Reports: Members of Irans Revolutionary Guards Killed Defending Shrine
Iranian media are reporting the deaths of several members of the Islamic Revoutionary Guards Corps in the Syrian conflict. Ali Asqar Shanaei <http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=1&id=427846>, Mehdi Khorasani, and Hossein Attari <http://www.ostanban.com/node/284> are said to have died while supporting the defenders of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine in south Damascus. Last month, the leader of Lebanons Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, justified the involvement of his fighters in the Syrian conflict by invoking the defence of the shrine. Hezbollahs men subsequently played a key part in the Syrian regimes capture of the strategic town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border. Iranian media reported that a fourth Guards member, Amir Kazem Zadeh, was killed <http://ca.iqna.ir/fa/news_detail.php?ProdID=1239856> in an explosion while fighting terrorists, ,but did not specify the location. The Revolutionary Guards have said they are providing logistical and advisory support for Damascus, but have denied the involvement of their troops in fighting. (Cross-posted from Iran Today<http://eaworldview.com/2013/06/12/syria-today-a-blast-in-damascus/eaworldview.com/2013/06/12/iran-today-can-the-moderates-and-reformists-win-the-election#syria> http://eaworldview.com/2013/06/12/syria-today-a-blast-in-damascus/ Politics [image: Follow this story] [image: Print] [image: Email this] [image: RSS Feed] <http://www.dailystar.com.lb/RSS.aspx?id=2> [image: ePaper]<http://epaper.dailystar.com.lb/> [image: share this] Sleiman and Army vow response to Arsal strikes June 13, 2013 01:03 AM The Daily Star [image: Lebanese civilians stand in a house that was hit by a rocket fired by a Syrian helicopter in the eastern Lebanese village of Arsal, near the Syrian border, on June 12, 2013. (AFP PHOTO / STR)] Lebanese civilians stand in a house that was hit by a rocket fired by a Syrian helicopter in the eastern Lebanese village of Arsal, near the Syrian border, on June 12, 2013. (AFP PHOTO / STR) [image: A+] [image: A-] BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman and the Lebanese Army vowed Wednesday to respond to repeated violations of sovereignty by the Syrian military, following an afternoon helicopter strike against the Bekaa Valleytown of Arsal. Hours after the announcement the Syrian army confirmed the strike, saying a helicopter targeted terrorist groups trying to flee toward Lebanese territory; some of the terrorists were hit, while others fled to the Arsal region. The Syria army said in a statement that it would continue to defend Syria, adding that it respects Lebanese sovereignty. Sleiman said that Lebanon has the right to take measures to defend its sovereignty and protect its citizens and their security, including filing a complaint with the Arab League and the United Nations. The repeated [strikes] against the town of Arsal by Syrian military helicopters constitute a violation of Lebanons sovereignty, the president said, adding that the actions also violated bilateral treaties with Damascus as well as international law. A statement from Baabda Palace said Sleiman decided on the move after he consulted by telephone with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi and Nasri Khoury, the head of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council. For its part, the Lebanese Army said it took the defensive measures necessary to respond immediately to any similar violation. A statement issued by the Army said a helicopter from Syria violated Lebanese airspace over Arsal and fired two rockets at the towns square. One Arsal resident was wounded and several buildings sustained damage in the 1:50 p.m. attack, the statement added. Security sources told The Daily Star that a total of six rockets had been fired in the incident. In the evening, the National News Agency reported four rockets fired from Syria hit the Bekaa Valley village of Sireen, southwest of Baalbek, an area considered a stronghold of Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside Syrian government troops inside Syria. Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2013/Jun-13/220230-sleiman-and-army-vow-response-to-arsal-strikes.ashx#ixzz2W2iaZ5zd (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb) Graphic!!! with chemical weapons or not , this image is not acceptable, world is sleeping very deep #Syria<https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Syria&src=hash> pic.twitter.com/bE1MpgGc7n <http://t.co/bE1MpgGc7n> June 10, 2013 Prospects for the Syrian revolution<http://louisproyect.org/2013/06/10/prospects-for-the-syrian-revolution/> Filed under: Syria <http://louisproyect.org/category/syria/> louisproyect @ 11:09 pm Tomorrow or the next day I will be posting a journal of the panels I attended at last weekends Left Forum in NY, including an audio archive (with mixed success since about half of the panels involved Powerpoint slides or other visual material). But today I want to single out a particularly interesting panel discussion that did not allow recordings for security reasons. Prospects for Syrias Revolution was held yesterday morning at ten under the auspices of Haymarket Books, the imprint of the ISO. The first speaker was from the http://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/ blog, an indispensable resource for understanding Syria from a Marxist standpoint. Even though he is presently not based in Syria, the blogger had to have his identity concealed during a Skype video call since it is entirely conceivable that the Baathist goons might want to track him down. The second speaker was Anand Gopal, who quite simply is the most informed person on the American left about Syria, both theoretically and as a journalist who has taken great risks to tell the true story of the revolutionary struggle To give you an idea of what the Syrian Freedom Forever blogger stands for, heres an excerpt from his latest blog entry Syria or elsewhere, there are no pure revolutions, just revolutions <http://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/syriaor-elsewhere-there-are-no-pure-revolutions-just-revolutions/> : The role of the revolutionary is to be on the side and struggle with these popular organizations struggling for freedom and dignity and to radicalize as much as possible the popular movement towards progressive objectives, while fighting against opportunists and reactionary forces opposing popular class interests. A banner in Homs expressed very well this feeling: The revolution is permanent against the regime and the cheap lackey opposition. My feeling is that as long as there is one Syrian expressing such a view and arrayed against him are revolutionary governments in Venezuela and Cuba, as well as dozens of leftist websites, and groups like the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, I will stand with him or her against al-Assad. His talk took the bull by the horns and challenged some of the myths about Baathism that are circulated on the left. *Baathism as a secular movement:* Hafez al-Assad, the current dictators father, was responsible for a constitution that stated that only a Muslim could be president doing so in order to placate the Muslim Brotherhood. Under his reign, there were more mosques built in Syria than in Saudi Arabia. When he organized a coup against the leftist military officer Salah Jadid in 1970, he did so on the basis of orienting Syria to conservative Arab states like Jordan and Saudi Arabia. And most importantly, in the early period of the Syrian revolution, his son Bashar al-Assad released Islamist hardliners from prison knowing full well that they would constitute a challenge to the more secular ranks of the democratic opposition. The Daily Star of Lebanon reported on March 19, 2013 that al-Assad ordered the release of the Islamist prisoners some two years ago, dovetailing with the Washington Post report of March 27, 2011 that 246 Islamist prisoners had been released from the Sednaya military prison in Damascus. *Baathism as a socialist movement* In Syria Bashar al-Assads cousin Rami Makhlouf controls 60 percent of the nations wealth. 30 percent of the population lives under $1 per day, and 60 percent under two dollars. The IMF has supported every single one of al-Assads economic policies and Saudi Arabia is Syrias primary investor. Under Bashar al-Assad, the economy has evolved away from agriculture into banking and insurance. You can also consult my own article on The Economic Contradictions of Syrian Baathism ( http://louisproyect.org/2012/07/19/the-economic-contradictions-of-syrian-baathism/) for more information. *Baathism as an anti-imperialist movement* Besides reminding us of Baathist support for Lebanese fascists against the Palestinians, Syrian Freedom Forever made a point that I had been completely unaware of. Hafez al-Assad supported George Bush the seniors first gulf war on Saddam Hussein. Bashar al-Assad also had summit meetings with Sarkozy in 2008, with his adviser arch-imperialist Bernard Kouchner in tow. El-Marad, a Lebanese newspaper, reported at the time: Both leaders held a joint press conference in Damascus following their first session of talks. President Assad said that his earlier visit to France and President Sarkozys visit to Syria had both strengthened relations between their countries. Noting that France currently holds the presidency of the European Union, Assad said he supported Sarkozys efforts to play a more active role in the Arab world, and said he was happy with a new dynamic form of European involvement in the region after many years of absence. Meanwhile lets not forget how Hillary Clinton viewed Bashar al-Assad until facts on the ground made such a statement untenable: Theres a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe hes a reformer. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on Face the Nation, March 27, 2011 * * * * * For people unfamiliar with Anand Gopals reporting, the best thing I can do is refer you to his August 2012 Harpers article titled Welcome to Free Syria that convinced me early on that there was a revolution occurring there that the left should get behind, especially this passage (fortunately the article can be read in its entirety online at http://harpers.org/archive/2012/08/welcome-to-free-syria/): All around Taftanaz, amid the destruction, rebel councils like this were meetingtwenty-seven in all, and each of them had elected a delegate to sit on the citywide council. They were a sign of a deeper transformation that the revolution had wrought in Syria: Bashar al-Assad once subdued small towns like these with an impressive apparatus of secret police, party hacks, and yes-men; now such control was impossible without an occupation. The Syrian army, however, lacked the numbers to control the hinterlandsit entered, fought, and moved on to the next target. There could be no return to the status quo, it seemed, even if the way forward was unclear. In the neighboring town of Binnish, I visited the farmers council, a body of about a thousand members that set grain prices and adjudicated land disputes. Its leader, an old man Ill call Abdul Hakim, explained to me that before the revolution, farmers were forced to sell grain to the government at a price that barely covered the cost of production. Following the uprising, the farmers tried to sell directly to the town at almost double the former rates. But locals balked and complained to the citywide council, which then mandated a return to the old priceswhich has the farmers disgruntled, but Hakim acknowledged that in this revolution, we have to give to each as he needs. It was a phrase I heard many times, even from landowners and merchants who might otherwise bristle at the revolutions egalitarian rhetoricthey cannot ignore that many on the front lines come from societys bottom rungs. At one point in March, the citywide council enforced price controls on rice and heating oil, undoing, locally, the most unpopular economic reforms of the previous decade. We have to take from the rich in our village and give to the poor, Matar told me. He had joined the Taftanaz student committee, the council that plans protests and distributes propaganda, and before April 3 he had helped produce the towns newspaper, Revolutionary Words. Each week, council members laid out the text and photos on old laptops, sneaked the files into Turkey for printing, and smuggled the finished bundles back into Syria. The newspaper featured everything from frontline reporting to disquisitions on revolutionary morality to histories of the French Revolution. (This is not an intellectuals revolution, Matar said. This is a popular revolution. We need to give people ideas, theory.) The one thing struck me in Anands presentation was how the situation had become so militarized in Syria so suddenly. He gave the best analysis I have heard. To start with, this revolution was rooted in the countryside where the regimes abandonment of support for the peasantry created mass hatred for the system. But unlike the cities, where an organized working class could mount mass protests even up to and including a general strike in order to put pressure on the regime, the relatively atomized peasantry had to resort to arms almost immediately since this was the only tenable defense. Very rapidly, those who had access to guns and the money necessary to defend the masses were propelled into the leadership. This meant for the FSA that the owner of a cement factory became a top commander. In a very real sense, Syria was experiencing a kind of bourgeois-democratic revolution. His access to funds was critical. It also explains the rise of the Islamist militias. With money pouring in from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, it gave the jihadists clout. Even though the Islamists have become a major factor in the Syrian struggle, Anand pointed to the more secular and more democratic-minded mass movements willingness to take them on. He referred to the conflicts taking place in Raqqa, the first provincial capital under rebel rule. Even though the Islamists are trying to impose Sharia law, and codes that make women second-class citizens, the secular and democratic minded residents are not intimidated. This passage from a recent New Yorker article ( http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/04/the-black-flag-of-raqqa.html) shows the give-and-take of the unfolding drama: Two men in their twenties, called Abu Noor and Abu Abdullah, answered, then called me to the door to greet the man from Jabhat. They were both civilians, but supported the uprising. We stood in the stairwell of the apartment building chatting for a few minutes, and then Abu Abdullah went inside and came back with a flyer bearing Jabhats name. It called for replacing the tri-starred flag used by Assads opponents since the uprisings earliest days with a black one bearing the words of the Muslim shahada (There is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger). What is this? Abu Abdullah asked the young Jabhat member. We were just talking about it, we dont like it. The Jabhat member, who was unarmed, smiled through his face covering. And what dont you like about it? he said. We are all Muslims, so what is the problem with a flag that bears the shahada? We are not all Muslims, Abu Noor said. You and I are but there are Christians here, too. You have insulted them. And besides, what gives you the right to change the symbol of the revolution? We protected the churches, the Jabhat member said, referring to the citys two churches, which were left unscathed in the Islamist rebel takeover of the capital. Lets not talk out here, he added. The neighbors will hear us. Do you have coffee? The men walked into the formal living room of the modest five-room apartment. Two older gray-haired men, Abu Moayad and Abu Mohammad, rose from sky-blue couches to greet their guest. For the next few hours, the men engaged in a combative and highly charged discussion. It was about the black banner, but more than that about the direction the Syrian uprising has taken. The men of the house feared that it had been hijacked by Islamists, led by Jabhat al-Nusra, who saw the fall of the regime as the first step in transforming Syrias once-cosmopolitan society into a conservative Islamic state. All four men said they wanted an Islamic state, but a moderate one. A few days earlier, a massive black flag bearing the shahada had been hoisted atop a flagpole in Raqqa citys main square, in front of the elegant, multi-arched governorate building. We will become a target for American drone attacks because of the flagits huge, said Abu Noor, a wiry young man who worked in a pharmacy by day and at night volunteered to guard the post office near his home against looters. Theyll think were extremist Muslims! (There havent been such strikes in Syria yet, though the possibility is much discussed here.) There is no moderate Islam or extremist Islam, the Jabhat member said calmly. There is only Islam, and Islam is under attack in the West regardless of whether or not we hoist the banner. Do you think theyre waiting for that banner to hit us? he said. Abu Mohammad, an older man in a tan leather jacket and a white galabia (a loose, floor-length robe), interjected: What were saying is, put the flag above your outposts, not in the main square of the city. We all pray, we all say, There is no god but God, but I will not raise this flag. This is an insult to people who died for the revolutionary flag, said Abu Abdullah, a former English major at the university. We are not forcing anything on anyone, the Jabhat member said. We offered it as a choice. We did not take down the revolutionary flags in the cityeven though we could have. 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