Matthew 18 Who Is the Greatest

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 31/2012

Bible Quotation for today/Watchful Servants
Luke 12/35-40: "Be ready for whatever comes, dressed for action and with your lamps lit, like servants who are waiting for their master to come back from a wedding feast. When he comes and knocks, they will open the door for him at once. How happy are those servants whose master finds them awake and ready when he returns! I tell you, he will take off his coat, have them sit down, and will wait on them. How happy they are if he finds them ready, even if he should come at midnight or even later! And you can be sure that if the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, he would not let the thief break into his house. And you, too, must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Syria: 100 killed in a day/By Tariq Alhomayed/ January 30/12
The dream of the revolution is sweeter than its reality/By Mshari al-Zaydi/January 30/12 s

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for January 30/12
IAF commander: Israel's aerial superiority is in danger
Netanyahu: Prospects of progress in Mideast peace talks 'not good'
Statement by Minister Baird on Saeed Malekpour and Youcef Naderkhan Death Sentence In Iran
Iran: Death sentence for 'promoter of porn' upheld
Iranian protestors: IAEA leaks, Mossad kills
Hamas' Meshal holds rare meeting with Jordan King in Amman
Tumult in Akkar over Reports of Death of Lebanese 'Gunmen' in Homs
New UNIFIL chief: Respect Blue Line
Mikati says Lebanon closer to launching electricity plan
Lebanese banks to stop buying treasury bills if deficit is not cut
Iran offers Lebanon reduced-price electricity
2 Lebanese missing, feared dead on border
Charbel: Reports on alleged assassination plot being checked
Aoun’s tirade against Hariri era draws ire
Saniora: Aoun’s Call for Protests is an Insult to Lebanese
99 Killed Sunday as Syria Rebels Say Clashes Inching Closer to Capital
Arab League chief heads to UN to seek support for Syria plan
President Assad's forces regain Damascus suburbs, say Syrian activists
Syria rebels in Lebanon lend support to comrades
Syria onslaught menaces capital
Assad Supporters Stage Sit-in Outside Russian Embassy in Beirut

IAF commander: Israel's aerial superiority is in danger
By Gili Cohen/Haaretz /Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan says that amid regional instability, the advanced weaponry acquired by Middle Eastern countries could fall into the hands of terrorists. Israel Air Force chief Ido Nehushtan said Sunday that Israel's aerial superiority in the Middle East is in danger, since neighboring countries are being equipped with increasingly advanced weaponry which could end up in the hands of terrorists. Speaking at the Annual International Space Conference in Herzliya, Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan said the IAF is facing growing challenges. "The increasing presence of advanced weaponry in the Middle East poses a challenge to Israel's aerial superiority," he said. "This trend is being aided by Iran and challenges the IAF's aerial superiority, which is the force's key advantage."
Nehushtan said that he is very worried by the situation in Syria. "Syria is a country with a large army and the internal process that it is undergoing increases the danger of weapons ending up in the hands of terrorists." The IAF chief said that despite Syria's turmoil, it is still purchasing advanced weapons such as planes and anti-missile aircraft worth billions.
"Maintaining aerial superiority has always been an issue of concern to the IAF chief, but more so recently," he stressed. He added that Hamas and other terror organizations are taking advantage of the current instability in Egypt in order to operate in the Sinai Peninsula.

New UNIFIL chief: Respect Blue Line
January 30, 2012/By Mohammed Zaatari/The Daily Star
NAQOURA, Lebanon: Newly appointed commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon Maj. Gen. Paolo Serra of Italy said over the weekend that he was committed to working with the Lebanese Army. Outgoing UNIFIL head Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta Cuevas handed over command of the international force to Serra in a ceremony Saturday attended by foreign and Lebanese diplomats in south Lebanon. In his first speech as the head of the international force, Serra said he was fully committed to working with the Lebanese Army, and thanked the Lebanese government and its people for welcoming him. He added that Israel and Lebanon should respect the Blue Line and cooperate with the 12,000-strong United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon force, whose mandate was extended last year until August 2012. “The respect for the Blue Line by the parties and their cooperation in UNIFIL’s effort to further the visible marking of the Blue Line is a process that can support the improving of the general security for the people of southern Lebanon,” he said. Serra also praised his predecessor.
“It would not be easy for me to follow your footsteps,” he said. “But rest assured that I will give my best, my complete commitment, to continue this joint effort to bring peace and stability to the region.”
Meanwhile, Asarta praised the Lebanese Army in his farewell speech to mark the end of his two-year stint as commander of the U.N. force. “Working in close partnership with UNIFIL, [the Lebanese Armed Forces] demonstrated, time and again, and despite constraints faced, its professionalism and outstanding commitment to fulfill Resolution 1701,” he said. Asarta added that the presence of UNIFIL could not continue indefinitely and that Israel and Lebanon, technically in a state of war, should reach an agreement for a permanent cease-fire. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for a cessation of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, was passed in August 2006 in order to help end a month-long conflict between the two countries. Asarta also said the Lebanese Army still need assistance to be able to successfully control the border, and praised the “enduring bond” between the people of south Lebanon and UNIFIL.
“Over the past two years, our relationship acquired ever new forms of interaction and we made every effort to gain the understanding and support of the local population, so vital for the fulfillment of our tasks,” he said. The former commander was honored late Saturday night by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri at his residence in Ain al-Tineh, during a ceremony in which Berri praised Asarta’s work, and thanked Spain and all of the Spanish contingent’s peacekeepers. “Another friend leaves us after serving the south and its residents for two years,” Berri said. “He knew them, and they knew him, in both good and bad times. He lived with them and witnessed the truth of their cause and suffering.” Serra, the new UNIFIL commander, has an extensive military career and wide experience in multinational peace operations. In 2009, he was appointed chief of staff of NATO’s Rapid Deployable Corps.-Italy. From 2004-07, he served as army attache at the Italian Embassy in the U.S. He has also worked closely with the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The Italian defense minister, who arrived in Beirut Friday and held several talks with high-ranking officials, is expected to visit his country’s 1,000-strong contingent in UNIFIL. Last year, six Italian peacekeepers were wounded after a roadside bomb targeted a U.N. vehicle on a highway leading to the southern port city of Sidon. The attack prompted Rome to plan a reduction in the size of its troops in the international peacekeeping force. During a news conference Friday, Di Paola reiterated Italy’s commitment to security in Lebanon, describing it as a crucial element for stability in the Middle East.

Iran: Death sentence for 'promoter of porn' upheld
Associated Press/Revolutionary Guard website says Saeed Malekpour headed biggest Persian-language network of porn sites . Iran's state media said Sunday that the Supreme Court upheld a death sentence against a web developer convicted of spreading corruption. The semiofficial Fars news agency said blogger Saeed Malekpour was found guilty of promoting pornographic sites, adding that the Supreme Court approved the death sentence handed down by a Revolutionary Court that deals with security crimes. Malekpour was reported imprisoned in October, 2008 and confessed on Iranian TV that he developed and promoted pornographic websites. The website gerdab.ir, affiliated with the elite Revolutionary Guard, called Malekpour the head of the biggest Persian-language network of pornographic websites.In 2001 an Iranian porno actress was stoned to death for appearing in "perverse and immoral" films.

Statement by Minister Baird on Pastor Youcef Naderkhani and Saeed Malekpour Death Sentence In Iran
January 29, 2012 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today issued the following statement:
“Canada is deeply concerned about reports that Iranian citizen Saeed Malekpour’s death sentence has been confirmed by the Iranian authorities. His case is but one example of the refusal by Iranian authorities to respect their international human rights obligations. “On December 26, 2010, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was told that her death sentence may still be carried out in the form of a hanging. She has been forced to confess to charges of murder and adultery on Iranian television. “Iranian authorities sentenced seven administrators of the Baháí Institute for Higher Education to four- and five-year sentences solely on the basis of their faith. “On January 14, 2012, Pastor Youcef Naderkhani was asked to renounce his Christian faith or face execution for the charge of apostasy.
“Iran’s current leaders regularly ignore their obligations under international law and have failed to meet internationally recognized norms of due process and transparency.
“We call on Iran to reverse its current course and meet its international human rights obligations and release prisoners such as Saeed Malekpour and others who have failed to receive fair and transparent legal treatment.”
For further information, media representatives may contact:
Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874
Follow us on Twitter: @DFAIT_MAECI

Iranian protestors: IAEA leaks, Mossad kills
News agencies /IAEA nuclear inspectors begin critical mission to Iran to probe allegations of secret atomic weapons program, receive frosty welcome from Iranian protestors blaming them for leaks, assassinations . UN nuclear inspectors began a critical mission to Iran on Sunday to probe allegations of a secret atomic weapons program amid escalating Western economic pressures and warnings about safeguarding Gulf oil shipments from possible Iranian blockades. The inspectors received a frigid welcome as they were greeted by a dozen Iranian hard-liners carrying photos of slain nuclear expert Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan at Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport early Sunday. Iranian state media allege that Roshan, a chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, was interviewed by IAEA inspectors before being killed earlier this month in a targeted bomb attack that Iran claims is part of an Israeli-led covert campaign of sabotage and slayings. Roshan was at least the fourth member of Iran's scientific community to be killed in apparent assassinations.
In Vienna, the IAEA said it does not know Roshan and has never talked to him. Iran also has accused the IAEA in the past of security leaks that expose its scientists and their families to the threat of assassination by the US and Israel. The ISNA news agency reported Sunday that the Islamic Republic said it would cooperate with the IAEA team but indicated it would not give up uranium enrichment, which it considered a sovereign right."We have always been open with regards to our nuclear issues, and the IAEA team coming to Iran can make the necessary inspections," Ali-Akbar Velayati, advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, told the ISNA news agency.
"We will, however, not withdraw from our nuclear rights as we have constantly acted within international regulations and in line with the laws of the non-proliferation treaty," Velayati said.
Meanwhile, Iran's parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, called the visit a "test" for the UN agency, according to the website of the official IRIB state broadcaster.The IAEA team will be looking for permission to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of working on a weapons program. They also plan to inspect documents related to nuclear work and secure commitments from Iranian authorities to allow future visits. It's unclear how much assistance Iran will provide, but even a decision to enter a discussion over the allegations would be a major departure from Iran's frequent simple refusal to talk about them.
The findings from the three-day visit could greatly influence the direction and urgency of US-led efforts to rein in Iran's ability to enrich uranium which Washington and allies fear could eventually produce weapons-grade material. Iran has declined to abandon its enrichment labs, but claims it only seeks to fuel reactors for energy and medical research. The International Atomic Energy Agency team is likely to visit an underground enrichment site near the holy city of Qom, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Tehran, which is carved into a mountain as protection from possible airstrikes. Earlier this month, Iran said it had begun enrichment work at the site, which is far smaller than the country's main uranium labs but is reported to have more advanced equipment

Syria rebels in Lebanon lend support to comrades
January 30, 2012/ By Nicholas Blanford/The Daily Star
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: The sheikh, a small wiry figure with long straggly hair and an intense gaze, leaned forward proffering his cellphone.“Look, look,” he said. “This is what the Shabiha are doing to us.”
The flickering video images on the phone showed two prisoners lying on the side of a road with their hands tied behind their back. A man holding a knife bends down and pulls back the head of the first prisoner and with a few savage thrusts severs it from the body. The executioner then repeats the act with the second prisoner. The final image shows the severed heads placed on top of the bodies.
Another video shows a similar sickening scene. This second executioner is dressed in black with a black ski mask covering his face. He picks up the freshly severed head, drops it on the road and gives it a kick like a football to the laughter of his off-camera companions.It was impossible to confirm the identity of the killers and the prisoners, although there were no Islamic exhortations – such as “Allah u-Akbar” – that usually accompany such executions when carried out by Islamist extremists.
But how did the sheikh obtain the video if it was shot by an Alawite Shabiha militiaman?
“When we capture the Shabiha, we always check their cellphones for information and sometimes we find these videos on them,” said Sheikh Zuheir Amr Abassi, from Deraa in southern Syria and spokesman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Syria. Abassi, who said he helps provide logistical support for the rebel Free Syrian Army, was among a group of five FSA officers and soldiers in hiding in the sheikh’s small drab apartment in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood of Tripoli. Sunni-populated areas of north Lebanon, particularly Wadi Khaled, are fast becoming relative safe havens for growing numbers of FSA fighters to regroup and plan attacks against the regular Syrian army and security forces. “The only place we feel really safe is here in Bab al-Tabbaneh,” Abassi said.
The FSA men were from Homs and they regularly slip across the border using secret smuggling trails. But they denied that they launched military operations from Lebanese territory.
“We are respecting Lebanese sovereignty and Lebanese law and we don’t launch attacks from here. But we are operating very close to the border on the Syrian side,” said Mohammad, one of the officers from Homs in his late 30s who wore a thick wool jacket against the cold.
The FSA is composed of deserters from the regular Syrian army augmented by civilian volunteers, and is commanded by Colonel Riad al-Assad who defected last summer and lives in a refugee camp in Turkey. Its strength is unknown although FSA leaders and Syrian opposition figures have claimed numbers as high as 40,000. Others say the figure is much lower. “We’re deserting because the regime makes us kill civilians. The Alawite officers stand behind us and they shoot anyone they see not firing at protesters,” said Ahmad, who said he deserted six months ago from a military intelligence unit in Damascus.
Lately, the FSA has escalated its attacks, managing to carve out tenuous regime-free pockets of territory, even on the outskirts of Damascus. At least 16 Syrian soldiers were killed Sunday in two separate attacks, one in the Jabal al-Ziwiya in the northwest and the other near the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya.
As efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the 10-month uprising look doubtful, international attention is focusing more closely on the FSA and whether it could play a decisive role in toppling the Assad regime in the months ahead. Abassi said that there are secret channels of communication between the FSA and soldiers and officers serving in the regular army. “A potential deserter will contact us and give us his name and rank. We will ask him his job in the army. If he’s of use to us, we tell him to stay where he is so he can smuggle weapons to us or provide us with intelligence. Otherwise, we tell him to desert only when he has a rifle and plenty of ammunition,” he said.
As an example, Abassi recounted how an army officer in charge of a weapons depot was recruited into the FSA. He says the officer was given a Thuraya mobile satellite phone and asked to make arrangements for the FSA to raid the arms depot. “He called us one night and said all was clear. We sent 20 guys with duffle bags to the depot and they filled them with weapons and ammunition,” he said.
The FSA has a cellular structure with units operating from towns and cities across the country. Abassi says there is no direct communications between the battalions, but each unit commander is contact with Colonel Assad in Turkey.
The FSA also includes religious cadres. While FSA units are granted autonomy to attack targets of opportunity without prior authorization, Abassi said, for pre-planned attacks the more devout cadres seek a fatwa, a religious edict, from Syrian dissident clerics. “It’s up to each unit whether they want a fatwa before any military operation. We usually obtain fatwas for each attack we plan, but for those that don’t, if they kill someone, it’s between them and God when they die,” Abassi says. The FSA concentrates its attacks on interrogation centers, arms depots and against pro-regime Shabiha militiamen, who have earned a reputation among the opposition for their brutality. There is evidence that some units have managed to obtain relatively advanced systems such as RPG-29 and Kornet-E anti-tank missiles both of which can easily penetrate the armor of Syrian BMP fighting vehicles used by frontline troops. But the FSA generally suffers from an unreliable supply of weapons and ammunition.
“We need everything,” said Mohammad. “RPGs, PKC [light machine guns], silencers, ammunition. There are so many of us that we need much more than we are getting.”
The FSA has called for international assistance in establishing no-fly zones and safe havens where the regular Syrian forces cannot operate. However, there is little appetite in the West to intervene militarily in Syria, even to the extent of establishing safe havens. “If we were given these two, most of the army would desert and join us,” Abassi said. “We are not asking the West to intervene but just to give us weapons, safe havens and no-fly zones. We can do the rest.”

Syria onslaught menaces capital
January 30, 2012 02:37 AM
Daily Star/Agencies/DAMASCUS/CAIRO: At least 80 people, half of them civilians, were killed across Syria and fierce clashes broke out near the Syrian capital Sunday. The intensifying crackdown has prompted President Bashar Assad’s opponents to crank up the pressure for U.N. action after the Arab League withdrew its observers. The day’s toll raised the count since Friday alone to 175 dead, activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Observatory’s head, Rami Abdul-Rahman, told AFP that the clashes near Damascus were the fiercest since the anti-regime revolt broke out in mid-March. Regime forces fired heavy artillery and mortar rounds against the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saaba, Irbin and Hamuriyeh and were locked in close combat with rebel fighters emboldened by a fresh wave of desertions, activists said. The rebel Free Syrian Army said 50 more officers and soldiers turned their backs on Assad and in a “steady progression of fighting toward the capital” clashed with army regulars only eight kilometers from Damascus. The regime, in turn, has launched “an unprecedented offensive in the past 24 hours, using heavy artillery” against villages in Damascus and Hama province of central Syria, the rebel army said. It reported clashes as close as four kilometers to the capital.
“The more the regime uses the army, the more soldiers defect,” Ahmad al-Khatib, a local rebel council member on the Damascus outskirts, told AFP.
Other rebel sources reported heavy fighting in Rankus, 45 kilometers from Damascus, and of heightened tension in Hama, further to the north.
Rankus was “besieged for the past five days and is being randomly shelled since dawn by tanks and artillery rounds,” rebel Abu Ali al-Rankusi told AFP by telephone.
In Hama, pro-regime snipers were deployed on the rooftops, according to activists, with security forces leaving “bodies of dead people with their hands tied behind their backs” on the streets across several neighborhoods. In addition to 40 civilians, the London-based Observatory said, 26 soldiers, five other members of the security forces and nine army deserters were also among those killed Sunday.
The watchdog said the regime soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in the northwest Idlib region and near Damascus, while the official media reported 16 soldiers killed.
The latest spike in violence, on top of what the United Nations said at the start of January already added up to 5,400 killings, pushed the Arab League to suspend its mission to Syria in a surprise move Saturday. Arab foreign ministers are to meet in Cairo on Feb. 5 to review the suspension, a League official said.
League chief Nabil Elaraby headed to New York Sunday hoping to win support from the U.N. Security Council for an Arab plan that calls on Assad to step aside.
Departing Cairo, he said the decision to end the mission had been taken after Damascus “chose the option of escalation,” but Russia condemned the move. “We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. The 165 observers deployed a month ago after Damascus agreed to an Arab League plan foreseeing a halt to the violence, prisoners freed, tanks withdrawn from built-up areas and free movement of observers and foreign media.
Elaraby will brief the Security Council Tuesday but the Arab initiative, which is backed by Western states, is facing resistance from Russia and China, two of the five permanent members of the council with veto powers. Elaraby said Sunday he hopes Moscow and Beijing will change tact to allow the Security Council to issue a resolution backing the new League plan to end the crisis. “I hope these two countries will alter their position concerning the draft U.N. Security Council resolution which would adopt the Arab plan,” he said, according to Egypt’s official MENA news agency.
This plan looks to a halt in the violence and Assad transferring power to his deputy ahead of negotiations – a formula flatly rejected by Damascus. Moscow opposes the draft U.N. resolution, and it has proposed its own draft assigning equal blame for the violence on both Assad and the opposition, an option dismissed by the West.
Russia has close trade ties with its Soviet-era ally, signing a new warplane delivery contract with Damascus this month, and it leases a Syrian port on the Mediterranean for its navy.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that Assad must end the killings.
“First and foremost, he must stop immediately the bloodshed,” Ban told reporters. “The Syrian leadership should take a decisive action at this time to stop this violence. All the violence must stop.”

Syria: 100 killed in a day
By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat
A hundred people were killed in a single day in Syria at the hands of al-Assad’s forces, yet Russia still defends the regime and sells it weapons, whilst Iran sends its officers for assistance, in addition to weapons and equipment, and then comes to us and says “no to the internationalization [of the Syrian crisis]”! How can internationalization be so outrageous at a time when sectarianism and trading with the blood of the Syrian people is acceptable?
A hundred people killed in one day in Syria, and we do not hear one voice in our Arab world demanding the boycott of Russian goods, publicly and formally, and likewise we have not heard any public condemnation of Russia at the Arab official level! This is not all, here is something more surprising: On the 6th of October 2011 I wrote an article entitled “Syria and the Russian hypocrisy”, in which I criticized the Russian position towards Syria, and its support for the tyrant of Damascus. A Russian ambassador stationed in an Arab capital then contacted one of my colleagues in that country to tell him: “ask your editor-in-chief why his country doesn’t ask us what we want, instead of attacking us?”
Today the death toll in Syria has reached the extent that a hundred people can die in one day, this day being last Friday; whilst around 50 more die every day. Meanwhile, Russia still insists on defending al-Assad, and sectarian Iran defends the murderous regime, and then there is Turkey, where there is a lot of talk but little action! As for the Arab world, whenever the Arabs have mobilized, up until now, they have not given this criminal regime what it deserves. Even with the Arab initiative, which tactically speaking can be considered a good, perhaps great move, the Arabs are yet to deliver a painful blow to the al-Assad regime. Here some may ask: how can they? It would be a truly painful blow for the Syrian regime if the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, most notably Saudi Arabia, in addition to non-GCC states Morocco and Jordan, along with whoever else wishes to support the Syrian people, declared their recognition of the Syrian National Council (SNC), and then announced their convening of a conference for the Syrian opposition, under the title “Friends of Syria”.
The GCC and other states that wish to support the Syrian people must also send a delegation of foreign ministers to Moscow, not to negotiate the price of a deal with the Russians, but to inform them of the magnitude of what they will lose if they continue to support the tyrant of Damascus, and disrupt the Arab initiative’s attempts to bring about the end of al-Assad in the Security Council. This message should be sent to Moscow publicly, not in secret. Arab blood, especially Syrian, has long been nothing more than a currency for the Russians to gain from, and this has been the case since the days of Jamal Abdel Nasser, through to the era of Saddam Hussein, and up to this day. The Russian ambassador to the United Nations is still alluding to the possibility of a deal [to save al-Assad], especially when he said after a Security Council meeting that Russia opposes the imposition of any sanctions, any embargo on arms exports, or any form of regime change, but importantly; “this does not mean that we reject dialogue”. I think the message is clear here.
This is what the Arabs, specifically the Gulf States, must do to protect Syria and its people from the tyrant of Damascus, and his allies in Tehran and Moscow. The difference between us, as Arabs, and them is considerable; they are protecting a tyrant whilst the Arabs are protecting an entire population!

99 Killed Sunday as Syria Rebels Say Clashes Inching Closer to Capital
by Naharnet /..Fierce clashes approached the Syrian capital on Sunday as fresh violence across the country killed at least 59 civilians, 31 regime troops and nine army deserters, according to activists.
Regime forces fired heavy artillery and mortar rounds against the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saqba, Irbin and Hamouriyeh and were locked in close battle with rebel fighters emboldened by a fresh wave of desertions, activists said. Meanwhile, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 17 people in Damascus and its suburbs Kfarbatna, Saqba, Hamouriyeh, Rankous, Zabadani and Harasta. Regime troops also shot dead 19 people in the central opposition bastion Homs, four people in the flashpoint central province of Hama, six in the restive northwestern province of Idlib, four in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the revolt, and one in the eastern oil hub of Deir al-Zour, the LCC said.
For its part, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 26 regime soldiers, five other members of the security forces and nine army deserters were also among those killed as the regime cracked down on protesters and rebels. The watchdog said the regime soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in the Idlib and Damascus regions.
The Observatory said earlier that 10 members of the military were killed when their convoy was attacked in Jebel al-Zuwiya in the northwest, and the official SANA news agency said "an armed terrorist group" killed six others near Damascus.
"The more the regime uses the army, the more soldiers defect," Ahmed al-Khatib, a local rebel council member on the Damascus outskirts, told Agence France Presse.A spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, which boasts 40,000 men and whose leadership is in Turkey, said that the fighting came a day after "a large wave of defections," with 50 officers and soldiers turning their back on Assad. In a "steady progression of fighting towards the capital," spokesman Maher Nueimi said deserters were clashing with army regulars only eight kilometers from Damascus.
The regime, in turn, has launched "an unprecedented offensive in the past 24 hours, using heavy artillery" against villages in Damascus and Hama province of central Syria, Nueimi said.
Other rebel spokesmen reported heavy fighting in Rankous, 45 kilometers from Damascus, and of heightened tension in Hama, further to the north.
Rankous was "besieged for the past five days and is being randomly shelled since dawn by tanks and artillery rounds," rebel Abu Ali al-Rankousi told AFP by telephone.
In Hama, pro-regime snipers were deployed on the rooftops, according to activists, with security forces leaving "bodies of dead people with their hands tied behind their backs" on the streets across several neighborhoods. It was this latest surge in violence that pushed the Arab League to suspend its mission to Syria in a surprise move on Saturday.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Sunday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must end the killings. "First and foremost, he must stop immediately the bloodshed," Ban told reporters. "The Syrian leadership should take a decisive action at this time to stop this violence. All the violence must stop."But Syrian Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar said the authorities were determined to "cleanse" the country and restore order."The security forces are determined to carry on the struggle to cleanse Syria of renegades and outlaws ... to restore safety and security," SANA quoted Shaar as saying.
At least 5,400 people have been killed in the regime’s crackdown on dissent since March, according to the United Nations.
The regime does not recognize the scale of the protest movement that erupted in mid-March, insisting it is fighting "terrorist groups" seeking to sow chaos as part of a foreign-hatched conspiracy.
SourceAgence France Presse

Tumult in Akkar over Reports of Death of Lebanese 'Gunmen' in Homs
by Naharnet /Several families in the northern Lebanese border towns of Mashta Hassan and Mashta Hammoud have received information that two Lebanese citizens and a Syrian man were killed and two Syrians wounded when they came under gunfire on the al-Jaafariyat bridge in the Syrian town of Tal Kalakh, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Sunday, as another report spoke of a 9-strong Lebanese armed group led by an Iraqi man. NNA said the “unconfirmed reports have sparked a major tumult in both border towns, to which local and foreign media outlets have flocked in a bid to scrutinize the authenticity of these reports.” According to the Lebanese news agency, the rapidly spreading reports have claimed that among those killed were “Syrian citizen M. A. D., who owns a pastry shop in the Lebanese town of Mashta Hassan, Lebanese citizen Kh. N. S. from the town of Mashta Hammoud and Lebanese citizen M. D. from the town of Mashta Hassan.”
The two wounded Syrians, who were detained by the Syrian authorities, have not been identified yet according to the reports.
The residents of the two Lebanese towns “are still trying to confirm the reports, although the aforementioned individuals have recently vanished without making any contact with their families,” NNA said.
Meanwhile, OTV reported that “an armed group led by an Iraqi man and comprising nine Lebanese members had infiltrated Syria through the Lebanese-Syrian border.”
“The Syrian army ambushed the group on the Tal Kalakh-Safita intersection (in Homs province), killing at least 4 members of the group and wounding several others,” OTV said.
For his part, head of Mashta Hammoud Municipality Naji Ramadan told LBC television that “it is normal that Lebanese individuals be killed in Syria given the non-demarcated border areas and the spike in violence” in revolt-hit Syria. Ramadan confirmed the death of “a Lebanese and a Syrian,” declining to give further information.
On January 19, Syria’s official news agency SANA said Syrian security forces killed three members of a "terrorist group" as they tried to enter the country from neighboring Lebanon.
"The security forces of Syria clashed … with a terrorist group trying to infiltrate the country across the border with Lebanon in the Tal Kalakh area and killed three of them," the agency said.
At least 5,400 people have been killed in a crackdown by the Syrian regime on dissent since March, according to the United Nations.
The regime does not recognize the scale of the protest movement that erupted in mid-March, insisting it is fighting "terrorist groups" seeking to sow chaos as part of a foreign-hatched conspiracy.

The dream of the revolution is sweeter than its reality
By Mshari al-Zaydi/Asharq Alawsat
As the revolutionary year of 2011 came to an end, it was natural for media outlets to compete for reviews, analysis, documentaries, interviews and exclusives that appeal to their customers.
Here we have Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. These countries, at a conservative estimate, have given rise to dozens of stories and issues; most of them puzzling, few of them clear. There is a strong desire among those in the media to try and satisfy the curious hunger of the people of the Arab Spring region. There is a desire to describe to them what happened, or at least to make them think that they know what happened, and to uncover many of the closely guarded secrets.
This is why the "Father of Secrets" and mysteries in the Arab World, veteran journalist Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, got on board. News is out about his brand new book that offers the "definitive assessment" of the overthrown Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is currently under trial. The media hype in the press aroused considerable controversy before the book was released officially by Egypt's Dar al-Shorouq Press, which has served as the main publisher of Heikal's works for some time. Some have claimed that Heikal used accounts by other Egyptian journalists active during the Mubarak era, and claimed them as his own. They argue that Heikal's “stockpile of exclusives”, which he has excessively exploited and milked, chiefly relate to the Nasserite era and in part to the Sadat period, but he has few connections to the prolonged Mubarak reign. Others point out that Heikal had already publicly pledged to stop writing, in what he called a “permission to take leave". So what prompted the Sheikh of the Nasserite journalists to renege on his pledge?
I believe the temptation of the moment was hard to resist. Heikal the "journologist", as he always likes to present himself, responded to this great temptation as did many other writers inside Egypt and abroad. Hence, they quickly produced books misleading others into believing that the hidden has now been revealed, that the Arab Spring revolutions can now be studied and interpreted, and that the future can be predicted.The truth is that we are still in the heat of the battle, and our eyes are still dazzled by the brightness of the spectacular big bang we have witnessed. We haven't yet managed to restore our clarity of vision; we follow events on a blow-by-blow basis. There is a mixture of surging emotion in the Arab street and a nostalgic feeling harking back to the Mahdist revolt, naively believing the world will return again to vast green pastures. We have been given a massive shot of revolutionary adrenalin, and the effects are yet to wear off. This explains why contrasts and contradictions are rife in Egypt, between the unstable revolutionary current and the more conventional political; the latter believing that the revolution has now ended, and that the stage of building the revolutionary state has begun. This also might partially explain the stark contrast between the scenes in Tahrir Square and other protest hotspots across Egypt on the one hand, and the simultaneous convention of a parliament elected by the Egyptian people on the other; the parliament of the revolution following the overthrow of the Mubarak regime.
Some people are still dreaming while others believe that our silent, dreamy slumber has come to an end, and now the stark reality has begun. But dreams are always more potent and more dangerous than reality.
As I was looking through the vast media material celebrating the gains of the Arab Spring, together with the dreams of ordinary people and truehearted revolutionaries, I remembered a documentary I had watched before the start of last year’s events. It was entitled "Days of Mr. Arabi". The film contained a lot of dreams similar to the classics of the 1919 Revolution and the many romantic aspirations of the July 1952 Revolution; carried out by the Free Officers Movement. Who could forget the memorable catchphrase "hold your head high, my brother"? Indeed, yesterday is not that far away.

Stalin: Death is the Solution to all Problems
Farid Ghadry/Reform Party of Syria
"Russia's strategic obligations of fighting extreme Muslims, protecting the Syriac community, and spoiling American plans all meet in Syria."
Over the last 40 years, any mention of Syria by world leaders or politicians almost always referenced the name Hafez al-Assad in the same conversation. During the height of the Cold War and beyond, they all considered Syria to really mean Hafez al-Assad.
But no other country associated its fate in the region with the Assads like the Soviet Union. The Assad legacy was forged in black iron under the watchful eye of the Soviet bear in every sense of the word. Ever since Assad's ascension to power in 1970, the Soviet Union has nurtured its long-standing influence over him as an incubator of the Soviet model in Syrian life and beyond.
The frame of that influence began in 1957 when Hafez al-Assad, still a yearling of 27, traveled to the Soviet Union to receive his training as a pilot in the Syrian Air Force for the Mig-15's and the MIG-17's that were soon to be delivered under the second-term of Shukri al-Quwatli presidency. Assad was the first Alawite to rise to this level of confidence in the Syrian armed forces.
The Soviet influence continued long after Hafez al-Assad returned to Syria through direct and indirect contacts (Mentioned in Akram al-Hourani 4-volume book about his life). The Russians were aware that Assad's father appealed to the French to split the Alawite region from Syria, which played into their strategy of breaking regions away from western influence.
If Hafez al-Assad had any virtue, it was loyalty to those who were loyal to him. That virtue applied to people, groups, sects, and nations as well. So when the Soviets nurtured Hafez, his response was to tie the knots with a willing and able superpower who taught him how to rule, how to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, and how to survive political risks and upheavals.
Upon his successful coup of 1970 achieved with Russian help, Assad continued to rely heavily on his ally. The Soviets not only delivered massive military and security capabilities but also assisted in building the societal elements for life in Syria for Assad to control his destiny. These capabilities included establishing a Police State modeled after theirs with a network of 15 intelligence agencies all led by men who hated each other and all competing in the field of spying on Syrians and striking the Stalinist fear in the hearts.
The Soviets also heavily invested in establishing an agricultural economy through construction and large infrastructure projects like building the Thawra dam on the Furat River (Euphrates), which to this day our agricultural fiefdom system depends upon.
From the Soviet perspective, the Kremlin saw Assad as a reliable partner who remained loyal --until the Soviet Union collapse in 1989 and unlike Egypt in post-1973 war. That loyalty was generously rewarded at every turn and to this day Russia views the Assads, under the tutelage of a Soviet-era Putin, with the same advocacy and guardianship the Brezhnev Kremlin did.
As an example, after the 1973 Assad losses in his war against Israel, the Soviets invested $2B in Syria ($2B in 1973 is worth $20.8 in today's Dollars) in new weapons and equipment, which included 800 T-72 tanks fresh off newly minted production lines. In January 2005, as a gesture of goodwill and as a reward to the Assad loyalty, Russia canceled $13B in Syrian debt, some of which goes back to the post-1973 war.
The only time Assad broke his lock-steps with Russia was during the 1990 Desert Storm war against Saddam Hussein. Two reasons prompted him to take that painful decision: With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Assad needed to play games with the Americans to stay in power. He also supported Desert Storm because he knew it would help his brethren in Iran gain a political and strategic advantage if Saddam was weakened.
As a result of this timely harvesting, billions in investments flowed from Kuwait into Syria, Iran became bolder, and the new Russia remained as committed and as friendly. The US, however, under the Clinton administration, was disappointed when it failed to convince Assad to strike peace with Israel. The talks went nowhere because Assad knew his role as a spoiler in the region for the new rising Russia was essential to his survival.
After the Soviet collapse, the Russians left the room but did not leave the building. Subsequent to the era of the pragmatism of Gorbachev, which was followed by the inebriated Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, a new face in the old guard, became the 3rd President of the Russian Federation on New Year's Eve of 2000; just 6 months before Hafez al-Assad succumbed to his cancer and Baschar al-Assad inherited Syria as planned. The Assad Jr.-Putin era was almost synchronized and the Russians entered the room again determined to spoil America's interests by re-investing boldly with the new Assad.
Since 2000, the Russian aid and support of Junior has been unabated. The bear awakened from hibernation to find in Assad as willing a partner as his father was. In return for the debt forgiveness and the military support, Assad offered the Russians the right for their Navy to dock in Tartous to impose a new diktat upon the region by a leaner Russia.
The long history of mutual investment between Syria and Russia is as solid as the mutual investment is between the US and Israel. Russia is not about to let go of a relationship, started in 1957, which helps its interests immensely in the region and provides Russia with a window to watch the party and a doorway to break the party.
Further, the Christian Orthodoxy in Syria is deeply rooted in our history dating back to AD 37 in the Antioch region. Russia's strategic obligations of fighting extreme Muslims, protecting the Syriac community, and spoiling American plans all meet in Syria.
Syrians getting killed is a nuisance but not as much as the exasperation the Russians are experiencing from the international community sticking its nose in Syrian affairs. As far as Putin is concerned, there is no alternative to Assad, especially not from some Muslim Brotherhood opportunists who will freeze, because of the Chechnya war, all the agreements signed by Assad, including the Tartous Russian fleet docking rights. You don't give-up on a 54-year old investment yielding beyond expectation high returns so easily.
In my humble opinion, Russia won't let go of Assad and any opposition group who believes it can replace Assad or diminish Russian support just because the people are rising against his rule need not bother. That's the missing bracket many of us tried to compute without, only to fail and I am as guilty as anyone in discounting Russia in its zeal to protect Assad from harm. The price the Arab Sheikhs and the west have to pay to replace Assad is too high and too far in the future.
Russia's Stalin once said "Death is the solution to all problems. No man -- no problem". Assad, today, is just putting Stalin's words into practice and the Russians are patting themselves on the back for being such good teachers.
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