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Regardless of who is part of the the Greater Damascus Operations Room, an equally important question is: who is not involved?
On November 6, 2013, a statement was released by Syrian rebels declaring the creation of “the Greater Damascus Operations Room.”
The Arab Socialist Baath Party has ruled Syria since 1963 and continues to do so after the constitutional changes in spring 2012.
The Syrian war has been a disaster for the country’s Palestinian refugee population. The half-million Palestinians who have lived in the country since they were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948 were sharply divided over the 2011 revolution.
The National Coalition opposition alliance has finally announced its long-awaited provisional government. It is an important development, but will not likely have a major impact on the everyday life of Syrians in the short term.
The question of the extent and duration of Turkish support for jihadist factions opposing the Syrian regime has been a sensitive issue for some time.
Swedish authorities have opened an investigation into the activities of Haitham Rahma, a Swedish citizen born in Homs.
Few other political leaders, even among the notoriously cynical Lebanese zu’ama, shift their opinions with as little apology and ceremony as Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and steward of Lebanon’s Druze community.
While he is routinely billed as an “opposition leader” in Syrian, Iranian, and Russian media, Qadri Jamil has always hovered on the outskirts of regime politics.
The presence of Jordanians, and Palestinians from Jordan, as foreign fighters in the Syrian jihadi factions is another factor linking Jordan to the war in Syria.
Deraa, the cradle of the Syrian uprising, has become the main point of entry for direct U.S. support to the Syrian insurgency.
The battle for al-Yarubiya, a border crossing point along the Syrian-Iraqi border, is an extension of the broader regional battle for control of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon by jihadists.
In a statement, a group of nineteen Syrian rebel factions jointly condemned the planned Geneva II conference as an “episode in the chain of conspiracies” against their revolution.
In the wake of stern warnings of greater unilateralism from Saudi officials and commentators, many observers have been left wondering about the future course of Saudi strategy in Syria.
The city of Douma has long been a stronghold of the insurgency, and several armed factions are active in the area, many of them with an Islamist bent.
A preliminary date has been set for the Geneva II negotiations and the Syrian opposition is expected to sit down with representatives from Bashar al-Assad’s regime to discuss the prospect of a unity government. But note the word ”preliminary.”