MESOP REPORT : Menbej residents protest ISIS rule

 “The commercial shops in Menbej have closed their doors,” wrote Dubai-based al-Aan News on Sunday in an article showing several photos of the near-deserted city.Residents announced the strike in protest over a series of alleged ISIS abuses in Menbej, including executing two young men accused of rape and hanging their corpses from a tree.Pro-opposition news site Aksalser on Sunday cited unnamed activists reporting that ISIS had opened fire on a demonstration demanding that the group leave the city, wounding three protestors.

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TODAY’S MESOP QUOTATION (III) : U. S. GO PRO ASSAD AGAIN

Opposition unable to control Syria after Assad: General Dempsey

The US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey stated the Syria oppositions are unable to control the country even if President Bashar al-Assad falls from power, New Republic web site said in a report.

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MESOP SHORT CUTS : Arms & Defense Ministers (Syria)

19-5-2014 – Opposition sources reported Monday that Syrian opposition Defense Minister Asaad Mustafa resigned following reports of disagreements with Syrian National Coalition head Ahmed Jarba, allegedly over a lack of funding for fighters. Meanwhile, during the summer of 2013 a private group led by former U.S. Department of Defense official Joseph Schmitz planned to supply arms to the Free Syrian Army to be paid for by a Saudi Arabian prince until the project was stopped by the CIA.

Dynamic Stalemate: Surveying Syria’s Military Landscape / Charles Lister

Brookings Doha – 19.5.2014 – The Syrian uprising has changed significantly since the first signs of localized armed resistance began emerging in late April 2011. Western states and regional countries opposed to President Assad’s rule failed to manage the formation of an organized and representative political and military opposition body over the past three years. Instead, fragmentation of first the opposition, and then the conflict as a whole, has come to pose numerous serious threats to regional and international security and stability.

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MESOP : AL ASSAD – THE SECURITY COUNCIL & THE ICG – A DESASTROUS COMPLEX

19.5.2014 As the Security Council decides on an ICC referral, some experts wonder whether it would even be a productive pursuit.

Mark Kersten, the author of the Justice in Conflict blog, wrote in a Washington Post analysis that the Security Council would face a complicated task of deciding who should face trial. Both the regime and rebel forces have been accused of well-documented abuses; the Council would need to agree on whom to rope in and rule out as the accused.  Moreover, Kersten cites the “peace versus justice” debate – an open question of whether a war crimes trial would actually be a helpful step towards conflict resolution. Instead, it might undermine peace and prolong violence.  “These fears have been played out in every ICC intervention into an ongoing and active conflict,” he wrote.

And yet the ICC initiative is accelerating, partly because it’s one of the few things left that Western countries can do for Syria. Peace negotiations, embodied in the Geneva I and Geneva II talks, are practically dead. The resignation of U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi sealed their defeat.

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MESOP : THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL – SYRIAN WOMEN + KURDISH PRODUCER

Wiam Simav Bedirxan – A Kurdish Documentary maker against Bashar al Assad

Syrian woman’s siege of Homs film gets standing ovation at Cannes

CANNES – A Syrian woman whose horrifying footage of the siege of Homs was turned into a film by an exiled director was on Friday given a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, a few hours after the pair met for the first time.

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Ilham Ahmed: KDP-S leaders do not want to return to Rojava

Welati. -Posted by Wladimir van Wilgenburg

MESOP Syria Document: Insurgents Issue “Revolutionary Covenant”

By Scott Lucas May 18, 2014 14:19 Updated –The Islamic Front, Syria’s largest insurgent bloc, and other factions have issued a Revolutionary Covenant setting out political and military principles.

The Covenant declares a commitment to a fight not only against the Assad regime but also the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham. It promises respect for human rights and the pursuit of “a state of law, freedom, and justice, without any sort of pressure or dictatorship” for all Syrians, including ethnicities and minorities.

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MESOP ANALYSIS : PYD ROJAVA – the Icarus Project / The depth & durability of the Rojava Canton

It is interesting that the report likens the political career of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) to Icarus,

who flew too close to the sun with wings stuck together with wax. (MESOP)

Commentary by Dogu Ergil

The International Crisis Group (ICG), headquartered in Brussels, recently published a report titled “Flight of Icarus?

The PYD’s Precarious Rise in Syria.” Like other reports by the group, it is a well-crafted, expert analysis of the subject with substantial information that may be important in shaping Turkish foreign policy towards this country and the unfolding Kurdish autonomy in Syria.

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Syrian air force chief dies in combat : General Hussein Ishaq

In blow to Assad regime, air defence chief dies as rebels attack air force headquarters in Mleiha near Damascus.

AL JAZEERA / MESOP 18.5.2014 – The chief of Syria’s air defence forces, General Hussein Ishaq, has been killed in combat near Damascus, a security official has told news agencies.

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