Islamists Seize Turkey Border Crossing
The AFP reports that the newly formed Islamic Front, Syria’s largest Islamist rebel force, has seized the border crossing of Bab al-Hawa in northwestern Syria.
“The capture came after the Islamic Front seized arms depots near the crossing belonging to the Free Syrian Army at the weekend, heightening tensions among the fractured Syrian opposition,” it says.
“Last week the Islamic Front rejected the authority of the FSA, which was the first major rebel force formed after the outbreak of Syria’s civil war and was made up of army deserters and civilians.”
Winter Storm Hits Refugees Early
The Huffington Post’s Joshua Hersh reports from the Turkish border city of Gaziantep about the scramble to prepare refugees for winter, and this week’s snowfall.
Hersh writes that “over the next 36 hours, snow, freezing rain and high winds [are] expected to blanket much of an area, from Iraq in the east to Lebanon in the west, which currently holds an estimated 9 million refugees and displaced people.
“At the Atama camp, along the border in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, a Syrian opposition activist told the Huffington Post by phone Tuesday evening that few people seemed prepared for the inclement weather.
“In the camp, a few people have heating, but really there’s nothing to do to prepare for the storm,” Alaa El Din al-Youssef told him. “If you have a blanket, you stay under it. Some people are in tents, some are in empty rooms, some are under nothing more than a bit of wood or covering to protect from the snow.”
U.S. Suspends Nonlethal Assistance into Northern Syria
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Turkey says that the U.S. has suspended its nonlethal assistance to rebels in northern Syria “after Islamic Front forces seized headquarters and warehouses belonging to the opposition’s Supreme Military Council.”
Reuters reports that it was unclear why the Front, a new and powerful alliance between Syria’s major rebel Islamist groups, had seized the SMC buildings.
“As a result of this situation, the United States has suspended all further deliveries of nonlethal assistance into northern Syria,” the U.S. official told the wire, adding that humanitarian assistance was not impacted.
“FSA representatives could not be reached for comment and the U.S. embassy spokesman said the situation was being investigated ‘to inventory the status of U.S. equipment and supplies provided to the SMC.’”
Prominent Rights Lawyer Abducted from Damascus
The New York Times’ Anne Barnard reports on the kidnapping of Razan Zeitouneh, a prominent Syrian human-rights lawyer “who was one of the most vocal early leaders of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad was abducted along with three colleagues in a suburb of Damascus on Tuesday by masked men, according to antigovernment activists, who pointed fingers at an Islamist rebel faction that she had criticized.”
The abductions, Barnard writes, “contribute to fears that the most violent side of the Syrian insurgency is silencing advocates of the freedom and political rights that were the original demands of those protesting against the Assad government in early 2011 and is playing into the hands of the government, which portrays itself as the only alternative to extremist rule.”
Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team:
AFP: Gulf States Call on Foreign Fighters to Leave Syria
BBC: Syria Sides Fight for Keeps as Geneva Peace Talks Loom
Reuters: Syrian Opposition Head Urges Gulf States to Launch Aid Fund
Reuters: In Qatar Talks, U.S. Underscores Support for Syrian Moderates
NY Times:Lebanon Worries That Housing Will Make Syrian Refugees Stay
Daily Beast: Surviving Syria’s Incendiary Bomb Attacks