UPDATE II (Aug 3, 2012 01:20 PM):
It seems that my post below was based on two Reuters blog entries that were hacked and put up by the hacker for disinformation purposes. My post below the updates is thereby likely very wrong. (Thankfully though I used enough qualifiers in it to not be seen as totally gullible.) I will not change my original piece but, for documentation purpose, keep it as it is.
Reuters took down those two hacked post shortly after I blogged about them. Then the site blog.reuters.com went completely dead. You can follow the story has it happened by reading through the post below and the earlier comments thereto.
For the record: I was first made aware of the first Reuters post by this tweet by Maya Naser and of the second Reuters post through this tweet by Orthodox warrior. Please note: I have followed those accounts for several weeks now and have absolutely no reason to believe that these two persons knew that they were distributing links to hacked pieces.
END UPDATE II
UPDATE (Aug 3, 2012 12:15 PM):
Something weird happened. As you can tell from the first comments to this post Reuters deleted both pieces I linked in it very shortly after I posted about them. Both links are now dead. As those pages were still open in my browser window I immediately made screenshots. Here is the screenshot of the first piece I linked. The screenshot from the second link/piece in two parts. I have no idea why Reuters pulled especially the second rather juicy piece.
END UPDATE – original posted August 3, 2012 at 11:20 AM follows below.
This just in from Reuters:
The Syrian rebels fighting the forces of Assad have fallen in key districts of their stronghold Salah Al Deen in Aleppo. This comes hours after the army has announced that it has destroyed the communication network provided by Turkey. Earlier the rebel forces have complained that they are running low on ammunition as the city has been completely surrounded by government forces, coupled with lack of communications, has left the rebels in disarray. Several trucks with mounted heavy machine guns have been destroyed, leading to the deaths of 20 rebels.
According to footage on the ground, the rebel forces in Aleppo have failed to take Aleppo Citadel, contrary to earlier reported news. A journalist on the ground, Hussein Murtada, has reported that an attempt to damage the ancient Citadel’s walls by rebel missiles was repelled by security forces, resulting in the death of General Mustafa Al Sheikh and Abdul Jabar Aqede, field Marshals of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo.
This is very much what I had expected:
If the Syrian army is able to cut the insurgents supply lines into Aleppo it only has to fix them on the ground to slowly fight them down.
With their communications destroyed, their commanders dead, low on ammunition and surrounded there was no alternative for the foreign supported insurgents than to give up.
Reuters' Jeffrey Goldfarb has more and some of it is really explosive:
The chief leader of Syrian Free Army (FSA) has stated on Friday that the Syrian Free Army has tactically withdrawn from Aleppo province after severe clashes took place yesterday between the regular army and FSA.
[Riad] Al-Asaad confirmed on a phone call to Reuters that the regular army killed 1000 soldiers of Free Syrian Army and arrest around 1500.
That is quite a huge loss of the insurgencies personal.
He added that Syrian regular army carried out several airdrops on Friday early morning.
Those airdrops, probably parachuters by helicopter, will not have been in the city. I guess they have been between Aleppo and the Turkish border 30 miles north to cut of the supply and retreat route for the fighters in Aleppo.
Riad Al-Asaad said that the Syrian Free Army will withdraw from all Syrian cities due to the huge losses caused upon the soldiers, as well, the betrayals made by rebels, due to in-fighting amongst them, for money and positions. They are expected to re-coordinate in Turkish territory where they have set up secret bases under the close supervision with the Turkish government and the Israeli intelligence service.
One wonders how Turkey will now handle these insurgents. Will it try to build them up for another attack or will it finally stop supporting them? And to admit that Israeli(!) intelligence plays a key role here, some David Ignatius of the Washington Post had mentioned earlier, is quite a blow for the insurgents and their supporters moral.
It is not clear how much the alleged FSA commander Riad Al-Asaad really has to say about which insurgent group or how much he is lying here. But if what he said next is true, then we are much nearer the end of the crisis than anyone thought:
Riad Al-Asaad accused Qatar and Saudi Arabia of betraying him, dealing secretly with the Syrian regime.
He revealed that Riyadh and Doha has made a secret deal with Damascus to eliminate the Syrian Free Army for investments and privileges in Syria post conflict. Information about all the leaders of the FSA has been passed on according to Riad Al-Assad.
Assad made a deal with the Saudis and Qatar? I do believe very much that this is possible but some caution is warranted to believe this until we have further confirmation. If a deal was made who did it? (Manaf Tlass?)
The consequences of such a deal would be immense. Without the money and support from the Gulf the whole scheme to bring down Syria will collapse. I very much doubt that the U.S. and/or Turkey will want to continue this without the Arab League backing them.
If such a deal indeed was made then the Turkish premier Erdogan will have a huge loss of face and will be in serious political trouble.
What is then left to do for the Syrian army is to hunt down the foreign Jihadists of who at least some 200, likely many more, are now in Syria. It may even get help doing so. As the Pentagon think tank RAND recommended today:
The U.S. and its allies should launch a covert campaign to ramp up intelligence-collection efforts against al Qaeda [in Syria], capture or kill its senior leaders, and undermine its legitimacy.
Did all the reports about AlQaeda and foreign fighters in Syria had this impact. Was it the turn in western media coverage that did this? Did Washington finally understand the need to climb down?
Could the RAND recommendation mean that the U.S., behind the doors, pushed the Gulf states towards this deal? And what was that baseball bat phone call Obama had with Erdogan a few days ago about? Was that also related to the deal? Did Kofi Annan step down because the deal was done and the issue finished? The last graph from Jeffery Goldfarb is ominous:
These rapid developments have all occurred 24 hours and are related to the resignation of UN envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, who has been accused of participating in a “plot already set against the FSA”, Al-Asaad concluded to Reuters via private channels.
Whatever. It will be very, very interesting to find out what actually happened here.
