LATEST: Video — Defeating Assad’s Men & Freeing A Tank from A Swimming Pool

TUESDAY FEATURES

Week Past, Week Ahead: Syria — If Regime Is Winning, Why Is It Using Chemical Weapons?

On Monday, as it was declaring a Presidential election for June 3, the Assad regime allegedly carried out yet another chemical weapons attack with mass casualties.

Doctors and activists say more than 130 people were injured by inhalation of chlorine gas after the detonation of a cylinder inside a barrel bomb on Talmenes in Idlib Province in northwestern Syria.

There was a similar, less intense attack on Friday on the same area — between Ma’arat al-Nu’man and Jarjanaz — in which several people were wounded.

The claims of chlorine use in Talmenes follows a series of reported attacks with chemical toxins since late March, including chlorine canisters on Kafrzita on April 11 that killed at least three people and wounded 200.

Video footage on Monday showed casualties being treated in a hospital in Jarjanaz. Activists say other wounded were taken as far as Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish border.

Area map:


Video: Defeating Assad’s Men & Freeing A Tank from A Swimming Pool

A PR video for Jabhat al-Nusra in which the Islamist faction overruns a regime checkpoint near Khan Shaykhoun in Idlib Province, fires an anti-tank guided missile, and frees a tank from a swimming pool:

Picture: Assad Campaign Begins Despite Fighting in Homs

As fighting rages in some areas of Homs, President Assad’s election campaign begins in another:

UN’s Ban Ki-Moon “Please Don’t Hold Presidential Election”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the Assad regime not to hold a Presidential election on June 3.

Ban’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said an election during the current crisis “will damage the political process and hamper the prospects for political solution”.

Dujarric said the vote is incompatible with the Geneva Communique of June 2012, which called for a transitional government that would then hold free and fair elections.

Ban’s envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, has also criticized the proposed election as prejudicial to attempts for a political settlement.

Head of Revolutionary Guards: No Iranian Troops on Syrian Battlefield

Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps head Mohammad Ali Jafari has repeated that the Iranian military’s support for the Assad regime in Syria is limited to advice and training of militia.

Jafari said Monday, “Considering Syria’s human resources and the presence of its people, there is no need for the military interference of others, and we merely provide them with experiential training and software and we are now witnessing its results after these years of conflicts.”

Jafari said in September 2012 that the Guards were helping train a National Defense Force of 50,000 members, as well as helping Damascus with intelligence, logistics, and reconstruction. However, he has always denied that Iranian troops are involved in Syria’s conflict.

On Saturday, the commander of IRGC Ground Forces, General Mohammad Pakpour, said Tehran only has military attachés in Syria.

Videos have shown Iranian officers training and leading Syrian militia in small-scale operations, and Iranian media has acknowledged the losses of members of its military — although always framed as part of the defense of the Sayyeda Zeynab shrine in southern Damascus.

While ruling out direct involvement in Syria’s conflict, Jafari emphasized the Guards’ support for President Assad:

The (Islamic) Revolution is opposed to the hegemonic system and the new world order and all of the foreign policy slogans and positions are based on this pivot, including defending the Palestinian and Syrian people who are today targeted by the enemy.”

The IRGC should be the guardian of the Revolution within and outside the borders.

(Cross-posted from Iran Daily)

LCC: Another 70 Deaths in Aleppo Province on Monday

The Local Coordination Committees report another 70 deaths in Aleppo Province on Monday, amid an escalation in the regime’s barrel-bombing of insurgent-held areas.

See Syria Daily, April 21: Regime Barrel-Bombs Aleppo

The LCC said 107 people were killed across Syria, inluding 9 women and 20 children.

State news agency SANA said eight people were killed and scores wounded in Damascus and Homs Province by insurgent mortar fire.