© AP
The Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah has claimed that at least 400 civilians have been killed during a month of pro-democracy protests.
The Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah has claimed that at least 400 civilians have been killed during a month of pro-democracy protests.
The foreign secretary, William Hague, said Damascus faced "a fork in the road" as opposition activists reported continuing government attacks in the southern town of Deraa and mass arrests and tanks in areas including Douma near the capital and Baniyas on the coast.
In Rome, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi issued a joint call for an end to violence against the demonstrators. The French president described the situation as "unacceptable" but also made it clear that he was not contemplating direct intervention of the sort he championed against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
"We are not going to intervene everywhere in the world and not all situations are necessarily the same," Sarkozy said.
Possible EU sanctions would probably include travel bans and asset freezes targeting members of President Bashar al-Assad's family and other senior regime figures, and would be co-ordinated with US punitive measures being prepared by the Obama administration.
Comment: Are we supposed to believe that British and Canadian intelligence innocently received information from Hamlili without any awareness of his activities?
The fact is that a man involved with terrorist groups - labeled 'al-Qaida' by western intelligence for purposes of propaganda and psy-ops - was also working for western intelligence. How more obvious can it get?
Interestingly, according to the New York Times, the Guantánamo files were not obtained from WikiLeaks - which actually makes them more credible. WikiLeaks has a tendency to leak only items which happen to be convenient for Israeli interests, and to a lesser degree, US interests.