Syrian opposition says government wrecking truce deal

By John Davidson and John Irish

People attend a protest against forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, Russia and the Syrian Democratic forces in Tariq al-Bab neighborhood of Aleppo

A senior official from Syria's main opposition group said on Monday that a fragile international attempt to halt nearly five years of fighting was in danger of collapse because of attacks by government forces.

The cessation of hostilities drawn up by Washington and Moscow faced "complete nullification" because Syrian government attacks were violating the agreement, the official of the Saudi-backed opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said.

France said there were reports of attacks on opposition forces in breach of the deal, which came into force on Saturday, and countries backing the Syrian peace process met to try to clarify the situation.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the pause in the fighting was largely holding, despite some incidents that he hoped would be contained. The Kremlin said the process was under way, although it had always been clear it would not be easy.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said efforts were being made to track down alleged violations but that there was currently no evidence to suggest it would destabilize the fragile peace.

The cessation deal does not include jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and Russia, which is backing the Syrian government with air power, has made clear it intends to keep bombing those groups.

Kerry said at a news conference in Washington that he agreed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to intensify work on a mechanism to ensure any strikes in Syria solely target Islamic State or Nusra Front.

An aide to Saudi Arabia's defense minister said on Monday, that defense ministers from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State had discussed the possibility of a Syrian ground incursion two weeks ago in Brussels.

"It was discussed at the political level but it wasn't discussed as a military mission," Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri told Reuters. "Once this is organized, and decided how many troops and how they will go and where they will go, we will participate in that."

The cessation of hostilities agreement, the first of its kind since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, is a less formal arrangement than a ceasefire. It is meant to allow peace talks to resume and aid to reach besieged communities.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was largely holding, with casualties greatly reduced compared with before the agreement took effect.

But Syrian forces made some gains. The Observatory reported they had taken territory near Damascus on Monday after a battle with the Nusra Front and other Islamist rebels.

Syrian government forces also regained control of a road to the northern city of Aleppo after making advances against Islamic State fighters.

Aid trucks carrying non-food items such as blankets on Monday entered Mouadamiya, a suburb of Damascus under siege by government forces, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said.

The United Nations and other agencies hope to deliver aid to more than 150,000 people in besieged areas over the next five days.

Kerry said he was concerned by reports the Syrian government was creating obstacles for the delivery of humanitarian aid and hoped it would stop its officials and troops from taking medicine or other supplies from the shipments.

GLOOMY ASSESSMENT

Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the HNC's delegation to the peace talks, gave a gloomy assessment of the truce. "We are not facing a violation of the truce ... we are facing a complete nullification," he said on Al Arabiya al Hadath TV.

"I believe the international community has totally failed in all its experiments, and must take real, practical measures towards the (Syrian) regime," Zoubi said, without elaborating.

He said there were no signs of any preparations for peace talks, which the United Nations wants to reconvene on March 7.

Talks in Geneva in early February collapsed before they started, with rebels saying they could not negotiate while they were being bombed.

HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat said the truce was a step in the right direction, but a mechanism was needed to stop such violations and encourage negotiations.

"There has to be a power that really stops what Russia and what the regime is doing," Muslat said in a television interview with Reuters in Riyadh. "Today there [were] about 10 Russian air strikes, about 16 air strikes done by the regime."

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment on allegations that government forces were violating the cessation. The government has said it is abiding by the agreement.

But a Syrian Foreign Ministry official accused Saudi Arabia of trying to undermine the cessation of hostilities agreement by saying there would be a "Plan B" if it failed. He did not give details of the plan, which is believed to include military action.

Russia on Monday also rejected any suggestion of a Plan B, which has been alluded to by Kerry.

Countries belonging to the "International Syria Support Group" (ISSG), led by the United States and Russia, met in Geneva on Monday. They are supposed to monitor compliance with the deal and act rapidly to end any flare-ups.

"We have received indications that attacks, including by air, have been continuing against zones controlled by the moderate opposition," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in Geneva. "All this needs to be verified."

AIR STRIKES ARE HEAVY

The HNC said the cessation of hostilities was broken by the Syrian government 15 times on the first day, and that there were further violations by Russia and Hezbollah, both allies of President Bashar al-Assad.

On the ground, rebels said the violence was below pre-ceasefire levels in some places and little changed in others.

Colonel Fares al-Bayoush, head of a Free Syrian Army group called the Northern Division, told Reuters: "The air strikes are heavy today, especially by Russian planes."

Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a fighter with the Ajnad al-Sham group in northwestern Syria, said the government had shelled a number of villages. "It is regular bombardment, no change. The regime after the truce is as it was before."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through a network of contacts on the ground, said the number of people dying each day had gone down substantially since the cessation started.

(Additional reporting by John Davison, Mariam Karouny, Tom Perry, Lisa Barrington, Ali Abdelatti, Stephanie Nebehay, Ayesha Rascoe, Susan Heavey, Ece Toksabay, Idrees Ali and Mohammad Zargham; Writing by Giles Elgood and Peter Cooney; Editing by Peter Millership, David Stamp, Pravin Char and Lisa Shumaker)

Davidson, John, and John Irish. "Syrian opposition says government wrecking truce deal." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 1 Mar. 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.

Response
If I were to make a prediction concerning the outcome of the truce in Syria in the next coming weeks, I would foretell an utter breakdown and failure--resulting in a renewed, more furious fight. Having made the agreement with nearly none of the major rebel groups, the Syrian government and the Russians are likely to exploit the cease in hostilities to strike indiscriminately against key targets around the country. The United States and its allies will probably, as the situation worsens, push for a deal more favourable to its own agenda--perhaps one that demands that al-Assad step down.

The scale of the crisis's complexity is almost unimaginable. Foreign fingers everywhere. A fractured rebel front. A draconian leader still very much in power. 

It presages an even greater disaster.

And like I mentioned in my previous post, the lack of unity in Syria means that it is up to the international community to exert the necessary pressure and bring the conflict to a conclusion. It's time to move past the airstrikes and into diplomacy. It'll take a miracle in East-West relations and of course, al-Assad stepping down. But it could happen.

In terms of the volume of citations, the article suggests that the truce has proven largely successful, quoting optimistic  representatives from various agencies (despite the misleading title). Personally, it's too early to draw that conclusion--but I've always had a very aggressive dislike of foreign meddling in the Middle East.

Guns fall mostly silent as delicate Syria truce takes effect

By Tom Perry and Mariam Karouny

Guns mostly fell silent in Syria and Russian air raids stopped on Saturday, the first day of a cessation of hostilities that the United Nations has described as the best hope for peace in five years of civil war.

Under the U.S.-Russian accord accepted by President Bashar al-Assad's government and many of his foes, fighting should cease so aid can reach civilians and talks can open to end a war that has killed more than 250,000 people and made 11 million homeless.

Russia, which says it intends to continue strikes against areas held by Islamist fighters that are not covered by the truce, said it would suspend all flights over Syria for the first day to ensure no wrong targets were hit by mistake.

The truce seemed largely to be holding, though rebels reported what they described as occasional government violations, and one commander warned that unchecked, the breaches could lead to the agreement's collapse.

Jaish al-Nasr, a group affiliated to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which has backed the truce, said government forces had fired mortars, rockets and machine guns in Hama province and that warplanes had been constantly present in the sky.

"Compared to the previous days it is nothing, but we consider that they broke the truce," Mohamed Rasheed, head of the group's media office, told Reuters.

Another FSA-affiliated group, Alwiyat Seif al Sham, said two of its fighters had been killed and four more wounded when government tanks shelled them in rural areas west of Damascus.

A Syrian military source denied the army was violating the truce agreement. State media described rocket attacks near Damascus and several deadly attacks by Islamic State. But overall the level of violence was far reduced.

"Let's pray that this works because frankly this is the best opportunity we can imagine the Syrian people has had for the last five years in order to see something better and hopefully something related to peace," U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said at a midnight news conference in Geneva.

"I think that the feeling that we have today is that the situation is very different but of course every day has to be monitored," he said.

The agreement is the first of its kind to be attempted in four years and, if it holds, would be the most successful truce of the war so far.

De Mistura said he intends to restart peace talks on March 7, provided the halt in fighting largely holds.

But there are weak spots in a fragile deal which has not been directly signed by the Syrian warring parties and is less binding than a formal ceasefire.

Importantly, it does not cover powerful jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's branch in Syria. Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb in Hama province. Nusra has called for redoubled attacks.

Moscow and Damascus say they will continue to fight them, and other rebels say they fear this stance may be used to justify attacks against them too.

The truce is the culmination of new diplomatic efforts that reflect a battlefield dramatically changed since Russia joined the war in September with air strikes to prop up Assad. Moscow's intervention effectively destroyed the hope his enemies have maintained for five years -- encouraged by Arab and Western states -- to topple him by force.

REPORTS OF VIOLENCE

Like several other rebel figures contacted by Reuters, Fares Bayoush, head of the Fursan al-Haqq rebel group which fights under the FSA banner, said front lines were far quieter. But he added that violations were taking place and if continued could lead to the "collapse of the agreement".

In early reports of violence, a Syrian rebel group in the northwest said three of its fighters had been killed while repelling an attack from government ground forces a few hours after the plan came into effect.

From:

Perry, Tom, and Mariam Karolyn. "Guns fall mostly silent as delicate Syria truce takes effect, 28 Feb. 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.

Response

After four years of fighting and human rights abuses, any lull in the Syrian conflict is welcome. Yet it is too early to hail this uneasy truce as a groundbreaking success for the United Nations--a fact that both sides of the conflict, and the international community, know fully well.

With superpowers willing to deal underhandedly in the region to protect their geopolitical interests, the fractured rebel groups and a grounded mistrust of each other at the heart of the conflict, the chances of a ceasefire bringing about any lasting change are slim.

Yet progress is progress. Hopefully, the truce may become a front behind which both civilians, rebels, foreign powers, and the government can unite against radicalism and civil war in Syria.

Hong Kong riot police fire warning shots in bloody street clashes

By Clare Baldwin and Donny Kwok

Hong Kong riot police fired warning shots on Tuesday during clashes that erupted in the Chinese-ruled city when authorities tried to remove illegal street stalls set up for Lunar New Year celebrations, the worst violence since pro-democracy protests in 2014.

Demonstrators prised bricks from the sidewalk to hurl at police, while others toppled street signs and set fire to rubbish bins in Mong Kok, a tough, working-class neighborhood just across the harbor from the heart of the Asian financial center.

"We have noticed a shift in some members of the public," said Hong Kong Police Commissioner Lo Wai-chung. "(They) have an inclination to use violence or radical acts in order to express their opinion."

Nearly 90 police sustained injuries ranging from fractured bones to lacerations and bruises and 54 protesters were arrested, Lo said. Hong Kong television showed police officers being beaten with poles and sticks as they lay on the ground.

Many protesters and police were also shown with blood streaming down their faces.

Police said two warning shots were fired into the air, with pepper spray and batons also used to disperse the crowd. Television footage showed the shots were fired as protesters surrounded traffic police, pelting them with rubbish, bricks and bottles and wrestling one of them to the ground.

Lo said the life of the officer who fired the shots was being threatened. He also said there would be a full investigation into the incident.

The remains of burned bins and flower pots, chunks of brick and broken bottles lay scattered along the Nathan Road shopping strip, which leads to the harbor at Tsim Sha Tsui. A taxi with shattered windows was parked nearby.

The narrow streets in and around Mong Kok were the scene of some of the most violent clashes during protests in late 2014 to demand greater democracy for the former British colony that returned to Beijing rule in 1997.

The violence broke out after police moved in to clear illegal vendors who sell local delicacies, trinkets and household goods from makeshift streetside stalls.

The hawkers, a common sight on Hong Kong's bustling streets, quickly attracted a strong social media following under the hashtag #FishballRevolution.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the government strongly condemned the violence. Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok said police were investigating indications the clashes had been organized.

The protesters had dispersed by 8 a.m. (7.00 p.m. ET on Monday) but more than 100 had confronted police in a tense, pre-dawn stand-off during the Lunar New Year holiday, when most of the city is shut down.

Police said they did not expect another riot on Tuesday night, when new year fireworks are planned over the harbor, but they were boosting manpower nonetheless.

Hong Kong Indigenous, a "localist" group that is fielding a candidate in a Legislative Council by-election in a few weeks, was involved in the protest, though it was not immediately clear the role it played or the extent to which it was involved.

The group said on its official Facebook page and confirmed to Reuters that its candidate, Edward Leung Tin-kei, had been arrested.

Many so-called localists remain deeply embittered by the lack of any concessions from Beijing or Hong Kong authorities during the 2014 protests. Television footage showed protesters on Tuesday shouting: "Establish a Hong Kong country!" during running battles with police.

The clashes in December 2014 came when authorities cleared the last of pro-democracy demonstrators from the streets after more than two months of protests that had presented Beijing with one of its greatest political challenges in decades.

From:

Baldwin, Clare, and Donny Kwok. "Hong Kong riot police fire warning shots in bloody street clashes, 9 Feb. 2016. Web. 9 Feb. 2016.

Response

When the historic protests in Hong Kong died down two years ago, they did so without having achieved much. The Hong Kong city council, under increasing pressure from Beijing, refused to back down and give in to student demands, and the crowds eventually dispersed from the streets.

But it seems, perhaps, that they left a legacy. A legacy of protest and civil disobedience that may have become imbued in the current generation. The fact that violent clashes with the police resulted over a few stalls speaks to that.

Like most of the coverage in 2014, this article is slightly biased towards the protestors and casts the response by the Hong Kong government as an example of police brutality (which I’m inclined to agree with).

U.S. envoy visited Kurdish-held Syrian north

By Tom Perry and Arshad Mohammed

Brett McGurk, the United States' new envoy to the coalition it leads against Islamic State, speaks to reporters during a news conference at the U.S. embassy in a heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, December 9, 2015.

A senior U.S. official visited northern Syria at the weekend to assess progress in the fight against Islamic State, in what appeared to be the first declared visit to Syrian territory for several years by an official from U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

The Syrian Kurds have established control over wide areas of northern Syria since the eruption of the country's war in 2011, and their YPG militia has become a major partner in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

The trip by Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition against Islamic State, may anger neighboring Turkey which is alarmed by the growing sway of Syria's Kurds, fearing it could fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish population.

"We can confirm that Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk completed a two day visit to northern Syria this weekend to assess progress in the campaign to degrade and destroy ISIL," the U.S. official said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

"This visit and the discussions he had are in keeping with the Special Envoy's efforts to continue looking for ways to increase coalition pressure on ISIL," the official said.

Fred Hof, a Syria expert with the Atlantic Council think tank, said to his knowledge this was the first declared visit to Syria by a U.S. government official since the February 2012 closure of the U.S. embassy in Damascus.

The Syrian Kurdish official told Reuters McGurk landed at a Kurdish-controlled airport being used by U.S. military helicopters for logistical purposes and deliveries.

McGurk was received by officials including the prime minister of one of three autonomous regions, or cantons, the Syrian Kurds have set up in northern Syria.

In a statement posted on Youtube, Akram Hasso, head of the administration of Jazeera province, said McGurk's delegation was 17 strong and included representatives of France and Britain.

He also said they visited Kobani, a Syrian Kurdish town at the Turkish border that was the focus of a months-long battle between the YPG and Islamic State.

Arshad, Mohammed, and Tom Perry. "U.S. envoy visited Kurdish-held Syrian north." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 1 Feb. 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.

Response
I can still recall the heated controversy that came with the deployment of peshmerga troops in the fight with ISIL. That was nearly a year ago, and the Kurds, in Iraq and Syria, have proven themselves to be one of the more effective, organised, and consistent military forces in the Levant.

To Western eyes, they have always represented a more moderate and trustworthy ally, accused of no major war crimes and fighting for a sympathetic cause. Yet the move is likely to alienate the Erdogan administration, as to them, an autonomous Kurdish minority is a threat to Turkish stability--a fact made more understandable when considering the violent tactics employed by Kurdish terrorist groups like the PKK.

The fairly controversial political gesture, then, communicates two things to me. Firstly, that the Kurds, or at least the YPG, may have earned a seat at the table for their gains in Syria (an advantage they will press in their campaign for autonomy). Secondly, that the Obama administration may be worrying about the effectiveness of its air strikes and may be considering sending more specialists into the area--with increasing domestic pressure and the U.S. troop withdrawal last year, Obama may be seeking to indirectly escalate American involvement on the ground (though I see that as future fuel for a proxy war with Russia).

However, it may be early to speculate at this point. In any case, the writer seems favourably disposed towards the Kurds, mentioning its successes multiple times as well as the iconic battle of Kobani--a viewpoint that I happen to share.