generalspeaking

Deny, Deny, Deny

"What happened today is highly indicative. It shows that the regime is unable to control the situation even in the most secure areas of Damascus and despite suffocating security measures."
Khaled Saleh, Syrian Opposition

Syrian President Bashar al Assad, by all accounts, isn't now quite in the mood for exulting and praising his military and that of Hezbollah with their heroics in freeing up Qusayr and other areas from rebel hands. After their losses, the Free Syrian Army appears to have rallied. Not in and of themselves necessarily, but alongside the fiercer, more battlefield-successful Islamists that continue to stream into Syria from all points of the Muslim world.

Egypt has given up some of its Islamists, as has Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Libya, with some coming from other parts of North Africa, all spoiling for the battle of their lives against the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah Shia Islamist cabal, preparing to clash in deadly onslaughts to prove that the Sunni jihadists are superior in their dedication to their pledge to the one true faith than the upstart and obviously heretic Shia.

That regardless of which sect prevails Sharia law will be enacted to burden Syrian civilians with the true weight of Islamic devotion is another story altogether. It is the story of the lethal enmity that exists between Shia and Sunni that ensures there will be no real winning side in all of this; slaughter is slaughter, and Shia blood runs as red as Sunni, as the spirit of life exits the corporeal essence of either adherent, leaving decomposing corpses to the vultures.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad had an unwelcome intimation of his own end when rockets and mortar shells hit the upscale Damascus neighbourhood where he feels safest. He was en route to Anas Bin Malek mosque in Damascus's Malki area to celebrate with prayers the start of Eid al-Fitr. And is it not entirely fitting that Muslim fanatics such as they use the holy month of Ramadan in which to demonstrate the depth of their devotion to Islam, by provoking the most intense atrocities?

Syrian state television did its best to deny the claims of rebel attacks on the president's convoy. "The president arrived at the mosque driving his own car, he attended the prayer and greeted everyone in the mosque as he does every day when he meets people", said Omran Zoabi, Syrian information minister. While state television broadcast footage of the president within the mosque beside senior Ba'ath party officials  and Syria's Grand Mufti.

Who knows? Possibly President Assad always looks shifty-eyed and exceedingly nervous. Stiffly miling, moving awkwardly, eyes darting about, then praying. Truly, he has reason to pray.

Labels: Conflict, Controversy, Crisis Politics, Revolution, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 10, 2013