On Syrian Casualties: Caught Between the Free Syrian Army and Hezbollah………….

 

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I knew this was coming. I knew this would happen, but I didn’t expect it so soon. The Saudi semi-official Alrabiya network reports that now more than 10 thousand Syrians have been killed by the Assad regime during the past year. The network quotes ‘unofficial’ statistics of Syrian ‘activists’ that the number of those killed suddenly jumped from 7 thousand two days ago to more than 10 thousand.
I remember the days a few weeks ago when it was only 3,000 or was it 4,000. They claim that the 7,000 were only those whose death was recorded “by video” or otherwise proven (by the activists of course). The report notes that the figure does not include the thousands of regime soldiers and officers who were killed (or perhaps died of natural causes).
I expect the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is in deep discussion with the brotherly, or is it sisterly, Arab intelligence services trying to decide when is it convenient to up the figure to 20 thousand. The Salafis are probably all for pushing the number to 40 thousand, but the Muslim Brothers are probably balking: unlike the Salafis, they believe in moderation, even in lying. I a not sure that even upping the figure dramatically will get NATO to start bombing unilaterally.

On the other hand, actually on the other extreme, both Iran and Hezbollah are beginning to ‘suspect’ what they had known all along: that ‘something’ may be happening in Syria after all. They are beginning to note that life is not going on as usual, that people are actually dying in places like Homs and other towns. After all, it can’t all be made up by CNN and Anderson Cooper and Arwa Damon, can it? They haven’t yet decided on who is doing all that killing, but give them some time.
Cheers
mhg



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