World press on Syria and Iran (July 20, 2012)

The Washington Post reported that about half of the 290 members of Iran’s parliament are backing a bill favoring the closing of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, passageway for a fifth of the world’s oil. Lawmaker Javad Karimi Qodoosi proposed the legislation. He says the strait is the world’s lock, and the key is in Iran’s hands. His comments were reported by the semi-official ISNA news agency Friday. Iranian officials say the final decision is in the hands of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s foreign minister indicated recently that such a move was unlikely. Iranian leaders have warned that Tehran would order the closure if the country’s oil exports are blocked. On July 1, The European Union banned purchase of Iranian oil, part of Western sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program.

The New York Times reported on the situation in Syria. The government fought back hard, with no indication that its far superior military machine had lost its edge against an opposition still working predominately with small-caliber weapons. Helicopters blasted the northern Damascus suburb of Qaboun with rockets, while the armed forces warned residents of a wide area of the southern part of the capital to evacuate ahead of an assault. Thousands of people fled to neighboring Lebanon. “They threatened them and gave them 24 hours to leave their homes or they will be shelled,” said Ali Salem, an activist reached via Skype. Even residents in the western Damascus neighborhoods of Mezze and Kafr Souseh, who were not warned, fled in droves as shells thudded into their neighborhood from military positions on the Qassioun mountain above Damascus. But the government tried to project an aura of calm, even as it unleashed its forces in a manner similar to the devastating assaults on restive cities like Homs, where neighborhoods were effectively flattened and all the residents driven out. President Bashar al-Assad appeared for the first time since the bombing attack Wednesday that killed three senior security officials. The Syrian leader showed up on state television to swear in the new defense minister to replace the one assassinated in a bomb attack.

The same theme was touched by Hurriyet Daily News. Syrian rebels were in full control of the Bab al-Hawa border post withTurkey after overrunning it in a fierce battle with Syrian troops, an AFP photographer at the scene reported on Friday. The carcasses of burnt-out lorries were scattered across the scene of the battle. Some 150 armed rebel fighters were in control of the post, which lies opposite Turkey's Cilvegozu border crossing in the southern province of Hatay. The rebel fighters had already sacked the buildings making up the Syrian border post, which were bloodstained and riddled with bullets from Thursday's battle. They had also helped themselves to the contents of the Turkish lorries that were caught up in the battle as they waited to cross the border. Some of the rebels had used spray paint to write "Victory" on the walls. Syrian government soldiers had abandoned the site. There was no sign of any bodies. The border post lies in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, the scene of fierce fighting for months now.