Terrorism & Security

In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke rises from buildings due to heavy shelling in Damascus countryside, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 2 (Shaam News Network via AP video/AP)

Any end in sight? Syrian conflict enters third calendar year (+video)

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 01.02.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The Syrian civil war entered its third calendar year with rebel forces displaying increased military prowess but still lacking adequate weapons and organization to gain a decisive edge over government forces.

At the outset of 2012, many observers predicted it would be President Bashar al-Assad's last year, but now in 2013 the conflict appears locked in a stalemate with alarming fatality rates. 

According to UK-based opposition group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 85 percent of the roughly 45,000 Syrians they estimate have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011 were killed in 2012. CNN reports that United Nations envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi expects that number to climb. 

"Do not expect just 25,000 people to die next year – maybe 100,000 will die," he said earlier this week. "The pace is increasing."

The opposition Local Coordination Committees told CNN that at least 136 people were killed yesterday, the first day of the year, alone. There were clashes in eight provinces, the heaviest in and around the capital of Damascus and Aleppo. 

Aerial bombardments by the Syrian Air Force have been responsible for many of those 45,000 fatalities. In rebel-controlled northwestern Syria, a strip of land running between Aleppo and the Turkish border, rebel forces have made it a priority to take over aviation facilities to rob the Air Force of its ability to bomb the area. They consider the regime's air power its "main threat" because they can do little to stop attacks by helicopters and jets, even in territory they hold on the ground.

Today they launched an offensive against a military airbase near Taftanaz in northwestern Syria, which they have attempted to take before, Associated Press reports. Reuters reports that the base has more than 40 helicopter landing pads, a runway, and aircraft hangars.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, which the US designated a terrorist organization last month, is involved with the assault on the Taftanaz base, according to Reuters.

Yesterday, fighting near Aleppo's international airport prompted a halt to all flights in and out of the city, which is Syria's commercial hub and largest city. Rebels have also been staging assaults on three other airports in Aleppo province, according to AP, including a military helicopter airbase closer to the Turkish border.

Agence France-Presse reports that the rebel attacks forced the closure of the commercial airport in Aleppo. Rebels have warned that they consider both military and civilian aircraft legitimate targets because they believe civilian flights have been used to supply the military.

Free Syrian Army fighters prepare their weapons in Aleppo's Izaa district December 30. (Muzaffar Salman/Reuters)

UN envoy: Without deal in Syria, think Somalia not Yugoslavia

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 12.31.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

After a week of attempting to craft a peace plan that both President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian opposition would agree to, the United Nations' envoy to Syria said the situation will not stabilize on its own and that a political deal is no closer.

“People are talking about a divided Syria being split into a number of small states like Yugoslavia,” Lakhdar Brahimi said, according to The New York Times. “This is not what is going to happen. What will happen is Somalization – warlords." 

“The situation is bad and it’s getting worse,” Brahimi also said, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. “I can’t see anything other than these two paths: Either there will be a political solution that will meet the ambitions and legitimate rights of the Syrian people, or Syria will turn into hell.”

He warned that the violence could claim as many as 100,000 lives in 2013.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Assad did not respond to Mr. Brahimi's proposals and a Syrian opposition leader declined an invitation to Moscow to meet with Russian officials. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said Assad could not be convinced to leave the country, which the opposition has insisted is a precondition for talks. 

Speaking about the yawning gap that has to be bridged for the two sides to sit down for talks, CNN reports that Brahimi said, "The Syrians disagree violently. On one side, the government says we are doing our duty to protect our people from ... terrorists. On the other side, they say the government is illegitimate," Brahimi said. "They are not talking about the same problem. They are talking about two different problems."

Brahimi's comments came the day after what CNN said might be the bloodiest day in the uprising – on Dec. 29, at least 399 people were killed.

According to Reuters, Mr. Lavrov pinned the blame for continuing violence on the opposition, even though the US, European countries, and most Arab states back the opposition's demand that Assad's removal from power come first. 

"When the opposition says only Assad's exit will allow it to begin a dialogue about the future of its own country, we think this is wrong, we think this is rather counterproductive," he said. "The costs of this precondition are more and more lives of Syrian citizens."

But the Syrian opposition's calculus has changed over the last couple months. A string of victories has made it optimistic abut winning the war in the end, and therefore less flexible in negotiations, according to Reuters.

Regime still has strength

But despite their recent success, "the government still has the bigger arsenal and a potent air force. It controls most of the densely populated southwest of Syria, the Mediterranean coast, most of the main north-south highway and military bases countrywide," Reuters notes. 

Russia appears to be making an effort to secure a meeting, agreeing to meet the opposition representative outside of Russia if he insists. Bloomberg reports that, according to RIA Novosti, the foreign ministry said talks could be held in Geneva or Cairo instead. 

Meanwhile, Brahimi is rapidly losing ground support in Syria, Reuters reports. 

The envoy's credibility with the rebels appears to have withered. In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up banners ridiculing Brahimi with English obscenities. 

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," the rebel chief in Aleppo province, Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, said on Friday.

Supporters of Central African Republic President Francois Bozize and anti-rebel protesters listen to an appeal for help by Bozize, in Bangui December 27. Bozize appealed for France and the United States to help push back rebels threatening his government and the capital, but Paris said its troops were only ready to protect French nationals. (Reuters)

US embassy evacuated as rebels surge in Central African Republic

By Mike Eckel, Correspondent / 12.28.12

Rebels are closing in on the capital of the impoverished Central African Republic, threatening to topple the weak government and push yet another African nation into civil war, failure, or outright collapse, The Associated Press and other news outlets are reporting. 

The former French colony joins a string of countries stretching from Mali and the Ivory Coast to Congo and South Sudan where war and turmoil have created waves of refugees and power vacuums for warlords or criminal groups to exploit. Several of the countries are former French colonies, raising questions for Paris about whether to get involved in the conflicts. 

The United States evacuated its embassy in the CAR capital Bangui overnight, sending the ambassador and around 40 other staff to Kenya due to the deteriorating security situation, the AP reports. The United Nations has also ordered around 200 non-essential staff to depart, as well. 

A day earlier, President François Bozizé, who seized power in a 2003 coup, urged the US and France to intervene, according to Radio French International. Hundreds of demonstrators pelted the French Embassy with stones earlier this week, demanding that France intervene militarily to halt the rebel advance, Reuters reports.  

“We ask our French cousins and the United States of America, the great powers, to help us to push back the rebels … to allow for dialogue in Libreville [Gabon] to resolve the current crisis,” President Bozize said.

“There is no question of allowing them to kill Central Africans, of letting them destroy houses and pillage, and holding a knife to our throats to demand dialogue,” he said.

The rebel fighters are a coalition known as Seleka that have captured four regional cities and towns, including a diamond mining hub, since taking up arms on Dec. 10. They accuse Bozizé of not upholding peace deals meant to end several regional uprisings.

The conflict has posed yet another challenge to French foreign policy, particularly in its former African colonies. There are around 250 French military advisers in the CAR, but French President François Hollande said yesterday that troops wouldn’t get involved. "If we are present, it is not to protect a regime, it is to protect our nationals and our interests, and in no way to intervene in the internal affairs of a country," President Hollande was quoted by AFP as saying. "Those days are gone."

That’s a contrast from Hollande’s predecessor, Nicholas Sarkozy, who took a more aggressive approach, sending French military troops, for example, to help oust Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo amid fighting that followed a disputed presidential election. French jets played a major role in the air campaign in Libya that ultimately led to Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s defeat.

Landlocked and poor despite substantial mineral wealth, including uranium, the CAR has been unstable for most of its 52 years of independence. It is also sandwiched between countries that have been roiled by war for years, often fueled by access to mineral and natural resources. The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen on- and off-again war involving as many as nine other countries and other armed groups for nearly two decades. The fighting in South Sudan predates its independence in 2011, a struggle involving oil resources, among other things.

Also fueling the turmoil is Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army, who is believed to be hiding in southeastern Central African Republic. Mr. Kony, indicted by the International Criminal Court for his role in the brutal fight in Uganda, is the focus of a global manhunt. US military advisers have been dispatched to Uganda to help search for him.

Further west, France has been resisting calls for greater involvement in civil war in Mali, where Islamist rebels have seized the northern part of the former colony, and imposed harsh sharia law. That has raised fears of a power vacuum, allowing Al-Qaeda-linked terror groups a base for operations.

The United Nations Security Council last week approved a resolution that authorizes a US- and European-backed African force to rebuild Mali's military and to prepare it for a possible offensive against the separatists and extremists. The French-sponsored resolution also authorized military intervention by a 3,300-strong force of soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States, under the training and command of Gen. Francois Lecointre, who has experience in Africa and Bosnia.

[Editor's note: The headline on the original version of this story had a typo]

Members of the Free Syrian Army prepare to launch a mortar bomb in Idlib December 26. The UN special envoy to Syria is hoping to revive peace talks in the war-torn country. (Abdalghne Karoof/Reuters)

UN envoy tries to revive Syria peace plan

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 12.27.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, said today that he is in Damascus and Moscow this week to try to revive a peace plan for Syria that was shelved this summer. However, rebel gains on the ground make it unlikely that the plan will go anywhere without more concessions to the Syrian opposition.

Russia is standing by its red line – that the plan not push President Bashar al-Assad from power. Meanwhile, the opposition still wants to bar current members of the Syrian regime from participating in a transitional government; the current proposal doesn’t appear to contain any such provision, the Associated Press reports.

What has changed is the opposition's strength: In recent months, it has captured swaths of territory, acquired better weaponry, and organized itself into a true fighting force, all allowing it to pose a legitimate challenge to the Syrian Army. The progress makes it unlikely the opposition will accept a proposal that allows former regime officials to participate in a new government if it rejected such a plan previously, when it was considerably weaker.

Mr. Brahimi was vague about how the plan might be amended this time around. CNN reports that during an appearance on Syrian state-run television today, he said only that, "The Geneva communique had all that is needed for a road map to end the crisis in Syria within few months."

The shift in the opposition's fortunes has led to a corresponding shift in Russia's own position. While Russia, where Brahimi will be later this week, was previously a steadfast supporter of the Assad regime and refused to entertain any proposals for a post-Assad Syria, Moscow now seems "resigned" to the possibility, the AP says.

Reuters reports that Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich stated plainly that Mr. Assad's departure could not be treated as a precondition for talks this time around, but did not insist that the possibility of his removal be off the table.

"The biggest disagreement ... is that one side thinks Assad should leave at the start of the process – that is the US position, and the other thinks his departure should be a result of the process – that would be the Russian position," Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told Reuters.

But Trenin said battlefield gains made by the Syrian rebels were narrowing the gap between Moscow and Washington.

Mr. Lukashevich said, contrary to speculation, there is not yet a concrete plan for resolving the Syrian conflict. "In our talks with Mr. Brahimi and with our American colleagues, we are trying to feel a way out of this situation on the basis of our common plan of action that was agreed in Geneva in June," he said, according to Reuters.

Officials have been vague about what is on the table as a series of high-level officials meet. Brahimi arrived in Damascus on Dec. 24 and Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad was in Moscow today, possibly meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia's envoy for Middle East affairs, Reuters reports.

CNN says that the Geneva plan was able to find some common ground between Russia and China on one side and France, Britain, the US, and Turkey on the other. That was, however, partially due to the fact that it didn’t address question of Assad's role in a transitional government.

According to the communique, the transitional government "could include members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent."

Ghanem Nuseibeh, founder of political risk analysis firm Cornerstone Global Associates, told Bloomberg that it is unlikely we will see a public "abandonment" of Assad because of Russia's naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus and billions of dollars worth of arms contracts with Damascus. 

A Syrian woman stands near fire to warm herself at a refugee camp in Azaz, Syria, Monday, Dec. 17. Thousands of Syrian refugees fled their homes due to fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government forces. (Manu Brabo/AP)

Syria fires more Scud missiles as refugee projections climb

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 12.21.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The head of NATO condemned the Syrian government's return to firing Scud-type missiles yesterday, saying they were "acts of a desperate regime approaching collapse."

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that surveillance captured evidence of the firing of fresh rounds of missiles yesterday morning, Reuters reports, while American officials confirmed independently to The New York Times that the Scud missiles had resumed after an apparent lull from their initial use last week.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem denied the reports as "untrue rumors," according to the Times.

CBS reports that a half-dozen Scuds were fired overnight from an Army base near Damascus toward a nearby rebel base.

Gen. Rasmussen's comments were echoed in the worries of Syrian rebel chief Salim Idris, who told CBS News that he is "very afraid" President Bashar al-Assad will resort to firing chemical weapons using Scuds. He said his contacts still with the regime said that the Syrian Army is preparing to use the missiles in the rebel-controlled northwest. 

There is not much additional concrete information about the use of Scud missiles in Syria, CBS notes, because they are "mobile" and it is "hard to pinpoint from where they were fired." They are also not very accurate. 

CNN reports that analysts believe that the Assad regime has as many as 400 Scud missiles on hand. 

Rasmussen cited the past 24 hours' events today as he defended the NATO deployment of Patriot antimissile systems along the Syrian-Turkish border. 

"The fact that such missiles are used in Syria emphasizes the need for effective defense protection of our ally Turkey," he told reporters today, according to Reuters. "The recent launch of missiles has not hit Turkish territory but of course there is a potential threat and this is exactly the reason why NATO allies decided to deploy Patriot missiles in Turkey, for a defensive purpose only."  

In a move heavily criticized by Syria, Iran, and Russia, NATO recently approved the placement of an American, Dutch, and German Patriot antimissile system along the border of NATO member Turkey. The deployment of the battery requires troops to operate the missiles, as well – the US is sending 400 to the area, according to The New York Times.

Meanwhile, the United Nations revised its refugee projection numbers again – at least the fourth time it has done so – bringing the estimate up to 1 million in the next six months, according to a separate New York Times report.

Panos Moumtzis, the UN regional coordinator for Syrian refugees, said the new forecast was based on the fact that 2,000 to 3,000 Syrians are fleeing across national borders every day. Mr. Moumtzis added that the number of refugees could reach 1.85 million if there were a mass exodus from the country, the Times reports.

Radhouane Nouicer, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said yesterday that "there are nearly no more safe areas where people can flee and find safety."

The UN is seeking $1 billion for refugees outside Syria and $519 million to boost its aid provisions for 4 million people inside Syria – 20 percent of the country's population. 

Vehicles carrying Palestinians and Syrians queue at the Lebanese-Syrian border, in al-Masnaa on Tuesday, after fighting between rebels and government loyalists drove refugees out of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus. Refugees began returning to the camp on Thursday. (Jamal Saidi/Reuters)

Palestinians begin returning to Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria (+video)

By Arthur Bright, Staff writer / 12.20.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Refugees have started returning to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria after fighting between rebels and government-allied forces sent them fleeing, but the status of the Palestinian refugees, along with hundreds of thousands of others displaced by the Syrian conflict, remains a top concern for observers outside the country.

The Associated Press reports that, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, "hundreds of people have returned" to Yarmouk after fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad drove out as many as two-thirds of the camp's 150,000 residents by United Nations estimates.

The battle at Yarmouk, located in southern Damascus, began Dec. 14, as pro-Assad Palestinian fighters attacked anti-Assad Palestinian rebels based in the camp. Al Jazeera English reported yesterday that although Syrian troops did not participate in the fighting within the camp, they provided support to the pro-Assad fighters, cutting off the camp from the outside and launching air strikes into the camp, which reportedly killed at least eight people on Dec. 16.

Al Jazeera noted that pro-Assad newspaper Al-Watan reported earlier this week that the government was preparing for a major assault on Yarmouk.

AP adds that while fighting has eased, some rebels still remain in the camp. Damascus-based Palestinian official Khaled Abdul-Majid told the AP that Cairo-based Palestinian leaders are negotiating the rebels' exit. Palestinian refugees in Syria have been divided over which side to ally themselves with in the ongoing civil war. 

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been affected by the conflict. Some 1 million people are expected to have fled Syria by mid-2013, and another 2 million have already been displaced within the country, reports BBC. The UN has issued an appeal for $1.5 billion for relief efforts in Syria.

The UN has registered more than half a million refugees so far, with between 2,000 and 3,000 arriving every day in countries neighboring Syria.

"Unless these funds come quickly, we will not be able to fully respond to the life-saving needs of civilians who flee Syria every hour of the day – many in a truly desperate condition," Panos Moumtzis of the UNHCR said.

"We are constantly shocked by the horrific stories refugees tell us," he added. "Their lives are in turmoil. They have lost their homes and family members. By the time they reach the borders, they are exhausted, traumatised and with little or no resources to rely on.

UN officials said they would need to provide food, shelter, medicines and even schools for them over the next year.

Syria is home to nearly half a million Palestinian refugees living in 12 camps around the country, including Yarmouk, according to the AP. Al Arabiya reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday called on the UN to help the Palestinian refugees displaced by the fighting in Syria to return to Gaza and the West Bank.

In this Sept. 12 file photo, an exterior view of the US consulate, which was attacked and set on fire by gunmen on Sept. 11, in Benghazi. (Esam Al-Fetori/Reuters)

Panel on Benghazi attack heaps blame on State, citing 'systemic failures' (+video)

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 12.19.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

An independent panel investigating the 9/11 attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi concluded that the State Department suffered “systemic failures” in providing adequate security.

The failures listed in a report released last night include relying too heavily on poorly trained local militias for security; “leadership and management” deficiencies in coordination of two important State Department bureaus; and an “under resourced” embassy lacking adequate security equipment, such as security cameras and outer perimeter walls high enough to protect the compound.

“Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department … resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” according to the report. The panel, known as an Accountability Review Board, was made up of five people appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including Adm. Mike Mullen and longtime US diplomat Thomas Pickering.

The Benghazi attack, which fell on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. It highlighted the depth of lawlessness still plaguing the country in the aftermath of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's ousting. 

“The attack on the US consulate was just the latest in a series of incidents,” Mohamed Abu Janah, a local radio executive and a protest organizer, told The Christian Science Monitor in September.

The month before the attack, in a piece titled “Worrying signs of lawlessness in Libya,” The Monitor’s Dan Murphy noted that some of the militias that fought to oust Qaddafi had taken on gang-like qualities. “Generally untouchable, they continue to swagger through Libya's towns and cities, demanding special treatment as a reward for their role last year. Many of them are now technically integrated into the security services, but continue to operate with impunity,” Mr. Murphy wrote.

He warned that “[T]he steady drumbeat of problems is worrying. If it isn't dealt with, 'rat-a-tat-tat' can transform into 'boom.' "

According to The New York Times, these signs of insecurity were, in part, ignored in planning security for the US Mission in Libya.

The panel also said American intelligence officials had relied too much on specific warnings of imminent attacks, which they did not have in the case of Benghazi, rather than basing assessments more broadly on a deteriorating security environment. By this spring, Benghazi, a hotbed of militant activity in eastern Libya, had experienced a string of assassinations, an attack on a British envoy’s motorcade and the explosion of a bomb outside the American Mission.

The Los Angeles Times notes that the report is “likely to represent the government’s lasting judgment on the attacks.” According to the document, the attack was:

the calculated effort of militants and not a "spontaneous" reaction of an outraged crowd, the first explanation offered by U.S. officials.

Yet the five-member independent panel said that, despite the lapses, no officials had failed to carry out their duties in a way that required disciplinary action.

It also determined that there had been "no immediate, specific intelligence" on the threat against the mission.

The Obama administration's initial response to the attacks and United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice’s inconsistent statements describing the events of the night garnered anger from lawmakers in the weeks leading up to the presidential election.

“The report affirmed there were no protests of an anti-Islamic video before the attack, contrary to what Ms. Rice had said on several Sunday talk shows days after the attack,” notes the Times. This confirmation could reignite arguments that the White House “politicized” Ambassador Steven’s death and the embassy attack.

The Monitor reports that, “At issue were her statements over what had precipitated the attack on the US mission in Benghazi.”

The legacy of Secretary of State Clinton could also be tarnished by last night’s panel report.

"This is a mark against Secretary Clinton. While she was not singled out, the report highlighted the lack of leadership and organization on security issues, and those fall into her bailiwick," Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal goes a step further, outlining reasons why Clinton, who is currently recovering from a concussion after fainting earlier this month, should testify on the Benghazi matter.

Mrs. Clinton's testimony is months overdue. Ambassador Chris Stevens and the Benghazi consulate staff reported to her. Their safety was her responsibility. Congress needs to flesh out why security was so lacking, why requests for additional protection for the mission were denied, and who made those decisions.

Despite background briefings by the Pentagon, State and CIA, the Obama Administration hasn't offered a consistent timeline of the Benghazi events. Mrs. Clinton hasn't said what she did that day and precisely how her department liaised with the military and intelligence services. It shouldn't take this long to fill such gaps.

The backdrop to Benghazi matters too. Mrs. Clinton was presumably – as the President's chief foreign policy adviser – instrumental in drawing up the "light footprint" policy in Libya. After the fall of Moammar Gadhafi, the US disengaged. As an elected but weak government struggled to establish itself in Libya, Islamist militias with al Qaeda ties filled the gap. One such group, Ansar al-Shariah, laid siege to the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, killing four Americans. Both the CIA and State immediately pulled out of the city—an abject retreat. What was the rationale for the U.S. approach to Libya, and will it change?

Mrs. Clinton will soon leave the Obama cabinet with sky-high approval ratings and an eye on the 2016 presidential nomination. It's logical for her not to want to dwell on the worst debacle of her tenure at State. But two months ago, she said "I take responsibility" for Libya without ever doing so. It's well past time she did.

According to Reuters, Clinton “said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations.” And the New York Times reports she is already taking steps to rectify problems identified in the report, including asking for a transfer of $1.3 billion from Congress.

They say the State Department is asking permission from Congress to transfer more than $1.3 billion from contingency funds that had been allocated for spending in Iraq. This includes $553 million for hundreds of additional Marine security guards worldwide; $130 million for diplomatic security personnel; and $691 million for improving security at installations abroad.

In this image made from video, NBC News Chief Correspondent Richard Engel exits a car after crossing back into Turkey, after Engel and his team were freed unharmed following a firefight at a checkpoint after five days of captivity inside Syria, in Cilvegozu, Turkey, Tuesday, Dec. 18. (Anadolu via AP TV/AP)

NBC's Richard Engel released in Syria, a journalist danger zone (+video)

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 12.18.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

NBC News Chief Correspondent Richard Engel and three members of his production crew were released safely from captivity last night, five days after being kidnapped in Syria, the news network reports. It is unclear who is responsible for the kidnapping, but the episode highlights the dangerous nature of reporting in war-torn Syria, a country the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) dubbed the deadliest place for journalists this year.

NBC reports that Mr. Engel’s captors have not been identified but are “not believed to be loyal to the Assad regime.” (Editor's update: Engel later spoke live in Turkey and noted he believed his kidnappers were indeed pro-government shabiha militiamen.) Engel and his team went missing after crossing into Syria from Turkey last week, and there had been no communication with the network – neither requesting ransom nor laying claim for the kidnapping – while the team was in captivity.

After entering Syria, Engel and his team were abducted, tossed into the back of a truck and blindfolded before being transported to an unknown location believed to be near the small town of Ma’arrat Misrin. During their captivity, they were blindfolded and bound, but otherwise not physically harmed, the network said.

Early Monday evening local time, the prisoners were being moved to a new location in a vehicle when their captors ran into a checkpoint manned by members of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, a Syrian rebel group. There was a confrontation and a firefight ensued.  Two of the captors were killed, while an unknown number of others escaped, the network said.

Engel and his team have since re-entered Turkey and say they were unharmed in the incident, NBC reports.

Syria’s conflict began in March 2011 after a government crackdown on protests calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. The violence has spiraled into a bloody civil war that has claimed the lives of close to 40,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, according to the United Nations refugee agency. 

But, according to The Wall Street Journal, “the multiplying of militias on both sides of the conflict has quickly and vastly complicated the scenarios for how fighting might end or a political transition may be negotiated, and what may come next after the end of the regime.”

"The civilian militias to come out of this conflict are going to make Hezbollah [in Lebanon] look like a walk in the park," Joseph Holliday, a senior research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, told the Journal. Syria is not simply seeing a faceoff between government forces and rebel fighters, but the involvement of Al Qaeda-linked fighters and Iranian militants have also been noted.

CPJ projects that 2012 will be the deadliest year yet for journalists, with 67 journalist deaths registered through mid-December alone. The high numbers are in large part attributed to the conflict in Syria and how it has impacted local and international journalists trying to report there. Four international journalists were killed in Syria in 2012, but the majority of the 28 journalists killed there this year were local reporters, largely working online.

“This feels like the first YouTube war,” BBC Middle East correspondent Paul Wood told CPJ. “There’s a guy with a machine gun and two guys next to him with camera phones.” Mr. Wood added that local journalists are facing multiple risks. “We’ve seen pro-regime journalists targeted by rebels – it is well known. But opposition journalists say the regime is intent on targeting them as journalists.”

The number of fatalities related to the Syrian conflict approached the worst annual toll recorded during the war in Iraq, where 32 journalists were killed in both 2006 and 2007.

Paul Wood … who covered Iraq and numerous other wars, said the Syrian conflict “is the most difficult one we’ve done.” Bashar al-Assad’s government sought to cut off the flow of information by barring entry to international reporters, forcing Wood and many other international journalists to travel clandestinely into Syria to cover the conflict. “We’ve hidden in vegetable trucks, been chased by Syrian police – things happen when you try to report covertly.”

With international journalists blocked and traditional domestic media under state control, citizen journalists picked up cameras and notepads to document the conflict – and at least 13 of them paid the ultimate price. One, Anas al-Tarsha, was only 17 years old. At least five of the citizen journalists worked for Damascus-based Shaam News Network, whose videos have been used extensively by international news organizations.

Engel is an experienced reporter who reported on the Iraq war in its entirety and has “covered wars, revolutions and political transitions around the world over the last 15 years,” according to NBC. But there are many factors making reporting by inexperienced journalists in high-risk countries like Syria increasingly common today.

In addition to the rise of Internet journalism, there are other factors like “relatively cheap flights to some of the world’s trouble spots” and “shrinking budgets for foreign news” that “have dramatically reduced barriers to entry for would-be foreign correspondents,” reports the BBC.

For organisations working to improve the safety of journalists it’s a cause for increasing concern.

“There’s something of a worrying trend developing,” says Hannah Storm, director of the International News Safety Institute. “I’m hearing it from people that have recently graduated. I’m seeing it on Facebook. And I see it sometimes when I talk to students in universities.

“It feels like now in places like Syria there are more and more people in their early or mid-20s with little or no experience - but with an overriding enthusiasm which makes them want to go out there and make a name for themselves, without taking the realities on board.”

Many of these young reporters are working as freelancers, which can create an additional risk. Freelance reporter Austin Tice has been missing since August when he was kidnapped near Syria’s capital, Damascus. The Monitor reports that the number of journalists kidnapped has gone up, and "with the rise in the number of reporters operating in dangerous places like Syria – and with many parties seeing value in targeting them – many expect the threat to persist.” However, while all journalists reporting in conflict zones can expect to face threats, the increasing number of freelancers can make working in places like Syria “particularly acute, as they are often operating without significant institutional backing and experience.”

"More and more of those journalists are freelancers because of the nature of the changing field," El Zein says, referring to the rise in the number of freelancers reporting in dangerous places, traditionally more a world for journalists on the staff of major publications.

"Especially in Syria, the risks are very high for journalists, and a freelancer going in there without any support structure – it can be very risky and daunting."

The Christian Science Monitor’s Tom Peter has been in and out of Syria over the course of the past few months and noted other distinct differences in reporting from Syria compared to other conflict zones in the past. “With Aleppo just a two-hour drive from Kilis [Turkey], many journalists have opted to drive into Syria each morning and return to Turkey to write stories and sleep. Not only is it safer, but electricity and Internet access are a sure thing,” he writes.

The commute made my job of writing and filing stories easier, but it also made for a surreal reporting experience. In one afternoon, I might find myself taking cover as windows blew out around me in a bombing. By that evening, I'd be back in Kilis getting my hair cut in a barbershop where a miscommunication led to an accidental mud facial mask.

I've always thought the hardest part of conflict journalism is the anxiety you feel before and after an assignment. When you're navigating a war, you're too busy to think about the what-ifs. Commuting in and out every day creates one of the strangest cycles of stress and decompression I've ever experienced.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reacts during a speech at the Damascus University in this file photo. (Bassem Tellawi/AP/File)

Syria's VP calls for peaceful resolution to crisis – possibly without Assad

By Arthur Bright, Staff writer / 12.17.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

In an interview with a pro-Assad Lebanese newspaper, Syria's vice president called for a peaceful political resolution to the ongoing conflict in his country, and suggested that President Bashar al-Assad may not play a role in Syria's future – marking the highest-level acknowledgment yet from the Syrian government that a victory for the Assad regime looks increasingly unlikely.

Farouk al-Sharaa, current vice president of Syria and a long-serving member of the Assad family's regime, said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Akhbar newspaper that “With every passing day, the solution [to the Syrian conflict] gets further away, militarily, and politically.” Noticeably omitting the political survival of President Assad, Mr. Sharaa says that “We are not in a battle for the survival of an individual or a regime.”

In an indirect, verbose fashion, Sharaa seems to demarcate a divided mind-set within the Syrian government, with Assad seeking a decisive military resolution to the conflict, while others, like Sharaa, push for a political solution.

Sharaa tells Al-Akhbar that "If anyone has the chance to meet Mister President, he would hear from him that this is a long struggle, a big conspiracy with many actors (terrorists, rabble, smugglers). He does not hide his desire for a military solution that achieves a decisive victory, and only then would the political dialogue be actually possible."

But, he adds, "Many in the [Baath] party, the [National Progressive Front, a coalition of non-Baath, pro-Assad parties], and the military forces have been convinced from the onset of the crisis that there is no alternative to a political solution and that there is no turning back."

Sharaa says that neither the regime nor the rebels have an exclusive right to dictate Syria's future, and that both sides will need to work together to resolve the conflict.

The opposition with its different factions, civilian, armed, or ones with external ties, cannot claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian People, just as the current rule with its ideological army and its confrontation parties lead by the Baath, with its years of experience and rooted bureaucracy, cannot achieve change and progress alone without new partners who can contribute to maintaining the fabric of the homeland, the integrity of its territory, and its regional sovereignty.

CNN notes that Sharaa has been floated as a possible interim leader of a post-Assad government, under a plan put forward by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in October. Mr. Davutoglu, explaining his reasoning to the Turkish Anadolu Agency, said that Sharaa has "a reasonable and conscientious approach," and "was not a part of recent events and did not partake in the massacres. And perhaps there is no one that knows the system better than Farouq al-Sharaa."

CNN adds that Sharaa has significant clout within Syria's government, having first been appointed to be foreign minister by Assad's father, Hafez. But Sharaa, who has been rumored to have defected several times, is also a Sunni, possibly granting him better standing among the largely Sunni rebels than his peers within Assad's primarily Shiite-aligned Alawite government.

Turkey has also reportedly offered a new post-Assad plan to Russia, which has been a staunch supporter of the Assad regime during the crisis. Agence France-Presse reports that, according to Turkish newspaper Radikal, the proposal would see Assad step down in early 2013 to be replaced by an interim government led by the opposition National Coalition. Radikal writes that earlier this month the plan was discussed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin, who called it a "creative formula." Though the two men did not come to an agreement on the plan – Turkey has been fiercely critical of Assad and backs an end to his regime – Mr. Putin did note that the Russians were not "inveterate defenders" of Assad.

AFP also reports that another staunch Assad ally, Iran, has put forth further details on its own plan to end the conflict. The six-point plan calls for an end to the violence under the supervision of the United Nations, followed by an end to foreign sanctions and formation of a transitional government. The plan also says that political prisoners should be released and impartial trials should be held for those jailed for crimes. Opposition groups have routinely rejected Iranian involvement in resolution of the Syrian crisis, due to Iran's unwavering military support for the Assad regime.