LATEST: Video — Insurgents Attack Air Force Intelligence Building, Daraa, With Mortars
Opposition activists, including some members of the National Coalition, are declaring that they will issue a “transitional roadmap” on Wednesday for political resolution and justice.
“National reconciliation will be achieved through a long transitional justice process in which justice is assured for all of Syria’s victims,” the activists said in a statement.
The proposals call for a “hybrid presidential/parliamentary system”, with a new Constitution based on a predecessor from 1950. Syrian security forces will be restructured to uproot “corrupt officials”, and “all armed groups” will be disarmed and demobilized to reintegrate them into society. All Syrian groups will be accepted and protected: “There is no place for the policies of revenge or retaliation.”
The group behind the proposal, Syrian Expert House, includes about 300 activists, lawyers, and members of the National Coalition and Syrian National Council. The roadmap is to be presented in full on Wednesday, in the presence of Coalition head Ahmad Asi al-Jarba, but has not been officially endorsed by the key opposition group.
How far the roadmap will progress is uncertain, however. The Coalition and insurgent factions have not endorsed the initiative, and there is no indication how it will be accepted by or imposed upon the Assad regime.
Latest Updates, From Top to Bottom
Videos: Explosions, Fires After Insurgents Attack Brick Factory (Qarmeed) Base In Idlib Province
Footage of a large fire following an explosion after insurgents attacked the Brick Factory (Qarmeed) Base in Idlib Province.
The fire is still burning as night falls:
There are other reports from activists that insurgents from the Liwa Al Dawood targeted the Brick Factory with a BMP:
Syrian Minister: “There Is No Internal Problem In Syria”
Wednesday’s All Is Well statement comes from Syria’s Minister of Endowments, Mohammad Abdul-Sattar al-Sayyed, who said that “there is no internal problem in Syria“.
Al-Sayyed explained the ongoing fighting across the country as a”basic problem” caused by “those who send weapons and money to the takfiri terrorist groups to kill the Syrian people.”
The Minister further clarified:
The takfiri calls will not gain victory over the Islamic real tolerant religion represented by the religious institution in Syria which offered a lot of martyrs during the crisis.
If that were not clear enough, Al-Sayyed noted that the reason for the conflict was an attempt to mis-portray Islam:
What is going on in the country is a desperate attempt by an incoming group to market a concept that the Islamic religion is a religion of killing and destruction.
Al-Sayyed offered a solution to the crisis: open more mosques, which was “a clear message on the reality of what is happening in the country”.
SANA reported that Al-Sayyed inaugurated several mosques in Latakia on Wednesday.
Video: Insurgents Attack Air Force Intelligence Building, Daraa, With Mortars
Insurgents from the Free Syrian Army use mortars to target the Air Force Intelligence facility in eastern Daraa City:
Videos: Fighting In Deir Ez Zor
Activists report heavy regime shelling in Deir Ez Zor on Wednesday, including aerial bombardments of the Treasury building and targets in the Al-Hawiqah neighborhood, and targeting of civilian homes in the As-Sinaa neighborhood.
Airstrike on Al-Sheikh Yassin neighborhood:
Meanwhile, insurgents continue to fight back — this video, from Wednesday, shows FSA fighters using homemade rockets to target regime positions in Deir Ez Zor.
Technical services building after its capture by insurgents:
Footage of a captured regime sniper stronghold on the Siyasiyeh Bridge, used to target anyone who tried to cross over the bridge in the Al Uthmaniyah district.
Syrian National Coalition Issues Report On FSA’s “Ramadan Victories”
With media attention focussed firmly on reports of developments with Islamist factions in Syria — usually under scary yet reader-grabbings headlines like “Al Qaeda expansion” — there has been little discussion of any advances made by the Free Syrian Army.
Presumably in an attempt to refocus attention on the FSA, the Syrian Coalition on Wednesday has issued a report detailing what it says are the FSA’s gains during the month of Ramadan. The report also gives details about which brigades were involved in each offensive, and lists weapons captured by brigades.
Video: Reports That Jaish Al Muhajireen Wa Ansar Transferred To Latakia, Homs
Kavkaz Center, an Islamist website run out of Chechnya, is reporting that fighters — -predominantly from the Caucasus region — from the Jaish Al Muhajireen Wa Ansar (Army of Emigrants and Helpers) have been transferred from Aleppo into Latakia and Homs.
Сирия. Спецкор КЦ. Подразделения Джейш Мухаджирин ва Ансар переброшены из Алеппо в Латакию и Хомс. В частности моджахеды с Кавказа
— Kavkaz Center (@kavkazcenter) August 14, 2013
In fact there have been previous reports, including the video below from August 5, that show fighters from the Islamist faction have been involved in the recent insurgent offensive in Latakia. In the video, a fighter named as Abu Al Walid describes how a group of around 40 men from the faction have succeeded in taking a number of hilltop villages and regime posts around Durin. [Abu Al Walid says he will speak in Russian because lots of people from Chechnya are watching!]
Reports Of ISIS Suicide Attack At Al-Hamidiyyah Army Base in Idlib Province
There are reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and As-Sham were involved in the Wednesday’s attack on the Al-Hamidiyyah Army Base in Maarrit An-Numan, Idlib Province, and that the group carried out a suicide car bomb attack there:
عملية استشهادية نفذتها دولة العراق و الشام في تجمع الحامدية في #معرة_النعمان اسفرت عن تفجر مستودعات صواريخ الراجمة .. بإنتظار الاقتحام
— Jeblawe 7ur (@Jeblawe_7ur) August 14, 2013
Videos, Photos: At Least 2 Explosions in Al-Hamidiyyah Army Base, Maarrit An-Numan
At least two explosions rocked the Al-Hamidiyyah Compound in Maarrit An-Numan in Idlib Province on Wednesday. Activists say that the first explosion was caused when the FSA forces targeted a regime checkpoint and the second was the result of a rocket launcher exploding inside the compound:
Activists said that insurgents overran two checkpoints close to the base, that all armored vehicles in Al-Hamidiyyah were destroyed, and that there may have been three Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED) involved in the attack.
Location of the Army Base:
An EA source said that insurgents have reported that they have not taken over the base but captured lots of spoils and took a some regime officers and soldiers prisoner as well. Insurgents are chasing those who escaped towards Wadi Al Deif.
Activist Abdullah notes that:
@ArtWendeley @markito0171 didn't take over…just caused several explosions using BMPs full of explosives…took tanks and withdrew
— Abdullah (@SyrianSmurf) August 14, 2013
This footage claims to show the explosion caused by the rocket launcher inside the base:
This image, taken by a local activist, is purportedly of the explosion inside the base, and could have been caused when an ammunition store was hit:
This footage shows large amounts of smoke rising, purportedly after one of the VBEID attacks:
Video: On The Front Line In Deir Ez Zor’s Al Hawiqah Neighborhood
Footage dated Wednesday, created by a citizen journalist embedded with insurgent forces in Deir Ez Zor, shows the front line in the city’s Al Hawiqah neighborhood, which was captured by insurgents at the weekend and which the regime is attacking in an attempt to retake it. Present on the ground are forces from the FSA and Jabhat al Nusra.
Regime Makes Push For Refugees In Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan To Return Home
The Syrian government has begun a push — at least on the PR front — to encourage refugees displaced by the conflict to return to their homes and for displaced children to return to school.
Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi on Tuesday urged displaced citizens in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon to return to Syria “to prevent their exploitation.”
As an incentive, al-Halqi pledged to “provide decent residential places” for those displaced — though he did not explain how this could happen in cities and neighborhoods where fierce clashes continue, or in insurgent-controlled areas.
Al-Halqi’s comments are part of the regime’s PR efforts to push the line that it is fully in control of governing not just regime-held areas but of the whole of Syria.
In this light, al-Halqi said that the Assad government is “continuing work to limit the rise in prices, affirming that there will be no tolerance towards those who are trying to disrupt the stability of the national economy” and that it is making “continuous efforts to provide services and livelihood requirements in the various provinces and the measures that have been taken to secure all the basic food and consumer materials and oil derivatives”.
SANA also reports on an initiative by The Syria Trust for Development, to encourage children of displaced families to go back to school and continue their education.
SANA writes that: The aim of the campaign is to support children at the makeshift residential centers to enroll in schools in the areas where they are temporarily staying to continue the path of their future.
SANA offers no information about where the initiative will run. The initiative appears to be part of the regime’s reconstruction efforts, which serve to increase stability in regime-controlled neighborhoods by winning over civilian hearts and minds, encouraging civilians to move back into areas under regime control, and giving the impression that the regime is in charge and able to govern the country.
Central Bank Confirms Sharp Fall of Syrian Pound
The Central Bank Governor, Adib Mayaleh, has effectively confirmed the sharp fall in the Syrian pound — he announced on Tuesday that the Bank has sold the currency to 10 exchange institutions at 173.27:1 vs. the US dollar.
The official rate of the Syrian pound was 47:1 vs. the US dollar before the conflict began in March 2011 and was still officially listed at 90:1 this spring. However, its rapid decline was highlighted by reports that it had reached almost 300:1 on the black market.
International exchange website XE still lists the Syrian pound at 105:1 vs. the US dollar.
Casualties
The Local Coordination Committees claim 99 people were killed on Tuesday, including 28 in Hama Province, 18 in Damascus and its suburbs, 13 in Deir Ez Zor Province, 12 in Idlib Province, 11 in Daraa Province, and 11 in Aleppo Province.
The Violations Documentation Center puts the number of dead at 69,434 since the start of the conflict, a rise of 69 since Tuesday. Of these, 52,481 are civilians, an increase of 43 from yesterday.
