Assad Declares ‘General Amnesty’ for Prisoners

The New York Times reports that newly re-elected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad granted “a general amnesty” on Monday for all crimes other than “acts of terrorism.” His statement raised hope for those with relatives in detention.

“Government officials and state media reports have often used the term terrorism to refer to any act of resistance against the government,” Barnard writes. “But in recent months, some have begun referring to Syrian insurgents as gunmen rather than terrorists, a softening of language that, for example, allowed government officials to make a deal in May allowing opposition fighters to leave besieged parts of Homs.”

SANA, Syria’s state news agency, said the amnesty also applied to “foreigners who entered Syria with the purpose of joining a terrorist group or committing a terrorist act,” as long as they turn themselves in to government authorities within a month.

“That appeared to be a first,” the paper says. “Previous amnesties sought to induce opposition fighters to lay down their arms, as the latest one does, but the previous offers were only for Syrians, especially defectors from the army.”

Return to Aleppo: “We Are in Hell”

CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reports from Aleppo, which he calls a “skeleton” of the city he first visited 22 months ago.

Syria’s largest city “has born the brunt of his crudest and most indiscriminate weapon,” he writes. “The ‘barrel bomb’ is itself a symptom of a war so long and exhaustive, the ways of state-backed killing have by necessity become homemade and improvised, rather than precise and militarized.”

“This has since been refined, activists say. The bombers now drop one device and then wait 10 to 30 minutes. Then they drop another. The aim is to ensure that those who flooded in to the scene to rescue the victims are then killed. Bustan al-Quasr has borne the brunt of much of the bombing in the past weeks for a simple reason: that is where the people have moved to. Other areas were bombed previously, and those people moved to Bustan al-Quasr and elsewhere, so now it is bombed.”

“You will see that when the first one lands, everyone stays in cover for 30 minutes,” one activist told Walsh. “They know now a second bomb is coming.”

U.S. Preacher Who Inspires Syrian Rebels Faces Internet Monitoring

Reuters reports that a U.S. judge has ordered monitoring of computer and Internet use of Ahmad Musa Jebril, 43, a Michigan-based Islamic preacher who is regarded by federal officials as an inspirational figure for Syrian foreign fighters.

The close supervision was ordered “after a court hearing last Thursday at which he was deemed to have violated conditions of his early release from a lengthy prison sentence imposed for fraud and jury tampering,” the wire says. “In a written order he issued after the hearing in Detroit, Federal Judge Gerald Rosen did not link his decision to Jebril’s online preaching.”

But officials told Reuters that the judge’s order “would allow probation authorities to monitor Jebril’s activities to make sure he is not trying to instigate Americans to travel to Syria to join other foreign fighters. Other officials said U.S. authorities were stepping up efforts to track and investigate Americans who go to Syria to join rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, and estimated that several dozen Americans had done so.”

Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team

AFP: 45 Dead in Clashes Between Jihadists in Syria

Reuters:U.S. Arms Could Create Syria ‘Warlords’, Says Rebel Leader

Daily Beast: Syria’s Guardian Angels Turned Refugees

Washington Post: Famed Syrian Storyteller’s Life Upended by War