New Israeli concessions to Hamas for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit have not produced momentum because the kidnapped soldier has become a pawn in the power plays between Cairo, Hamas and Damascus. Khaled Meshaal's trip to Cairo came out of an Egyptian overture to Syria. Bashar Assad took the Palestinian card  to serve his crackdown on the opposition and counter-balance his massacre of Latakia's Palestinians.

Taking advantage of the 15-day leeway granted him by the US and Turkey, Bashar Assad Monday, Aug. 15, sent tanks and mechanized infantry into Homs, a town of 1.5 million inhabitants. Heavy shelling rings out as clouds of smoke rise over the city. Homs is Syria's third largest town and the biggest the Syrian military has attacked. In Latakia, Syrian tanks continue to battle armed Palestinians and in Brussels, NATO and Turkey get set to send the rebels anti-tank weapons.

Thursday night, Aug. 11, US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed to set Syrian President Bashar Assad the deadline of Aug. 27 for extinguishing the popular uprising against his rule and starting to implement genuine democratic reforms. This decision followed Erdogan's report to Obama on the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's six-hour conversation with Assad Tuesday, Aug. 9. Turkey has called up reserves for transfer to the Syrian border.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's Damascus mission started with a military ultimatum and ended on a weak note which drew a contemptuous reaction from Bashar Assad. Damascus is working against the clock. Assad hopes to have broken the back of the anti-Assad protest. Otherwise, zero military conscription will break ...

The House of Assad has seized all-inclusive control of the ferocious assault on the opposition by getting rid of one general, defense minister Ali Habib, promoting another, chief of staff Dawoud Rajha, in his place, and so removing all the obstacles in the path of the president's brother-in-law Deputy Army chief Asif Shawqat for taking complete charge of the war on whole Syrian cities in the name of the ruling family.

Less than 24 hours after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu handed Bashar Assad in Damascus "a final warning," to stop the bloodshed or else, Assad demonstrated coolly that he is not scared by the prospect of Turkish or NATO military intervention or deterred by new US sanctions against Syria's biggest bank and mobile phone company. The day after his Turkish guest departed, Wednesday, Aug. 10, Assad launched provocative military assaults on three towns in the Turkish border region - following receipt of a missile shield guarantee from Iran.

Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu left Damascus empty handed after six hours of talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad Tuesday, Aug. 9. Assad indicated the military operation against the protesters would soon be over, but refused to commit to a deadline. That was up to the rebels, he said, not him or the Syrian army. He pledged to "pursue the terrorists." It remains to be seen whether Turkish Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan makes good on his ultimatum of military intervention unless the bloodshed ends.

As his tanks and artillery stormed the eastern Syrian town of Deir al-Zour, killing 100 civilians in one day, the US and Turkey Sunday night, Aug. 7 began to turn the screw on President Bashar Assad: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu to press Syria to "return its military to the barracks," during his visit to Syria Tuesday. The Syrian ruler with Iranian backing spurned the ultimatum even before the minister reached Damascus.

Thursday night, Aug. 4, the commanders of Syria's military crackdown on the city of Hama ordered suspected protesters to be picked up off the streets for summary execution. Within hours, hundreds of victims were "executed" by firing squad in Nasser Square. The order was issued when the military failed to overcome mounting resistance.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Syrian President Bashar Assad: "We are watching how the situation is developing. It's changing and our approach is changing as well."

While his bloody crackdown on Hama grabs headlines, and Bashar Assad's fights for his life against his people, Saudi Arabia eyes the eastern Euphrates Valley and its towns of Deir el-Zour and Abu Kamal for severance from Syria to link up with the Iraqi Anbar province and form a new ...

Early Monday Aug. 1, undeterred by international condemnation, President Bashar Assad broadened his bloody tank assault to all of northern Syria – a 20,000 square kilometer area almost the size of Israel. He is now waging war on the 3.5 million inhabitants of Hama, Deir al-Zour, Homs, Idlib, Ar-Raqqah and Abu Kemal, after inflicting a one-day death toll Sunday of 150 – 120 in Hama, 30 in Deir el-Zur and more than 1,000 injured.
Syrian armored forces are running into heavy resistance, increasing desertions.

President Bashar Assad and his brother Maher, who leads the crackdown on protest, are not talking. Their Alawite sect is withdrawing its support and the clergy spurn the regime's demand to keep the crowds off the streets during Ramadan, during which the opposition plans nightly anti-Assad rallies.

Iranian intelligence experts in Damascus have been disrupting the Syrian opposition movement's telephone and Internet links with the outside world and among fellow-protesters in the country. In the last two weeks, the US and Saudi Arabia have smuggled thousands of satellite phones into Syria for opposition activists. This also allows them to continue to transit images of Syrian brutality, debkafile reports.
A new Saudi-funded TV station representing the Syrian opposition began broadcasting on July 19.

Since Thursday, July 21, Syria's entire operational fleet of 1,500 tanks surrounds the country's most active anti-Assad protest cities Homs, Hama, Deir al-Zour, Abu Kamal and the big Damascus suburb of Harasta. The same evening, tank-backed forces stormed Homs, shelling densely populated districts at random, causing many casualties.
Five months into the uprising, these flashpoint cities are out of control, barred to the army except in large contingents backed by heavy armor and live fire.  

Syrian President Bashar Assad sees his military crackdown of dissent beating hopelessly against a brick wall, and increasing American covert intervention against him, army desertions and signs of civil war. Yet he continues to send his tanks and guns against a rising tide of protest.

Obama's acceptance of the Russian-Libyan formula opens the way for ending the Libyan war by Muammar Qaddafi's departure from power – not the country – making way for transition administration and elections. His sons and loyalists will run for office. The format for Syria expels Bashar Assad and all ...

If Aleppo finally throws its weight against the anti-government opposition, Bashar Assad's days will be numbered – especially after his elite troops failed to break the back of the uprising and he blew his only shot at national dialogue by disinviting influential opposition leaders.

After Hama, US and French ambassadors to Damascus Robert Ford and Eric Chevalier will Friday, July 15, try to reach the eastern Syrian oil town of Deir al-Zar on the Iraqi border to meet opposition leaders, although debkafile's reports government forces are poised to stop them. The town is also a Sunni tribal and Kurdish center.
In a key policy shift, US President Obama Tuesday questioned Bashar Assad's legitimacy. And another first: A bomb blast damaged an East Syrian oil pipeline.

Monday, July 11, after a pro-Assad mob invaded the US embassy in Damascus, a personal attack on Syrian President Bashar Assad was heard in Washington for the first time. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Assad "is not indispensible and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power," after US embassy staff were forced to shelter in a fortified wing of the mission as Assad's militiamen rampaged through the building and raised the Syrian flag.

The visits the US and French ambassadors, Robert Ford and Eric Chevalier, paid to Hama Friday, July 8, in the thick of the half-million anti-Assad turnout, offered a rare glimpse of the quest by Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tayyip Erdogan for a Syrian compromise: It would leave Bashar Assad in place provided he accepts reforms and makes room for the opposition in government. But Turkish troops still remain poised on the Syrian border over his head.