2013 Briefing Book - Print Version - Aipac

SYRIA-LEBANON
In August 2011, President Obama called for Assad to step down, and condemned the regime’s
“outrageous use of violence” and decision to “compound the already oppressive security
measures” in place prior to the outbreak of protests with even greater “force and outrageous
human rights abuses.” The United States has also announced sanctions against scores of regime
figures, including Assad’s brother, Maher Assad, his cousin Atif Najib, and the director of Syria’s
intelligence agency, Ali Mamluk. The United States also sanctioned the Syrian intelligence agency
and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for providing support to the regime’s efforts to
suppress protests.
The Syrian regime’s war against its own people has created a mass exodus of perhaps half a
million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. An estimated 1.5 million Syrians
are internally displaced, with their homes and whole communities destroyed. During the past
year, after widespread peaceful protests were set upon by regime armed forces, a desperate
armed insurgency has grown into a “Free Syrian Army,” recognized as a serious fighting
force that has gained ground steadily since July 2012. A new FSA command structure was
organized in December 2012 and a new umbrella Syrian National Coalition of opposition
groups was officially recognized by the United States, France, Britain, and the Arab League as
the “legitimate representative of the Syrian People.” It remains to be seen if this new apparatus
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad wage war against the Syrian people.
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