General Robert Mood, head of the UN observers mission in Syria (UNSMIS) created by Resolution 2043 of 21 April 2012, has issued several statements stressing that the return to peace and the implementation of the Annan plan call for sustained efforts by both parties, government and armed opposition.
In each of his statements, he attested to the cooperation of the Syrian forces and refrained from any comment regarding the cooperation or lack thereof of the armed opposition.
Here is the breakdown of the number of victims for the period from April 12 to 25, provided by the Syrian government and currently being checked by UNSMIS:
• Members of military and police forces killed: over 200 (the fate of captured soldiers is unknown)
• Civilians killed by armed opposition: 189
• Members of military and police forces injured: 571
• Civilians injured by the armed opposition: 291
• citizens kidnapped by gangs: over 200
• Lootings: 144
• Bombings: 102
• Bombs defused: 47
The authorities do not provide statistics on casualties among the armed groups. According to the local media, fifty insurgents—some Syrian but mostly foreigners (especially Iraqi and North African/European dual nationals)—were killed during the same period.
The phenomenon of kidnapping for ransom and looting is new. Since the second Russian and Chinese veto, the West has stopped paying underhandedly the felons who had been recruited to swell the ranks of the “Syrian Free Army.” Without any money, but still in possession of the weapons that were delivered to them, these individuals have grouped into gangs dedicated to committing crimes and offenses with no political connotations, mainly in the suburbs of major cities.
The number of bombings must be put into perspective. Most explosive charges were low.
To be noted is the fact that, in the period under review, as had occurred during the Arab League Monitoring Mission, the highest number of victims is to be found among the security forces and civilians. This finding validates the Syrian government’s version that the country is confronted with a foreign war of low intensity and belies that of the West and the Gulf monarchies according to which a peaceful opposition is being quelled in blood at the hands of the security forces.
-voltairenet.org

The head of a UN observer mission to Syria, Major General Robert Mood, escaped unharmed when a blast went off as his convoy entered a restive southern town on Wednesday, Syria’s Addounia TV reported.
The explosion in Deraa wounded six Syrian soldiers, including an officer, who were escorting the UN convoy, while 12 other monitors traveling with the Norwegian general were uninjured in the attack, said an AFP photographer.
The attack was “a graphic example of violence that the Syrian people do not need,” said UN observer chief Major General Robert Mood.
“It is imperative that violence in all its forms must stop,” Mood, who was unhurt in the attack, was quoted by observer spokesman Neeraj Singh as saying.
“We remain focused on our task,” Singh told AFP.

The blast, caused by an explosive device planted in the ground, went off after four UN vehicles passed the entrance to Deraa safely, the photographer said.

The attack came as one of Syria’s main armed rebel leaders threatened to resume attacks on President Bashar Assad’s forces, a pan-Arab newspaper reported.
The statement from Free Syrian Army (FSA) chief Colonel Riyadh Asaad will deal a further blow to the fragile UN-backed ceasefire agreement that both sides are accused of disregarding.
“We will not stand with folded arms because we are not able to tolerate and wait while killings, arrests, and shelling continue despite the presence of the (United Nations) observers who have turned into false witnesses,” Asaad said, according to the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
“Our people are also demanding we defend them in the absence of any serious steps by the Security Council which is giving the regime a chance to commit more crimes,” he added.
Explosive devices are a common technique used by the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Asaad said, but it was uncertain whether his group was behind the attack on the UN convoy.
“Bombings are not part of our ethics and we don’t need them. Our aim is to target military vehicles and we only use explosive devices,” he said.
The UN has noted violations to the ceasefire from the government and armed rebels, who are suspected of carrying out a series of bombings in recent weeks, as well as political assassinations.

The armed Syrian opposition is highly fragmented and there are militants groups in the country who say they do not take orders from Asaad.
Syrian National Council spokesperson Ausama Monajed told Al-Akhbar in March that Asaad’s fighters only accounted for “maximum five percent” of all armed groups.
The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a Russian-European drafted resolution last month that authorized an initial deployment of up to 300 unarmed military observers to Syria for three months, to be known as UNSMIS.
But despite an initial pause in fighting on April 12, a promised ceasefire has not taken hold. Nor has the carnage in Syria stopped, despite a parliamentary poll on Monday which the government promoted as a milestone on its path to reform but most opposition groups dismissed as a sham and boycotted.
International mediator Kofi Annan called on both Syrian government forces and opposition fighters to put down their weapons and work with the unarmed observers to consolidate the fragile ceasefire that took effect in April.
The newspaper quoted Asaad as saying the Free Syrian Army had devised a new strategy to make its attacks more effective.
Asaad said the FSA had pulled out of cities to give the Annan plan a chance to succeed.
“The Free Syrian Army is still on the ground in most Syrian territories, and its departure from the cities was to spare civilians military operations and in order not to give the regime an excuse to say that we do not want a ceasefire,” he added.
-Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar

The real situation in Syria is absolutely different from how the Western media portray it, historian and political analyst Pierre Piccinin told RT. He visited the turbulent state twice and says it was not as bad as he expected.
RT: You have been to Syria, the latest country you visited for a couple of times, what was your goal in going to that country?
Pierre Piccinin: My goal was to get reliable information, so I had to screen all the reports coming from the Western news agencies, magazines and other media. I did some research and found out that there are actually two rival Syrian human rights groups that monitor developments and supply the bulk of information to the West. What I discovered, too, was that the uprising was supported by a minority of the population, which differs from what the Western media are saying when they quote the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Also, the Syrian opposition is very much divided – they do not share the same goals and they use different methods to reach their goals. Actually I never questioned the credibility of the information that was coming from the region.
RT: You’ve been critical about the usage as well as reports from Syrian observatory on human rights. But in a scenario like this it would be difficult to clarify every single death in the country. So what’s your criticism based on?
PP:First of all, I don’t think it’s too hard to have a more-or-less clear idea about what’s happening in Syria. I’ve been able to visit the country twice in the last six months. I rented a car, drove all over Syria, was able to go even to Hama and Homs. I was never detained at any military checkpoints.
The Western media choose to rely exclusively on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. I published the results of my investigation in the Afrique Asie magazine last month. There, I say that there are two such “observatories”, and they are both connected with the opposition. In reality these organizations are the opposition’s propaganda agencies, propaganda tools. I don’t understand why the media choose to use them as the source. It is part of the journalist’s job to think critically, verify sources and be extremely cautious. But they decide to just spread the information they receive from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, without asking any questions.
Let me give a clear answer to your question. I am saying that several dozens were killed in the armed conflict. But journalists are talking about reprisals by the regime. If the government attacks peaceful protesters, we can call it reprisals, but if the Syrian authorities are dealing with an army based in refugee camps in Lebanon and Turkey, financed from Qatar, and trained by the French army – it’s not repression. The regime is defending its territory from foreign aggression!
RT: How do we classify the events in Syria then? Is it a civil war, is it an uprising, is it a revolution?
PP: I think it is a revolution. I think we can say that. But there are Islamist groups in Syria that are trying to use this situation and turn Syria into an Islamic republic, something like a Salafi caliphate. In a way, this is similar to what happened in Libya – there was a civil war between tribal clans, and now a group of Salafis is represented in the new “government” of Libya. The same is happening in Mali, this problem has recently become a popular topic of discussion – Islamist groups spread throughout the Sahara and got into sub-Saharan African countries.
There is something unhealthy about these groups, acting alongside the revolutionaries. It is impossible to identify or contact them. They are truly secret groups.
RT: Since the beginning of the crisis, the government has always stuck to one line that there are armed groups, or they are supported from outsiders, by foreigners. Are they blind to what’s happening in the country, to the possibility that this is a real revolution? Are they right or wrong? How would you assess the government now?
PP: First of all, as for the government’s rhetoric… I don’t believe the Syrian government to be blind. Rhetoric and reality are two different things. Syria’s government is in denial of the fact that a revolution is taking place. They are talking about some foreign conspiracy, about Israel and the US plotting against Syria… My analysis of the situation is completely different: I think that starting with 2001, after 9/11, the US chose to cooperate closer with the Syrian government. And they both discovered a mutual enemy – the Islamists. And I think that the US is very unhappy with what is going on now.
Israel is also very concerned now. Should the Syrian regime collapse, the country could sink into chaos, and then Israel will have significant problems with it, whereas now, despite the prevailing anti-Israeli rhetoric in Damascus, Israel is in fact quite comfortable with the current regime. In reality, they are getting along pretty well.
At the moment we see that the ruling regime has successfully established control over most of Homs, as well as over Idlib and Hama, and is fighting the Free Syrian Army on the borders. The regime is far from collapsing; it’s nowhere near a downfall. Bashar Assad has a lot of sunny days ahead of him. Many people asked me, “How can you say such things? You’re advocating the regime!” No, I’m not advocating the regime. I am doing my research. I want to see what happens on the ground. I take the facts and draw conclusions.
RT: How do you see the Syrian conflict ending?
PP: Unless, of course, there is an intervention from outside, I expect that the Ba’athist government will be well able to control the situation with military force. After that, I think, it will conduct progressive reforms to develop democracy. This may even be a formal democracy. At the initial stage, I believe, to a large degree this democracy will be formal. Yet civil society is awakening and making its position known, and in the future the government will have to make a turn towards real democracy.
-RT.COM

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that Al Qaeda and other organizations on the US “terror list” are supporting the Syrian opposition.

Clinton said: “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, al-Qaida [sic], Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].” [1] (Click here to watch video)

Yet at the same time, in the above BBC interview the US Secretary of State repeats the threadbare Western claim that the situation in Syria is one of a defenceless population coming under “relentless attack” from Syrian government forces.

There is ample evidence that teams of snipers who have been killing civilians over the past year in Syria belong to the terrorist formations to which Clinton is referring to.

As Michel Chossudovsky points out in a recent article: “Since the middle of March 2011, Islamist armed groups – covertly supported by Western and Israeli intelligence – have conducted terrorist attacks directed against government buildings, including acts of arson. Amply documented, trained gunmen and snipers, including mercenaries, have targeted the police, armed forces as well as innocent civilians. There is ample evidence, as outlined in the Arab League Observer Mission report, that these armed groups of mercenaries are responsible for killing civilians. 

While the Syrian government and military bear a heavy burden of responsibility, it is important to underscore the fact that these terrorist acts – including the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children – are part of a US-NATO-Israeli initiative, which consists is supporting, training and financing ‘an armed entity’ operating inside Syria.” [2]

The admission at the weekend by Hillary Clinton corroborates the finding that armed groups are attacking civilians and these groups are terroristic, according to US own definitions, and that the situation in Syria is not one of unilateral state violence against its population but rather is one of a shadowy armed insurrection.

Clinton’s admission retrospectively justifies the stance taken by Russia and China, both of which vetoed the proposed UN Security Council Resolution on 4 February, precisely because that proposal was predicated on a spurious notion that the violence in Syria was solely the responsibility of the Al Assad government.

Clinton also acknowledges in the BBC interview that there is “a very strong opposition to foreign intervention from inside Syria, from outside Syria” – which tacitly concedes the fact that the Syrian population is aware that the so-called oppositionists within their country are Al Qaeda-affiliated mercenaries.

Meanwhile, the US Gulf allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have separately issued statements that they are willing to send arms to Syria to support the insurrection against the Damascus government. Given the still substantial popular support for the government of Bashir Al Assad, such a declaration by Saudi Arabia and Qatar towards a fellow Arab League member state signifies an unprecedented interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Indeed, legal opinion could argue that it constitutes a self-indicting act of international aggression.

Besides, such a declaration by Saudi Arabia and Qatar of being willing to arm Syrian insurrectionists, can be seen as a cynical cover for what is already taking place. It is known that the Gulf monarchical states are already supplying weapons illicitly to the self-styled Syrian Free Army, along with Turkey and Israel.

So far, the US is officially maintaining the fiction that it is not involved in supplying arms to Syria even though Washington has demanded “regime change” and in spite of evidence that Western covert forces, including American, British and French operatives, are actively engaged with the opposition groups.

It is richly ironic that the unelected fundamentalist Sunni regimes of the Persian Gulf are supporting Al Qaeda affiliated groups within Syria purportedly to “bring about democratic reforms”. This is the same dynamic that prevailed in Libya where the overthrow of that country’s government by Western and Gulf Arab powers has now led to a collapse in human rights and social conditions.

Once again, Syria is indicating the same alignment of allies: Washington, London and other NATO powers comfortably in bed with Sunni/Salafist tyrants and terrorists, claiming to be supporting democratic freedom and human rights.

Of course, the real agenda has nothing to do with either democratic freedoms or human rights – as the awry alignment of allies clearly indicates. Rather, this is about Washington and its proxy powers trying to engineer regime change throughout the Arab World and beyond to conform to geopolitical objectives, principally the control of raw energy. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria are but a sequence of stops on a global roadmap of permanent war that also swings through Iran. Russia and China are the terminal targets.

Washington is evidently prepared to use any means necessary to assert this agenda: illegal wars, death on a massive scale, possibly triggering global war and the use of nuclear weapons. But surely the most preposterous mask is the “war on terror”, when it is seen – from the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – that Washington is now openly collaborating with the supposed “terrorist enemy” to bring about regime change in desired countries.

If somehow the weasel words from Washington could be taken at face value, then if it were serious about wanting regime change to facilitate democracy, human rights and world peace, the first regime that pre-eminently qualifies for such change is Washington itself.

by Michel Chossudovsky and Finian Cunningham. Global Research, February 27, 2012.

Notes

[1] Transcript of Clinton interview on BBC, 26 February, 2012: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1202/S00690/interview-with-kim-ghattas-of-bbc.htm

[2] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29234