Syrian rebel fighters launch coordinated attacks around Damascus

[Os Cangaceiros]

DAMASCUS -- An estimated 600 Syrian Free Army fighters simultaneously attacked government targets from five directions around the capital of Damascus, Sky News learned Sunday.

During the Friday operation, a bus carrying Russian oil workers was hit and rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a building housing them.

A civilian Syrian woman is said to have been killed in the attack on the building.

From information given to Sky News by people living in some of the districts, it appears the attacks were coordinated.

They began at 1:00pm local time and continued until 5:00pm local time. After a two-hour lull, the fighting began again in all areas and continued until around midnight local time.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/syrian_rebel_fighters_launch_coordinated_5bLpEq3F8 vGFZ2XtyuT9nK#ixzz1xR9mFFFQ

[Peoples' War]

What is the class makeup of the Syrian Rebels?

[Arlekino]

I am not good expert please explain to me about Syrian rebels anybody? To me looks fascist racist conservatives right wingers puppets of imperial masters or I am wrong.

[Os Cangaceiros]

They're just fighting for a new ruling class. *shrug* If they took over all of Syria, the reprisal killings would probably begin in earnest...of course the brutal sectarian reprisal attacks by both sides are already occuring, so...

But at this point in Syria, I'm not sure that a real working class revolt can even take place. It gets to a certain point in dictatorships where the only kind of resistance that can take place is clandestine and/or armed action (such as what happened after Pinochet took power)...that's kind of a sign that a revolt has mostly failed, in my opinion, at least until the next round.

[X5N]

I am not good expert please explain to me about Syrian rebels anybody? To me looks fascist racist conservatives right wingers puppets of imperial masters or I am wrong.

Well the government is fascist conservative right-wingers (not sure about racist). They're mostly puppets of imperial masters if your source is some lulzy site like RT.

[campesino]

What is the class makeup of the Syrian Rebels?

disgruntled upper class sunnis who are hurt by the fact that an Alawi(non-muslim, infidel in their eyes) rural peasants(to the urban sunnis, this is just awful) took power. not that all alawites benefited from baath rule, many alawite villages still remain horribly poor, and the party for communist action was mainly Alawite and Ismaili was brutally persecuted by the regime, even though it was Alawite

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/04/communist-action-party-in-syria.html
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/06/neil-macfarquhar-and-random-sample-of.html


Resentment towards the Alawite nature of the regime was not confined to believers only, it was to be found amongst the secular also. Older members of Syrian society recalled the days when the people from the coastal region of Latakia – the traditional Alawite base – were known as hired help, employed as gardeners or cleaners, a designer accessory for wealthy Syrians much like the Filipinos working in Damascus today. Alawites were seen as rural types, unaccustomed to the gentrified manners and pretensions of city life, an image that they have found difficulty in shedding.

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=10785

I've read the latest edition of Nikolaos Van Dam's the struggle for power in syria politics and society under asad and ba'th party

the book gives me the impression that the Ba'ath regime is secular, with An Alawite clan as the rulers, that is secular, except when it comes to the appointment of officials to sensitive security positions.

that being said the Alawite clan that heads the state is corrupt and brutal, but the islamist, sectarian, genocidal opposition is equally awful, and has the explicit aims of persecuting religious minorities.

the only way to advance anything is support class-struggle. Something the west doesn't allow to develop.

all we can do is hands-off Syria, remove sanctions and penalize the Islamist opposition.