Syria

The USG Open Source Center translates the statement at the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sharply condemning Israel: Text of “Russian Foreign Ministry statement in connection to reports about air strikes by the Israeli Air Force on targets on Syrian territory” published on the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on 31 […]

Syria

Syrian Horror Show, as Obama, Kuwait Pledge Refugee Aid (+ Cole Interview)

Juan Cole

The UN donors’ conference in Kuwait made some progress on Wednesday morning toward its goal of $1 billion in aid to the some 700,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom are shivering in tents in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Kuwait stepped up big time, pledging $300 million. Kuwait has a long tradition of careful and well-executed […]

Syria

237 Dead in Syria day of Horrors, 87 killed at Aleppo U

Juan Cole

An enormous explosion hit Aleppo University on Tuesday, killing some 87 students and wounding over 150. The motive for the bombing is obscure. The regime holds the university and the area around it, so there is no reason for it to bomb the campus (though government bombing can go astray). But there is also nothing […]

Syria

Syrian Regime Bombards Damascus Suburb, Kills 36, as Rebels close on Air Base

Juan Cole

The Baath regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad showed its increasing desperation on Sunday when it had fighter jets bombard the eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus, killing some 36 people (some of them non-combatants). The regime bombed this area because the revolutionaries are using it as a base from which to attack the Muleiha air […]

Israel/ Palestine

Cole : “The Syrian Regime Will Likely Fall, but it Could Take Time” (WorldView Show)

Juan Cole

I was interviewed by Denis G. Campbell of the UK Progressive for his internet news and affairs program, the WorldView Show, and the exchange has just been posted. We mainly talked about the ongoing violence in Syria and its regional implications, and about the plight of the Palestinians.

Syria

The Syrian Opposition Attacks Bashar al-Assad’s Defiant Speech (Aljazeera & Alarabiya via OSC)

Juan Cole

The USG Open Source Center translates broadcasts from Arabic satellite television concerning the speech on Sunday of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in which he again dismissed his opposition as terrorists and blamed outside hands at the same time as he called for a vague political process. The revolutionaries were scathing in their responses. Pan-Arab TVs […]

Syria

Syria’s Head of Military Police Defects, as Death Toll in Revolution Climbs to 45,000

Juan Cole

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Jasim al-Shalal, head of Syria’s military police, defected late Tuesday to Turkey, joining the revolutionaries against the regime. He announced his defection in a YouTube video, saying that the Syrian army is no longer fulfilling its primary mission, of defending the country from attack, but rather has become a gang attacking […]

Egypt

Christmas 2012: The Flowering of Middle Eastern Christianity and the Challenges it Faces

Juan Cole

There are more Middle Eastern Christians than ever before, and they are poised between emergence as a new political force in a democratizing region and the dangers to them of fundamentalism and political repression. The arguments you see for Christian decline in the region are mostly wrong. If we count the Christians in the Arab […]

Syria

200 Dead, Many Children, in Syrian aerial bombing of Halfaya

Juan Cole

Opposition forces said that Syrian fighter jets bombed the town of Halfaya near Hama on Sunday. The bombs struck a crowd standing in line to buy bread, and some 200 victims are said to have been killed, and dozens more injured. The attack on Halfaya likely was the regime’s response to its fighters confronting the […]