SYRIA

More protests, more repression. The NOW Lebanon website, which is monitoring events from Beirut, has the latest blow-by-blow updates.

Writing for the Syrian Revolution Digest, Ammar Abdulhamid notes that momentum shifted northwards on Saturday to the coastal city of Lattakia:

The city had joined the revolutionary fray on Friday, and clashes between protesters on the one hand, and security forces supported by gangs of smugglers, known as the Shabbiha, many of whom are of Alawite descent and closely affiliated with different members of the Assad-Makhlouf clan and who for long treated Lattakia as their favorite in-country playground, continued through the night. 

After the Shabbiha opened fire on protesters from their cars and from rooftops, killing around 17 and wounding dozens, protesters withdrew to the narrow alleyways, where people [threw] rocks and garbage cans on passing security cars.

By late Saturday evening, local notables formed councils that worked on reconciliation with the security forces and some of the Shabbiha. The situation seems to be under official control now. But the city remains under siege, with no one allowed in or out.

Abdulhamid also highlights a video of the president's brother, Maher, after storming Seydnana Prison in 2008 and suggests that referring Maher to the International Criminal Court at this stage "might put enough pressures on the Syrian regime to refrain from further acts of bloodshed".

There are persistent rumours of disputes between President Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle (including his family), with Bashar supposedly favouring a more conciliatory approach towards the protesters. This may be true – or it could just be disinformation intended to keep the president's image relatively unsullied.

On The Arabist blog, Issandr El Amrani discusses some recent articles about the situation in Syria. One is the argument that the Assad regime could save itself by embracing genuine reform now, rather than ignoring the problem. 

Personally, I don't think the regime is capable of doing so. At this late stage the reforms would have to be very radical and immediate in order to be convincing – not just vague promises to look at areas where more freedom might be allowed – and in any case there is probably too much resistance to that from hardliners inside the regime.

The Arabist also looks at a couple of articles from the US which, predictably and rather irritatingly, continue to view the uprising through the prism of Israeli interests rather than what would be good for the people of Syria.
  

YEMEN

There seems to be general agreement in Yemen, even by the president himself, that Ali Abdullah Salih is on the way out. The question is when. 

Talks on Saturday to negotiate his departure proved inconclusive but there was a brief flurry of excitement later when Salih said he could leave power "in a few hours" if allowed to do so with "respect and prestige". At the same time, though, he appears determined to stick around long enough to achieve a "peaceful" handover (by which he probably means influencing the decision as to who will take over – which is not necessarily a good thing).

Today, he is said to be meeting the ruling party for "crisis talks".

Again, some irritating attitudes continue to appear in the media coverage. Reuters, for example, persists in saying that "Saleh has been a key ally of the United States and Saudi Arabia in keeping at bay a Yemen-based resurgent wing of al-Qaeda." 

That is questionable, at best. Salih has been an ally of sorts, but a difficult and sometimes mendacious one – as the Wikileaks documents (here and here) showed – and he will be no great loss.
  

EGYPT

The forces that brought about the overthrow of President Mubarak in Egypt are likely to be the subject of much study in the coming years. A collection of primary-source material – The Tahrir Documents – translated into English has just been published on the internet and should be a useful starting point for anyone who wants to delve into this more deeply.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 March 2011.