News on Syria and her neighbours... October 13 and past few days

From OrlandoSentinel:
Gunmen waylaid a humanitarian convoy  in northern Syria on Sunday and abducted seven people working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, the aid group said.
It was the latest in a series of kidnappings of both foreign nationals and Syrians along roads in largely lawless stretches of northern Syria, much of which is under control of anti-government insurgents. Some armed groups are reportedly using ransoms from kidnappings to help finance their activities.
Sunday’s attack underscored the dangers to aid workers and others inside Syria, now in the third year of a bloody civil war......
The seven aid workers abducted Sunday included six staffers of the International Committee of the Red Cross and a volunteer from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. The nationalities of the six ICRC personnel were not made public....

From RTNews:
Syrian TV, chemical inspectors’ hotel targeted  in bomb attacks in Damascus - report.  Multiple bomb blasts have rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus, a mortar attack on Syrian TV among them, reports RT’s correspondent at the scene.
Suicide bombers blew up two booby-trapped cars near the General Organization of Radio and TV in Damascus, state TV reported. 
RT correspondent Paula Slier said that two security guards were confirmed dead in the blasts while two suicide bombers died in their cars. ........

From Bloomberg:
Turkey’s Unwise Pivot to the East. In January, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that because his country’s talks to join the European Union had stalled, he might seek instead to join China and Russia in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Few took the threat seriously; Turkey has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since the 1950s. Yet the government’s decision late last month to award a $3 billion air and missile defense system contract to a state-run company from China suggests that Erdogan is turning east to look for new security partners.



From TimesLive:
Syrian refugees who survived after their boat capsized off Malta in the latest disaster in the Mediterranean say they were fired on by warring trafficking gangs as they set out on their perilous journey from Libya.  Survivors said Libyan militiamen shot wildly at their boat, leaving several people dead and causing the vessel to take on water and sink.
Syrian national Mohammed, 34, broke down in tears as he recalled his desperate search for his missing pregnant wife and seven-year-old daughter after he and his five-year-old girl managed to reach safety.
Mohammed told AFP he had paid a total of $4 800 (3 500 euros) for the trip to seek a better life in Europe, crossing through Egypt to Libya.
"When we got on the boat, Libyan militia put their machine guns to our heads and demanded more money. I had $5 000 and they took this too," Mohammed said from a detention camp in Malta. .....

From GulfNews:
Jihadists make gains in inter-rebel clashes. Aleppo battles have killed nearly 50 people in three days.  Damascus: Clashes between jihadists and mainstream rebels in Syria’s second city Aleppo have killed nearly 50 people in three days, a watchdog said Saturday, adding that the jihadists made several gains.
A recent surge in fighting among Syria’s rebels has cast further doubt on the already slim prospects for a negotiated settlement between the rebels and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s regime.

From ForeignPolicy:
...The world is watching to see if Hasan Rouhani is serious about ending Iran's nuclear standoff with the West. So far, there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. Not only has the new Iranian president repeatedly said he intends to resolve the stalemate, but his upbeat phone conversation with President Barack Obama last month marked the first direct contact between a U.S. and Iranian president since 1979. Now, there are hints that Iran is preparing a proposal for next week's meeting of the P5+1, the group of world powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program.
All of this is good news -- and ensuring that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons is the right priority for the emerging dialogue between Tehran and Washington. But Obama should also capitalize on a potential opening with Iran to pursue another urgent objective: a diplomatic end to Syria's civil war........



From DailyNet:
Erdoğan Surrenders Border Crossing to Terrorists. The AKP government have given in to the threats of terrorist groups operating from Syria and reopened border checkpoints, allowing for further support to flow from Turkey into the war torn country.
Having started as support for the supposedly innocent, democratic claims of the rebellion and their fight against ‘tyranny’, the AKP’s adventure of adding fuel to the flames of the Syrian civil war seems to have ended up with submission to and collusion with terrorists. After the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam border checkpoints on the Syrian side of the Syria-Turkey border fell into the hands of al-Qaeda affiliate terrorist forces, Turkish officials ordered the closure of the Cilvegözlü and Öncüpınar border checkpoints on the Turkish side. However, a threatening letter from the ISIS terrorists to the Turkish government has resulted in the reopening of the checkpoints, and a resumption of the flow of support to terrorist groups fighting in Syria........

From Reuters:
.. Syrian rebels said they shot a government warplane   on Sunday near the southern city of Deraa along the border with Jordan but the plane was able to make an emergency landing at a nearby military airport......

From JPost:
Al-Qaida, Muslim Brotherhood hold secret meeting in Jordan. Al-Qaida and the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood met secretly last week in Jordan according to a source quoted by the Egyptian daily Al-Youm al-Sabaa on Saturday. 
The meeting focused on the conflict in Egypt and Syria and an altercation broke out between a Brotherhood member and jihadist leader Mohammad al-Miqdad, and the latter asked the Brotherhood not to publicly denounce the actions of the jihadists.
The jihadists discussed their plans to start moving Syrian and Iraqi jihadists into Egypt in order to carry out terror operations there after the Eid al-Adha festival, which falls on Tuesday.



From KuwaitNA:
Syria Saturday transferred 2,000 women and children from area Muadamiyet Al-Cham after being trapped for one month because of daily clashes between rebels and Syrian regime forces.
Syrian news agency (SANA) said that amid efforts to protect citizens from armed groups, the "Syrian Social Affairs Ministry, Damascus Countryside Governorate and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) transported 2,000 women and children from Muadamiyet Al-Cham area who had been held hostage by terrorist groups to temporary housing centers.
"The women and children were transported to housing centers via buses, while sick and elderly people were transported using ambulances provided by the SARC," the ministry said.
Social Affairs Minister Kinda Al-Shammat said that this step was taken after terrorists began preventing supplies and relief from reaching the area where these people were located.
The minister affirmed on the government commitment to providing good living conditions to evacuated people. 

From Economist:
....THE civil war in Syria, a nightmare for most Syrians, is a dream come true for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the latter name being variously translated as “Greater Syria” or “the Levant”. The extremist group, formed in Iraq in 2006 as a broad jihadist front that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, has had its best year to date for expansion. In Syria it runs a clutch of towns, taking it a step closer to its goal of creating a limitless Islamic caliphate. In Iraq its campaign of bombing against Shia Muslims, whom it considers heretics, and of assassinations of its opponents, has reached a new pitch of fury.
Syria’s power vacuum has given it an ideal base. Since expanding into the country in April, ISIS has spread across the northern and eastern provinces abutting Iraq and Turkey to include thousands of fighters on both sides of the border. Its foreign leadership is experienced, its footmen, foreign and Syrian, well-trained and disciplined. Its control of Syria’s oilfields has added wealth to the funds it gets from donors in the Gulf. It has sought to increase its popularity by providing services, such as supplying bread, and activities including Koranic classes for children.........

#BREAKING: 100 women and childern hostages at Jabal al-Akrad Lattakia are under the protection of Jabhat al-Nusra - Sham Spokesman on HRW
— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) October 11, 2013

From TodaysZaman:
....To begin with, there is a false sociological reading of radicalism in Turkey.  Many believe that it will be easy to purge such groups from the region once the Assad regime is toppled. Those pundits even argue that radical groups do not have a sociological basis, thus they have no chance of survival in the long term. All such arguments are false. They miss how sociology interacts with radicalism on the ground. Radicalizing a group of people is much easier than making them more democratic or literate. Radicalism operates and evolves through the shortcuts of sociological networks. It can, therefore, quickly become a sociological phenomenon in any location, including those of the most advanced societies, even of Northern Europe. Comparatively short periods, like three to five years, are enough for a well-organized radical group to sow and harvest its sociological connections.