Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 22/12
Assad rebuilds fighting command, retaliates against Turkey
Syrian rebels say fight for Aleppo has begun
Islamic Jihad leadership relocates to Iran
Syrian forces bombard Damascus, fight rages in Aleppo
Two more Syrian generals flee to Turkey, official says
Syria warns of plans to 'hijack' satellite TVs
Shots fired at Israeli soldiers from Egypt's Sinai
Accomplice theory gains ground after Bulgaria bomber autopsy
Iran breaks up nuclear assassination cells: media
Syrian forces bombard Damascus, fight rages in Aleppo
Pope's butler placed under house arrest in Vatican
Hezbollah having advanced arms intolerable: Israel's Barak
Abducted Lebanese well, to stay in custody -Syria rebel
Assir blames Nasrallah, Berri for hand grenade tossed at sit-in
Franjieh says March 14 government could lead to war
Lebanon's Arabic press digest - July 22, 2012
Two killed, 7 wounded in north Lebanon family dispute

 Assad rebuilds fighting command, retaliates against Turkey
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 22, 2012/ President Bashar Assad quickly recovered from the blow he suffered with the loss of his four top allies last Wednesday, July 18. Within 24 hours, he had put in place a new command for fighting the rebels headed by his younger brother Gen. Maher Assad, commander of the 4th Division, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report exclusively. He also appointed Gen. Ali Mamloukh to head the General Security Service; Gen. Hafez Makhlouf, military commander of Damascus; and Gen. Ali Hassan, new chief of the Alawite Shabiha militia.
Gen. Fahad Jassim al-Freij was sworn in as Defense Minister Thursday. Despite a wave of desertions, the Syrian army was soon back on the job, showing no signs of shock or wavering at the command level.Within 48 hours the army had driven the rebels out of the Maidan district of Damascus. And while some media focused on the rebels’ capture of two Syrian-Iraqi crossings Saturday, our sources report that Assad and his new command had already moved on and were busy with a tactical move in retaliation against Turkey for the assassinations at the top of Assad’s inner circle: They opened the door to an influx of rebels of the Turkish PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) from Iraq into Syria’s northern Kurdish regions, with permission to set up bases of operation along the Turkish border.
This step had three immediate consequences:
1. By giving the armed Turkish Kurds' separatist movement bases of attack against Ankara, the Assad regime was able to pacify Syria’s own 2-3 million-strong Kurdish minority (ten percent of the population) and make sure their towns in the north did not join the Syrian uprising.
2. By guaranteeing his own Kurdish minority’s loyalty, Assad released the troops posted there to fight Syrian rebels on other fronts.
3. While acting as hosts for the rebel Free Syrian Army commands which are campaigning against Damascus, Turkey is itself exposed to a new strategic threat from its southern border with Syria.
debkafile’s military sources report that the flow of Turkish Kurdish fighters into northern Syria has advanced the local Kurdish separatist drive led by the Syrian Democratic Union Party. Friday, July 20, PYD and PKK fighters from Iraq joined forces to seize control of two Syrian-Turkish border towns, Afrin and Ayn-al Arab.
Assad calculated that semi-autonomous status achieved by Syrian Kurds in Syria would act as a shot in the arm for the PKK on the other side of the border and encourage their raids on Turkish government and military targets in support of their demand for like status in Turkey.
debkafile update: The PKK were quick on the draw: Friday, they blew up the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline carrying about a quarter of Iraq’s oil exports at the southeastern Turkish town of Midyat near the Syrian border.Assad has therefore begun exacting revenge on Turkey for the assassinations which cut down his inner circle.

Syria: The formation of a new regime?
By Emad El Din Adeeb/Asharq Al-Awsat
I will now ask a question that will likely enrage most – if not all – of the readers of this column! Yet the value of writing does not lie in achieving popularity, but rather in satisfying your professional and ethical conscience. The question relates to the current situation in Syria and it boils down to the identity of the new regime that will succeed the current one. I have written in this column several times about the evils of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and I do not need to add anything new in this regard. Therefore, we are facing an evil regime that will fall soon, God willing. But what guarantees that the system succeeding it will be any less evil?Here, hundreds might respond to me saying: Surely the new regime cannot be worse because there is nothing worse than a regime that ruled the country with oppression and an iron fist for more than 42 years.This may be the logical outcome, but it is not certain or final…We do not know the components of the Syrian opposition. We don’t really know the identity of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), its foreign obligations or commitments and its sources of arms and funding. We do not know the ideological origins of the jihadist groups that are currently undertaking popular operations against the regime, or the reality of their political projects if they were to overthrow the regime. We are being presented with the “pure evil” of the regime and the “flawless” nature of the opposition as a whole.
This oversimplification is dangerous and frightening. We are just around the corner from a process of radical change, removing a fascist regime that formulated all aspects of the Syrian state with its own men, ideas and interests. Already we have a crisis in terms of factual information about the nature of the forces expected to shape the form of the next Syrian political system.
Still a very important question remains, which is: To what extent are the loyalties of these forces committed to the Syrian national project, rather than other motives that only God knows?

Clear deceptions
By Hussein Shobokshi/Asharq Al-Awsat
With a regime such as the one led by Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad before him, the lie is one of the most important means of influencing people. The al-Assad regime has always sought to sell attractive illusions. These illusions were politically mouthwatering, such as nationalism, Arabism and resistance, and stories, slogans and goals were invented in order to consecrate these ideals in the minds of the people. The regime lied with all types of figures and statistics, even official weather forecasts, currency exchange rates, foreign exchange reserves and other information. Hence it is not strange in the slightest that this regime is resorting to lies and myths in its current final phase prior to its fall, and the final chapter of its existence on the political scene.
From the onset of the Syrian revolution, the al-Assad regime has been stumbling over how to interpret what has happened, and how to deal with the growing number of revolutionaries in every Syrian city. Numerous state media stories began to explain what was happening, all of which located somewhere between the impossible and the absurd, using repressive media language and threatening foreign parties, with experts and witnesses who seemed closer to clowns.
Now the world is watching how the Syrian regime deals with the appalling bombing of a national security building in Damascus, which claimed the lives of some of the most important executive leaders in the regime, and specifically in its security division. Of course there have been many important gaps in the media coverage, because the building targeted by the explosion has so far never been filmed, and therefore we have yet to see the aftermath. Official Syrian sources reported that the bombing was carried out by “terrorists” after rumors began to circulate suggesting that what happened was an “internal assassination” carried out by the regime itself. Either way, the Syrian regime has entered a phase of skepticism and mistrust; no one is safe from doubt or the possibility of cooperating with the outside, whatever the “outside” may be; foreign intelligence services or the Syrian opposition itself.
Stories emerged one after the other describing the “body parts” of the suicide bomber who carried out the terrorist attack, and that his body has been identified…and then 24 hours later the Syrian media announced that the perpetrator had been arrested! The floundering, lies and desperation is amazing, and even those addicted to the Syrian state media’s rhetoric - those who support Bashar al-Assad and his regime - have begun to make fun of this comic media coverage and wooden vocabulary used to justify what is happening.
Bashar al-Assad is in serious trouble…he can no longer trust anyone. His inner circle is decreasing after it was breached and highly influential personalities were targeted. Today he is in Latakia because Damascus the capital is no longer safe, and the situation has become very serious. The army can no longer be trusted because the reality dictates that the security domain is now limited to the Republican Guard and the Fourth Division. The army flounders between defections and refusals to obey orders, and some districts of Damascus have witnessed violent clashes between army forces divided amongst themselves. Now a statement has emerged from Russia’s Ambassador to Paris, hinting at al-Assad’s willingness to step down in a civil manner, yet the Syrian media deliberately discredited the man and declared that his statement was distorted. This only serves to expose the lies of the Syrian media. In the reported minutes of a meeting between Putin and Erdogan in Moscow two days ago, as published by the Turkish newspaper “Hurriyet”, the two presidents allegedly agreed to come up with an alternative to the Bashar al-Assad regime, one that is not contaminated with blood on its hands, whilst also ensuring the protection of al-Assad who will decide to stay in Latakia.
Yet the fact that the Syrian media is full of lies does not make it entirely redundant; it provides an honest and accurate mirror of four decades of falsehood, lies and deception, an era which is rapidly nearing its end.

Islamic Jihad leadership relocates to Iran
By Kifah Zaboun/Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat - The leadership of the Islamic Jihad movement has left Syria for Iran, but continues to maintain good relations with the Syrian regime, Informed Palestinian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.According to the sources, which spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, Ziyad Nakhalah, deputy secretary general of the Islamic Jihad, has been in Iran for weeks and only visited Syria recently to transport the body of Salim Hamadah, member of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Jihad, to Lebanon where he was buried in Sidon after he died in Syria from an undisclosed illness.  The sources also revealed that this is also the case with the movement’s secretary general, Ramadan Shallah, who is moving between the two countries, while spending most of his time in Iran. The Islamic Jihad leaders travel in and out of Syria with great freedom, unlike their counterparts in the Hamas movement whose ties with the Syrian regime soured, after its leader, Ismail Haniyah, declared his support for the Syrian people in a visit to Al-Azhar. However, an official source in the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza denied that its officials have left Syria. The source told Asharq Al-Awsat that "the movement cannot in these difficult circumstances be anywhere expect with its brothers in Syria." The source added that the movement is carrying out relief programs for the Palestinian refugees in Syria, and that some officials have left Syria within the framework of work abroad, but that their departure was not permanent.
The source went on to say that, “relations between the Islamic Jihad and the Syrian government are excellent, unlike Hamas, which prefers to be based outside Syria." Islamic Jihad is maintaining its relations with the Syrian and Iranian regimes, and has refrained from criticizing Al-Assad and from supporting the Syrian revolution, which is different from its stand towards the Egyptian, Tunisian, and Libyan revolutions.The sources emphasized that the departure of the movement’s leaders to Iran does not mean a change in its stand towards the Syrian regime; however, the political circumstances in Damascus has forced the Islamic Jihad leaders to work from another base.
Syria has been a strong advocate of the Islamic Jihad movement and has hosted it for many years, as was the case with the Hamas movement; however, Hamas's links to the Muslim Brotherhood, which stand as an arch enemy of the Baathist Syrian regime, has expedited the fall-out between Damascus and Hamas after the latter refused to openly support Assad and adopted a biased stand toward the Syrian revolution. Syria also constitutes an important passageway for the Islamic Jihad leaders and elements that travel from Gaza to Teheran for different political and logistical reasons.
According to the sources, dozens of civilians and military individuals from Gaza are currently stranded in Syria after participating in conferences in Iran.
A Palestinian female delegation affiliated with the Islamic Jihad attended a conference on women and the Islamic awakening in Iran, which concluded a few days ago and in which 1,500 women from 80 different countries took part. Dozens of others participated in various courses in July and June and all are now stranded in Syria.
According to the sources, "the Palestinian women delegation is evidence on the strength of relations between the Islamic Jihad and Iran, since it was a delegation for the Islamic Jihad par excellence that included the former prisoner, jihadist Hana Shalabi, and others." The two delegations left Iran for Syria on their way for Egypt and then for Gaza, to which they were supposed to arrive two days ago. But due to the deteriorating security conditions in Syria, they were informed that the airports and crossings are closed at present and that they have to wait.

Iran senses defeat in Syria
By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat
Now that Iran is beginning to sense defeat in Syria, it has begun to feel that the “Arab Spring” is nothing but a curse against it, after it previously viewed this as a “gift from God”. This is also what Hezbollah in Lebanon is sensing, as revealed by Hassan Nasrallah’s most recent speech.
Tehran, which previously hailed the Arab Spring in the region, viewing this as part of a grand Islamic awakening, has today begun to view its events as a conspiracy now that it is sensing the impending end of its vital regional ally, Bashar al-Assad. This means that Syria, and indeed the region as a whole, will rid itself of what has been by-far the worst Arab regime over the past 4 decades. Iran and Hezbollah’s loss has become a genuine reality. Tehran has lost the popularity it previously enjoyed in the Arab region after its hypocrisy and false claims have been exposed. Tehran hailed the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and supported the popular movement in Bahrain but opposed the real revolution in Syria, despite all the suffering and killing that the Syrian people were exposed to at the hands of the tyrant al-Assad. The same applies to Hassan Nasrallah, who lost his senses and temper when he launched an attack on everybody in defense of al-Assad and those he described as “martyrs”, namely the members of al-Assad’s terror cell who were killed at the national security headquarters in Damascus by the Free Syrian Army [FSA]. Indeed, Nasrallah even attacked the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – who he had previously praised – and went even further than this, issuing a warning to the Palestinians, saying that their subjection to Arab regimes means the loss of the Palestinian Cause. We do not know whether Nasrallah want the Palestinians to be subject to the Iranian regime, for example, or whether he was acknowledging, albeit unknowingly, that he is not an Arab, and is unconcerned with the Arab world!
All of this exposes the hypocrisy of Iran and Hezbollah, and all those who claim to be supporters of the “resistance”, not to mention all those who are spinning in its orbit, including those who support Arab decisions being subject to Iran. This hypocrisy has been exposed today in front of the Arab general public, particularly those who had previously been deceived by this and intimidated by warnings against Iranian influence and the so-called “resistance” axis. However the Iranian camp has been exposed following al-Assad’s weakening grip on power, and this gives rise to the question: what future will Tehran and its agents face following the ouster of al-Assad? There can be no doubt that the regional scene will be completely different, and the main difference will be that Iran’s hand will have been cut off from the region for the first time in approximately 4 decades. This will represent a major blow to Iranian foreign policy, which is something that we stated approximately one year ago. Iran will not only be weakened regionally, but also domestically as well, and the hard-line Tehran regime will find itself facing a singular truth, namely that it has lost the most important project it launched following the Khomeinist revolution, namely its control over Syria, and its transforming the country into a pro-Tehran intelligence headquarters whose sole mission was to carry out the worst operations in our region. This is what Iran and its agents are sensing now, as the moment of the fall of the tyrant of Damascus fast approaches, and this is something that requires great Arab caution, across the entire region.

Syrian forces bombard Damascus, fight rages in Aleppo
By Dominic Evans and Khaled Yacoub Oweis | Reuters
(Reuters) - Syrian forces bombarded three districts of Damascus with helicopter gunships on Sunday, witnesses said, clawing back territory from rebels a week after the fighters launched what they called a final battle for the capital. Fighting also raged around the main intelligence headquarters in Syria's biggest city, Aleppo -- the country's main commercial and industrial hub -- and in Deir al-Zor on the Euprhates river, the largest city in the east. Rebels said they had captured a third border crossing with Turkey on Sunday, Bab al-Salam north of Aleppo, while Iraqi officials said Syrian forces had regained control of one of two border crossings seized by rebels on the frontier with Iraq.
The helicopter bombardments in Damascus and Deir al-Zor showed President Bashar al-Assad's determination to regain control after a bomb killed four members of his high command in the gravest blow in the 16-month-old revolt.
Rebels were driven from Mezze, the diplomatic district of Damascus, residents and opposition activists said, and elite Fourth Division troops were besieging the northern neighbourhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire.
The fourth division is run by Assad's younger brother, Maher al-Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad family's four decades of Alawite minority rule.
His role has become more crucial since Assad's defence and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of a "Damascus volcano" by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing. Diplomats and opposition sources said government forces were focusing on strategic centres, with one Western diplomat comparing Assad to a doctor "abandoning the patient's limbs to save the organs".
Syrian state television quoted a media source denying that helicopters had fired on the capital. "The situation in Damascus is normal, but the security forces are pursuing the remnants of the terrorists in some streets," it said. Assad's forces, who also pushed into a rebel-held district in the northerly commercial hub of Aleppo on Saturday, targeted pockets of lightly armed rebels, who moved about the streets on foot and attacked security installations and roadblocks.
Residents said the sound of shelling in the capital was so intense at dusk that they were unable to distinguish it from the traditional cannon blast marking the end of the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Opposition activists said late on Saturday that helicopters had fired rockets into a neighbourhood near the southerly Sayida Zeinab district, causing dozens of casualties. They did not have any other details. "In Damascus, people continue to search desperately for safety," the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement in Geneva.
"Humanitarian needs are growing as the situation in the city worsens and as large numbers of people flee their neighbourhoods in search of safe haven. The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have intensified their response to the situation."The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group that monitors the violence, said 180 people, including 48 troops, had been killed across Syria on Saturday. Many of them died in the province of Homs, epicentre of the uprising. Most shops in Damascus were closed and there was only light traffic - although more than in the past few days. Some police checkpoints, abandoned earlier in the week, were manned again.
Many petrol stations were closed, having run out of fuel, and those that were open had huge lines of cars waiting to fill up. Residents reported long queues at bakeries.
FLIGHT FROM ALEPPO
A bloody crackdown on what began as a peaceful revolt has increasingly become an armed conflict between an establishment dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and rebels drawn largely from the Sunni majority.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was sending his peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and top military adviser General Babacar Gaye to Syria to assess the situation.
Opposition activists in Aleppo said hundreds of families were fleeing residential areas on Saturday after the military swept into the Saladin district, which had been in rebel hands for two days.
Fighting was also reported in the densely-populated, poor neighbourhood of al-Sakhour.
"The sound of bombardment has been non-stop since last night. For the first time we feel Aleppo has turned into a battle zone," a housewife, who declined to be named, said by phone from the city.
REBEL BORDER CROSSING RAID
On the Iraqi-Syrian border, Iraqi security and border officials said Syrian forces had reasserted control over the Yarubiya crossing point on the Syrian side of the frontier, briefly seized by rebels on Saturday.
Syrian opposition activists said several towns in Syria's Kurdish northeast had passed - without a fight - into local hands in recent days as central authority eroded.
The surge in violence has trapped millions of Syrians, turned sections of Damascus into ghost areas, and sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to neighbouring Lebanon.
The U.N. Security Council has approved a 30-day extension for a ceasefire observer mission, but Ban has recommended changing its focus to pursuing prospects for a political solution - effectively accepting there is no truce to monitor.
Diplomats said only half of the 300 unarmed observers would be needed for Ban's suggested plan, and several monitors were seen departing from Damascus on Saturday.
Speaking two days after Russia and China vetoed a resolution to impose U.N. sanctions on Assad's government, Ban called on he Security Council to "redouble efforts to forge a united way forward and exercise its collective responsibility".
"The Syrian government has manifestly failed to protect civilians and the international community has collective responsibility to live up to the U.N. Charter and act on its principles," he said.
Regional and Western powers have voiced concern the conflict might become a full-blown sectarian war that could spill across borders. But Assad's opponents remain outgunned and divided.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking after contacts with the head of the Arab League and Qatar's prime minister, said all three agreed that it was time for Syria's fractured opposition to prepare to take charge of the country.
"We would like to see the rapid formation of a provisional government representing the diversity of Syrian society," said Fabius. Syria's main political opposition group, the Syrian National Council, operating in exile, has so far failed to unite Assad's disparate foes on a united political platform.

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