Massive march moving towards the southern cemetery for burial in Daraa reported

Guy risking his life as bullets whiz past to record images of shot protesters on his mobile phone.

This is uncontainable - unless every mobile phone on the planet is confiscated and all cellular networks and the internet and all social media sites are dismantled, there is no way to stop this.

In 10 years time everyone will have a smart phone that is basically a laptop, and they will have them in the poorest countries in the poorest neighborhoods, from the oldest citizen to 8 year old children.

A world with 7 billion cell phones cannot have scenes like this go on - people in those nations simply won't stand for it.

Back when I saw my first mobile phone camera I knew that Privacy Was Gone. Now everyone wants to take your photo and then email it to the world in a second. That loss of privacy is bad and it still bothers me.

However this is the good side of the ubiquitous mobile phone cam.

ReutersBreakingNews
At least 20,000 march in funeral for nine Syrian protesters in Deraa, chanting freedom slogans - witnesses

The Omari Mosque in Daraa is occupied by The Syrian miliary forces

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,....

Lieberman: Treat Syria like Libya

03.24.11, 14:20 / Israel News

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman commented on Wednesday's terror attack in Jerusalem during a meeting with his French counterpart Alain Juppé and said: "the terror attack is the result of continued institutionalized incitement in the Palestinian Authority against Israel."


Lieberman also noted that "we hope that the policy seen towards Libya today will be implemented towards Iran and Syria where dozens of people opposing the opposition are murdered daily. Standing up for your principles can't be selective." (Ronen Medzini)

Treating syria like libya would DEFINITELY ramp up terrorism in the world.

We need to stay the **** OUT.

Quote:

DEFINITELY ramp up terrorism in the world

Shoot - keep it calm another day or two - I fly to Mideast today...13 hour flight...yuck...

Dakine: Stay safe.

Dakine2004, please post video on your trip.

Assad using Hezbollah to suppress civil unrest
Opposition figures say members of Lebanese Shiite group working alongside Syrian security forces to quell Deraa riots
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,....

IDF: Syria may provoke Israel to distract from domestic unrest
Defense officials have been following events in Syria closely over the last few days, especially after the violence in the southern town of Daraa.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/new....

13:53 Report: 100 Syrians killed since assault on Daraa began (Haaretz)

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/breaking-new....

EU diplomats ponder if Syria next to fall

ANDREW RETTMAN

Today @ 15:18 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU ambassadors in Damascus are preparing a report on the "million dollar question" of whether President Bashir al-Assad's regime will be next in line to fall in a popular uprising.

A diplomatic contact said the "deep, substantial analysis" of the situation inside the country and its meaning for EU-Syria relations is to be ready next week. The union is unlikely to do anything beyond urging restraint until the heads of mission report is sent.

One current view is that young Facebook-using protesters in Damascus are divorced from the tribal unrest in the south of the country. The line goes that al-Assad still has a window of opportunity to make reforms before the movements link up and a mass protest in the capital forces him to step aside or to go down the Gaddafi route of extreme violence.

Al-Assad's troops are believed to have gunned down between 15 and 100 people in and around the Jordanian border town of Daraa since last Friday.

The Daraa protests began when tribal clans went on the streets to call for the release of 15 schoolchildren detained for writing Egypt and Tunisia revolution-inspired slogans on walls in the city. The children have been set free. But some 20,000 people went to the funeral of nine of the dead on Thursday (24 March), chanting anti-government slogans such as: "The blood of martyrs is not spilt in waste."

The situation in Damascus early on Thursday was calm, with students busy preparing for upcoming exams.

Nadim Houry, a Beirut-based analyst for Human Rights Watch, said: "It's very hard to know what's happening. When I call people in Daraa they say there are dead bodies lying in the streets." He added that Friday could be a "key moment" if people in the capital hold large-scale sympathy rallies after end-of-week prayers.

For his part, Michel Koutouzis, a freelance security consultant who advises the European External Action Service and who has spent the past two months touring north Africa and the Middle East, believes there is a good chance al-Assad will fall.

"Yemen and Syria are the two hotspots right now [in terms of potential revolutions]," he told EUobserver by phone on Thursday.

"In Syria it's the bazaar, the middle classes, the traders and businessmen, who make the decisions and the middle classes are turning against him. If they rise up like in Egypt and al-Assad does not give the order to shoot in the first 48 hours it will be very difficult to stop," he explained.

"Al-Assad has the will to shoot people - three, five, 15, but not thousands. Things are different now compared to one month ago. This is something we won with the intervention in Libya ... the dictators in the rest of the Arab world now understand they don't have the possibility to freely gun down their own people."

The Daraa violence has prompted condemnations by EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and EU parliament president Jerzy Buzek.

The US and EU governments have mostly kept silent on what is a strategic country in terms of Israeli security and the Iran nuclear dossier. But on Wednesday the French foreign ministry called for "political reforms" to be "immediately initiated" in Syria, in a sign that President Nicolas Sarkozy could be getting ready to come down on the side of protesters.

Asked if the Daraa killings are a good enough reason for Sarkozy to tell al-Assad to step down, Koutouzis said: "It's not the right moment. We are not yet at the moment of a popular revolution against the authorities in Syria. We are still at the beginning of the process."

Close links between Paris and Damascus saw Sarkozy and al-Assad hold one-to-one talks in the Elysee palace in December in which Sarkozy reportedly told him not to meddle in Lebanon.

London also has good back-channels to Damascus.

The specialist Paris-based publication Intelligence Online says that al-Assad spy chief Ali Mamlouk held a series of high-level meetings on counter-terrorism in the UK capital in November. Seventeen Syrian secret service officers then took part in a 45-day-long training scheme in Britain in December and January. A second secret service delegation went over for training in early 2011.


http://euobserver.com/9/32056

Good job Padrino.

I wonder if the "protecting innocent civilians" BS extends to Syria and the rest of the MENA.

BBCWorld: All people detained during recent events in #Syria have been released on orders of President Assad, according to #Syrian state television

****, there goes Series 2 of The Syrian School - which was actually quite good.

http://vimeo.com/10086740 (can't embed).

Thousands of mourners chanting for freedom march in Syria Deraa city behind coffins of dead protesters

Media is denied access to Umayyad Mosque In #Damascus

Security forces Shotting live ammunition in Zabadani Mahata Area daraa

via twitter not confirmed

Quote:

Standing up for your principles can't be selective.

Lieberman has been in office for 20 years. He obviously have not been paying attention...

Damascus today yes not only in the south Daraa

Deraa, Lathkia, Homs and Sanamein have seen live fire deaths, it appears from the military. Past actions have been carried out by anti-terror forces and special opps forces and implies an widening of the crackdown

Everyday....a new pinned thread in GeoPolitical.

That just can't be good news.

CNN
by bencnn
Nine people in the Syrian city of Daraa were killed on Friday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators in the city's main square.

It seems like Bashar al-Assad learned lesson from Libya: just shoot and kill. No need to negotiate. That will make western powers to chicken out and not to help opposition.
These revolutions will end up starting whole out war in the entire region.