the country’s north—and that the kidnapping, rape and executions of Christians aren’t just being carried out by jihadist groups, but also by other Sunni Muslim rebels, including those affiliated with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Christian refugees who have recently arrived in southeast Turkey—many of whom are retreading the steps of their forebears, who fled persecution in southern Turkey during the last century—say Christians are being seen as fair game by an assortment of jihadists and Islamist rebels, including FSA-affiliated fighters and others with the Army of Islam. Most of the targeting of Syrian Christians has been blamed on al Qaeda affiliates Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Syria and Sham (ISIS), but refugees like 45-year-old school director Rahel say the picture inside is more confused.

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My Comment: Half a million Christians have fled Syria in the past 2-3 years .... I predict that most of the remaining one and a half million Syrian Christians will be gone in the next 2-3 years.

Ethnic Cleansing Is Occuring In Syria

Photo: Click on image to enlarge

Battle For Strategic Syrian Town Shows Why War Has Displaced Millions -- Roy Gutman and Paul Raymond, McClatchy

REYHANLI, Turkey — Late in August, when world attention was focused on the poison gas attack near Damascus, Syrian government forces were waging an intense assault against a small rebel-held town 150 miles to the north.

The spotlight never touched on Ariha, south of Idlib, even after Sept. 3, when Syrian state media announced that the government had “cleansed” the town of “terrorist gangs.” But the two-week battle helps illuminate why Syria’s civil war has created such a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

To “cleanse” the town, government helicopters dumped dozens of “barrel bombs” – improvised explosive devices filled with shrapnel and varying in size from a large pipe to a garbage Dumpster – on houses and shops, multiple witnesses told McClatchy. Tanks and howitzers fired into the town, and the army also fired mortars, gravity bombs, vacuum bombs and cluster bombs.

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My Comment: This is ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population who have the misfortune of living in strategic areas of the country .... pure and simple.

The Syrian Government Admits That The Civil War Has Reached A Stalemate

Smoke rises from behind a building in Jobar, Damascus. The Syrian conflict has lasted two years and left 100,000 people dead. Photograph: Reuters

Syrian Government Says Civil War Has Reached Stalemate -- The Guardian

Exclusive: Deputy PM says neither side is strong enough to win and government will call for ceasefire at Geneva talks.

The Syrian civil war has reached a stalemate and President Bashar al-Assad's government will call for a ceasefire at a long-delayed conference in Geneva on the state's future, the country's deputy prime minister has said in an interview with the Guardian.

Speaking on behalf of the government, Qadri Jamil said that neither side was strong enough to win the conflict, which has lasted two years and caused the death of more than 100,000 people. Jamil, who is in charge of country's finances, also said that the Syrian economy had suffered catastrophic losses.

"Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side," he said. "This zero balance of forces will not change for a while."

Meanwhile, he said, the Syrian economy had lost about $100bn (£62bn), equivalent to two years of normal production, during the war.

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My Comment: No one else in the media is reporting on this story .... but this is a Guardian exclusive. We will update this story as more news reports come in.

U.S. Official: The Syrian Civil War Is Now A War Of Attrition

U.S. Official Predicts ‘War of Attrition’ Among Syrian Fighters After Strike -- New York Times

VILNIUS, Lithuania — A senior State Department official said on Friday that the military strike the United States is planning would not fundamentally alter the military balance in Syria and would likely be followed by a prolonged “war of attrition” among the Syrian combatants.

‘I don’t expect huge, huge change on the day after on the ground,” said the official, who is traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry to a meeting here with European Union foreign ministers on the Middle East.

“That grinding war of attrition will continue and the regime’s manpower shortages will continue to grow, but I would not expect a breakthrough on the ground.”

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My Comment: I have been saying the same thing for the past year .... the Syrian civil war is now a war of attrition, and if the Syrian regime should find themselves losing a man for every rebel killed .... they will lose the war. This is probably why the Syrian government is contemplating (and using) chemical weapons .... they want to tilt the balance of the war to their side, and by decimating rebel strongholds they may just accomplish that.

Update: The above video is an impressive photo gallery of the Syrian civil war in 2012

UN Prepares For A Post-Assad Syria Deployment

UN Plans Post-Assad Syria Deployment -- Al Jazeera

Exclusive Al Jazeera report details world body's plans for troop deployment if Bashar al-Assad's regime falls.

For more than two years, the world has stood by as the violence in Syria has intensified.

Both Bashar al-Assad's government and the opposition seem determined to fight to the death.

Arab and Western capitals have watched the events with horror, but there is little appetite for intervention: Neither the humanitarian price of well over a million registered refugees - although the real figure is much larger - nor a death toll of at least 70,000 have proved to be "tipping points" for the international community.

Nevertheless, world leaders have been drawing up contingency plans in case the situation in Syria decisively changes.

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My Comment: Everyone is hesitant to commit their soldiers on the ground in Syria .... and who would blame them. But it is prudent for the UN to at least position themselves to prepare for the fall of the Assad regime .... and that is where they are right now.