Ex U.N. Envoy Predicts Syria Will Be ‘Failed State’

Lakdhar Brahimi, the U.N.’s former top diplomat to Syria, told German newspaper Der Spiegel that the country could become a “failed state” similar to Somalia. Brahimi left his post in the spring. He also said the conflict would “blow up,” spreading beyond Syrian borders.

“It will be become another Somalia,” he said in the interview, which the BBC summarized. “It will not be divided, as many have predicted. It’s going to be a failed state, with warlords all over the place.”

The BBC says Brahimi also criticized Assad’s allies Iran and Russia for supporting the Syrian government, and that the president is “100 percent aware” of the war’s devastation to civilians. More than 160,000 people have died since it began in 2011.

“He knows a hell of a lot. Maybe he doesn’t know every single detail of what is happening, but I’m sure he is aware that people are being tortured, that people are being killed, that bombs are being thrown, that cities are being destroyed,” Brahimi said.

Syrian Regime Releases Hundreds of Prisoners

Nabih Bulos of the Los Angeles Times reports that the Syrian government has released hundreds of prisoners as part of a “general amnesty” granted by Assad in celebration of his June 3 re-election.

SANA, Syria’s state news agency, said that 320 prisoners were released Thursday from Central Aleppo Prison “based on directives” by Assad.

“The prison, about five miles north of Aleppo near a vital supply route for fighters in rebel-controlled areas of Aleppo province, held 3,500 detainees and was the site of fierce battles between rebel factions and forces loyal to Assad,” Bulos writes. “A yearlong siege of the prison by rebel fighters was broken late last month.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the release. “Most cases that were released from Aleppo Central Prison had tuberculosis … One released prisoner was taken to the hospital and died there,” Ghayth Yaqout, an Observatory activist, told the paper.

The group also reported that almost 500 people held on terrorism charges are to be released from prison in Adra, an industrial area northeast of Damascus and the site of sectarian massacres in late 2013. By Friday, Bulos reports, more than 20 prisoners had been freed.

Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt Slams Hezbollah on Syria

The AP reports that the leader of Lebanon’s minority Druze sect has said that “the decision by Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group to join the civil war in neighboring Syria and fight along President Bashar Assad’s forces was a historic and moral mistake towards the Syrian people.”

Walid Jumblatt is a “pillar and a mainstay” in Lebanese politics. He is often called Lebanon’s “kingmaker” because of his minority’s history of tipping the balance during key parliamentary votes.

“Hezbollah intervened in Syria and did not care about the Lebanese [public] opinion,” Jumblatt told the AP in an interview at his Beirut home. “This is a historical and moral mistake towards the Syrian people.” Now, the Syrian civil war will be “very long,” he added, saying that instead of fighting in Syria, Hezbollah should have focused on Israel, which remains its arch enemy.

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