Bashar al-Assad Resorts to Firebombing Syrians

Being that the rebel stronghold is located in Homs, the Assad regime has dramatically stepped up its use of force over the past few weeks, now using helicopters and military jets to bomb the city.

As Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi & Oskar Svadkovsky report, the military is now using thermobaric bombs (fuel-air bombs) in a tactic similar to that used by Russia in Chechnya. These arms effectively turn the air into fire, and are among the most destructive weapons available:

One YouTube video identifies these as napalm bombs. Well, the balls of fire are certainly not entirely unlike videos of napalm bombing that can be found on YouTube. However, napalm is normally delivered with bombs and these are probably thermobaric or fuel-air bombs of the kind the Russians used in Chechnya. Given the regime’s connections to Russia, it comes rather natural that Mr. Putin would share with Bashar Assad his rich experience in waging counter-insurgency in the Caucuses.

See their article, including a number of video clips, in The American Spectator.

Syrian Onslaught Continues, Tanks Firing Randomly

This followup up on our ongoing coverage of the Syrian siege of Homs is bleak: there are no new developments, and the killing drags on.

This CNN article cites an activist as claiming that Syrian military are strapping detainees to tanks as human shields.

Activist Abu Abdo tells Anderson Cooper: “We are all going to die here.”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Patrick Cockburn writes a good analysis of the politics driving this civil war in The Independent:

There is no doubting their courage, but the struggle in which they are taking part has two other dimensions: it is part of the escalating conflict between Sunni and Shia and the 33-year-old battle between Iran and its enemies. The sectarianism of the Syrian opposition is persistently played down by the international media, but power in Syria is distributed along sectarian lines, just as it was in the recent past in Iraq, Lebanon and Ireland. Even supposing an anti-sectarian opposition, democracy in Syria means a loss of power for the Alawites and their allies and a gain for the Sunni.

 Read the article here.