"Armed groups and militias are running amok, launching indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas and committing widespread abuses, including war crimes, with complete impunity"
Scientific analysis of the soil in the areas of suspected chemical warfare attacks on Syria have proven the use of chlorine and ammonia gas. With the proof of the soil as well as the evidence of the clear gas poisoning symptoms on the victims, it is now proven that the Assad regime is using chemical warfare on civilians, including children. This link also gives some useful but disturbing videos.
Syria's armed conflict escalated even further in 2013 as the government continues and intensified its attacks against civilians and began using increasingly deadly and indiscriminate weapons including chemical weaponry. This link also provides an abundant amount of information on not only human rights issues revolving around chemical warfare but also on human rights issues in regards to torture, unlawful arrests and forced displacement. At the end of the article, a list of key international actors are given including supporters and opponents of Syria.
New evidence highly suggests that Syrian government forces were responsible for chemical weapons attacks on August 21, 2013 in the Damascus suburbs. The attacks killed hundreds of civilians including several children. The chemical weaponry used is likely Sarin.
Progress regarding Syria has been made. Diplomats from around the world met in Munich, Germany where they agreed that there needs to be a "cessation of hostilities" and that more humanitarian aid needs to be provided to civilians.
It is a relief to see that water is finally making it back to Aleppo. The city has been under siege and civilians have been deprived of water. This article makes a valid point, showing that water has been used as a weapon of war.
US general Philip Breedlove is worried that the Syrian Refugees who are being dispersed throughout Europe and to the United States are causing the terror group of ISIS to "spread like cancer". He blames the Russian bombing in the name of Assad for causing this because civilians are forced to leave their land and are further pushed toward no other choice but joining ISIS.
Jordan officials killed 7 suspected jihadist militants whom were supposedly planning to blow up civilian and military targets in the country. Jordan, backed by the U.S., has been amping up the crackdown on ISIL influence flooding from Syria.
Here is a personal account of an innocent civilian family affected by the daily and ongoing fight between the PKK and the Turkish Republic. A two-year ceasefire has been broke, as Turkey has increased its bombing campaign against the Kurds in the mountains.
A UN rep states that the airstrikes launched by Saudi Arabia violated international law because of the number of civilians affected indiscriminately. Although civilians had been warned, enough time was not given to allow for total evacuation of the cities of of Sadaa,Maran, Albiqaa.
Islamic State has vowed 'harder and more bitter' attacks against the UK and its allies following another day of terror in Europe. The warning comes just hours after 34 people were killed in a series of blasts in the Belgian capital Brussels. This came by way of an airport attack where more than 30 civilians were killed and over 100 injured. UK is on high alert after this attack.
Russia warned it will act unilaterally starting on Tuesday to end alleged violations of the "cessation of hostilities" agreement, unless Moscow and Washington urgently reach an agreement to deal with attacks. The Russian military has accused the United States of dragging its feet on responding to Moscow's proposals on rules for joint monitoring of the Syria ceasefire and response to violations, saying delays are leading to civilian casualties. The Russian Government has threatened the Syrian people who stand against the peace treaty..
democracy assistance to the region, which will drop from $459.2 million to $298.3 million
Today’s Middle East is a product, at least in part, of failed democratization, and one of the reasons it failed was the timid, half-hearted support of the Obama administration.
the significant impact Western leverage and “linkage” can have on democratic transitions.
“it was an externally driven shift in the cost of suppression, not changes in domestic conditions, that contributed most centrally to the demise of authoritarianism in the 1980s and 1990s.” They find that “states’ vulnerability to Western democratization pressure… was often decisive.”
it is also worth noting that President Bush acknowledged the existence of a “tyranny-terror” link—the notion that the root causes of extremism and terrorism can be found in the region’s enduring lack of democracy.
the administration’s approach to the region is characterized almost entirely by ad-hoc crisis management and traditional counterterrorism approaches. Its one larger-scale reform initiative—a half-hearted proposal for a
We argue that the U.S. and its partners now need to consider a very different approach to Middle East democracy assistance.
Conventional democracy promotion activities tend to focus on the process and “retail” aspects of democratic politics—things like elections, political party training, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns, and civil society enhancement. While these are undoubtedly important, they are insufficient to deliver lasting reforms. Authoritarianism in the Arab world has proven time and time again—even in supposedly post-revolutionary settings such as Egypt today—that it can weather the annoyances of elections and civil society.
What is needed are more systematic reforms focused on fundamental institutions. These include things like constraining the military’s role in civilian domains of governance, deep reform in the security and justice sectors including law enforcement and policing, and comprehensive “renovation” of the civil service sector. These are large-scale, long-term, and expensive undertakings that far transcend the modest parameters of most U.S. democracy promotion programs.
we make the case for a new Multilateral Endowment for Reform (MER) that would tie significant levels of financial assistance—in the billions of dollars—to reform commitments and benchmarked implementation performance by partner nations.
provide a real incentive for countries to embark down a path to deeper and more enduring political reforms while retaining the ability to pull back funding if they do not deliver.
This article begins by illuminating the regional democracy assistance cuts that are dropping from $459.2 million to $298.3 million It explains that the Bush Administration began the quest for democracy in the Middle East, and the Obama administration has only continued in his footsteps. The author presents the viewpoint that the U.S. approach to Arab democratization has been in the form of "ad-hoc crisis management" rather than "large scale reform initiatives." Promoting democracy in the form of democratic politics are insufficient, elections and political parties have consistently proved to weather away and fester further civil strife. Consequently, the article proposes a new approach to the region conflict. This approach calls for "systematic reforms" focusing on basic institutions such as the civil service sector, justice and law enforcement, and the military's role in governance. The idea is that addressing these lacking departments in the arab world will eventually pave the way to a smoother democratic transition.
The US with Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched 14 strikes against IS in Syria, hitting a number of targets, including Raqqa, a stronghold in eastern Syria captured by the group in 2013.
al-Qaeda veterans named
These refineries are believed to be producing "between 300-500 barrels of refined petrolium per day", generating as much as $2 million (£1.2m) per day for the militants, a key source of revenue for IS.
This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.
This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.