Another Homs activist using the pseudonym Nader said alcohol to treat wounds is in short supply, forcing residents to use hot water. In a Skype interview from the battered city, he told of 20 people crammed into a single room as residents fled the upper floors of their homes to avoid shelling.

“If the shelling continues like this, in a week there will be no house standing left in Homs,” Nader said, speaking anonymously to avoid government reprisal. “Every day is worse than the previous one.”

In Zabadani, another city under attack, an activist using the pseudonym Zean said food and blood were scarce as tanks surrounded and shelled the city. Zean estimated 5,000 people had fled.

The Syrian government says armed terrorists are to blame for the violence, while opposition groups say government forces are attacking Homs, a restive western city that has become a flash point in the uprising. The Times cannot independently verify their accounts; media access to the area is restricted.

Click to see video on Homs

LAT

The FBI amassed a lengthy and often unflattering file on Apple’s co-founder, with more than 30 interviews of friends, neighbors, family, former business associates and Jobs, that revealed his early drug use and concerns that the then-head of NeXT was neglecting his daughter born out of wedlock with his high school girlfriend.

The business genius was a late bloomer, having graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, Calif., with a 2.65 GPA.

Those interviewed generally agreed that he was a strong business leader and would succeed in an appointment to Bush’s Export Council.

“They recommended him for a position of trust and responsibility,” according to the FBI files.

It would be five years until Apple bought NeXT and returned Steve Jobs to its fold, and six years until he would be appointed the company’s interim chief executive.

The dozens of interviews by FBI officials confirm the brash and stubborn style described in a biography of Jobs written by Walter Isaacson.

“Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs’s honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,” according to the FBI file.

The files were made public after a Freedom of Information Act request by the Wall Street Journal. The file is heavily redacted and does not reveal who the agency spoke to.

Apple and Jobs, both notorious for their secrecy, were not particularly helpful to FBI officials, who complained that Jobs’s secretary made them wait three weeks to interview him.

Despite interviewees saying that they did not personally like Jobs, many said that they would recommend him for a position in government.

One section said, “It was [redacted] opinion that honesty and integrity are not required qualities to hold such a position.”

The report also revealed that Jobs was the victim of a bomb threat in 1985.

According to a report included in the documents, an unnamed man called Apple from a public telephone, saying that “devices” had been placed at the homes of Jobs and others, and that a fourth device had been set up to explode if Apple called the authorities. The caller then demanded $1 million. Law enforcement officials swept the areas where the caller said he placed the bombs and found nothing. The investigation was eventually closed.

Washington Post

Photo : What a shame the city that produced the father of this genius is witnessing massacres by the Syrian security forces . More than 1000 people have been killed in the city of Homs during the past six days according to activists.

The United Nations secretary-general condemned the “appalling brutality” of the operation to stamp out the revolt against Assad, and Turkey’s ambassador to the European Union warned of a slide into civil war that could inflame the region.

Diplomats from Western and Arab powers, lining up meetings that could mean some decisions soon, condemned Assad in strong language. But having ruled out military intervention, they were struggling to find a way to convince him to step down.

Syria’s powerful ally Russia, meanwhile, said no one should interfere in the country’s affairs.

In Homs, witnesses said makeshift hospitals were overflowing in besieged opposition areas with the dead and wounded from nearly a week of government bombardments and sniper fire.

Medical supplies and food were running out and, in the streets, some of the wounded had bled to death as it was too dangerous for rescuers to bring them to safety.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group in Homs, put the death toll on Thursday alone as high as 110 by nightfall, though it remains impossible to verify such accounts:

“This number includes three families whose bodies were dug up from under the rubble of their homes, bodies brought to field hospitals and people who died their from their wounds today,” the group said in a statement sent to Reuters.

A Syrian doctor, struggling to treat the wounded at a field clinic in a mosque, delivered an emotional plea via YouTube video. Standing next to a bloody body on a table, the man, named only as Mohammed, said to the camera, and to the outside world:

“We appeal to the international community to help us transport the wounded. We wait for them here to die in mosques. I appeal to the United Nations and to international humanitarian organizations to stop the rockets from being fired on us.”

U.S. PONDERS AID

Concern was growing in foreign capitals over the plight of civilians.

The United States said it was considering ways to get food and medicine to them – a move that would deepen international involvement in a conflict which has wide geopolitical dimensions and has caused division between world powers.

“I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighborhoods, is a grim harbinger of things to come,” U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said after briefing the Security Council in New York on Wednesday.

Neighboring Turkey, which once saw Assad as an ally but now wants him out, has said it can no longer stand by and watch. It wants to host an international meeting to agree ways to end the killing and provide aid.

Foreign ministers of the Arab League, which the U.N.’s Ban said was planning to revive an observer mission it suspended last month, are due to meet in Cairo on Sunday.

But in Moscow, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich reiterated that Kremlin view that though the bloodshed was regrettable, a solution was a matter for Syria.

“There is an internal conflict, the word revolution is not being used – it is a not a revolutionary situation, believe me,” he said.

Russia and China, which let the United Nations support the air campaign that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, provoked strong condemnation from the United States, European powers and Arab governments when they vetoed a resolution in the Security Council last week that called on Assad to step down.

Moscow, for whom Syria is a buyer of arms and host to a Soviet-era naval base, wants to counter U.S. influence and maintain its traditional role in the Middle East.

For both Russia and China, Syria is also a test case for efforts to resist international encroachment on sovereign governments’ freedom to deal with rebels as they see fit.

Lukashevich’s comments followed remarks on Wednesday from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who drew clear lines on a foreign role in the crisis.

“Help them, advise them, limit, for instance, their ability to use weapons but not interfere under any circumstances.” the Middle East.

TURKEY FEARS “CIVIL WAR”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy also spoke to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday night and said that despite their differences, it was necessary to maintain pressure on Assad’s government so that the repression ended.

In Brussels, Turkey’s ambassador to the European Union told Reuters that because the opposition was fragmented and Assad still had support from Syria’s middle class, the unrest could descend into full-scale civil war.

Turkey, Syria’s largest neighbor, is also concerned that sanctions being imposed on Damascus by the EU and the United States will not succeed in forcing Assad from power, while Iran and Russia provide him with support.

“What we are seeing is horrendous. The result will probably be bloody, and unfortunately the Russians are backing him,” Selim Yenel said.

“The regime is not just a person, or one family. It’s a big group of people and … they want to hold on to power. That’s why we are fearing it is going to turn into a civil war, and this civil war could turn into a regional conflict.”

HOMS UNDER FIRE

The Syrian Human Rights Organisation (Sawasiah) said this week’s assault on Homs had killed at least 300 civilians and wounded 1,000, not counting Thursday’s toll. International officials have estimated the overall death count in Syria since last March at more than 5,000.

There was no comment from the Syrian authorities, who have placed tight restrictions on access to the country and it was not possible to verify the reports of local activists.

The bombardments on Thursday morning hit mainly Sunni Muslim neighborhoods that have been the focus of attacks by the government forces led largely by members of Assad’s Alawite religious minority. Such sectarian divisions have come to the surface as killings have increased on either side.

The main street in Baba Amro was strewn with rubble and at least one house was destroyed, according to YouTube footage broadcast by activists from the district who said troops had used anti-aircraft cannon to demolish the building.

The video showed a youth putting two bodies wrapped in blankets in a truck. What appeared to be body parts were shown inside the house.

Hussein Nader, an activist in Baba Amro, told Reuters: “Silence reigns for four to five minutes, then another barrage of tank fire or rockets or mortar rounds comes in.”

“Whole houses have come down and we do not know how many more have been killed. They are not advancing and it seems that they are content by continuing to shell Baba Amro until every inhabitant is killed.”

In a publication documenting conditions in Homs this week, New York-based Human Rights Watch spoke of possible war crimes:

“This brutal assault on residential neighborhoods shows the Syrian authorities’ contempt for the lives of their citizens in Homs,” said Anna Neistat of HRW. “Those responsible for such horrific attacks will have to answer for them.”

BENGHAZI? OR SARAJEVO?

The uprising against the Assad family’s 42-year dynastic rule has evolved from civilian demonstrations to armed insurgency over the past few months. The Assad government contends it is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorists.”

Syria’s position at the heart of the Middle East, allied to Iran and home to a volatile religious and ethnic mix, means Assad’s international opponents have ruled out the kind of military action they took against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

Some commentators compared Homs plight to Benghazi, the Libyan city which was saved by NATO strikes on advancing columns of Gaddafi’s troops. Others, grimly, remembered Sarajevo, the Balkan city left to bleed for years while world powers bickered.

In London, a Times editorial said that a conflict in Syria would be longer, messier, more difficult militarily and more complex than Libya. But, it said: “Western governments cannot forever limit their involvement to declarations of impotent fury by foreign ministers. Eventually they must do more.”

“If the calls to help the rebels end even with the provision of arms, a threshold will have been crossed into a conflict. The West will have taken sides.”

Reuters

National News Agency ( NNA) identified the injured Syrian as Ahmad Mustafa Khoder and reported that he was transferred to Our Lady of Peace Hospital in the Lebanese town of Qoubayat.

The NNA report added that “due to his critical condition, the injured Syrian will be [later] transferred to Tripoli’s public hospital” .

Syrian troops on Tuesday planted more mines along the border with northern Lebanon, in an area close to the flashpoint central province of Homs, a Lebanese official said.

“Syrian army units for three days have been planting mines along the border area between the Syrian village of Bweet and the Lebanese village of Hnayder,” the official from Hnayder said, requesting anonymity.

He said bulldozers were also reinforcing dirt mounds that separate the two borders.

Hnayder is located in Lebanon’s Wadi Khaled region where some 6,400 Syrians have sought refuge since the outbreak of the 11-month revolt against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria in past months has planted mines near the area to prevent refugees streaming in or for Lebanon to become a safe haven for the Syrian opposition.

The remaining advocates of Bashar Assad are working overtime to portray a vision of a completely chaotic Middle East if and when the Alawite regime finally collapses. To predict chaos in the Middle East is a safe bet, so what’s really new in this case? The threat of chaos is almost automatically linked to another round of Arab-Israeli war, this time a Shi’ite-led Iranian-Hezbollah-Alawite desperate attack on Israel. Well, while the Israelis may naturally take the proper precautionary steps to deal with the day after Assad, they are far from showing any sign of undue worry or panic.

There is concern about the arsenal of chemical warheads that is in Syrian hands, some of it was transferred to Syria from Iraq on the eve of the American invasion of March 2003. The fear is that these warheads may find their way to Hezbollah and Iran. Surely not a pleasant prospect, but not one that cannot be dealt with. Even Hezbollah and the Iranians know that any attempt to use these weapons against Israel will be calamitous to them. The thought that either of the two will risk their very existence [in the case of Hezbollah], or most vital national interests [in the case of Iran], in support of the Alawite dictatorship is good for psychological warfare, but not in the real world. The same applies to the possibility of Iranian closure of the straits of Hormuz in support of Assad. Really? Not really…

They will not do that. All this is relevant to the Syrian situation and its implications, not to the much talked-about scenario of an Israeli or American attack against the Iranian nuclear program. This is clearly a totally different opera. The connection between a final collapse of the Assad regime and the Israeli and/or American calculus regarding Iran is possible but not inevitable. Sure, a Syrian participation in an Iranian retaliation against a strike is not something cherished by Israeli and American planners and policy makers, but this is becoming a remote possibility since the Syrian Army is in a stage of disintegration. General Mustafa Al-Sheikh, the highest ranking Syrian defector, predicted some days ago that the Syrian Army will disintegrate until the end of February. This may be wishful thinking in terms of the timing, but not the process, which is very obvious, leading in the not distant future to that exact outcome. So, if we move away from the Israeli angle of the situation, what else can happen affecting neighboring countries and overall regional stability? First, we can expect a massive refugee problem, Alawites trying to cross to Lebanon and Turkey. Also, possible mass flight out of Ba’athi functionaries, not just Alawites. Chaos in Syria will inevitably take its toll of neighboring Lebanon.

Tripoli, a Sunni city with a sizable Alawite minority, is likely to explode, and that will be part of a bigger issue in Lebanon, as the traditional anti-Assad forces there, mainly the Sunnis and some Christian Maronite factions, will find the new circumstances conducive to put pressure on Hezbollah, demanding it dismantle its arms. The not so old wounds created by the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri will reopen with ferocity. Whether all that will lead Lebanon towards chaos is not clear, though it’s likely. Sheikh Nasrallah, however, will find himself and Hezbollah engaged in a conflict with the majority of the Lebanese people. So, under these circumstances, a war initiated by him against Israel may seem a good diversionary exercise, but still is highly unlikely. The Sheikh will fight for his own survival inside Lebanon as his first priority.

Another country that will feel the brunt of the Assad collapse will be Iraq, where the current Sunni-Shi’i tension may be greatly exacerbated, as the former will be much encouraged by the rise of a new regime in Syria, most likely Sunni-dominated. Not for nothing, the Maliki government in Iraq is the most pro-Assad Arab government. They know why.

Then there is Turkey. But for the expected Alawite flight across the northwestern border, the Turks should be greatly preoccupied by the fallout of a collapse in Damascus on the northeast border, where over 2 million Syrian Kurds live, just waiting to rid themselves of the Assad yoke. An unruly Kurdish population on the Syrian side of the border will not be good news to the Turkish government and military having to deal with their own unruly Kurdish population.

The Turks may gain, however, many political dividends from their support to the Sunni Syrian rebels. A Sunni-dominated regime in Damascus is likely to be friendly to Ankara, and so Turkey’s overall regional standing may be significantly enhanced. Such a regime in Damascus will also be friendly to the Saudis, and a Turkish-Saudi rivalry over influence in Damascus of the future is highly likely. The big losers will be Iranians. They cannot expect a friendly Syrian government in the near future. The overall regional Sunni-Shi’i schism will be in display in the most dramatic way. But even that is not really new, as this schism has been a feature of Middle East Islamic reality since the killing of Imam Hussein in 680 A.D.

The downfall of Bashar Assad is behind the door. No Armageddon, but still a significant challenge to regional stability.

*Adjunct Professor, University of South Carolina
Huffington Post

The Syrian ambassador was informed today of the expulsion of the embassy personnel in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in an e-mailed statement. The ministry had summoned the ambassador on Feb. 7, the day of the arrests, to warn against espionage activity.

“The position of the government was once again made unequivocally clear, that any activity against the Syrian opposition will not be accepted,” Westerwelle said. The embassy personnel, who are accused of activity not in compliance with diplomatic duties, have three days to leave the country with their families, according to the German Foreign Ministry.

The diplomatic scuffle adds to the international deadlock over Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad’s forces continued to shell cities where the opposition is concentrated. The United Nations estimates that more than 5,400 people have died since protests in the country began last March.

Russia is seeking to broker talks between the Syrian government and the opposition after its government and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Feb. 4 backing an Arab League plan for a transfer of power in the country.

The arrests in Berlin two days ago were part of an operation involving 70 investigators, who searched the suspects’ apartments and those of six others. The men taken into custody were identified as Mahmoud El A., 47, who holds German and Lebanese citizenship, and Akram O., 34, a Syrian national.
Observing the Opposition

The two are “strongly suspected of carefully observing the Syrian opposition in Germany for a Syrian intelligence agency for years,” the Federal Prosecutor said in a statement.

Suspicion of Syrian espionage in Germany was underscored on Dec. 28, when the Foreign Ministry called on investigators to clarify the alleged beating of a Syrian opposition figure, a member of the Green Party in Berlin’s Mitte district, after the party said it was probably the work of Syrian agents.

Police said at the time that the politician, Ferhad Ahma, had been beaten at his apartment early on Dec. 26 by two men posing as police officers. Local Greens officials accused the Syrian government of trying to intimidate Ahma.

Bloomberg

The United Nations chief condemned the ferocity of the government assault on Homs, heart of a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad that broke out nearly a year ago and is getting bloodier by the day.

“I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighborhoods, is a grim harbinger of things to come,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters after briefing the Security Council.

Activists and residents report hundreds of people killed over the last week as Assad’s forces try stamp out opposition in Homs, and as dawn broke on Thursday, rocket and mortar fire rained down again on Baba Amro, Khalidiya and other districts. Armored reinforcements also poured into the eastern city.

Concern was growing over the plight of civilians and the United States said it was considering ways to get food and medicine to them – a move that would deepen international involvement in a conflict which has wide geopolitical dimensions and has caused division between foreign powers.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said before flying to Washington for talks on Syria that Turkey, which once saw Assad as an ally but now wants him out, could no longer stand by and watch. Turkey wanted to host an international meeting to agree ways to end the killing and provide aid, he said.

“It is not enough being an observer,” he told Reuters, though Russia and China have warned against “interference.”

Foreign ministers of the Arab League, which the U.N.’s Ban said was planning to revive an observer mission it suspended last month because of the violence, are due to meet in Cairo on Sunday. They may want to hear other governments’ ideas by then.

U.S. officials said they expected to meet soon with allies to discuss ways of helping Syrian civilians. And China, cool to Western lobbying for international involvement, nonetheless reported its first formal contact with the Syrian opposition.

HOMS UNDER FIRE

The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Commission said at least 30 civilians in Homs were killed in bombardment on Thursday morning on mainly Sunni Muslim neighborhoods that have been the focus of attacks by the government forces led largely by members of Assad’s Alawite religious minority.

Such sectarian divisions have been coming to the surface as killings have increased on either side of the conflict.

The main street in Baba Amro was strewn with rubble and at least one house was destroyed, according to YouTube footage broadcast by activists from the district who said troops had used anti-aircraft cannon to demolish the building.

The video showed a youth putting two bodies wrapped in blankets in a truck. What appeared to be body parts were shown inside the house.

The Syrian Human Rights Organisation (Sawasiah)said in a statement that this week’s assault on Homs had killed at least 300 civilians and wounded 1,000, not counting Thursday’s toll.

International officials have estimated the overall death toll in Syria since last March at over 5,000.

Activists said neighborhoods of Homs remained without electricity and water and basic supplies were running low.

There was no comment from the Syrian authorities, who have placed tight restrictions on access to the country and it was not possible to verify the reports of local activists.

Mazen Adi, a prominent Syrian opposition figure in Paris, said rebels loosely organized under the Free Syrian Army were fighting back and staging hit-and-run guerrilla attacks against government forces in Homs.

“The regime cannot keep tanks for long inside opposition neighborhoods because they will be ambushed,” he said.

“It is retaliating by hysterical bombing that is killing mostly civilians and with mass executions.”

The role of the Free Syrian Army, largely made up of soldiers who have defected from the government forces, highlighted the slide in the uprising against the Assad family’s 42-year dynastic rule from civilian demonstrations to armed insurgency over the past few months.

KURDISH PRECEDENT

Exile activist Massoud Akko said Turkey and Western countries should organize an airlift to Homs and other stricken cities and towns that have borne the brunt of the crackdown.

“This could be done by air drops into Homs similar to what the United States did in Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1990s,” Akko said, of help for Iraq’s ethnic minority during its fight against Saddam Hussein.

Syria’s position at the heart of the Middle East, allied to Iran and home to a volatile religious and ethnic mix, means Assad’s international opponents have ruled out the kind of military action they took against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

Russia and China, which let the United Nations support the air campaign in Libya, provoked strong condemnation from the United States, European powers and Arab governments when they vetoed a resolution in the Security Council last week that called on Assad to step down.

Moscow, for whom Syria is a buyer of arms and host to a Soviet-era naval base, wants to counter U.S. influence and maintain its traditional role in the Middle East.

For both Russia and China, Syria is also a test case for efforts to resist international encroachment on sovereign governments’ freedom to deal with rebels as they see fit.

PUTIN SAYS NO INTERFERENCE

Campaigning for next month’s presidential election that he is certain to win, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said: “A cult of violence has been coming to the fore in international affairs … This cannot fail to cause concern.

“Help them, advise them, limit, for instance, their ability to use weapons but not interfere under any circumstances.”

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who had described the Russian and Chinese veto at the U.N. as a “fiasco,” telephoned outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.

The Kremlin said Medvedev told Erdogan the search for a solution should continue but that foreign interference was not an option.

The U.N.’s Ban said it was more urgent than ever to find common ground. In an implicit criticism of the Assad government, he said: “Such violence is unacceptable before humanity … We have heard too many broken promises, even within the past 24 hours.”

In Washington, officials said the United States planned to meet soon with its allies to discuss ways to halt the violence and provide humanitarian aid to civilians under attack.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the talks, which would include the opposition Syrian National Council, were aimed at helping the process “move toward a peaceful, political transition, democratic transition in Syria.”

Any international move to bring in humanitarian aid could open a dangerous and complicated new chapter in the crisis, with air drops seen as expensive and ineffective and any land routes open to attack from Syrian forces. But the White House stressed it was not actively considering military intervention.

“We never rule anything out in a situation like this,” Carney said. “But we are pursuing a path that includes isolating and pressuring the Assad regime so that it stops its heinous slaughtering of its own people.”

HT

The Feb. 4 veto by Russia and China “strengthened Bashar al-Assad in Syria and internationally,” Alwaleed, 56, said in an interview airing today on public television’s “Charlie Rose” program. The Syrian leader “can say, ‘Well, China and Russia is going to back me up,’ so why would he back off from what’s happening in Syria?” said Alwaleed.

The draft resolution backed by the U.S., European Union and Arab League called for an interim government in Syria leading to elections. More than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the protests against Assad began in March last year, according to the UN.

“The bloodshed has to be stopped one way or another,” said Alwaleed, who owns shares in Apple Inc. and Citigroup Inc. “One way for him is to relinquish power and have free and open elections and have Syria go back to stability and tranquility.” Military intervention would be “very dangerous” and increase the risk of civil war, he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the veto that the U.S. and allies will seek other ways to increase pressure on Assad’s government, tighten sanctions and support the opposition.

‘Get the Message’

Alwaleed said Arab countries that have escaped the uprisings in the region over the past year should also “get the message of the Arab Spring” and allow more public involvement in government.

“It’s good to have, for example, education for free, have no taxes, have health for free also and get houses,” he said. “That’s all nice socially and economically and financially. But having said all that, it’s important to have the people participate in the political process.”

Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia have mostly relied on increases in social spending to avert the unrest that toppled Arab leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya last year.

Saudi Arabia is the least democratic country in the Middle East, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2011 Democracy Index, which classified all six Gulf Cooperation Council nations as “authoritarian regimes.”

Alwaleed said Jordan and Bahrain are moving toward becoming constitutional monarchies, following in the footsteps of Morocco, which approved a new constitution in a referendum last year that was followed by elections.

Saudi Arabia sent troops to Bahrain, whose hereditary rulers are Sunni Muslims like the Saudi royals, to help crush protests last year by the Shiite majority calling for democracy and a constitutional monarchy. At least 35 people were killed.

Photo: file picture of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal ( R) with former Lebanese PM Saad Hariri

Al Arabiya also reported that according to media reports “the Quds Force , which is the foreign division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard sent 15 thousand fighters to Syria, but Tehran has denied the reports.

The Syrian opposition has reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are helping the forces loyal to Assad in the crackdown

Hezbollah in Lebanon was formed by the Quds Forces in 1982