Fri. 17 June. 2011DAILY TELEGRAPH

Diplomatic row over Catholic order that honoured Assad of Syria; Archbishop Nichols urged to intervene……..………..1

CNN What could shake Syria's regime ……………………………2

WALL st. JOURNAL EU Considering Third Round Of Sanctions On Syria ………5

ECONOMIST Who will take on Assad? .........................................................6

SYDNEY MORNING Assad can rest easy....for now ……………………………….8

NYTIMES Reviled Tycoon, Assad’s Cousin, Resigns in Syria …….….11

WASHINGTON POST Brother, cousins, in-laws give Syrian leader many hands …15

WASHINGTON INSTITUTE In Search of Leverage with Syria ………………………….18

ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE Syria economy: Vulnerable? .................................................23

LATIMES Turkey breaks with Syria over crackdown …………………25

REUTERS Syria's Makhlouf owes fortune and infamy to Assad ……....28

GUARDIAN After all this bloodshed, there is no going back for Syria ….30

INDEPENDENT Refugees fear a massacre as Syrian tanks on border ……….34

NOW LEBANON Damascus might murder Hariri “to trigger war,” ……….….37

SKY NEWS The Argument For Hitting Assad Where It Hurts: Oil ……..38

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HOME PAGEDiplomatic row over Catholic order that honoured Assad of Syria; Archbishop Nichols urged to intervene Damian Thompson,Daily Telegraph,16 June 2011,

I reproduce below a letter to Archbishop Vincent Nichols on behalf of the Infante Don Carlos, Duke of Calabria and Grand Master of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St George. To cut a long story short, the Duke heads one of two rival branches of the Order; it is small, rather grand and, so far as I can tell, has better credentials than the other, headed by the Duke of Castro, based in Naples and vigorously promoted in London by its Delegate, the PR man and Labour Party donor Anthony Bailey, of whom you can read a profile here. (Amusingly, Mr Bailey calls himself “His Excellency” when playing this role; he is also described as the Order’s “worldwide Grand Magistral Delegate for Inter-Religious Relations”.)

Anyway, Bailey’s Constantinians – who enjoy strong support from the Magic Circle, including HE Cormac Card. Murphy-O’Connor – are planning some sort of ceremony in Westminster Cathedral this autumn. The other Constantinian branch is outraged. Hence this letter from Carlos Abella y Ramallo, Grand Chancellor of the Calabrian branch.

A storm in a teacup? In other circumstances, perhaps. But note the references to Syria in the letter. The Magic Circle Constantinians have been remarkably relaxed, shall we say, in their dealings with certain Middle Eastern dictatorships: the letter draws Archbishop Nichols’s attention to “the scandalous awards of the Constantinian Gold Medal to the Presidents of the Republics of Syria and the Yemen”. Those awards have been the subject of controversy for years, and never more so than now. Archbishop Nichols is being put on the spot here. It will be interesting to see how he responds. Perhaps he should ask himself whether he should remain as a chaplain to the Assad-honouring Constantinians.

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What could shake Syria's regime David W. Lesch, Special to CNNCnn,June 16, 2011

Of the many occasions that I met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from 2004 to 2009, this one seemed different.

He was always very affable and unpretentious, certainly not the profile of the brutal Middle East dictator that he appears to be today with the violent crackdown against Syrian protesters. But in a February 2006 meeting, he was much more confident than usual in discussing the state of U.S.-Syrian relations; in fact, he was almost cocky.

He knew by then that he had survived the intense pressure the United States and its allies had applied on him following the U.N. investigation into the assassination the previous year of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, which initially had implicated the Syrian leadership.

His new-found confidence lasted. A few months later in a follow-up meeting, he triumphantly remarked that, "I don't want the United States. I don't need the United States."

After successfully weathering that storm, Assad and his cohorts may well believe that they can once more emerge intact from a major challenge to their regime.

Assad has an exaggerated sense of Syria's importance on several Middle East fronts, from Lebanon and Iraq to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Before policymakers in the West started thinking that Syria was too big to fail, he thought it.

To Assad's way of thinking, the enemies of Syria are at it once again in 2011, somehow transporting premeditated instability to Syria under the guise of the Arab Spring. What other delusion

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could have possibly led to the pathetic speech he gave on March 30 -- his initial public response to the uprising -- in which he blamed terrorists and malevolent external forces for the unrest rather than the underlying socioeconomic problems and political repression that lay at the root of the protests in other Arab countries and his own.

He had an opportunity to get ahead of the curve of the opposition; instead, he chose the the too-little-too-late route of Mubarak (Egypt), Ben Ali (Tunisia), Saleh (Yemen) and Gadhafi (Libya). This is not to diminish the difficulty of initiating transformational change. There are powerful pockets of resistance to this in Syria.

But Assad thought Syria was different from the others. He was wrong, and he is probably still in a state of denial. The sad part is that he had history as a guide right before his eyes, but he chose to ignore it.

The regime has fallen into full survival mode, having retreated into an Alawite sectarian fortress. When pressured, the military-security apparatus convulsively leapt to the fore, and Assad appears to have dutifully acquiesced. He is an authoritarian ruler without absolute power, and the disconnect between him and the security forces that he allowed to fester in good times has come back to haunt him -- and many Syrians -- in bad.

With few exceptions, the international community has aided and abetted the Syrian regime's confidence that it can survive and be resuscitated. The regime has been able to act with virtual impunity because of the international community's fear of the chaos that might occur in such a strategic part of the Middle East should the central authority in Syria precipitously fall from power.

The potential sectarian strife in Syria and spillover effects into Iraq, Lebanon and Israel are too chilling to consider. And Russia continues to protect Syria in international forums for strategic and diplomatic reasons.

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One game-changer could be the fall of Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Until now, the only models for removing dictatorial regimes in the region have been mass unrest combined with the splitting of the military from the ruling circle, as happened in Tunisia and Egypt (and unlikely in Syria), or many American boots on the ground, as happened in Iraq (and is unlikely to happen again anytime soon).

If Gadhafi falls within the next few months, there will be another model for regime change: that of limited but targeted military support from the West combined with an identifiable rebellion. Not that this can be easily applied in Syria. It hasn't even been easily applied in Libya, and Syria would be a much harder nut to crack. Furthermore, the Syrian opposition is far from united or being able to establish a Benghazi-like refuge from which to launch a rebellion and to which aid can be sent.

But if there is regime change in Libya, the international community would be emboldened with the precedent, with maybe even the Russians finally getting on board, and it would give the Syrian regime something to really think about. Perhaps it would even give Bashar al-Assad the upper hand with his ruthless brother and security minders to finally do what he should have done in the beginning -- forgo violence, offer and implement real reform and enter into a national dialogue with the opposition.

The options are not pretty. The Syrian regime does not want, nor can it probably survive, long-term international pressure or isolation, but it is used to sanctions, special tribunals, the withdrawing of ambassadors and similar actions. These are marginal levers that will have very little effect on the regime in the near term.

Success for the rebels in Libya might change that.

David W. Lesch is professor of Middle East history at Trinity University in San Antonio. Among his books are: "The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Assad and Modern Syria"; "The Arab-

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Israeli Conflict: A History"; "The Middle East and the United States: History, Politics and Ideology"; and "1979: The Year That Shaped the Middle East".

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EU Considering Third Round Of Sanctions On Syria Joe Palazzolo,Wall Street Journal,16 June 2011,

The European Union is gearing up for a third round of sanctions on Syria ahead of the June 24 European Council.

EU Diplomats told Dow Jones Thursday that at least two countries have circulated lists of those to be targeted. One list includes 12 individuals and entities connected to them.

While EU foreign ministers are set to discuss sanctions early next week, EU heads of state are expected to make a final decision when they gather for the quarterly council next Friday, Dow Jones reported.

The EU has imposed a travel ban and an asset freeze on 23 top Syrian officials, including President Bashar Al-Assad, over the government’s violent crackdown on protesters there. Syrian security forces are estimated to have killed 1,400 people over three months of unrest.

The push for fresh sanctions comes as the EU and U.S. are trying to step up pressure on Syria through the U.N. Security Council. But Russia, which has a veto on the U.N. Security Council, continues to oppose efforts to condemn the Syrian regime.

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Who will take on Assad? Outsiders cannot intervene militarily in Syria. But its rulers should not be given a free pass Economist,Jun 16th 2011

THE comparison with Libya is irresistible. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and Syria’s President Bashar Assad are both odious dictators. The colonel is a lot crazier, has been in charge a lot longer, has killed a lot more people over the years, and has drawn up a far longer list of enemies at home and abroad. But Mr Assad, who has run Syria since his long-ruling father, Hafez, died in 2000, inherited a regime that has been just as nasty.

Assad père notoriously butchered perhaps as many as 20,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982. The son is surrounded by the same clique of greedy gangsters, many of them his close relations, who have routinely used assassination, imprisonment and torture as instruments of rule. And since Syria’s protesters have started to express their democratic yearning, Mr Assad has been matching Colonel Qaddafi’s brutality. Human-rights groups reckon his security forces have killed at least 1,300 Syrians, most of them civilians. The tempo of repression is quickening (see article). Moreover, the unrest and the violence seem to be spreading; the opposition says that on Friday June 10th demonstrators rose up in no fewer than 138 places.

The NATO campaign against Colonel Qaddafi has saved many lives in Libya—even though he clings on to power. Seeing that outsiders have intervened to stop the butchery and, by extension, to remove the tyrant from power in one Arab country, why should they not dish out the same salutary treatment to Syria and Mr Assad?

The simple answer is that Syria is—and always was—too big and complicated for outsiders to step in. Liberal intervention is not about charging blindly in, but about using force judiciously when possible. Whereas Libya, though vast in desert area, is a country

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of 6m-plus fairly homogeneous people living on a narrow coastal strip, Syria is a web of religions and sects embracing 21m people scattered across an area that abuts the Middle East’s most combustible flashpoints, including Israel, Lebanon and Iraq.

The intensification of sectarian strife that might well accompany a military intervention in Syria could light a fuse in neighbouring Lebanon, where tensions in an even more complex sectarian labyrinth keep the country smouldering at the best of times. Iraq has long suffered from the infiltration of jihadists from Syria, who might be emboldened if the Assad regime were to fall. As for Israel, Syria is still technically at war with it, though the Assads have been canny enough, on the whole, not to tempt it into using its full military might against them. But instability in Damascus is already causing ructions on the Israeli-Syrian border. Finally, there is Turkey, which for many years got on badly with Syria, but which more recently managed a rapprochement. However, in the past fortnight, since thousands of terrified Syrians have fled across the border into Turkey, relations have sharply worsened. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s recently re-elected prime minister, has turned against Mr Assad. There has even been talk of Turkey creating a haven for those refugees, which would inevitably become a source of tension and even violence. In sum, Syria is a regional snake-pit in which few neighbours—or outsiders from farther afield—would be wise to dangle their toes.

Keep it localBut Mr Assad must not get away with murder. Nor should he bank for ever on his old friends in Russia (with China standing by) to fend off condemnation in the UN Security Council. Sanctions against leading Syrians and firms linked to them may hurt a bit—and should be widened. But the best-placed people to make Mr Assad give ground are local—the Turks, the Gulf Co-operation Council with Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the fore, and the usually toothless but perhaps slowly stirring Arab League, which endorsed NATO’s intervention in Libya.

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If he were sensible, Mr Assad would, under such neighbours’ pressure, agree to open talks with the gamut of liberals and socialists, secular-minded Syrians and Islamists, including the banned Muslim Brothers and the signatories of the admirable Damascus declaration, which united opposition calls for reform in 2005. As a precondition, all political parties and the media would be set free, and open elections promised within, say, a year. As things stand, Mr Assad will surely reject all such ideas out of hand. But the tide may be turning. If he refuses to budge, the Syrian people will bring him down in the end—on their own, and bloodily.

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Assad can rest easy....for now Western intervention in Syria is unlikely to happen any time soon. Luca Anceschi Sydney Morning Herald,June 17, 2011

As Libyan rebel forces move towards Tripoli and the Yemeni regime is on the brink of collapse, international attention is rapidly shifting to Syria, where the conflicting relationship between regime and opposition is writing yet another dramatic chapter in the 2011 Arab unrest.

The deteriorating Syrian situation is posing some difficult questions for policy makers around the world.

As the full impact of events in Syria reaches Washington, London and Paris, statements by those governments in response to the regime's violent crackdown are in stark contrast to those issued in the early stages of the Libyan conflict by the likes of British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama.

In other words, direct Western intervention in Syria appears highly unlikely, despite recent developments in northern Syria, where the

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situation appears to be strikingly similar to the one that led to Western intervention in Libya.

A rapidly rising death toll, a steady stream of refugees fleeing for Turkey, and a number of desertions from the Syrian Army have characterised news reports from Jisr al-Shughour; the town in northern Syria, where the epicentre of protest has shifted after the regime violently crushed popular unrest in Deraa and Hama.

There is a combination of factors - both internal and external - that I believe reduce the chances of Western powers intervening to support Syrian protesters.

To begin with, they are unsure just how much popular support there for the Syrian leadership. Any external intervention could prove to be highly unpopular with Syrians, and indeed with other Arab countries.

Despite the growing number of demonstrations that we see in the Syrian streets, protests against the regime have yet to reach a critical mass.

Significant sections of the Syrian population, including the bourgeoisie from the key cities of Damascus and Aleppo, have yet to shift sides. Indeed they continue to support the regime, albeit timidly.

In the rest of the Arab world, despite the mild criticism of the Arab League, President Bashar al-Assad's regime continues to be seen as a legitimate one: if anything, the level of regional support for the Syrian leadership has recently expanded, especially after the accession to power of the new Lebanese government.

Another factor impeding the possibility of external intervention relates to a thorough assessment of a number of regime-change scenarios.

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Right from the early stages of the conflict in Libya, the rebel movement emerged as a viable alternative to the Gaddafi regime. But in Syria, it has been much harder to identify any possible alternatives to the al-Assad regime – both within the spontaneous protest movement or the ranks of the regime itself.

Syria's protest movement does not have religious undertones and, so far, has not featured any sectarian tendency: secular young Syrians, disillusioned with al-Assad's promises of reforms, have made up the bulk of the protesters. Incidentally, the overwhelmingly Sunni composition of the movement inevitably mirrors the wider ethno-religious balance of the country.

And then there is the fact that here is no significant organisational force behind the movement, which, in keeping with other revolts in the region, has so far failed to produce a prominent leader.

The virtually monolithic nature of the Syrian regime – in which political leaders and the army rule in a symbiotic relationship – has thus far prevented the emergence of internal alternatives to al-Assad and in turn ensured no cracks emerge.

Finally, there are two key geopolitical factors that influence whether the international community will intervene in Syria. It is possible to detect, both within and beyond the UN Security Council, shrinking support for further involvement in the Middle East per se.

Given NATO's Libyan intervention has been far from successful it would not take much to persuade Western leaders to abstain from getting involved in Syria. In its first three months NATO's Libyan campaign – originally designed to protect the population but de facto carried out to assist the rebel movement – has failed to play any significant role in the resolution of the conflict.

On the basis of the Libyan experience, would NATO leaders seriously consider military action in Syria, especially given that

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the domestic situation there appears less favourable to the intervention of external forces?

Any answer to this question has to consider this fact: while France and Britain have been the key driving forces behind intervention in Libya, the large majority of military operations there continues to be carried out by US forces.

Given the extremely volatile nature of Syria's ethno-religious landscape, it is highly unlikely that President Obama will agree to send US troops to Syria, especially if protesters align themselves along a Sunni-Alawite divide. Unrest could quickly morph into a fully–fledged sectarian conflict, which would be the worst case scenario for Western powers.

It can be reasonably assumed then that, when it is assessing the costs and benefits of dealing with Damascus, the United States will put in practice the lessons learned in Baghdad, as well as more recent ones garnered from the Libyan experience.

Luca Anceschi is lecturer in international relations at La Trobe University.

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Reviled Tycoon, Assad’s Cousin, Resigns in Syria By ANTHONY SHADIDNYTIMES,16 June 2011,

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria’s most powerful businessman, a confidant and cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, announced on Thursday that he was quitting business and moving to charity work, Syrian television said. The move, if true, would suggest that Mr. Assad was so concerned about the continuing protests that he would sacrifice a relative to public anger.

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The businessman, Rami Makhlouf, a 41-year-old tycoon who has emerged as a lightning rod in the three-month uprising against Mr. Assad’s rule, is almost synonymous with the excesses of the Syrian leadership. Offices of his mobile phone company, Syriatel, were burned in protests, and his name was chanted in denunciation in demonstrations.

Though opposition figures doubted the sincerity of the move, even a symbolic gesture may prove important, as Mr. Assad faces the gravest challenge to his 11-year rule. For the first time since the uprising began, analysts said, a figure deemed a pillar of the leadership was forced to at least publicly step aside, a startling concession for a tightknit ruling elite bound by family and clan loyalty.

“The government is now using another set of cards, one that directly addresses the protesters’ demands,” said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University. “Makhlouf is a symbol of the corruption in the regime.” But, he added, “as a change of heart for the regime, the decision has come too late, and it’s not going to be accepted seriously by protesters.”

In a news conference carried by the Syrian state news agency, Mr. Makhlouf portrayed his move as an act of generosity, though it was unlikely that any such decision could take place without the consent and perhaps the insistence of Mr. Assad.

Mr. Makhlouf said that he would offer shares of Syriatel, Syria’s largest phone company, to the poor and that profits would go, in part, to families of people killed in the uprising. He said profits from his other endeavors would go to charitable and humanitarian work. He vowed not to enter into any new business that would bring him personal gain.

The move represented a humiliating moment for a man who is leery of the limelight, only rarely grants interviews and is described by detractors as the Assad family’s banker or Mr. Five

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Percent. The ascent of Mr. Makhlouf, at the intersection of power and privilege, mirrored the Assad family’s consolidation of power in Syria over the past four decades: his father Mohammed, Mr. Assad’s uncle, was a magnate in his own right, and Rami Makhlouf’s brother, Hafez, is the intelligence chief in Damascus.

Mr. Makhlouf’s supporters praise him for investment in Syria’s dilapidated infrastructure, and the sleek offices of Syriatel are a sought-after destination for the urban young and educated. But they are far outnumbered by detractors, who call him a thief, and his unpopularity rivals perhaps only that of Mr. Assad’s brother, Maher, a feared and reviled figure who commands the military’s Republican Guard and the elite Fourth Division.

Mr. Makhlouf’s influence is so great, and his connection to the leadership so deep, that opposition figures derided the move as propaganda. Others speculated that it was devised to avoid sanctions imposed on him by the European Union, which included him on a list of 13 figures subject to a freeze on assets and a ban on travel to the bloc.

The United States imposed sanctions on him in 2008, accusing him of manipulating the judicial system and using Syrian intelligence to intimidate rivals.

“There is no transparency in his declaration because we don’t know what he owns and how much money he has,” said Ammar Qurabi, head of the Syrian National Association for Human Rights. “It is a step designed for media consumption only.”

But diplomats have said that Mr. Assad himself was angered by an interview that Mr. Makhlouf gave The New York Times in May, which offered a rare insight into the thinking of an opaque government. The frank comments amounted to a public relations disaster for a government facing mounting international pressure over a ferocious crackdown that, by activists’ count, has left 1,300 dead and more than 10,000 in detention.

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In the interview, he said the government would fight to the end in a struggle that could cast the Middle East into turmoil and even war, suggesting that the ruling family equated its survival with the existence of the minority sect that buttressed its power and that viewed the protests not as legitimate demands but as the seeds of civil war.

“If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel,” he said in the interview. “No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime.”

Though Syrian officials quickly distanced themselves from the remarks, saying Mr. Makhlouf held no official position in the government, opposition figures and diplomats seized on the remarks as evidence of a government unwilling to change.

In some ways, the remarks were a candid take on a sentiment the government has sought to cultivate since the uprising erupted in March — us or chaos.

“They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone,” Mr. Makhlouf said.

Though prominent before Mr. Assad’s ascent in 2000, Mr. Makhlouf grew wealthier as he and Egyptian partners won one of two mobile phone contracts. His partners were eventually forced to sell. As Syria moved away from a state-led economy, he penetrated the economy’s most lucrative sectors: real estate, transportation, banking, insurance, construction, a five-star hotel in Damascus and duty-free shops at airports and the border.

He is the vice chairman of Cham Holding, set up in 2007 with 73 investors and $360 million in what many portrayed as an attempt to tether wealthy businessmen to the government. Syrian analysts say he is the company’s real power.

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He was reported to have sold his duty-free shops to a Kuwaiti company in May, though some suggested that the move was intended to avoid sanctions.

The announcement by Mr. Makhlouf comes a day before weekly protests that have convened after Friday Prayer. Diplomats say Mr. Assad is also preparing a speech as early as Sunday that Syrian officials have described as significant, perhaps inaugurating a more serious government effort to engage the opposition in dialogue.

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It’s family tradition: Brother, cousins, in-laws give Syrian leader many hands in crackdownWashington Post, (original story is by AP)June 16, 2011,

BEIRUT — Syria’s President Bashar Assad, beset by a popular upheaval that won’t die, appears to be turning more and more to a tiny coterie of relatives, the backbone of a family dynasty that has kept Syria’s 22 million people living in fear for decades.

Younger brother Maher is key, believed in command of much of the current bloody crackdown. Chief of Syria’s elite forces, a man reputed to have once shot a brother-in-law in the stomach in a family feud, Maher’s recent tactics have been denounced as inhumane by no less than the prime minister of neighboring Turkey.

A sister, an uncle and assorted cousins round out the family portrait, a picture of an entrenched power structure that relies on a vast, pervasive security apparatus and whose influence eclipses the role of Syria’s formal government.

It all dates back to 1970 and a coup led by Bashar’s father, the late President Hafez Assad, a member of the Alawites, a poor minority

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Muslim sect whose ambitious young men rose to power through the military. The brotherly right hand also dates back to those days, when Hafez Assad relied on sibling Rifaat as his enforcer.

As the anti-government uprising wears on, President Assad, a seemingly mild-mannered ophthalmologist, may find family lieutenants convenient foils, as well, for deflecting popular outrage away from himself. He has already jettisoned one cousin, focusing blame on him for 2011’s first attacks on protesters.

Syrian pro-democracy activists and others see relatives’ hands in the move to crack down harshly.

As protests spread in April, U.S. congressional researchers cited reports that the family fears that “easing up on protesters could embolden them, bringing much larger crowds into the streets.”

Maher Assad, 42, is commander of the army’s 4th Division, regarded as Syria’s best-equipped and most highly trained forces, and of the six brigades of the Republican Guard, responsible for protecting the capital, Damascus.

Since the uprising began in mid-March, activists say, Maher’s troops have played a role in anti-dissident operations in the southern city of Daraa, the coastal city of Banias, the central province of Homs and the northern province of Idlib, where thousands of terrified residents have fled into nearby Turkey. The activists report some 1,400 people killed and 10,000 detained in the crackdown.

On Thursday in Idlib, security forces pressed their operation, arresting hundreds of young men, activists said.

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, clearly credits the reports about Maher Assad, saying earlier this month his actions approach “savagery.”

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Bassam Jaara, a Syrian journalist and opposition figure living in London, said the president’s brother is highly influential. “Maher Assad is the commander of the two most powerful units in the military,” he said. “It is natural that he has the final word.”

Another dissident figure in exile, Muhieddine Lathkani, said Maher “is known to be moody and ruthless.”

Unverified reports say the younger brother shot brother-in-law Assef Shawkat in the stomach in 1999 after an argument. “There are so many stories about Maher, such as killing this person, torturing another, slapping a senior official in the face,” Lathkani said.

In 2005, an inadvertently released passage of a U.N. investigative report cited a witness saying Maher Assad and that same brother-in-law, Shawkat, head of military intelligence at the time, were among those behind the assassination of then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon.

A draft sealed indictment is pending in the Hariri case, but no suspects’ names are confirmed. This spring the U.S. and the European Union imposed financial sanctions against top Syrian officials, including Maher Assad.

Besides his brother, President Assad, 45, who took power in 2000 after his father’s death, relies on brother-in-law Shawkat, now a major general and deputy army chief of staff; his cousin Rami Makhlouf, Syria’s most influential businessman; Makhlouf’s brother, Hafez, a senior intelligence officer; and cousin Zou al-Hima Shawish, in charge of presidential security.

The president’s elder sister, Bushra, Shawkat’s wife, is “rumored to be a key decision-maker,” congressional researchers reported in April.

Most influential of all, some say, is Assad’s maternal uncle, Mohammed Makhlouf, father of the Makhlouf cousins and a man

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highly respected by his sister Anisa, the president’s widowed mother, and her children.

The Syrian leader has shown, however, that politics — and regime survival — can be more important than blood.

Days after the protests exploded in the southern town of Daraa, and were brutally suppressed, President Assad removed cousin Atef Najib from his post as security chief there. He had been accused by local people of driving protesters into the streets with his harsh treatment of some teenage pro-democracy graffiti writers.

Najib and the local governor were then referred to a court for investigation and were banned from leaving the country.

Bashar Assad, who has made only two public speeches since the uprising began, was apparently trying to distance his presidency from the bloody repression, seeking to preserve support for a post-uprising period.

In apparently the same vein, cousin Rami Makhlouf, reviled by many Syrians for alleged corruption, told reporters in Damascus on Thursday he would in the future devote profits from his 40-percent share in the SyriaTel mobile phone network to charity, and take other steps to help “as many Syrians as possible.”

Whether such tactics score political points or not, analysts say, the family must stand together or fall together.

“It is a network of personal interests and family links setting up a protection network around the Assad family,” said Syrian scholar Radwan Ziadeh, of Washington’s George Washington University. “If the Assad family collapses, all this network will collapse.”

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In Search of Leverage with Syria David Schenker and Andrew J. TablerWashington Institute for Near East Policy,June 14, 2011

During his May 19 speech on the Middle East, President Obama defined America's policy objective in Syria by asking President Bashar al-Asad to either lead a political transition or "get out of the way." Asad shows no interest thus far in the former -- the death toll has reached 1,600, and atrocities and large-scale protests persist. To force Asad to step down or cause his regime to fragment, the United States should seek with its allies to increase the economic pressure and international isolation faced by the regime and to support domestic challenges to it. To achieve these effects, Washington has a number of unilateral and multilateral levers available, whether economic or diplomatic. U.S. and International Levers To affect the calculus of Asad and his supporters, the United States must increase the regime's economic and diplomatic isolation, and lend international weight to the domestic challenge to the regime. The ongoing demonstrations and burgeoning international consensus give Washington a broad range of options to do so.

Economic Pressure Target Syrian energy. Syrian oil production has been in steady decline since the mid-1990s and is now around 390,000 barrels per day. Of that, Syria exports around 148,000 bpd, with revenues accruing directly to the state. According to the IMF, oil sales account for about a third of state revenue, with the remainder increasingly made up through corporate and public sector employee taxes. As the protests decrease tax receipts, Damascus is likely to become increasingly reliant on oil revenue, forcing the regime to tap reserves and/or resort to deficit spending. This in turn would constrain the regime's ability to maintain market subsidies (e.g., for diesel fuel) and payoffs to patronage networks.

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Accordingly, the Obama administration should prod the chief buyers of Syrian oil -- Germany, Italy, France, and Holland -- to stop purchasing the regime's heavy crude. It should also pressure multinational energy companies operating in Syria -- Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Croatia's INA Nafta, India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Canada's Tanganyika, SUNCOR, and Petro-Canada, and China's National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinochem -- to exit the country. In addition, it should ask Britain to halt the operations of Gulfsands Petroleum, the one-time Houston-based company specializing in extracting heavy oil from depleted fields. The firm relocated to Britain in 2008 to avoid U.S. sanctions on Rami Makhlouf, Asad's cousin and the regime's primary businessman.

Target businesses associated with the regime. Elite defections could play a key role in pressuring the regime to either cut a deal with the country's Sunni majority or leave power. To date, the most effective U.S. sanction levied against Syria has been the Makhlouf designation. Along those lines, Washington should impose costs on other Syrian businesspeople who continue to back the regime.

One way to do so is to lengthen the list of U.S. Treasury Department designations aimed at businesspeople close to the regime, many of whom are the exclusive importers of a wide variety of goods on the Syrian market. This would not only create fissures in the regime's traditional alliance with the Sunni business elite, it would also diminish government revenue, since many major trading families pay an increasingly larger share of state revenues via a flat 20 percent corporate tax.

Encourage additional unilateral sanctions. Washington should add to its robust and growing set of measures against the regime by considering a U.S. investment ban based on the Syria Accountability Act. The EU is also investigating tougher trade restrictions, though multilateral sanctions via the UN are unlikely at this point. To further ratchet up pressure, Washington should urge Syria's leading trade partner, Turkey, to adopt trade sanctions

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(excluding food and medicine, as the United States does). It should also press Persian Gulf states -- particularly Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia -- to curtail their business investments in Syria, which have been a lifeline for the cash-strapped Asad regime in recent years.

International Isolation Refer Asad to the International Criminal Court. Washington should push the UN Security Council to refer Asad and top regime security officials responsible for atrocities to the ICC, based in The Hague. Because Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the ICC does not have jurisdiction -- as was the case with Libya, only the Security Council can refer Syria to the court, and opposition from China and Russia makes such a referral unlikely at present. If the massacres in Syria continue, however, a U.S. or European-led resolution supporting referral could avoid a veto.

Appoint a special human rights rapporteur. Although China and Russia may balk, Washington should press the UN Human Rights Council to designate a special rapporteur on Syria. To date, the Asad regime has failed to cooperate with the council. The mere discussion of a rapporteur would serve as a point of annoyance for Damascus and keep human rights issues in the spotlight.

Enhance relations with the opposition. Becoming overly involved with the Syrian opposition could prove counterproductive for Washington. At minimum, however, the administration should meet routinely with respected opposition leaders (exiles and, where appropriate, Syria-based figures), encourage Turkey to continue hosting opposition conferences, and consider recognizing a government in exile if one is established.

Focus on the International Atomic Energy Agency. In recent weeks, Washington issued a statement detailing the Asad regime's efforts to build an illegal nuclear weapons facility. The administration should continue to publicly hammer Damascus for this transgression, and seek to refer the IAEA's investigation of the reactor to the UN Security Council for action.

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Enhancing Domestic Challenges Hasten the unraveling of the Syrian military. In conjunction with Turkey and Jordan, the United States should pursue incentives-based information operations in Syria, encouraging military officers to defect or, at minimum, avoid complicity in regime crimes against the people. The more quickly the military unravels, the fewer atrocities that will be perpetrated and the less chance for conflict to degenerate into civil war.

Align with the Syrian people. Statements by senior U.S. officials in support of the Syrian people would boost morale and encourage more protestors to come out, accelerating the arrival of large-scale demonstrations in Aleppo and Damascus that would stand a better chance of toppling the regime.

Conclusion Developments on the ground in Syria suggest that the regime is headed downward. Despite the appalling events of recent months, however, the Obama administration has not yet made the decision to move past Asad. As recently as June 3, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inexplicably left the door open by declaring that the regime's legitimacy had "nearly run out." The misperception that the United States lacks levers against the regime may be fueling this reluctance, given the long but relatively fruitless history of U.S. sanctions on Syria. This perception is mistaken, however: the broad international revulsion at Asad's tactics, combined with the changes sweeping the region, provides new opportunities to act against the Asad regime. Although the task of regime change lies squarely with Syrians, the Obama administration has a broad array of tools to increase pressure on the Asad government and, potentially, help hasten its demise.

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Syria economy: Vulnerable? Economist Intelligence Unit,June 16 2011,

Is the economy the Achilles heel of the Assad regime? On balance, probably not, as long as oil exports continue to flow.

The regime of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has confronted the protest movement with brute force, mixed with relentless propaganda and promises to enact political reforms. The strategy has paid off to the extent that the opposition has failed to take control of any of the towns where protests have occurred, and the major cities ofDamascus and Aleppo have not been seriously affected. However, the costs have been considerable, both in human terms, with more than 1,500 people killed, and on the economic front. How well placed is Mr Assad to deal with the economic consequences of his crackdown?

One of the central advantages that Mr Assad enjoys is the heavy state bias to the Syrian economy. The government and public-sector enterprises account for the bulk of urban employment, and farmers are heavily dependent on state-run purchasing organisations. This means that millions of Syrians, whether they like it or not, have a considerable stake in the survival of the regime, as can be seen in the periodic displays of mass loyalty, such as the unfurling of a 2.3-km long national flag on June 15th along one of the main thoroughfares in Damascus. The private sector has made some advances under Bashar al-Assad, but remains dominated by business groups with good connections to the regime, the most prominent of which is Rami Makhlouf, a maternal cousin of the president.

All about oilThe uprising has impaired the state’s ability to perform its role as dispenser of patronage, but the regime is far from being financially crippled…..

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Matters have moved further in the government’s favour since 2009 as oil production actually increased by 10,000 b/d last year to 385,000 b/d, thanks largely to the development of new fields by Gulfsands Petroleum, a UK-listed firm in which Mr Makhlouf has a minority (indirect) interest. In a further boon to the government, natural gas production also rose significantly, by 37.3% year on year, in 2010 to 7.8bn cu metres.

As long as oil operations continue to be unaffected by the unrest and are not targeted by sanctions, the government has in the oil and gas sector a solid basis for sustainable fiscal and balance of payments operations. The government has made its task more difficult by cutting diesel prices, and thereby reversing much of the earlier subsidy cuts, but it has a reasonable chance of softening the blow through securing supplies of cut-price fuel from Iran, which has a major stake in the survival of the Assad regime.

Foreign exchange squeezeMore troubling for the government is the risk of a run on the local currency as a result of a loss of confidence in the system by private deposit-holders and the drying up of foreign exchange flows from business visitors and tourists. The latter flows have been rising rapidly in recent years, as Syria has attracted Arab visitors during the summer months and as foreign business people have recognised the potential of the country as an investment prospect. The central bank data show inflows of services income under the heading travel as reaching to US$3.76bn in 2009, equivalent 22% of total current-account receipts. These flows are likely to be much reduced in 2011. However, the impact will be mitigated by the likely fall in private-sector imports (which have risen sharply in the past few years, reaching US$11.8bn in 2009). The central bank has hiked interest rates as a means to woo back deposits, and the government claims that this has paid off, and the government also has the cushion of foreign exchange reserves that are sufficient to cover 12 months of imports. A relatively good harvest in prospect this year means that Syria will probably be self-sufficient in wheat.

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Economic conditions are certainly going to get much tougher for the Syrian regime, but not to the extent that some opposition activists have claimed.

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Turkey breaks with Syria over crackdown Turkey, in a shift against its longtime ally, welcomes defecting Syrian officers. It also announces plans to deliver aid across the border to those displaced by Syrian President Bashar Assad's deadly crackdown on antigovernment protesters.By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles TimesJune 17, 2011

Reporting from Beirut Turkey on Thursday signaled a diplomatic shift to further distance itself from longtime ally Syria, welcoming defecting Syrian officers and announcing plans to deliver relief assistance to beleaguered pro-democracy protesters across the border.

The shift against Damascus, where President Bashar Assad has undertaken a bloody crackdown against peaceful demonstrators, comes after months of waffling and wavering over its stance on uprisings that have shaken or brought down autocratic longtime leaders across the region. Turkey endorsed the largely peaceful revolution in Egypt, for example, but pleaded for political reforms rather than the ouster of heads of state in others, especially ones where it has business interests, such as Syria or Libya.

"Like any other country, Turkey had double standards on the 'Arab Spring,'" said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, an Ankara-based analyst for the German Marshall Fund, a think tank. "But recently Turkey is fine-tuning its policy. This new policy is based on the demands of the people instead of the priorities of the regimes."

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Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, architect of Turkey's "zero problems with neighbors" policy that prioritized good relations with Middle East governments, all but announced the abandonment of that guideline to reporters Thursday after a meeting with Turkey's ambassadors and national security team in the capital, Ankara.

"Our region demands a serious and urgent reform process," Davutoglu told reporters, according to the semiofficial Anatolia news agency. "Regional people's demands are normal, rightful and legitimate. Meeting those demands will make our region a more stable, more democratic and more prosperous region. We are ready to do our utmost to help our region complete this transition process in a healthy way."

Davutoglu said relief workers would cross the Syrian border to bring supplies to thousands of hungry people displaced by Assad's crackdown. Unnamed officials in Ankara were quoted as saying the Turkish military was considering establishing a humanitarian "buffer zone" inside Syria.

And as Syrian troops and pro-government shabiha militiamen in the northwestern province of Idlib on Thursday widened their deadly campaign to root out dissent in the region close to Turkey, a Syrian lieutenant colonel and four soldiers deserting their posts took shelter in Turkey, Anatolia reported.

The moves against Damascus, after escalating rhetoric against Assad's actions, are cooling once-warming ties with Syria ally Iran.

Tehran has begun to criticize Turkey, a growing power in the Middle East and Muslim world, for adopting a "Zionist" foreign policy regarding Syria. Iranian commentators had hoped Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would soften his increasingly boisterous critiques of Assad's regime after major elections Sunday. Instead, bolstered by election victories, a healthy economy and widespread popularity in the Arab world,

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Erdogan appears to have doubled down on his bet against Assad's regime.

"One thing for sure is that the Syrian troubles are forcing the Turks to reconsider the tenets of their foreign policy," said Henri J. Barkey, a Turkey specialist at Lehigh University and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Political calculations played a role in the change. Turkey is worried that a refugee crisis could unsettle the country. Another concern is that militant Kurdish groups may find refuge in Syria, as they did in the 1990s. In recent weeks, thousands of Syrian civilians have fled to Turkey and Lebanon to escape Syrian security forces.

Many say it was the harrowing images and horror stories of Syrian refugees that changed political calculations for Erdogan, who considers himself a world figure embracing the oppressed. On Thursday, Syrian activists issued a report and a video that they said documented the use of explosive bullets by security officials during a protest this month in Latakia in which 20 people were killed, including a 15-year-old.

Meanwhile, there were few signs that Syria was taking steps to stop the flow of refugees. Syrian troops continued to blaze through areas of the country's restive northwest, where they have burned crops and shelled homes, rounding up and detaining hundreds of male residents older than 16, according to human rights activists.

Turkish journalists allowed to join Syrian troops in the besieged northern community of Jisr Shughur described a ghost town that smelled of blood.

"At the end of the day Erdogan thinks about people going to bed hungry and children losing their fathers and he feels it," said Asli Aydintasbas, a columnist at the newspaper Milliyet and a frequent critic of the prime minister. "He's a man of emotion."

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Surprising many, Turkey has also even spoken of the possibility of foreign military intervention and warned Assad that Ankara might endorse United Nations Security Council action against his regime.

"We are approaching a situation where international intervention is not totally out of the question," said Unluhisarcikli, of the German Marshall Fund. "Turkey doesn't want to be caught by surprise and wants to be prepared for such a possibility."

Erdogan, analysts say, is enraged that Assad didn't heed his advice to curtail violence and embark on reforms, humiliated that for years he has been talking up the Syrian president to partners in the West as the man to reform Syria.

"Erdogan is [angry] at Bashar for not listening to him, the big brother," Turkey specialist Barkey said. "There is a danger for Bashar that Erdogan may personalize this."

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Syria's Makhlouf owes fortune and infamy to Assad Khaled Yacoub Oweis.Reuters,Thu, Jun 16 2011,

AMMAN (Reuters) - Tycoon Rami Makhlouf, who says he is quitting the Syrian business scene, owes his fortune and his role as a hate figure for protesters to his cousin President Bashar al-Assad.

Just three months ago it would have been unthinkable to have even criticized him and Assad told businessmen last year, before the uprising against him: "I wish Syria had 10 Rami Makhloufs."

Yet by March, his name was already being uttered by demonstrators trying to burn down the premises of his telecoms

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operation while chanting: "Go away Makhlouf. We don't want thieves."The announcement on state television that he is taking a lesser business role and moving into charity work will be no doubt be widely seen as aimed at helping the ruling family survive the turmoil -- even though campaigners scoffed at the move.

A close friend and confidant of Assad, Makhkouf controls companies with outright monopolies or semi monopolies in duty free, airlines, telecoms, real estate, oil, construction and import businesses.

Aref Dalila, a leading economist, was jailed for eight years after he criticized the state for awarding a cellphone contract to Makhlouf that created Syriatel, the country's largest mobile phone operator.

The tycoon, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2008 for what Washington calls public corruption and was put under EU sanctions last month, has repeatedly said he is a legitimate businessman whose firms provide jobs for thousands of Syrians.

PUBLIC FIGUREMakhlouf belongs to Assad's Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, which rose to dominate political system in majority Sunni Syria after controlling the army following a coup that brought the Baath Party to power in a 1963.

Alawites influence have spread to business, undermining a Sunni merchant establishment that had traditionally dominated commerce -- although Makhlouf sought to placate Sunnis by bringing them into a holding company he set up five years ago.

He is seen by many protesters as a front for more powerful family members, including Assad himself.

He also began taking a more political role, appearing on television to promote ties with Turkey and participating in meetings with

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Iraqi officials to improve relations, diplomats in the Syrian capital said.

His father Mohammad, a brother of Assad's mother Anissa, also amassed a fortune under the rule of Assad's father, the late Hafez al-Assad, and still plays a major role in managing the Makhlouf fortune, businessmen and diplomats say.

Before the uprising, Makhlouf had been changing the structure of the his companies by inviting Syrian and gulf shareholders, they added.

"Makhlouf has been trying to improve his image and portray himself as a regional businessman," one of the sources said.

A leading opposition figure dismissed the move to charity as a cosmetic attempt to placate a public angry at the widespread corruption he said Makhlouf epitomized and doubted Makhlouf would lose his position as one of the country's power elite.

"The news that Makhlouf will be donating to the Syrian people money he obtained by corruption and from monopolies granted to him because of his family links is comic," Walid al-Bunni told Reuters by phone from Damascus.

"The announcement would have had some credibility if Makhlouf had said he returned the billions of dollars he had amassed to the treasury. The Syrian people may then think of forgiving him."

One businessman said that Makhlouf's rise began with the death of Assad's brother Basil in car accident in the 1990s. The death of Basil, who was being groomed to succeed his father, brought in Bashar to politics."The difference between Bashar and Basil is that Basil was not under the influence of his cousins," the businessman said.

Makhlouf told the New York Times in an interview last month that Syria's ruling family will fight protesters "to the end" and

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hinted that Israel's stability could be threatened if Assad was toppled.

In a rare public statement, Syrian authorities said that Makhlouf was a private citizen and that his views did not represent the Syrian state.

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After all this bloodshed, there is no going back for Syria Most Syrians did not want regime change until the state opened fire. Now they will not settle for less than democracyRobin Yassin-Kassab,Guardian,16 June 2011,

Last January Syria seemed to belong with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as the least likely candidates for revolution. If President Bashar al-Assad had run in a real election, he may well have won. It's difficult to remember today that most Syrians did credit, if grudgingly, the regime with ensuring security and prosecuting a vaguely nationalist foreign policy. It's that desire for security, the overwhelming fear of Iraq-style chaos, that keeps a section of Syrian society loyal to the regime even now.

To start with, although they were inspired by Tunisia and Egypt, most protesters didn't aim for regime change. The first demonstration, in the commercial heart of Damascus, was a response to police brutality. That ended peacefully, but when Deraa protested over the arrest of schoolchildren the regime spilt blood. Outraged, communities all over the country took to the streets and met greater violence, swelling the crowds further. A vicious circle began. All the intelligence and nationalist pretensions peeled away from the government to reveal a dark and thuggish core.

Worse still, the president spoke of reforms, of ending the state of emergency and abolishing the hated state security courts. Even as

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he spoke the slaughter intensified. There was no surer way of destroying his credibility. The torrent of horror stories – children tortured to death, women shot, residential areas shelled – destroyed the regime's legitimacy.

The state's extraordinary stupidity suggests either panic or dissension in the inner circle, of which Bashar may only be the figurehead. Syrians debate which arrangement of Assads and Makhloufs (Bashar's mother's family) composes the actual power structure. In any case, Syria's leaders can count on support from the Republican Guard and the army's upper echelons. Yet lower- and middle-ranking defections will increase as the regime seeks to crush the provinces.

So what next? There is a roadmap to a happy ending. The grassroots local co-ordination committees call for the president's immediate resignation, and a joint civilian and military council to oversee a six-month transition to a pluralist democracy. "The new Syria will be a republic and a civil state that belongs to all Syrians," reads the LCC statement, "and not to an individual, family or party. It will not be inherited from fathers to sons. All Syrians will be equal in rights and duties without discrimination."

If the transition began today it could work, but the chances of the regime bowing out gracefully are close to zero. This means the chaos will expand.

So far, despite Syria's often difficult history and the regime's divide-and-rule tactics, sectarian war appears unlikely. When 100,000 people marched in Hama last Friday they chanted: "From Qardaha to Sanamein, the Syrians are one people." Qardaha is the home town of the Assads, in Alawi country. Sanamein is a poor Sunni village near Deraa where many have been killed. And the chant was raised in Hama, the city taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, and the site of a massacre when the regime took the city back. Such slogans of national unity show a new level of maturity and intelligence among Syrians, but these qualities will be challenged as the slaughter continues.

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Western intervention is improbable – Nato is overstretched and a Syrian adventure requires a commitment to potential regional war – and wouldn't be welcomed by Syrians anyway. In Iraq intervention triggered civil war.

Turkish intervention is another matter. Celebrating the third-term re-election of his AK party on Sunday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, greeted "those who are focused on Turkey with great excitement … all capitals of neighbouring countries". In light of the Arab awakening, Turkey's "zero problems with neighbours" policy is about to be overturned. On Tuesday Erdogan again told Assad to stop the repression and implement reforms. The day before he'd expressed willingness to work with Britain towards a UN resolution condemning Syria. But it's facts on the ground that will count. If many more refugees join the 8,500 who have fled to Turkey, Erdogan may order a limited occupation of Syrian territory to establish a "safe haven". That – the regime's inability to hold a section of the homeland – may prove a tipping point. It could also offer Syria its Benghazi, a base for organised resistance.

If the first enemy of Syrian democrats is the Syrian regime, and the second the spectre of sectarian violence, the third is represented by external forces seeking to take advantage of events. The Syrian economy may not be far from collapse. Any future government may be particularly easy to bribe in future years.

Saudi Arabia is funnelling cash to Egypt's ruling military council. It remains to be seen what the catch is. Saudi money could play an important role in the new Syria too, and so could a motley crew of exiles – the president's uncle Rifaat al-Assad, organiser of the 1982 Hama massacre, and ex-regime figure Abdul-Halim Khaddam, as well as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which has an unpleasant sectarian history and agenda. There's also a contingent of US-based liberals, some of whom play into neoconservative hands.

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It's easy to envisage a Saudi deal with Syrian Sunni officers and the Muslim Brotherhood, and a partially democratic, "moderate Islamist" regime presiding over tame social programmes, untrammelled economic liberalisation, and passivity over the occupied Golan Heights. Israel and the west may tacitly support such an outcome, because a properly democratic Syria alongside a properly democratic Egypt would constitute the greatest imaginable challenge to Israel's subjugation of the Palestinians.

It's unlikely that Syrians, after sacrificing so much blood, would want to settle for such a deal.

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Refugees fear a massacre as Syrian tanks advance on border Amid reports of gang rape and attacks by snipers, Assad regime insists violence has been carried out by 'terrorist gangs'Kim Sengupta in Guvecci, TurkeyIndependent,Friday, 17 June 2011

Forces of the Syrian regime are reported to have attacked and occupied villages near the Turkish border, just three kilometres from encampments where 12,000 refugees have fled in a bid to escape President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown.

Troops supported by tanks and artillery moved into the area as other units closed the circle around Maarat al-Numan, an opposition town in the north. Human rights groups said that at least 300 people had been arrested in a sweep of surrounding villages.

Families fleeing to the frontier with Turkey said the villages of Cenudi, Sigir, Badama and Qalaat Al-Shighour had been damaged by shellfire at dawn, which preceded the arrival of troops, secret police and the feared Shabbia militia. Local people blame the Mukhabarat secret police and the Shabbia militia – which is drawn

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from the Alawaite community, to which President Assad and many of the Syrian elite belong – for carrying out the worst excesses in the ferocious punitive response to the three-month uprising.

"They've really tried to destroy the village," said Somar Ali, a 20-year-old farmer who had fled Badama. "Most of my family came out with me, but my grandfather said 'I am too old to run away, I'll die here'. We phoned to make sure he was all right and we could hear shooting in the background. He said they were burning the fields and pulling down houses."

About 12,000 people are living in squalid temporary shelters on the Syrian side of the frontier, while a further 8,500 have made it to Turkey. Amid the chaos of the refugee encampments, accounts of what is unfolding on the ground are often confused and contradictory. The outskirts of Badama, seen by a visitor, did not support the claims of widespread destruction. Most of the population had fled, doors and windows of houses were shuttered, but the scale of damage was limited.

There is, nevertheless, fear among the refugees that regime forces would hunt them down. Groups seeking a way out to the relative safety of Turkey have come under sniper fire. Mukhabarat gunmen in civilian cars are said to have carried out ambushes.

Nasr al-Baidi, a farmer from Sigir, said: "We did not think the [regime's] troops would move so near to the border. Everyone is now very worried that they will move to the camps and start arresting people, maybe even killing them. What would the Turks do? They cannot allow a massacre to take place."

Reports of violence have heightened the sense of trepidation. A woman was alleged to have been gang raped by soldiers at Jisr Al-Shughour, a town stormed by regime forces earlier this week. Three women were reportedly paraded naked at the same place.

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Ibrahim, who did not want his surname published, said: "The poor woman who was raped was married and had children. She telephoned my wife and told her what had happened and told her not to go home. What happened to her and the three other women was a punishment because their husbands had joined demonstrations."

Thousands of people from Maarat al-Numan, just east of Jisr Al-Shughour, have left the town and are reportedly heading for the border. A villager in Maarshamsa, on the outskirts of the town, said indiscriminate shooting by Damascus forces killed one man, Mohammad al-Abdallah, who had to be buried in his garden because the intensity of the attack made it impossible to take his body to the cemetery.

Yaquub Abdurrahman, moving his wife and six children from Maarat al-Numan, said: "We have been told an attack is coming and we do not want to wait around to see what happens. We do not want to leave Syria and we will return when the fighting finishes."

The regime, which insists the violence is down to ill-defined "terrorist gangs", has asked refugees to return home. Hassan Turkmani, a special envoy of the Syrian president in Ankara for talks with the Turkish government, stated the refugees would only stay in Turkey for a "short period of time". "Soon they will be returning," he said. "We've prepared everything for them."

But at Guvecci, a Turkish town on the Syrian border, people were fearful of what awaited them. "We have heard that names of people who have gone back are checked against a list. If a name comes up the person is dragged away. There is a very good reason for not going back, we will get killed," said Abdel Yusuf Mohammed, who had fled from Jisr al-Shighour.

The Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who had visited a refugee camp in Hatay province adjoining Syria, met Mr Turkmani yesterday. Afterwards he said the countries remained

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the "closest friends", but added: "We want a strong, stable, prosperous Syria. To achieve this, the violence must stop immediately. I clearly saw the fear in the eyes of people in the place I visited."

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Damascus might murder Hariri “to trigger war,” says report Now Lebanon,17 June 2011,

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is taking refuge in France since according to US and Saudi intelligence, he might be assassinated by the Syrian regime to trigger war in Lebanon, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Thursday.

According to intelligence reports, the Syrian regime might assassinate Hariri in order to incite a Sunni-Shia strife in Lebanon and provoke civil war, the French website Liberation.fr also said. The report said that “the killing of Hariri will divert the attention of the international community and [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad would crackdown on [anti-regime] protests in his own country under the pretext that a civil war is breaking.”

It added that Hariri has been in Paris since last week.

The Syrian government is engaged in a deadly crackdown on protesters who since March have been demanding the end of 48 years of rule by the Baath party, which is controlled by Assad.

In January, the Syrian-backed March 8 coalition forced the collapse of Hariri’s government over a long-running dispute about the STL, which is probing the 2005 assassination of his father, former PM Rafik Harir.

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The Argument For Hitting Assad Where It Hurts: Oil Dominic Waghorn Sky News,June 17, 2011,

Syria is butchering its own people with tanks, helicopter gunships, sectarian-based militia and elite infantry units.

The world is looking on. Western leaders would love to do more they say, but their hands are tied.

This was British foreign secretary William Hague's excuse to Sky News over the weekend, and, below it, the reasons why it’s arguably not really good enough.

"We are not entirely powerless but we are constrained by the need for international support for everything we do," he said.

"The main thing we are trying to do is get a resolution from the UN security council” and as we all know the main problem with that is Russia and China opposes it.

But is the security council resolution a red herring? Europe has within its own hands a way to directly hit Syria’s regime where it hurts. It could stop buying its oil.

According to Reuters Syrian oil sales are worth between 7 and 8 millions dollars a day in hard foreign currency and therefore a revenue likely to be controlled by the Assad regime directly.Who is buying it? 96 percent of it ends up being consumed in Germany, Italy, France and Netherlands, according to International Energy Agency data, quoted on Dow Jones. Not China or Russia.

It does not take a UN Security Council resolution to make Europeans stop directly funding the Syrian regime by stopping buying its oil.

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There are arguments against such action. Openoil, a group pushing for greater transparency in the oil industry examines them.

1. Wouldn’t Syria just sell its oil to someone else. Those Chinese for instance. Not so easy is the answer, apparently. Syrian crude oil is of a heavy and sour grade that the Chinese do not have the ability to refine.

2. It won’t make a big enough difference. Syrian oil exports are only worth between a quarter to a third of regime annual income. It has plenty of other sources of cash. Yes, but not hard currency, the only other foreign exchange earner is tourism and as you can imagine that sector is not having a good year. So oil income is disproportionately important and switching it off likely to be disproportionately painful to the regime.

3. Surely oil exports have been hit massively already, because of the violence and sanctions. Another piece of Reuters analyis claims that while current sanctions do not make trade with Syria illegal, foreign corporations are avoiding doing business because of them. Costs of operating have soared but so have profits and for that reason Oil exports are continuing it seems, nearly all of them to Europe.

Shell has been in the news because of its cosy relationship with Syria’s oil industry but it is not the only one.

Openoil has a list of oil companies it says are or have been involved in business with Syria.

Exploration:

Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Netherlands)

Total (France)

Tanganyika (Canada)

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Petrocanada (Canada)

ONGC (India)

Gulfsands Petroleum (UK)

Production:

Shell (UK/Netherlands, via SSPC)

Gulfsands Petroleum (UK)

Sinochem (Shina)

Total (France)

ONGC (India)

CNPC (China)

INA (Croatia)

There are some very good brains in London and Brussels paid good money to monitor events in the Middle East and devise British and European foreign policy accordingly.

They have had three months now to work out a way to stop the butchery in Syria. The sanctions they have devised so far do not seem to be working.

William Hague says ‘the main thing Britain is doing is working towards a UN Security Council resolution’ but he knows that Russia and China are not going to back it because they feel NATO is abusing the last one on Libya.

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Perhaps, the answer lies closer to home with oil companies and consumers in Britain and Europe. And Britain and Britain's European allies are not powerless when it comes to them.

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Today’s Zaman: ‘Assad needs to listen, not just hear’.. Today’s Zaman: ‘ ‘Constitution-making, Kurdish issue, Syria to top gov’t agenda’ ‘.. Reuters: ‘Syrian dissidents unite to oust Assad’..

NYTIMES: 'President Assad's Political Future'.. [Vedio]..

NYTIMES: ‘For Syrian Refugees, Shelter of a Precarious Sort’..

Guardian: 'Assad's tycoon cousin to quit business'..

Daily Star: 'Dutch diplomats abducted, taken to Syria and released'..

Haaretz: 'Netanyahu is dooming Israel to live eternally by the sword'..

Jerusalem Post: ''IHH will not take part in upcoming Gaza flotilla''..

Independent: 'A crisis in Athens and a looming disaster for Europe'..

Guardian: ‘Where the Arab spring will end is anyone's guess’..

Haaretz: ‘Just want to be home’..

Jerusalem Post: ‘Analysis: Will Syrian issue warm Israeli-Turkish ties? ‘..

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