New toys for the Syrian Army

Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper and Stratfor, a private intelligence organisation run by former CIA operatives, claimed last month that Syria was strengthening its air, ground and naval defences with advanced Russian, Chinese and Iranian missiles. If true, this could be good news for the beleaguered Syrian defence forces but don’t hold your breath. The Syrian military has been corrupted by three decades of occupation and plundering of neighbouring Lebanon and allowing senior army officers to treat their divisions as personal fiefdoms to ensure their loyalty to the regime.

Military strength is necessary for peace but it has to be visibly based on capable people, reasonably modern equipment and intelligent, efficient systems. The occupation of the Golan will continue as long as Israel perceives Syria to be a relatively weak adversary, at least on the human side.

Syria must negotiate the return of the Golan from a position of strength while simultaneously striving to build trust and normalize relations with Israel. Syria also has a moral and strategic responsibility to defend Palestinian rights and not allow itself to be sucked into a separate peace deal. Some argue that Syria has always adopted this strategic position. They are wrong. Syria has been relying on proxy militias to destabilize other countries in the region, thwart superpower plans and ignite mini conflicts instead of building a professional and loyal Syrian military machine. No amount of hardware can save a country if the majority of soldiers are poorly trained, poorly equipped, abused and humiliated by officers who owe their loyalty to the regime rather than the nation as a whole.

Haaretz, 22 Feb. 2007

Syria could soon receive thousands of advanced anti-tank missiles from Russia that could find their way into the hands of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Ha'aretz, which did not disclose it's sources, said Thursday the new sale of Kornet AT-14 and Metis AT-13 missiles was close to completion despite Israeli diplomatic efforts to get Moscow to abandon it.

The Kornet AT-14 is a semi-automatic, command-to-line-of site missile system capable of destroying armored vehicles equipped with protective plating, including those with explosive reactive armor. It is also effective against fortifications and entrenched troops. Mounted on a small tripod, the missile is considered accurate when fired from as far away as 3 miles.

Evidence that Hezbollah was in possession of the weapons was found during last summer's war in southern Lebanon. Crates of the missiles, with shipping documents showing they were procured from Russia by Syria, were found near the Saluki River, where Hezbollah delayed an Israeli armored column with missile fire.

The report said the evidence was presented by Israeli diplomats to the Russians, who purportedly promised to re-evaluate some of its arms deals with Syria.

Stratfor: Syria's Russian Connection

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Thursday (22 February) that Syria is strengthening its army "in an unprecedented way" and massing troops near the border with Israel along the Golan Heights. Syrian lawmaker Mohammed Hasbah denied the report, saying Syria has not redeployed its troops to the front lines but is prepared for any situation. Hasbah warned that Israel would "pay a heavy price" if it should "decide to do something stupid."

This heated war of words between Israel and Syria likely was sparked by the Israelis catching wind of a Russian arms transfer to Damascus; Haaretz also reported that Syria is close to sealing a deal with Russia to procure thousands of advanced anti-tank missiles.

Russia currently sees a prime opportunity to return to its Cold War policies in the Middle East. From the mid-1950s to the fall of the Soviet empire, Moscow's principal clients in the Arab world included Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Algeria and Yemen. Supplying these regional allies with military assistance and training under long-term loan arrangements that were unlikely to be paid back -- or even, in some cases, for free -- bought the Soviet Union leverage against the United States in the region. Eventually, Moscow's financial constraints caught up with its geopolitical ambitions, and military expenditures in the Middle East dropped low on its list of priorities.

Now, with the United States trapped in a thorny standoff with Iran over the future of Iraq, Russia has a chance to edge itself back into the sandbox. Moscow once again is trying to make friends in the region, with a particular focus on the two countries with the greatest ability to aggravate Washington and undermine U.S. policies: Iran and Syria.

While there have been some rumors about shipments of modern Russian air defense equipment to Syria, many reports are unconfirmed and are, at best, being debated in defense establishment circles. Of major concern is the S-300 long-range air defense system, considered to be among the most capable air defense asset in the world. The latest version of this system, the S-300PMU2, is unlikely to be in Syrian hands -- but the mere discussion of such a sale would be enough to put Israeli and U.S. policymakers on edge.

That said, there are plenty of other Russian military goodies that could be used to add some muscle to Syria's air defense. The summer 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was a major gut check for the Syrian defense establishment. As Israel Defense Forces (IDF) engaged Syria's militant proxy in Lebanon, the Syrian regime had little choice but to play nice and stay out of the fray for fear of a devastating strike by the Israeli air force (IAF) -- which used two F-16s to buzz Syrian President Bashar al Assad's Latakia palace in June 2006. The relative ease with which the IAF penetrated Syrian airspace -- without fearing a response -- reinforced the need for Syria to improve on its Soviet-era air defense capabilities. Syria knows that the denial of airspace to Israel or the United States is a key strategic priority.

A likely Russian sale of upgraded SA-9 and SA-13 Strela surface-to-air missiles to Syria would fit into this strategy. New acquisitions and deployment of Iranian-built Chinese C-802 anti-ship missiles also are rumored to be under way. The Syrian navy has badly decayed in the last 10 years, and the acquisition of significant quantities of these missiles would be a serious improvement.

But while it makes perfect sense that Syria is taking advantage of the regional dynamic to rebuild its military capabilities, the Syrian regime is not looking for a fight with Israel. Rather, the acquisitions are meant to signal to Israel and the United States that the cost of engaging Syria militarily would be too high. Damascus would much rather work through its militant proxies as it remains focused on re-establishing itself in Lebanon.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, is busily evading U.N. troops in southern Lebanon and rebuilding its own military capabilities -- with Iranian and Syrian assistance -- in preparation for round two of the summer's conflict with Israel. Recent Syrian imports of AT-14 Kornet-E and AT-13 Metis-M anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) likely are making their way into Hezbollah arsenals in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah employed these advanced missiles against Israeli tanks during the 2006 conflict, when it successfully delayed an IDF advance near the Saluki River. The guerrilla tactics Hezbollah used against Israeli armor were not lost on Syria, which almost certainly will be deploying any new ATGMs it acquires near the Israeli border -- except for the ones that slip across the Lebanese border to Hezbollah.

Sources in Lebanon also say Hezbollah fighters in the Bekaa have been sighted at least twice carrying what appear to be SA-18s. The SA-18 is a shoulder-launched, infrared-guided missile akin to the U.S. FIM-92A Stinger (which was used to great effect against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan). While it will not stop the IAF, it will be especially useful in the Bekaa against low-flying close-air-support sorties and IDF helicopters.

Hezbollah has an interest in demonstrating that it possesses these weapons in order to dissuade Israel from launching commando raids against its forces in their Bekaa stronghold. After the 2006 summer conflict, Israel knows it will have little chance of crippling Hezbollah's militant arm unless it thrusts into the Bekaa; but the transfer of these weapons from Syria will make such an offensive more costly.

A concerted effort by Russia and Iran is clearly under way to exploit the U.S. position in the region and upset the regional balance in their favor -- which falls directly in line with Syrian interests. As long as Russia can take advantage of this geopolitical opening, it can stir up enough regional cyclones to make money for the Russian defense establishment, and more important, win back influence to barter with the United States. In the end, lesser powers like Syria stand to gain a great deal.

Blogger power: subversion and ridicule

The Egyptian authorities have recently meted out a 4-year prison sentence to Kareem Amer, an outspoken 22-year old blogger for “inciting hatred of Islam” and "criticising President Hosni Mubarak".

The blogger community is incensed by this harsh punishment. His blog supporters have initiated a worldwide campaign to publicise his case and free him. Syrian bloggers, who would be just as exposed to the risk of government harassment and imprisonment back home, have taken up his case in solidarity.

For Middle East bloggers, Kareem’s sentence comes as no surprise. He has provoked both the religious and political establishments and challenged their legitimacy. He has also managed to upset many devout Muslims who do not necessarily support the authorities. His own father has disowned him and called for him to be hanged!

Like any 22-year old rebel, Kareem tends to see the world in black and white and be severely critical of injustice, hypocrisy and intolerance in his own community. But his real crime is that he has been able to propagate his private thoughts to the rest of the world and reach out to many people who happened to agree with him. His potential power to subvert has alarmed the authorities, so much so that Egyptian Prosecutor Mohammed Dawoud is reported to have accused Kareem of being an “apostate” who “has hurt every Muslim across the world,” and to have told The Associated Press, “I want him to get the toughest punishment. I am on a jihad here … If we leave the likes of him without punishment, it will be like a fire that consumes everything.”

It is well to remember that authoritarian governments and fundamentalists of any type fear most two things: media freedom and ridicule. The former challenges their ideas and legitimacy and subverts their power base and the latter exposes their fallibility and shatters their carefully-nurtured personality cult.

The blogosphere is the essence of media freedom. Bloggers who are sufficiently articulate and determined can attract many followers. Like modern-day Messiahs, they have the capacity to wage intellectual wars that could eventually topple regimes and rock the foundations of long-held value systems.

We have truly reached the point of no return. From now on, no single government, cult or culture will ever be able to brainwash and impose its will on any community that can use the Internet.

Let us not get carried away though; as Bridget Johnson of LA Daily News has reminded us, “Unless the global community takes a stand, Kareem’s imprisonment will not be the last”. I am certainly writing directly to every Egyptian cabinet minister and ambassador I can reach and to every international organisation that funds the Egyptian government to let them know my private thoughts! Bloggers acting alone or in unison can make a difference, and in this case we shall.

The names and contact details of the Egypt’s cabinet members are here.

The contact details of some Egyptian embassies and consulates are here.

The contact details of USAID's programme for Egypt are here.

Regime Rottweilers demand more meat

Syrian human rights campaigner, Lawyer Anwar Al-Bunni, incarcerated since May 2006, is about to be served another dose of humiliation and persecution by the authorities.

Not content with beating him up in the street, jailing him twice, torturing him in prison, ignoring his hunger strike, shaving his hair and revoking his license to practise law, they now want to strip him of his citizenship. The full story is here.

Stripping someone of citizenship is a drastic measure reserved for cases of high treason. In Syria this is almost unheard of. According to a 1967 decree, a citizen can be stripped of his citizenship if he is proved to be in the service of a foreign state working against Syria or a country at war with Syria.

In the case of Mr Al-Bunni, the move to deprive him of citizenship has come from the Minister of Labour & Social Affairs, Mrs Dayala Al-Haj Arif. Al-Bunni is accused of establishing an unauthorised human rights organization in Syria. The organization with an office in Damascus received partial funding from the EU and was closed down within one week. How can the diligent minister regard it as high treason when Syria was negotiating an association agreement with the EU which demands respect for human rights? Is the EU working against Syria? Is it at war with Syria? Has it not provided funding for some developmental projects in Syria in recent years?

It seems likely that some regime Rottweilers are out to make an example of Mr Al-Bunni. His treatment certainly smacks of a thuggish personal vendetta. Where is the treasonable offence?

Human Rights Watch report on Syria
[Source: http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/syria14722.htm]

Events of 2006

Syria’s poor human rights situation deteriorated further in 2006. The government strictly limits freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Emergency rule, imposed in 1963, remains in effect, despite public calls by Syrian reformers for its repeal. The authorities continue to harass and imprison human rights defenders and non-violent critics of government policies. Following the May 2006 Beirut-Damascus Declaration, which called for improved relations between Lebanon and Syria, security forces apprehended some dozen activists who had signed the petition, including prominent writer Michel Kilo and human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni. On August 15, 2006, a military court sentenced Habib Saleh, a regular contributor to online forums, to three years for “spreading false and exaggerated information.” Saleh had earlier served a three-year sentence for his involvement in the Damascus Spring initiatives of 2001.

Thousands of political prisoners, many of them members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party, remain in detention. Syrian Kurds, the country’s largest ethnic minority, continue to protest their treatment as second-class citizens. Women face legal as well as societal discrimination and have little means for redress against sexual abuse or domestic violence.

Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and “Disappearances”
In January 2006 the government released five of the eight remaining Damascus Spring prisoners, including former members of parliament Ma'mun al-Humsi and Riad Seif, as well as Fawaz Tello, Walid al-Bunni, and Habib Issa, but all five continue to face harassment. The authorities briefly detained Riad Seif twice following his release. Rights activist Ali al-Abdullah, who was released after six months in prison in November 2005, was detained again in March 2006 along with two of his sons. Syrian authorities disavowed any knowledge of their whereabouts for over a month. Al-Abdullah and one son were convicted in October 2006 for spreading false news and undermining the state but were released as they had already served their six-month sentences.

The authorities brought additional charges against activist Kamal al-Labwani, who has been detained since November 2005 after meeting abroad with European and US officials. He now stands accused of "communicating with a foreign country and prompting it to direct confrontation," which carries a sentence of life imprisonment or death.

Dr. `Arif Dalila, a prominent economics professor and a proponent of political liberalization, continues to serve a 10-year prison term imposed in July 2002 for his non-violent criticism of government policies. His health deteriorated sharply in 2006; reports indicate that he suffered a stroke.

The London-based Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) estimates that about 4,000 political prisoners remain in detention in Syria. The authorities refuse to divulge information regarding numbers or names of people in detention on political or security-related charges.

The government also targets university students and other youths who exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly. In early 2006 Syrian Air Force Intelligence arrested eight young men who tried to establish a youth movement. The authorities referred all eight—Husam Melhem, Ali Nazir al-Ali, Tariq al-Ghourani, Ayham Saqr, ‘Ulam Fakhour, Maher Ibrahim Asbar, Omar al-Abdullah, and Diab Siriya—to the Supreme State Security Court, but as of mid-November 2006 the charges against them were still unknown.

Torture remains a serious problem in Syria, especially during interrogation. The September 2006 report of the official Canadian Commission of Inquiry into the 2002 US deportation to Syria of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, concluded that “the SMI [Syrian Military Intelligence] tortured Mr. Arar while interrogating him during the period he was held incommunicado at the SMI’s Palestine Branch facility.” The report also concluded that Arar had come under Canadian and US suspicion on the basis of information the SMI extracted by torture from two other Canadian nationals of Arab origin, Abdullah al-Malki and Ahmad El Maati.

Syrian human rights organizations reported a number of cases of torture in 2006. One such case involved 26-year-old Mohammad Shaher Haysa, who reportedly died in a Damascus interrogation center as a result of severe torture.

2006 passed without any government acknowledgement that its security forces had “disappeared” an estimated 17,000 persons. The “disappeared” were mostly Muslim Brotherhood members and other Syrian activists who were detained in the late 1970s and early 1980s as well as hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinians who were detained in Syria or abducted from Lebanon by Syrian forces or Lebanese and Palestinian militias.

Human Rights Defenders
Human rights activists continue to be targets of government harassment and arrest. Among those arrested in 2006 and still in detention is human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, arrested May 17 on charges of “belonging to a secret organization intending to topple President Bashar al-Assad.” Fatih Jamus, arrested May 1, was released on October 12, 2006, but awaits trial for “spreading false information.”

The government continues to prevent human rights activists from traveling and in 2006 expanded its list of those banned from leaving the country. The Syria-based Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights has published a list of over 110 activists banned from traveling; the actual number is considerably higher. Among those banned from traveling in 2006 are Radwan Ziadeh, director of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies; Suheir Atassi, head of the Jamal al-Atassi Forum for Democratic Dialogue, which Syrian authorities shut down in 2005; and Walid al-Bunni, a physician who helped found the Committees for the Revival of Civil Society.

Syrian officials consistently have denied registration requests by human rights organizations. For instance, in August 2006 the Ministry of Social Affairs refused the request of the Syria-based National Organization for Human Rights to register, without providing any explanation.

Discrimination and Violence against Kurds
Kurds are the largest non-Arab ethnic minority in Syria, comprising about 10 percent of the population of 18.5 million. They remain subject to systematic discrimination, including the arbitrary denial of citizenship to an estimated 300,000 Syria-born Kurds.

Tensions have remained high since serious clashes between Kurdish demonstrators and security forces in Qamishli in 2004 that left more than 30 dead and 400 injured. Despite a general presidential pardon for those involved in the March 2004 clashes, dozens of Kurds still face trials in the criminal court of Al-Hasake, reportedly on charges of inciting disturbances and damaging public property.

Syrian authorities also suppress expressions of Kurdish identity. On March 20, 2006, security services arrested dozens of Kurds for participating in a candle-lit night procession in celebration of the Kurdish new year, Nowruz, and used tear gas and batons to break up the march.

Discrimination against Women
Syria’s constitution guarantees gender equality, and many women are active in public life, but personal status laws as well as the penal code contain provisions that discriminate against women and girls. The penal code allows a judge to suspend punishment for a rapist if the rapist chooses to marry his victim, and provides leniency for so-called “honor” crimes, such as assault or killing of women and girls by male relatives for alleged sexual misconduct. Wives require the permission of their husbands to travel abroad, and divorce laws remain discriminatory.

Situation of Refugees Fleeing Iraq
An estimated 450,000 Iraqis are now living in Syria. While Syria initially welcomed Iraqi refugees and provided them with access to public hospitals and schools, Syrian attitudes and policies towards these refugees hardened in 2006 with the implementation of increasingly restrictive national immigration rules. Access to public hospitals has also become more limited. This has created difficulties for an increasing number of Iraqis, some of whom have started to leave the country seeking asylum elsewhere.

Syria has also hardened its position towards Palestinians fleeing Iraq. Since May 2006 Syria closed its border to Iraqi Palestinians and several hundred remain now at a makeshift camp in the no-man’s land between the Iraqi and Syrian border checkpoints.

Key International Actors
Syria’s relationship with the United States, United Kingdom, and France remained strained in 2006 over Syria’s role in Lebanon and its ties to Iran. On May 17, 2006, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1680, which called on Syria to cooperate in the implementation of Resolution 1559 requiring the complete withdrawal of all foreign—that is, Syrian—troops from Lebanon. Following the war between Israel and Hezbollah in July 2006, a number of European countries began to question the policy of ostracizing Syria and started thinking about how best to reengage dialogue with al-Assad’s regime.

Syria remains under pressure to cooperate with the ongoing international investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. In his September 2006 interim report, Serge Brammertz, the head of the UN International Independent Investigation Committee, wrote that Syria’s cooperation “remained generally satisfactory, and the Commission continues to require its full support in providing information and facilitating interviews with individuals located on Syrian territory.” At this writing, four senior pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence and security officers remained in detention in Lebanon on suspicion of involvement in the Hariri assassination.

Iran continued to be Syria’s main regional ally and in June 2006 the two countries signed an agreement for military cooperation aiming at consolidating their defense efforts.

The Association Agreement between Syria and the European Union, initialed in October 2004, contains a clause requiring respect for human rights. At this writing, the agreement remained suspended at the final approval stage as European countries remained divided over how to engage with Syria.