Reports Suggest New Push Being Planned Against Assad

The Guardian reports that new information from Washington, Jerusalem, Amman and the Gulf suggest a major new effort is under way to open what they call a “southern front” against Assad’s army, after months of stalemate on the Syrian battlefield.

“Central to the mooted plan is a renewed push to provide Syria’s badly divided and often ineffectual moderate, secular rebel groups with additional funding, upgraded weapons and intelligence support,” the paper writes. “What use they may make of such support, if indeed it fully materializes, remains to be seen.

“The initiative, as reported in the region, is set against a backdrop of secret talks in the U.S. last month between Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s national security adviser, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister in charge of covert action programs in Syria. This meeting has been linked in turn to last month’s launching by the Free Syrian Army of what they termed a spring offensive in the south of Syria. The offensive began days after they received new U.S. weapons funding that may eventually total $31.4 million, rebel commanders said.”

First Case of Polio Among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

BC News reports that the first case of polio among Syrian refugees in Lebanon is suspected.There are more than 1 million registered and unregistered Syrians living in Lebanon. Polio cases have been discovered in Aleppo and other hard-hit Syrian areas, leading to concerns that the country is poised for an infectious disease outbreak.

“A young child lies on a hospital bed, the small body floppy on the right side. The 19-month-old, a refugee from the conflict in Syria, has not been vaccinated, and polio is suspected,” the network says.

“The child has been isolated with polio-like symptoms,” NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman said Tuesday.

“If tests come back positive, this will be Lebanon’s first documented case of polio among Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a great concern because the disease can spread quickly, especially in crowded refugee camps.”

Survivors Mourn After a Massacre by Rebels

Joshua Hersh of the Huffington Post reports from Obeen on the aftermath of a rebel massacre in the coastal province town.

“The residents who had returned — and others whom HuffPost met in a temporary shelter near Latakia city, an hour’s drive away — said they feel a sense of grievance that the world’s outrage over civilian killings in Syria had overlooked them,” he writes.

“’You have to tell the world the truth!’ an elderly lady in Obeen cried out when she saw foreign reporters in the area. ‘We were sleeping safely. We are poor, simple people – we are innocent – and they came in the night and took our children.’

“Reporting on the killing of Alawites and other pro-government civilians by rebel forces is an uncommon experience. With so much of the conflict covered from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan – places where the stories of victims predominantly reflect the brutality inflicted by government-affiliated forces – a tour of Syria’s internal strongholds offers a refresher course in the suffering that has befallen citizens on all sides.”

Syria’s Secretive Rocket Industry Spotlighted by Israeli Weapons Seizure

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Israel’s seizure last week of cargo that included 40 Syrian-manufactured rockets has drawn attention to the country’s “secretive” rocket industry.

“Israel claims the M-302s were flown from Syria to Iran before being loaded aboard the Panamanian-flagged ship in an Iranian port. This raises the question of why Iran would ship Syrian-made rockets … when it produces its own. The answer lies in the increasingly close links between Syria and Iran in rocket research, development and production, and in Syria’s success in expanding the reach of its arsenal,” the paper writes.

“The Syrian rocket industry is quite capable. They can make up their own design. You see already in the civil war that they know their stuff,” Uzi Rubin, an Israeli expert on missile defense and the founder and director of a defense ministry program on long-range missiles, tells correspondent Nicholas Blanford. Syria’s rocket industry expanded as it drew closer with Iran, according to the piece.

Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team

NY Times: U.N. Denies That Syria Image Was Fake

Reuters: Assad Visits Displaced Syrians Outside Damascus

Guardian: Syria’s Unknown Victims: The Thousands Missing or Dead in Regime Custody

NBC News: Living in a Box, Eating Weeds: Syria’s Children on the Edge