Syrian chargé d'affaires in London resigns as even the Shabiha flee Aleppo

Highlights: The Syrian chargé d’affaires in London has resigned saying he is no longer willing to represent a "violent and oppressive" regime. Video showing rebels celebrating on captured tanks and removing supplies. Colonel Abdel Naser, the commander in charge of the battle told the Guardian's Luke Harding that his troops seized eight tanks and 10 armoured vehicles, as well as mortars and lots of weapons.

 He said one rebel fighter was killed. The rebels now control a strategic land corridor in northern Syria from Turkey all the way to Aleppo's outskirts. • A Syrian brigadier general who was deputy chief of police in Syria's Latakia region, has defected to Turkey. The official says the general was among a group of 12 Syrian officers who crossed into Turkey late Sunday.

An Iranian official was assassinated in Syria, The Shabiha are abandoning Assad and Russia says they could evacuate their people but that is a Ruse!

The Free Syrian Army claims to have overrun two police stations in Aleppo, and other rebels say a key checkpoint north of the city, Syria's commercial capital, has also been captured. The fight for Syria's second city has become the focus of the 16-month-old rebellion against president Bashar al-Assad. Middle East correspondent Matt Brown, who is just outside Aleppo, says if the rebels lose the city, they may well lose the uprising. He says because of that, rebels are trying hard to up the ante.Today I’ve been looking at what I’d guess you’d call a production line for an urban insurgency.

I’ve been looking at improvised explosive devices, home-made bombs being made, mixed up and set in I guess what are five or seven litre paint tins with the detonators in them. We saw a man mixing the powder for that. And they were what military professionals call shaped charges. So they’re designed in such a way that the metal at the front of them shoots out and can penetrate armour like the tanks that the regime’s been using. We’ve also been hearing about them capturing tanks from the Syrian government forces. But what I was seeing today was them getting anti-aircraft guns ready that they’ve seized from a very important military base nearby. Several of them have already been put on the back of trucks and sent into the battle for Aleppo.

The bodies of soldiers were strewn along the airport road. Gasoline was not available or was prohibitively expensive. A catastrophic battle loomed between armed rebels and government forces. It was time to get out of Aleppo, Syria. “It was very bad,” said an Aleppo businessman who escaped with his family to Lebanon, one of thousands of Syrians of varied economic backgrounds who have fled their strife-ridden homeland in recent weeks.

“There is no traffic police and no garbage collectors,” said Ayman, in his mid-40s, dressed in light blue track pants and a T-shirt, as he fiddled with his cellphone in the hotel lobby. “Cars were driving in the wrong direction near Saadallah al-Jaberi Square. The police are sitting inside police stations and don’t open the door.” Among those fleeing, Ayman said, were plainclothes government enforcers known as shabiha. The opposition circulated photos of suspected Aleppo-based shabiha on Facebook, a not so thinly veiled threat.

Live Updating:Syrian chargé d'affaires in London resigns - Monday 30 July: • The Syrian chargé d’affaires in London has resigned saying he is no longer willing to represent a "violent and oppressive" regime. Khaled al-Ayoubi was the most senior Syrian diplomat serving in London. His departure was announced by the UK Foreign Office, which described it as "another blow to the Assad regime". It urged others to follow his example.• Rebel fighters claim to have captured the Hryatan military base and Anadan checkpoint, north-west of Aleppo. Video showed them celebrating on captured tanks and removing supplies.

Colonel Abdel Naser, the commander in charge of the battle told the Guardian's Luke Harding that his troops seized eight tanks and 10 armoured vehicles, as well as mortars and lots of weapons. He said one rebel fighter was killed. The rebels now control a strategic land corridor in northern Syria from Turkey all the way to Aleppo's outskirts. • A Syrian brigadier general who was deputy chief of police in Syria's Latakia region, has defected to Turkey. The official says the general was among a group of 12 Syrian officers who crossed into Turkey late Sunday. The brigadier general's defection raises the number of generals to have defected and crossed into Turkey since the start of the 17-month-old uprising to 28, according to AP. Latakia is the de facto capital of the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast,

Opposition sources said Wednesday that an Iranian diplomat was assassinated in Damascus. No further details were available.

Meanwhile, gunfire and explosions were heard Tuesday night in several neighborhoods of Damascus.Early Wednesday, an explosion and gunfire were heard in Baghdad street and in Bab Touma, the Christian quarter of the capital, according to the Local Coordination committees (LCC). According to the LCC, the area of Tadamoun, in the south of the capital, was targeted by mortar fire early Wednesday morning.
"Until late Tuesday night, sounds of explosions and gunfire were heard intermittently in several neighborhoods, including Kafar Sousse (south)," said an AFP journalist . Limited clashes were resumed Monday in Damascus including Kafar Sousse after a rebel attack which included RPG rocket firing against an army checkpoint.

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday released his first public statement since four of his top security officials were assassinated two weeks ago, marking armed forces day. In the press release, Assad said that the Syrian army's battle with rebel forces would determine the fate of his country, and praised soldiers for confronting what he said were "criminal terrorist gangs." "The fate of our people and our nation, past, present and future, depends on this battle," Assad, who has not spoken in public since four of his top security officials were assassinated two weeks ago, said in the written statement.

* Forget it Assad the game is up! Your die hard followers now want you dead and gone and even the Shabiha your hand picked murderers are abandoning you trying to melt back into the countryside they have helped to destroy in your name. Syria as you and your father knew it is gone. Only God knows what will happen now before it spreads throughout the middle east and no one will like it.

* It would behoove Russia to cut its losses and evacuate its people and evacuate its sub base but it will not. With China and Russia both with at least 11 powerful warships in the area along with hundreds of fighter jets and soldiers I absolutely believe they plan on hanging around and fighting for their last naval hold in the middle east. Putin is done cutting and running!

*Putin and Iran are ready to fight for their last significant ally Syria, the bull in the "China"shop is China. Right now China is with Russia but when all is said and done I think it behooves China to side with the west and the Syrian people then when the dust settles if it is as viceous as it may be China will be able to be in a position to take advantageous of it. With its push in the South China seas that is the common sense thing to do!

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com