Bashar al-Assad announced four new security chiefs to replace those killed in the recent bombing at the national security meeting. Three of the four new security nominations are Sunnis. There is debate on the fourth (Abdul Fattah Qudsiye), who I have been told is an Alawi (correction). All are hawks. The notorious Rustum Ghazali, who ruled Lebanon with an iron fist, is among them. The message is that Sunnis will dominate the security leadership. This is an effort to keep the Sunni-Alawi alliance alive. Baathist rule has been built on the Sunni-Alawi alliance, which has all but collapsed since the beginning of the uprising. The defections of high level Sunnis recently underscores that it is moribund. Ali Mamlouk was appointed to take Bakhtiar’s position as head of the National Security Office.
High placed officers stated to Syria Steps, a regime website, that “all armed elements fighting the state will be wiped out and that they will not have the opportunity for a tactical retreat this time.”
The Syrian government is reportedly using fixed wing airplanes to intimidate neighborhoods in northern Aleppo. Zeina Karam writes that they did not bomb but were used to intimidate as they broke the sound barrier above Aleppo neighborhoods. The use of airplanes is an escalation and may suggest that next time they will be used to bomb opposition strongholds...
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=15520