Syria Direct: News Update 10-01-2013
*Hurrieyet Daily News reports from Ankara that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan […]
1 October 2013
*Hurrieyet Daily News reports from Ankara that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan submitted a Syria troop authorization bill to parliament Tuesday. The motion asks for permission to use force within a one-year period, basing the request on findings that Syrian troops used chemical weapons.
*The UN team in charge of chemical disarmament and 20 representatives of the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will arrive in Damascus from Beirut on Tuesday. The team will seek to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118, which calls for the destruction of the Syrian arsenal of chemical weapons. Six experts are scheduled to submit a completed report on Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal by the end of the month.
*The Assad regime continued to pound the Damascus neighborhood of Barzeh Tuesday with heavy shelling, according to opposition LCCs, as clashes continue between the Free Syrian Army and the regime in the neighborhood. Al-Jazeera cited Syrian activists reporting that 40 regime soldiers were killed Tuesday morning as they attempted to enter the neighborhood. The contested neighborhood separates the Assad regime’s strongholds in Damascus with the rebel-held suburbs northeast of the capital, including East Ghouta, the site of August’s chemical attacks.
*The Syrian pound has surged in value to 180 pounds to the U.S. dollar, a gain of more than 20 pounds to the dollar in the past two days, according to Syria News on Monday. The fall in the currency’s value comes after U.N. Security Council Resolution 2118, which avoided international military intervention in Syria.Earlier this month, the Syrian pound rose to 210 pounds to the dollar.
*The Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) published an audio recording on Monday discussing “its military operations in support of the Syrian revolution.” The recording included details ofISIS’s recent operations, including the capture of Minnigh military airbase, the launching of a military campaign in the eastern suburbs of Hama province and the capture of regime positions in Hama. The new statement comes as a response to several recent media campaigns against ISIS, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.