Hamza and the Lion of Allah
By Aber Kawas

There have been pictures and videos circulating for these past few nights of a boy whose face had been cut off in the unrelenting onslaught of Syrian violence. The despairing images of his jawless grimace, dripping with blood and his eyes full of pain have brought awareness, disgust, and outrage against the Syrian oppressors who have been mercilessly killing their people in an act of intimidation. Rivers of blood are running in the streets of Syria to quench Bashar Al Assad’s regime and their insatiable thirst for power.

The boy whose face has been seen by us all—his name is Hamza. He is my brother in Islam.

The name Hamza means ‘the one who is strong and steadfast’. It is the name of the Prophet’s ﷺ (peace be upon him) uncle radi allahu `anhu (may God be please with him) whose conversion brought strength, dignity, and most importantly safety to the Muslim ummah (community) during a time of oppression brought on by the Quraysh.

Hamza ibn Abd Al Muttalib was a fearless warrior, a man of integrity who fought vehemently against the makers of injustice, against those who used violence as intimidation against the Muslims for power centuries ago, just as today. His death and martyrdom brought peace to the Muslim nation; for the gruesome manner in which the Quraysh had dismantled his body when killed in the battle of Uhud, inspired a Qur’anic revelation to the Prophet ﷺ.

“Call mankind to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and sound advice, and reason with them in a well-mannered way. Indeed your Lord is well aware of those who have gone astray from His way, and He is well aware of those who are guided. And if you retaliate, let your retaliation be to the extent that you were afflicted, but if you are patient, it will certainly be best for those who are patient; and be patient, yet your patience is only with the help of GOD, and do not sorrow for them, not distress yourself at what they devise. Indeed God is with those who are pious and those who are doers of good,” (Qur’an 16:125-128).
This ayah (verse, revelation) taught the Muslims to handle violence with mercy and patience, to never treat any human being, not even their enemies, with inhumanity no matter the circumstance—even in times of war. This is a lesson that the aggressors of today have ignored, as they continue to behave in a despicable manner against innocent civilians of their own lands.

Just as we felt our stomachs drop and could barely stand watching the images of Hamza sitting on a hospital bed helplessly and painfully waiting to die, upon seeing the corpse of Hamza on the battlefield of Uhud, the Prophet ﷺ also winced and could not stand the sight of his beloved uncle’s mutilated body.
Both the Hamza dominating our newsfeeds today, and the Hamza who has dominated the great stories of our past have been slaughtered in an appalling manner demonstrating the evil measures of their oppressors. However just as Hamza ibn Abd Al Muttalib’s death inspired peace and raised his rank and honor, we must do the same for our brother Hamza from today, who has also died in a fight for Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) a fight for freedom and justice, a fight for peace.

We must not let his death be in vain; we must speak out against the violence that he and his countrymen have endured, we must pray for their safety, and we must not ignore their cries.

May all of our brothers and sisters who have died in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and everywhere else while fighting for peace against oppression, find their peace in Jannah. May the blood that has charred their faces today turn into light on the day when the faces of their oppressors will be dark as ash. May Allah (swt) grant them victory and bring the nations they fought for to peace.

May our martyr Hamza one day meet his counterpart ‘The Chief of the Martyrs’ Hamza ibn Abd Al Muttalib. May they walk into Jannah together hand in hand, as our leaders, as the ones most deserving of al Firdous (the highest rank). For it is only fitting that they share this name, that this great martyr of our ummah today has been honored with the association of the greatest martyr of our history and past.
Bashar may be named Al Assad (the lion), but the young boy he brutally murdered is named after the Lion of Allah (swt)! May he be rewarded for the strength and steadfastness that his name upholds.

Verily it is to Allah (swt) that we belong, and to Him we will all return.

May Allah give the oppressed people of Syria victory over Pharoah (Bashar) and his supporters amin. I urge muslims on nl not to forget to put a word of prayer for the muslims of Syrian and other people like these who face cruelty and oppression!

vedaxcool:

May Allah give the oppressed people of Syria victory over Pharoah (Bashar) and his supporters amin. I urge muslims on nl not to forget to put a word of prayer for the muslims of Syrian and other people like these who face cruelty and oppression!

it is so ironic that Bashar has become a "pharoah".Bashar the honorable arab leader who turned his back to Ehud Olmert (former prime minister of Israel) while Mubarak and the Emir of Qatar would shake hand with him and laugh and even hug.

Bashar is not oppressing the people of Syria.armed wahhabi/salafist thugs sponsored by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the scheming of the West is responsible for the bloodshed in Syria.

may Almighty Allah support the people of Syria because they have stood competently with their leader and supported him against the conspiracy from foreign powers.may Allah's curse be upon those seeking to destabilize Syria.inshaAllah Syria will come out stronger and Bashar more powerful.Ameen Ya Rab!

[size=18pt]Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media[/size]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

Assad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war

Jonathan Steele
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 January 2012 18.40 GMT


A demonstration in support of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Damascus. 'Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war.' Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP


Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news? Especially as the finding would go against the dominant narrative about the Syrian crisis, and the media considers the unexpected more newsworthy than the obvious.

Alas, not in every case. When coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. So it is with the results of a recent YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by the Qatar Foundation. Qatar's royal family has taken one of the most hawkish lines against Assad – the emir has just called for Arab troops to intervene – so it was good that The Doha Debates published the poll on its website. The pity is that it was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go.

The key finding was that while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a spectre that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria's borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future. Assad claims he is about to do that, a point he has repeated in his latest speeches. But it is vital that he publishes the election law as soon as possible, permits political parties and makes a commitment to allow independent monitors to watch the poll.

Biased media coverage also continues to distort the Arab League's observer mission in Syria. When the league endorsed a no-fly zone in Libya last spring, there was high praise in the west for its action. Its decision to mediate in Syria was less welcome to western governments, and to high-profile Syrian opposition groups, who increasingly support a military rather than a political solution. So the league's move was promptly called into doubt by western leaders, and most western media echoed the line. Attacks were launched on the credentials of the mission's Sudanese chairman. Criticisms of the mission's performance by one of its 165 members were headlined. Demands were made that the mission pull out in favour of UN intervention.

The critics presumably feared that the Arab observers would report that armed violence is no longer confined to the regime's forces, and the image of peaceful protests brutally suppressed by army and police is false. Homs and a few other Syrian cities are becoming like Beirut in the 1980s or Sarajevo in the 1990s, with battles between militias raging across sectarian and ethnic fault lines.

As for foreign military intervention, it has already started. It is not following the Libyan pattern since Russia and China are furious at the west's deception in the security council last year. They will not accept a new United Nations resolution that allows any use of force. The model is an older one, going back to the era of the cold war, before "humanitarian intervention" and the "responsibility to protect" were developed and often misused. Remember Ronald Reagan's support for the Contras, whom he armed and trained to try to topple Nicaragua's Sandinistas from bases in Honduras? For Honduras read Turkey, the safe haven where the so-called Free Syrian Army has set up.

Here too western media silence is dramatic. No reporters have followed up on a significant recent article by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer who now writes for the American Conservative – a magazine that criticises the American military-industrial complex from a non-neocon position on the lines of Ron Paul, who came second in last week's New Hampshire Republican primary. Giraldi states that Turkey, a Nato member, has become Washington's proxy and that unmarked Nato warplanes have been arriving at Iskenderum, near the Syrian border, delivering Libyan volunteers and weapons seized from the late Muammar Gaddafi's arsenal. "French and British special forces trainers are on the ground," he writes, "assisting the Syrian rebels, while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers …"

As the danger of full-scale war increases, Arab League foreign ministers are preparing to meet in Cairo this weekend to discuss the future of their Syrian mission. No doubt there will be western media reports highlighting remarks by those ministers who feel the mission has "lost credibility", "been duped by the regime" or "failed to stop the violence". Counter-arguments will be played down or suppressed.

In spite of the provocations from all sides the league should stand its ground. Its mission in Syria has seen peaceful demonstrations both for and against the regime. It has witnessed, and in some cases suffered from, violence by opposing forces. But it has not yet had enough time or a large enough team to talk to a comprehensive range of Syrian actors and then come up with a clear set of recommendations. Above all, it has not even started to fulfil that part of its mandate requiring it to help produce a dialogue between the regime and its critics. The mission needs to stay in Syria and not be bullied out.

Desperation to say the least!

Bomb blasts bring death to Syria's Aleppo
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-syria-idUSTRE80S08620120210

[size=14pt](Reuters) - Twin bomb blasts hit Syrian military and security buildings in the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, killing 25 people in the worst violence to hit the country's commercial hub in the 11-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.[/size]

Mangled, bloodied bodies as well as severed limbs lay on the pavement outside the targeted buildings, as shown in live footage on Syrian television, which consistently portrays the revolt against Assad as the work of foreign-backed "terrorists."

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks in Syria's second city, as officials put the total death toll in the two blasts at 25. But they came as Assad's forces grow more ferocious in operations to stamp out the popular uprising.

On another front, army tanks massed outside opposition neighborhoods in the western city Homs on Friday morning after a week of bombardments that have killed dozens of civilians and drawn condemnation from world leaders.

Activists in Homs said shelling resumed sporadically in the morning and they feared a big push was imminent to storm residential areas of the city that has come to symbolize the plight of the anti-Assad movement.

The unrelenting bloodshed only highlighted the difficulties that Western and Arab powers faced in trying to resolve the crisis in a country which has a key place in the strategic balance in the volatile Middle East.

Bolstered by Russian support, Assad has ignored appeals from the United States, Turkey, Europeans, fellow Arabs and other governments to halt the repression and to step down.

Foreign ministers of the Arab League, which suspended a monitoring mission in Syria last month because of the violence, will discuss a proposal to send a joint U.N.-Arab mission to Syria when they meet in Cairo on Sunday, a League official said.

EU URGES RUSSIA

The European Union's foreign policy chief added her voice to international calls for Russia, Syria's strongest ally, to support a United Nations resolution demanding Assad halt the crackdown. But Russia, with a recent history of sending tanks into its own rebel cities, has said no one should interfere in the country's affairs.

"My message to my Russian colleagues is that they too need to recognize the reality of the situation on the ground and we can't go on simply allowing this to happen," the EU's Catherine Ashton said during a visit to Mexico.

But having ruled out intervening military, as NATO did decisively in Libya nearly a year ago, the foreign powers arrayed against Assad have few good cards to play.

Many analyst believe that although the uprising has evolved from peaceful street demonstrations into an armed insurgency, Assad can count on a powerful military and a certain degree of popular support to survive for several months before he might join the list of deposed Arab leaders like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

The fragmented leadership of the revolt also poses problems for those who would support it.

SEVERED LIMBS

The Aleppo blasts contrasted with the carnage in Homs that has gripped world attention in recent days and played into the government narrative that it is only defending the state against violent foes.

In a live television report, a correspondent lifted blankets and plastic sheets which had been laid over corpses on the pavement to show a body with its head blown off. Other bloodied human remains included a limbless torso and a severed foot.

"We apologize for showing these pictures, but this is the terrorism which is targeting us," the reporter said.

Private Addounia Television said 11 civilians and security force members were killed in the explosion at a military security building and six more at a base for security forces. State television later quoted the Health Ministry saying a total of 25 were killed and 175 wounded in the two blasts.

A concrete wall around one building was badly damaged and its windows were blown out. At least one car appeared blackened and destroyed and several more were damaged.

The TV reporter said children were among the dead, showing a single roller skate left on the pavement.

"Is this the freedom of Hamad and Erdogan?" one man shouted, referring to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim and Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who have led the chorus of regional criticism against Assad. "Hamad, you dog," he said.

Aleppo, Syria's main commercial city close to the northern border with Turkey, had been spared most of the bloodshed which has hit other parts of the country during the uprising against 42 years of dynastic Assad family. But it has seen increasing protests and violence in recent weeks.

AWAITING AN ONSLAUGHT

Meanwhile in besieged Homs, activists said shelling began again in the morning. Outgunned rebels loosely grouped under the Free Syrian Army were preparing to counter an onslaught.

In a message of defiance during the overnight lull, activists staged a rally against Assad in the Homs neighborhood of al-Bayada. YouTube footage showed hundreds of youths holding hands and dancing to the tune of a songs chanted by Abdelbasset Sarout, a 22-year-old soccer star turned activist.

"You oppressor, go , Great Homs, Syria will be free," Sarout sang from a makeshift stage while white and green rebel flags fluttered overhead.

Activist Mohammad Hassan said the brief respite in the shelling had allowed him to leave his basement and survey the extent of the damage: "There isn't one street without two buildings or more that are badly damaged from the shelling," he said by satellite phone.

Artillery barrages had been directed at Baba Amro, Inshaat, Khalidiya and other districts of the city where rebels have been lying low while mounting hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on the rear of Assad's troops, he said.

"Four tanks or armored vehicles were destroyed today on the edge of Baba Amro and some bread and medical supplies were delivered there for the first time in days by activists who crossed from Brazil Street," Hassan said.

Witnesses said makeshift hospitals in Homs were overflowing in the besieged 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.

(Writing by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)