Damascus

Syrian brigadier general Zaher al-Saket revealed on Al-Arabiya TV that he had been given orders to use chemical weapons against rebels:

John Kerry is traveling to the Middle East and Europe later this month to unveil his new plan to get Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down. "I believe there are additional things that can be done to change his current perception," the new secretary of state said this week. "My goal is to…

Two technology firms that monitor global Internet traffic report that Syria has been cut off from the Internet. Regular landline phone and cell phones services have been affected as well, Syrian opposition activist Ammar Abdulhamid told me. “Therefore, the possibility of accidental damage can be…

Yesterday the Washington Post inexplicably published a piece about the Vogue profile of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad—a profile published in March 2011. It’s inexplicable because it’s old news: Vogue removed the story, titled “A Rose in the Desert,” from its website long ago—and the fact that the…

In his statement yesterday demanding that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad step down, President Obama said: "we have heard [the Syrian opposition's] strong desire that there not be foreign intervention in their movement.” Perhaps so, but today opposition members are happy that the White House is on…

In his statement yesterday demanding that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad step down, President Obama said: "we have heard [the Syrian opposition's] strong desire that there not be foreign intervention in their movement.” Perhaps so, but today opposition members are happy that the White House is on…

President Obama’s statement demanding Bashar al-Assad step down as president of Syria was quickly followed by similar condemnations coming from the French, Germans, British, the EU, and Canadians. “To have them all fall in line is a hell of an accomplishment, especially in summertime,” Syria…

President Obama has just called upon Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad to step down. "We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way," the president said in a statement. "He has not led.  For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for…

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Jay Solomon and Nour Malas report on the Syrian regime’s dirty work in the United States, spying on and intimidating dissidents. (Indeed, Syria has been engaged in subterfuge for the last few months.) Sometimes Bahar al-Assad’s henchmen made good on their threats.

Beirut—Press reports over the last few days claim that the Obama administration is preparing to announce that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad must step down. However, an official readout from the president’s conversation with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this afternoon suggests…

On Tuesday night, the Obama administration began signaling that it will call for Bashar al-Assad’s departure in Syria. CNN and other outlets reported that the White House would soon increase pressure on the Syrian government’s finances, and isolate a number of officials in the Assad regime.

Josh Rogin reports that the Treasury Department has announced new sanctions of Syria:

In Foreign Policy, John Hannah suggests that Syria's neighbors are betting on Bashar al-Assad's demise:

Beirut—Kuwait and Bahrain are the most recent additions to the list of Gulf Cooperation Council states that have withdrawn their ambassadors to Syria. First Qatar yanked its diplomat, after a regime-led mob attacked Doha’s embassy in Damascus. Now, with the ruler in Damascus laying siege to Deir…

In his column for Tablet, Lee Smith asks, "The recent massacres in Oslo, Norway, and Hama, Syria, were both carried out by heartless sociopaths. Why does one of them—Syria’s Bashar al-Assad—continue to enjoy diplomatic relations with Washington?"

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s confirmation hearing of Robert S. Ford, a first rate foreign service officer now serving as ambassador to Syria under a recess appointment, was held Tuesday, August 2nd. If the United States is to have an ambassador in Damascus, Ford is an excellent man for…

President Obama deserves some credit for using strong language to condemn the Syrian regime’s massacre of peaceful protestors over the weekend in Hama, Deraa, Idlib and other cities in the pre-Ramadan onslaught. With reports still coming in, the most conservative assessment estimates that 145 were…

Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs this afternoon that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad isn’t going to survive the 5-month long uprising against his regime. “He can’t win this,” said Feltman, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Near…

Al Jazeera reports:

After cracking down on protesters and killing 1,500 of its own citizens, Syria seems to be changing its tactics: 

“Sectarian violence in Syria raises fears,” screamed the headline of a Washington Post article on the murder Tuesday of 16 Syrians in the city of Homs, which lies 100 miles north of Damascus. Admitting that "confirming details" of what happened are hard to come by in a city under siege, the Post's…

Journalist and Arab media specialist Hussain Abdul Hussain links to a remarkable film about the Syrian uprising, Syria’s Youth Revolutionaries:

The U.S. embassy isn’t the only diplomatic compound that’s been stormed in Damascus. The Qatari embassy was attacked twice, compelling Doha to withdraw their ambassador last week.

What should the Obama administration do in the wake of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus? Elliott Abrams rightly counsels the White House either to raise the stakes or withdraw Ambassador Robert Ford. We'll see how it plays out in the Syrian and Arab media over the next few days, but right…

Less than a month ago, Senator John Kerry defended the Syrian regime, expressing optimism that it would reform on its own. Kerry said, as Josh Rogin reports at Foreign Policy:

With the news of Osama bin Laden’s death sating much of the world’s appetite for reports from the Middle East, the Syrian regime has used what is essentially a media blackout to move against the opposition. As the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Hayat reports:

One of the Senate's rising Republican stars is today backing calls for the Obama administration to withdraw the U.S. ambassador to Syria. "Clearly, we should be on the side of the Syrian people longing for freedom and challenging the regime's corrupt and repressive rule," writes Senator Marco…

Via Tom Gross: Here's gruesome (and extremely graphic) video from the massacre in Syria:

A Wall Street Journal editorial today makes the very valuable point that Syria is an enemy of the U.S. Given its role as a transit point for foreign fighters making their way into Iraq to kill American soldiers, its alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah, its alleged role in the assassination of…

Article 7 of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) defines "crimes against humanity" as "murder" and other "inhumane acts" committed "as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population." It would be hard to find a clearer case of such offenses…

With the popular uprising in Syria completing its first month, protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime have spread to encompass most Syrian regions and cities, including now the capital, Damascus. On Friday, April 15, crowds from surrounding suburbs swarmed the city, heading downtown to…

In a move supposedly meant to placate protesters, Syria has abolished its 48-year-old ‘emergency’ rule law. But this isn’t a sign that the regime is totally giving in. (It seems instead that the regime just wants the world to think that it’s meeting the demands of the protesters, without actually…

Reporters covering the ongoing popular revolt in Syria were recently introduced to a new term from the sociopolitical lexicon of the Levant—the shabbiha.

It’s not on the front pages of the Western press, and it’s not leading the hour for the main Arab satellite networks like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, but the Syrian uprising continues apace, while the Assad regime’s countermeasures are becoming increasingly brutal.

Beirut

Reuters reports that Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad has deployed his army to subdue protesters: 

Reuters reports that the "main hospital in the southern Syrian city of Deraa has received the bodies of at least 37 protesters who were killed in a confrontation with security forces."

Cairo

It's hard to tell how many protesters are in the streets of the Syrian capital, but it's hardly surprising that, after Egypt and Libya, the regime in Damascus might be next in line. Bashar al-Assad and his security chiefs guessed as much, which is why the last few weeks they warned the foreign and…