Syria Live Coverage: Damascus Suicide Bomb Kills 42, Including Top Cleric

2022 GMT: Evening Protests. In Al Raqqah, the regime is rapidly fading into memory as protesters take to the streets tonight:

1955 GMT: Rebels Advance in Aleppo. The rebels are successfully pushing deeper and deeper into southern and western Aleppo. Rebels have now captured an important mosque in the Saleh el Dine district (map). Videos showed the rebels capturing ammunition that was apparently stored inside the mosque by nearby fighters.

Below is a playlist of several videos showing rebel fighters advancing in Saleh el Dine and elsewhere today:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Shelling Returns to Damascus

Protest near the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus on Thursday night, after it had been shelled during the day by regime forces

Thursday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The "New Normal" --- Death From the Air

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2035 GMT: Bahrain. The Minister of Interior has posted its explanation for the police confrontation of protests today.

The Ministry said the request of the opposition society Al Wefaq to march through the capital Manama had been denied because "the proposed route would have caused major traffic delays and negatively affected businesses in the major business corridor". Al Wefaq had defied this with public statements over social media that called for participation: "as a result, various people gathered at the meeting place and engaged in the blocking of roads, vandalism, and the spreading of fear among the business owners in the area".

The Ministry asserted that "special security forces...used legal, necessary force to disperse the vandals", with six arrests.

The Ministry concluded that it was filing a case against Al Wefaq to be referred to the public prosecution.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: At Least 250 Civilians Die on Monday

See Also Today's Bahrain Live Coverage: Will High-Profile Activists Receive Court Verdicts Today?
Jordan Feature: The Government's Threat to Internet Freedom (Tarawneh)
Bahrain Opinion: You Can Imprison the 13 Activists. You Cannot Imprison Their Ideas.
Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: At Least 1600 Killed in the Deadliest Week

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2034 GMT: Syria. A second video claiming to show the jet downed in Idlib:

Another video of the MiG that was downed in #Idlib today. youtube.com/watch?v=7kquGa… The pilot was shot in the head while parachuting. #Syria

— Abdullah Aldahhan (@SyrianSmurf) September 4, 2012

The Blogger Brown Moses adds this context:

The man talking to the camera in the video is Jamaal Maaruf, the leader of Shuhada Jebel al-Zawiya Battalion (thanks for Asher Berman for that ID, who explains that the battalion has been attacking Abu Dhuhur air base for 6 days, and the jets are being used to attack civilians.

According to Brown Moses, the jet in question appears to be a Mig 21, based on pictures he has posted on his analysis.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Fighting in Damascus

View Syria - 2012 July 16 - EA Worldview in a larger map

An Interactive map of today's events. Click on the location to see a link to our news entry, or click on the link above to open the map in a larger window

See also Syria Audio Feature: "Gradually The Regime is Losing Control" --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Bahrain Feature: The Underground Network of Doctors
Turkey Analysis: Syria and Barzani Unsettle Ankara's Official Policy on Kurdistan
Bahrain Feature: The Stalling of Economic Reforms
Sunday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "Battle" or "Massacre" in Tremseh?

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2020 GMT: Syria. The LCC reports that 84 people have been killed today, including civilians and Free Syrian Army soldiers:

In Hama there were 29 martyrs, 20 in Homs, 9 in Damascus, 8 in Aleppo, 8 in Daraa, 4 in Deir Ezzor, 3 in Idlib and 3 in Damascus Suburbs.

The number may be surprising for some readers, as the amount killed in Damascus appears to be extremely low considering the scale of the fighting today. There are a few possible reasons for this. First, and perhaps most importantly, the fighting did not seem to progress. Though it was widespread, the FSA did not capture any significant territory, and the security forces did not dislodge any FSA positions. Though the FSA didn't necessarily hold ground, and the battle lines in some areas were fluid, the FSA was not directly challenged by the regime.

However, the numbers simply reflect that while the battles in Damascus are relatively new, the battles in Hama, Homs, Aleppo, Idlib, Daraa, and Deir Ez Zor are raging. While any one day may post a higher or lower casualty figure, in parts of the country "civil war" isn't a designation from the Red Cross, it's now a familiar reality.

However, with reports of conflict continuing well into the night in Damascus, that number may still rise. If there are dead or injured too close to battle, those numbers may not be released for some time.

Tomorrow will likely see a continuation of some of this fighting, so stay tuned.

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Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Conditions for Dialogue

2020 GMT: At this late hour, there are new reports of battles between the Free Syrian Army and regime troops in Harasta, in eastern Damascus. The CFDPC also reports battles in Irbeen.

It's going to be another long night in Syria's capital.

1922 GMT: An interesting video, reportedly from Douma, posted by the CFDPC. It appears that the FSA soldiers are trying to scope out regime positions while remaining hidden. In other words, the FSA soldiers want to be able to shoot at the Syrian soldiers if needed, but they are trying to hide so that the regime does not have an excuse to fire.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Bombardment Continues

A demonstration last night in Hama in Syria

See also Bahrain Propaganda 101: Bringing the "Right" Youth Delegation to Washington
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Defiance

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2040 GMT: Medics and officials in Yemen have said that at least 35 soldiers have been killed in clashes with insurgents near Zinjibar in the south of the country.

Dozens of troops were also reportedly wounded. A local offical said 12 insurgents were slain.

2035 GMT: The head of a Libyan militia has said that two British journalists working for Iran's Press TV, detained on 22 February in Misurata, are being held on suspicion of espionage.

Faraj al-Swelhi, commander of the Swelhi Brigade, said that, among the possessions of Nicholas Davies and Gareth Montgomery-Johnson, there was footage of them firing weapons and equipment used by the Israeli military.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Referendum Amidst the Deaths

Residents of Baba Amr in Homs, under siege for the 24th straight day, stage their version of Sunday's referendum on a new Constitution

See also Turkey Special: The Government Supports a Hyper-Nationalist --- and Threatening --- Protest
Sunday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "I'm So Hungry. I Think I Will Die" --- Then the Line Went Dead

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2153 GMT: At the end of the day, the two Western journalists who remain injured in the Baba Amr district of Homs have not been rescued. However, the Red Cross did manage to remove three injured Syrians from the besieged district:

A negotiator in the evacuation efforts said they fell through "at the last minute after ambulances had entered Baba Amr" but declined to specify if regime forces or rebels had blocked the operation.

2146 GMT: The on-line magazine Mother Jones has received a document that they say was leaked from someone inside the Syrian government and contains more than 700 pages of names of activists who have been placed on a government "kill list." A series of experts whom Mother Jones shared the document with believe it is genuine:

Joshua Landis, a scholar on Syria who has consulted for the State Department and other US government agencies, said he thinks the document merges the records of several Syrian intelligence agencies in order to better coordinate the crackdown. "This is what a secret service does," he said. Actions allegedly taken by individuals in the document—such as setting up a roadblock near Homs or issuing instructions about how to attack a Syrian military outpost—are "the kind of thing that people get whacked for all the time, or at least tortured for."

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Intervention is Here

A funeral in the Khalidiaya section of the Syrian city Homs --- the six victims are wrapped in shrouds because there are no coffins left amidst the deaths and regime siege

See also Syria Special: Intervention is Coming --- So How Should It Be Done?
Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Meeting in Tunis

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1800 GMT: One of the protests at today's funerals in Aleppo, Syria's second city (see 1148 GMT):

An anti-regime protest in Taibat Imam, Hama Province today:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Meeting in Tunis

Shelling of the Baba Amr section of Homs in Syria this morning

See also Syria Feature: Asking Again, "Will Aleppo Rise?"
Bahrain Feature: The Long Tentacles of the Regime's PR Octopus
Sudan 1st-Hand: Protests and Raids at the University of Khartoum
Thursday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Deaths of The Journalists

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2142 GMT: The Local Coordination Committees of Syria are now reporting that 97 people have been killed today nationwide, including victims of two "massacres."

Two massacres were committed while the Friends' of Syria Conference being held The Syrian regime committed two new massacres today in Homs and Hama; where the number of martyrs in Hama reached 30 in two separate massacres and the number of martyrs in the Khaldieh massacre in Homs reached 33. The number of martyrs in Syria today is 97 so far in different cities. The Local Coordination Committees regrets the world's inability to stop the regime's brutal violence, which is increases steadily and kills more innocent Syrian victims every day

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US Opinion: Are We Suffering from "Drone Hysteria"? (Osboune)

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta justifies the killing by drone in Yemen of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen

See also: US Opinion: Do Drones Undermine Democracy? (Singer)

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Anyone who decries a “new surge” of military interest in drones is just admitting they never paid attention before, that they don’t know what they’re talking about, and that they are riding on the word “drone” because it’s trendy and scary. Such opinions should carry exactly as much weight as a paper airplane, because they aren’t really about drones at all but war in general. There is nothing a drone can do that could not be done up close and personal, though at greater risk. A drone merely removes risk from the attacker — which is what warriors have been doing since the invention of the bow and arrow.

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