The Challenge of Moving Syrian Chemical Arms Through Battlefields. The New York Times reports on the myriad challenges facing inspectors who, having removed Assad’s chemical weapons from their storage areas, must now transport them from the country.
“A plan announced over the weekend for getting the bulk of Syria’s chemical weapons out of the country in coming weeks has raised major concerns in Washington, because it involves transporting the weapons over roads that are battlegrounds in the country’s civil war and loading them onto a ship that has no place to go,” the paper writes.
“Security for the shipments is being provided entirely by Syrian military units loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, who has surprised American officials with how speedily he has complied with an agreement brokered by Russia to identify and turn over his chemical weapon stockpiles. Intelligence analysts and Pentagon officials say the shipments will be vulnerable to attack as they travel past the ruins of a war that has raged for two and a half years.”
Bombing Kills 31 Syrian Troops in Response to Assad Offensive. Also in the Times, Beirut bureau chief Anne Barnard reports on a bombing that killed 31 troops at a government building on Sunday, which she says was one of the deadliest recent attacks on Assad forces.
“The deaths came as a government offensive against rebels continued on three fronts: in the outskirts of Damascus, in the south; outside Aleppo, in the north; and in the Qalamoun mountain region bordering Lebanon, in western Syria.
“The timing of the bombing on the army base suggested that rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad were trying to blunt, at least psychologically, recent government advances that have allowed troops to threaten long-held rebel territory around the country’s two largest cities, Aleppo and Damascus.”
Profiling the ‘Rocket Man,’ a Star Syria Blogger. The New Yorker has a lengthy profile of Eliot Higgins, known to Syria watchers as Brown Moses, the blogger behind the Brown Moses Blog who was the first to report the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta.
“Unlike the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, the war in Syria has not produced a huge body of journalism by international reporters on the ground. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is currently the most dangerous dateline in the world; the regime of Bashar al-Assad has effectively banned the international press,” writes Patrick Radden Keefe.
“Although Higgins has never been to Syria, and until recently had no connection to the country, he has become perhaps the foremost expert on the munitions used in the war. On YouTube, he scans as many as 300 new videos a day, with the patience of an ornithologist. Even when a rocket has largely been destroyed, he can often identify it by whatever scraps survive.”
Syrian Army Makes Gains in Northwestern Syria, Lauded in Iranian Press. Iran’s Fars News Agency trumpeted claims that Syrian government troops made strategic gains in northern Syria, which is largely rebel-controlled.
“On Friday, the General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces issued a statement after regaining control over key towns in Homs province.
“‘After a successful military operation and accurate tactical maneuvers, units of the armed forces managed on Friday to tighten control over the towns of al-Hadath, Hawarin and Mhin and the warehouses nearby to the Southeast of Homs city,’” it said.
“’With this successful operation that left large numbers of terrorists killed in a well-planned trap, the armed forces have punctured the delusions of terrorists and their masters in taking over vital areas in Homs countryside … causing dramatic collapse in the morale of the armed terrorist groups that are faltering under the strikes of the Syrian army.’”