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Executive Summary for November 19th

To give you an overview of the latest news, we’ve organized the latest Syrian developments in a curated summary. .

Published on Nov. 19, 2013 Read time Approx. 3 minutes

Rebel Leader’s Death Further Muddles Rebellion. The New York Times outlines the consequences of the death of Abdelqader Saleh, the Tawhid Brigade leader killed yesterday by government forces in Aleppo.

“A Syrian insurgency with nowhere else to turn, he said nearly a year ago, would tilt towards foreign fighters and al-Qaida. By the time a government air strike caught him in northern Syria last week, even some of his most fervent admirers believed he had become, in some ways, part of that tilt,” the paper writes.

“When he died Thursday of wounds from an air strike in Aleppo, he and Tawhid were months into a slow decline from the peak of their influence. The extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had edged out Tawhid as the pace-setting group policing the northern province. And as that group’s foreign fighters stepped up kidnappings, public executions and attacks on Tawhid and its rebel allies, Mr. Saleh disappointed some of his comrades by remaining largely silent, trying to mediate the disputes rather than fighting to prevent the atrocities and infighting that have gutted the revolt from within.”

A Revolution Eclipsed by Civil War. The Guardian’s Ghaith Abdul-Ahad says that the “rivalry between rebels and Islamists has replaced the uprising’s lofty ideals, leaving veteran commanders despairing.”

His excellent, in-depth reporting from Turkey and Syria follows a businessman, a smuggler and an army defector who are now the political officer, treasurer and military commander of a battalion.

“For three men in northern Syria, the second civil war started shortly after the first staggered into a quagmire of sectarian violence. The goals of the first war – freedom, Islam, social equality of some sort – were replaced by betrayal, defeat and anger towards rival militias, jihadis and foreign powers fighting in Syria.

“Like many others, the three men are bewildered at what has become of their war. Their alliances – and their goals – are shifting. The regime is far away, the jihadis are near – and seem unstoppable. Their resources are dwindling; their families are shattered. Their villages and farm lands are lost to regime militias. Their allies are at best unreliable, and at worst actively conspiring against them.”

Gen. Dempsey: Syria Options Growing ‘More Complex.’ In the Wall Street Journal, Dion Nissenbaum reports that Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the U.S. has few good options in dealing with Syria.

“Are the options getting better? No, I don’t think so,” Nissenbaum quotes him as saying. “I think they are becoming more complex.”

The paper adds that “Syria remains one of the most intractable issues facing Gen. Dempsey, the Pentagon and the U.S. Earlier this year, the U.S. was poised to attack Syria after chemical attacks in August killed hundreds of civilians. Faced with the threat, Syria agreed to destroy all its chemical weapons and the immediate crisis was defused.

“Gen. Dempsey has long expressed reservations about arming rebel groups fighting the Syrian regime. Some of the most effective Syrian rebel groups are anti-American forces allied with al-Qaida and Islamist extremist forces.”

Nightmare in Lebanon, on Syria Street. Foreign Policy has a piece on the battle being fought block by block in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, which has become an extension of the Syrian conflict.

“Split along sectarian lines and divided by opposition to and support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, residents of Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen have clashed 18 times in the last two and a half years, with shells and automatic gunfire raining down on both neighborhoods with devastating regularity,” it says.

“Resentment in Lebanon’s northern capital runs deep: Alawites, marginalized under Ottoman rule, enjoyed special privileges during the French mandate period, but entered a long era of political oblivion with the independence of the Lebanese state in 1943. Numbering less than 120,000, the majority of whom live in or around Jabal Mohsen, the sect represents a tiny minority in Lebanon and has maintained strong ties to neighboring Syria, where Alawites have ruled since 1970.”

Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team:

CNNSyria’s Brutal War Within a War Gains Momentum

Human Rights Watch: Opposition Abuses During Ground Offensive

Al-Jazeera Opinion: From Iran to Syria: Diplomacy, Not War, Can Bear Fruit

Washington Post: Syria’s State Media Claims Troops Have Captured Key Town Near Border with Lebanon

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