SYRIEN - En sammanställning av konflikten

In a telephone interview with a Japanese TV news programme, fellow Japan Press reporter Kazutaka Sato, who was travelling with Yamamoto, said it appeared she was shot by government forces.

At least 23 people were wounded in running clashes between pro- and anti-Assadregime supporters in Lebanon's second largest city of Tripoli, a security official said Tuesday.

Exchanges of gunfire erupted on Monday and continued through the night between the mainly Sunni district of Bab el-Tebbaneh and the largely Alawite area of Jabal Mohsen.

At least a dozen civilians emerged from their homes, retirees in their 70s, shopkeepers and local businessmen with their families and, unaware that a foreign journalist was watching, put their arms round Syrian troops. One told me he had stayed in his home as "foreign" fighters used his courtyard to fire on government soldiers. "I speak Turkish and most were speaking Turkish but some of the men had long beards and short trousers like the Saudis wear, and had strange Arab accents."

"We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people," Obama told reporters at the White House. "We have been very clear to the Assad regime -- but also to other players on the ground -- that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.

In the post-9/11 era, Saudis have cracked down on fund-raising to the point that all cash coming in for Syria is tightly controlled by the Saudi Interior Ministry. It's an attempt to prevent extremist groups like al Qaeda from benefiting from Saudi largesse.

But that, according to the Syrian trio, may be hard to enforce. SNC member Mohammed Alterkawi, who also represents the high council of the Free Syrian Army, explains: "The feeling now inside Syria is that those extremists -- they are coming here to help us, OK. And this feeling -- it make this extremist my friend, OK. So it's not enemy now, it's my friend."

I found sticks of Swedish explosives in plastic covers, dated February 1999 and manufactured by Hammargrens, whose office address was printed as 434-24 Kingsbacka in Sweden; the words "made in USA" was also marked on each stick
[...]
Interesting to know who the Spanish, Swedish and Belgian manufacturers originally sold their guns and explosives to.

‘That's an issue that doesn't just concern Syria. It concerns our close allies in the region, including Israel. It concerns us,’ Obama said, also acknowledging the possibility that militant groups might acquire some of those weapons. ‘We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.’

– I fyra årtionden hade människorna inga rättigheter, de flesta fogade sig och var passiva. De bar på ett ursinne de inte fick utlopp för. Förra året exploderade all denna uppdämda vrede. Men ingen visste hur det går till i ett civilt samhälle, hur man agerar politiskt. De visste inte hur de skulle arbeta för att få medborgerliga rättigheter. De trodde att allt skulle förändras omedelbart.
Han fimpar cigaretten, vrider den ur munstycket och tänder omgående en ny.
– I sex månader var protesterna fredliga, och regeringen svarade med kulsprutor. Våld var regimens plan från början. Den lyckades. Regeringen förmådde provocera revolutionen att bli våldsam.