« Syria Press Review » #8

Russia takes back the initiative

The French press boasts about the Russian draft resolution presented before the Security Council which it considers to be a Western victory. Moscow was forced to take the initiative to avoid losing face at a time when the government was accused of tampering with the elections and of endorsing the crimes against humanity ordered by Assad.

However, the Anglo-American press keeps mum on this subject. Few are the newspapers that mention the draft resolution as being a replica of the Russian-Chinese text from last September, that is to say, before the double veto. Hence, there is no change in Russia’s stance, but a determination not to let the West monopolize the discourse.

• The Spanish royalist daily ABC, which published a series of photographic reports staunchly on the side of the "revolution" and against the regime, oddly released an article by Daniel Iriarte.
The reporter, who traveled to northern Syria, was chaperoned by the Free Syrian Army. Taken to a hideout in an unidentified village in northern Syria, he came across three Libyans: Mehdi al-Hatari (the famous Tripoli Brigade commander, who was on board the Mavi Marmara last year and witnessed the assault by pirates of the Israeli army), Adem Kikli (one of the lieutenants of Abdelhakim Belhaj, historic leader of Al Qaeda in Libya and new military governor of Tripoli), and someone going by the name of Fouad.
The testimony of the ABC reporter was likely published in the wake of the revelations by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on 9 December 2011, to the effect that Abelhakim Belhaj was on the list of suspects of the 11 March 2004 attacks in Madrid.