January 2014 Mortar shell hits Russian embassy compound in Damascus - monitoring group - http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/22/uk-syria-crisis-embassy-idUKBRE98L05220130922?feedType=RSS&feedName;=worldNews September 2013 Breaking News Syria 'chemical weapons' crisis: LIVE UPDATES http://rt.com/news/syria-crisis-live-updates-047/ 2013 John Kerry says Syria chemical attack killed at least 1,429 people - final hour prophecy update - read more http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-kerry-us-syria-chemical-attack-20130830,0,2222419.story 2013 - 1,100 Syrians killed in new chemical weapons attacks.- Syrian activists inspect the bodies of people they say were killed by nerve gas in the Ghouta region near Damascus (source: Reuters) In separate news -- possibly related -- Is the Israeli government becoming concerned the Assad regime could launch chemical attacks on Israel? New York Times read more - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/world/middleeast/syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 2013 BBC News - Syrian rebel fighters' civil war within a civil war - A senior rebel commander with the Free Syrian Army has been shot and killed by jihadis. the killing is part of an escalating struggle within the armed uprising between moderates and Islamists linked to al-Qaeda. a long-standing and often bloody enmity among those fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad - "secular" against jihadi, "moderate" versus "extremist". a civil war within the civil war is building on the opposition side. A spokesman for the FSA's Supreme Military Council said Mr Hamami had been driving through Latakia when they ran into a checkpoint run by the main group linked to al-Qaeda in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The fighters at the checkpoint refused to let him pass, saying he would need to get permission from their emir. He told them they had to take their checkpoint down. As the argument raged, one of the fighters - a foreign jihadi from Iraq, it is said - raised his weapon and shot Mr Hamami. The FSA men retreated with their mortally wounded commander. According to the FSA, the emir gave a long list of reasons for the killing, one of which included the fact he was a member of the FSA's Supreme Military Council. The FSA said the Islamic State had threatened to kill all of the other members of the Supreme Military Council - another sign of the escalating struggle within the armed uprising. This is partly a battle over spoils, partly ideological. The crucial difference, though, is that the "secular" FSA will accept a civil state while the jihadis are fighting to establish an Islamic theocracy. A year ago, the jihadis were still operating almost underground in Syria. Now they are powerful and important players, in some places running whole towns, where they impose Sharia law. "This is a disaster for us, a disaster for the revolution," a female opposition activist told me. She was complaining about Islamist gunmen telling her not to smoke, to cover her head, and to leave meetings where she was the only woman. "We do not want these people," she went on, referring to the foreign fighters who have joined jihadi brigades. "This is not Syria." She admitted that the jihadis had grown in popularity because of corruption and infighting among the FSA. Many rebel groups were preying on the people they are supposed to be fighting for, she conceded. Now many people tell me the revolution itself has become corrupt and, in rebel-held areas, they fear a different kind of tyranny: crime, kidnapping, gangsterism. For Western governments thinking about arming the rebels, there are many worrying questions: What if the weapons are used in a sectarian massacre of Shias and Alawites? What if the jihadis get hold of anti-aircraft missiles and use them in Europe or the US? Against that, there is the risk that staying out will allow the Syrian inferno to light fires beyond Syria's borders. One in four Syrians have fled their homes, many into neighbouring countries. There is a risk of destabilising the whole region. Sectarian violence has already spread to Lebanon. A car bomb in Shia, Hezbollah-controlled southern Beirut, this week was payback for Hezbollah's involvement in the battle for Qusayr, it is said. Jordan, straining with more than half a million refugees, is also said to be at risk. To stop the killing, outside powers are trying to force both sides to the negotiating table. President Assad will not go, presumably, unless he feels seriously in peril - that is one reason, it is argued, to arm the rebels. But if the balance tips too far the other way, the rebels would not want to talk if they felt they were winning on the battlefield. If Western governments do decide to step in, there are some rebels they might feel they could do business with, represented by the FSA's Supreme Military Council, the body on which the murdered commander, Kamal Hamami sat.

• published: 23 Jul 2013
• views: 146323