Syria: Israel opens fire after 'shooting from inside Syria'

The Israeli government has said its military destroyed a machine-gun nest inside Syria after troops were shot at twice in the Golan Heights. 

An Israeli military spokesman said it was his understanding that the shots had not been stray fire from fighting in the civil war between the Syrian government and rebels.

Troops responded by firing a guided missile at the Syrian position.
Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since the 1967 war.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said his country would not let "Syria's army or any other element" violate its sovereignty.

Read more: BBC News - Israel opens fire after 'shooting from inside Syria'

Syria: Top Russian Envoy for Syria and NATO Leader Say Assad Losing Control - by Ellen Barry and Rick Gladstone

Russia’s top Middle East diplomat and the leader of NATO offered dark and strikingly similar assessments of the embattled Syrian president’s future on Thursday, asserting that he was losing control of the country after a nearly two-year conflict that has taken 40,000 lives and has threatened to destabilize the Middle East.

The bleak appraisals — particularly from Russia, a steadfast strategic Syrian ally — amounted to a new level of pressure on the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, who has been resorting to increasingly desperate military measures, including the use of Scud ballistic missiles, to contain an armed insurgency that has encroached on the capital, Damascus.

The Russian diplomat, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, acknowledged that Mr. Assad’s forces could be defeated by rebels, whom the Syrian leader has repeatedly dismissed as ragtag foreign-backed terrorists with no popular support. “Unfortunately, it is impossible to exclude a victory of the Syrian opposition,” said Mr. Bogdanov — the clearest indication to date that Russia believed that Mr. Assad could lose.

Read more: Top Russian Envoy for Syria and NATO Leader Say Assad Losing Control - NYTimes.com

Syria opposition bloc elects Christian as leader - by Karin Laub

George Sabra

Syria's main opposition group in exile elected a left-wing veteran dissident born into a Christian family as its new president on Friday, a choice that could help counter Western concerns about possible Islamist influence over the group.

George Sabra, a Communist-turned-social-democrat and former high school teacher who once wrote for the Arabic version of Sesame Street, said his election as head of the Syrian National Council is proof that Syrians are not beholden to sectarianism.

"This day is a victory of the Syrian people to prove all over the world the reality of the Syrians ... as young people shouted in the streets, 'Syrian people are one, one, one,'" he said moments after his victory was announced at a conference in Doha, Qatar.

Sabra's election came on the eve of a crucial decision for the SNC.

The Istanbul-based group, widely seen as out of touch with activists fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad, must decide Saturday whether to join a broader opposition leadership, an idea promoted by Western and Arab backers of those trying to oust President Bashar Assad.

Read more: Syria opposition bloc elects Christian as leader

Syria Eid al-Adha ceasefire marred by clashes

Syrian activists have reported a series of clashes in violation of a ceasefire to mark a four-day Islamic holiday. 

Violence appeared to have died down as the ceasefire period began on Friday morning, before reports of fighting in several cities.  Both rebels and the army had said they would only observe the truce if the other side held their fire.

The truce was proposed by UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who hopes it will lead to a peace process.

Previous attempts at ceasefires in Syria have collapsed.

The BBC's James Reynolds, on the Turkish-Syrian border, heard repeated explosions and automatic weapons fire coming from the Syrian town of Harin, and saw smoke rising from buildings. 

Read more: BBC News - Syria Eid al-Adha ceasefire marred by clashes

Turkey assures Europe on Syria

At a recent two-day conference organized by the Southeast Europa Association (SOG) in Berlin, a high-ranking Turkish diplomat said his country would not take unilateral action on Syria, despite Ankara's increasingly hawkish stance.

"Our red lines on Syria have been crossed already. But our hands are tied," Turkey's ambassador to the EU, Selim Yenel, told diplomats, politicians and experts during the conference. "As long as the UN Security Council is stuck with the Russian and Chinese vetoes, we can't do anything. That's the problem," he said.

The growing tensions on the Turkey-Syria border, coupled with an increasingly assertive Turkish foreign policy, have raised concerns in European capitals that Ankara would take unilateral action on Syria, a development that could escalate the crisis beyond control.

Earlier this month, Syrian forces shelled Turkish territories during clashes with rebels on the border area and Ankara pushed a bill through parliament that authorized it to send in troops, opening the way to unilateral action. Faced with growing security risks from Syria, Turkish armed forces have continued intensifying their deployment along the Syrian border.

Read more: Turkey assures Europe on Syria | World | DW.DE | 22.10.2012

Turkey, Syria exchange fire in fourth straight day of fighting

Another mortar shell from Syria struck Turkish territory on Saturday, prompting a fourth straight day of retaliatory artillery fire, and reviving fears that the crisis in Syria could spiral into a regional conflict.

The latest shelling comes a day after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Syria not to test Turkey's "limits and determination" and insisted that his country "was not bluffing" with its warnings.

The mortar landed in a rural area near the village of Guvecci, early on Saturday morning just minutes after intense fighting broke out between the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and the rebels in the village of Harabjoz, in Syria's Idlib province across the border, the private Dogan news agency reported.

Note EU-Digest: there is also a possibility that rebels within Syria are launching mortar shells to provoke the Turkish to respond and create a greater conflict?

Read more: Turkey, Syria exchange fire in fourth straight day of fighting - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

Middle East: Turkey renews shelling of Syrian targets

Turkish armed forces have launched artillery attacks on a Syrian area near its border in response to a mortar attack which killed five members of the same family in southeastern Turkey.

Turkish state media has said that Turkey resumed cross-border artillery strikes at Syrian targets on Thursday.

There are unconfirmed reports that several Syrian troops were killed as a result of overnight Turkish shelling across the border in Tal al-Abyad.

The government in Ankara is expected to ask the parliament on Thursday to authorise cross-border military operations in Syria, according to Turkish media reports.

Read more: Turkey renews shelling of Syrian targets - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Syria: Support for the Assad government is rapidly collapsing and the regime's end seems imminent

Bashar al-Assad

As fighting rages in Damascus, and the Assad family that has ruled Syria for four decades struggles for its life against a growing uprising, a picture is emerging of a tight inner Assad group determined to fight its way out of this crisis, even while support for the government is quickly eroding..

President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000 and who friend and opponent alike say appears increasingly detached from reality, is  convinced he is fighting a conspiracy against him and Syria.

Around Assad is a tight circle of family and clan members, and a security establishment staffed mainly by adherents of the Alawite minority to which the Assads belong, a branch of Shi'ite Islam in a country that is three quarters Sunni. 

Support for Assad in outlying cities and even in the capital Damascus is quickly falling apart  and residents say the only sign of any government presence are some tanks and armored personnel carriers stationed on main roads. Traffic and ordinary police are nowhere to be seen. 

In Damascus rebels are now manning many checkpoints, blocking streets and clashing with government troops. This which would have seemed  impossible only a few days ago, say observers.

Curtain time for the Assad family could come very soon.

EU-Digest