Ancient Aleppo Cowers Amid Reports of Approaching Syrian Forces

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The clamorous heart of Aleppo, the ancient city with its cobbled streets and mazy bazaars, fell silent on Tuesday as residents there and across Syria’s sprawling commercial capital fled the streets and cowered indoors, dreading the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire and the echoing roar of government helicopters.

Except for the helicopters, the government disappeared, said residents reached by telephone on Wednesday. There was no army and no traffic police, and all state employees were ordered to stay home, after being warned via official television broadcasts that they would be targeted by the rebel street fighters infiltrating central neighborhoods.
It was unclear when that might change. On Wednesday, the government sent thousands of troops toward Aleppo, according to rebel fighters and activists, who said tanks and troops deployed in nearby Idlib Province began to lumber eastward after suhur, the morning meal that comes before sunrise during Ramadan.
One column of 23 armored vehicles carrying soldiers and ammunition out of Jebel az-Zawiya, a rebel stronghold in southern Idlib, was attacked by local fighters, according to an activist in Turkey who said he was in touch with the insurgents. He said seven vehicles were destroyed but the rest continued toward Aleppo.
Fighters in the area of Jebel az-Zawiya said they were trying to encircle the government columns to prevent them or at least delay them from reaching Aleppo. But some got through, they said.
Except for the helicopters, the government disappeared, said residents reached by telephone. There was no army and no traffic police, and all state employees were ordered to stay home, warned via official television broadcasts that they would be targeted by the rebel street fighters infiltrating central neighborhoods.
“People are still in shock that this is happening — they thought it would be limited to one neighborhood, but it is growing in size to other neighborhoods,” said Fadi Salem, an academic visiting his family in Aleppo. “They are scared of chaos and lawlessness more than anything else.”
Residents said there were clashes not just between the government and the insurgents, but also between rival militias from the countryside fighting for control of individual streets in at least one southern neighborhood. In a central old quarter, one man said a friend had warned him not to visit because young gunmen had established a checkpoint to rob car passengers.
Damascus and Aleppo had been the two significant holdouts in the fighting that has gradually engulfed the rest of Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. But now the whole country is inflamed. Guerrillas from the loosely affiliated Free Syrian Army launched major assaults in both cities via sympathetic, anti-regime neighborhoods in the two cities, which vie for the title of the oldest urban centers on earth.
Much is at stake. Whoever controls the two jewels-in-the-crown controls Syria.
In Damascus and its surroundings, a frontal assault on the rebels by some of the government’s most elite soldiers starting late last week largely smashed the toeholds they had claimed, although skirmishing continued to flare on Monday. Syrian television broadcast photographs of government soldiers kicking down doors and hauling off suspected insurgents on the city’s outskirts.
Fighting in Aleppo, on the other hand, first limited to Saleheddin, a poor, southern neighborhood, has widened as more rebel fighters spread through the city, said residents and activists.
“I am not sure if they are trying to take over neighborhoods or just to create the impression that they are everywhere,” said Mr. Salem. So far they have claimed to control neighborhoods, or at least streets, where the poor Sunni Muslim majority is most likely to give them succor, he said.
But in Aleppo, as in Damascus, the rebels will probably have to fade back into the countryside once the government mounts a major offensive. They will have made their point, however, that no place is immune.
“The government is trying to regain the initiative from the rebels,” said Jeff White, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been studying the military situation in Syria. “The government forces have not been able to do this easily, despite their numbers and use of heavy weapons.”
Free Syrian Army elements, he said in an e-mail, “are defeating some offensive actions, seizing government positions and facilities, and making road movement more difficult.”
Other analysts said the government seemed to be favoring standoff techniques, like using the helicopters in Aleppo, to avoid casualties.
“They are using this tactic because they are desperately afraid of using up too many of their most loyal troops in an urban assault,” said W. Andrew Terrill, a Middle East specialist at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
In Washington, the secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking as though the Syrian insurgency’s momentum was now unstoppable, said its territorial gains might be leveraged into safe havens. “We have to work closely with the opposition,” she told reporters, “because more and more territory is being taken and it will, eventually, result in a safe haven inside Syria, which will then provide a base for further actions by the opposition.”
But a United Nations diplomat familiar with the thinking of the rebels said they had suspended the safe haven idea until foreign allies agree to provide air cover. So far the West considers that a step too far.
The insurgents fear that without such cover, they would be vulnerable to attacks by Syria’s formidable air force. They also feel more secure living amid the mosaic of ethnic villages in central and northern Syria — with hamlets of Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect rubbing shoulders with those of his government’s mostly Sunni Muslim opponents. Despite occasional massacres, that proximity forces some restraint on the part of the government, the diplomat said.
Instead, the fighting in Aleppo and Damascus appears to indicate that the insurgents want to annoy the government — kind of like a mosquito, pricking it constantly and wearing it down before flitting away.
In Aleppo on Tuesday morning, parents stood on street corners with their children pointing at the helicopters clattering overhead, a novelty. But the fighting spread, and the sound of machine gun fire intensified — although it was hard to tell if it was coming from the helicopters or being aimed at them, residents said. One man said he had seen one helicopter fire a rocket.
As the fighting seemed to widen, the city of more than two million people, the largest in Syria, became what one person described as “so quiet, it’s spooky.” Those not fleeing stayed indoors, suffering through extended power cuts. There were also reports of a riot at the central prison that was repressed with violence.
A 64-year-old merchant said the trip to the airport, usually 20 minutes on a highway, took 45 minutes as he detoured through back streets in neighborhoods devoid of fighting and chaos. The airport was crammed with passengers leaving for Beirut, Dubai and other cities, he said.
The city felt like a ghost town, residents said, but occasionally sounded like a combat zone. That was partly from the helicopters, and partly from the heavy artillery that the Syrian Army fires incessantly at insurgents in the countryside from bases ringing Damascus.
Majed Abdel Nour, the spokesman in Aleppo for the Shaam News Network, an activist organization, said 22 people had died in urban fighting. He denied that any real Free Syrian Army units were fighting for control of individual streets or robbing people. “There are individual cases — some people are doing it, but it’s not the F.S.A.,” he said.
The Free Syrian Army issued a statement telling people to stay home and cooperate with their neighbors to “prevent acts of theft and rioting.”
With so many men running around with guns, it was impossible to identify the good guys, residents said. “It is just so hard to figure who is F.S.A. and who is a thug,” said one 25-year-old woman reached via Skype. “In brief, I am just terrified.”

Rajesh Khanna: The loneliness of a superstar

My eyes are dry. I refuse to shed tears for a man who said he hated them. Such was the power of India's only bona fide Superstar. When his character in the otherwise uninspiring movie Amar Prem uttered that sardonic line, 'Pushpa... I hate tears!' several swooning women across India promptly stopped crying.

For all that mass hysteria and adulation, Rajesh Khanna was no looker - Dharmendra (Garam Dharam, if you please) was far better in that department. He was a pretty lousy dancer -producers roped in Jumping Jack Jeetendra for that. And he wasn't such a fantastic an actor either (newbie Amitabh Bachchan effortlessly stole the show in Anand). And yet, when Rajesh Khanna did rule Bollywood, he reigned supreme, an unchallenged monarch.

What was it about this short-statured, crinkly-eyed, pimply-faced, average guy, who grew up in the crowded gullis of Thakurdwar in Central Mumbai and who shot to the top when no one was looking?

He was the idealised desi lover-soft, caring, tender. A man with a secret sorrow. What the audience responded to was a self-destructive, martyred Devdas, wallowing in self-pity.

Disparagingly referred to as The Gurkha (because of his eyes and short stature), nobody gave him much of a chance initially. He did not come from a film background. Without a Godfather to promote him, Rajesh Khanna's meteoric rise was entirely based on the fact that his audiences adored him. Interestingly, the women who swore undying love and devotion to The Phenomenon (as Stardust had dubbed him), did not belong to a specific age group.

From ditzy teens, and their mod moms, to grey haired naanis and daadis, Rajesh Khanna was worshipped as the 'Ultimate Lover Boy'. His intrinsic vulnerability combined with a little-boy-lost sex appeal, made women across the board feel protective towards him. From that first time he tilted his head, crinkled those eyes, and smiled, nothing more was required...India collectively turned to mush.

He was also a megalomaniac. It was his absolute refusal to face reality once the decline in his career set in that led to his eventual isolation from the film industry. An isolation so profound, that the few well-wishers still hanging around, watched helplessly as the lonely, depressed, bitter man continued to cling on to his delusions, trashing contemporaries and silencing anybody who dared to correct him. His decline was self-inflicted.

His alienation, of his own doing. Always a complex creature, battling deep feelings of persecution, Rajesh Khanna cut a pathetic figure later in life when he deigned to show up at Awards' functions. Unable to cope with failure and oblivion once his glory days were behind him, Rajesh chose the bottle. Such a huge pity, given the wonderful ladies in his life, who continued to care for him long after he had pushed them away. His biggest champion in the media of the time, was the late Devyani Chaubal, who loudly and repeatedly took credit for having created Rajesh Khanna's! That was rubbish. His incredible success was his own.

Devi and Kaka shared an intense love-hate relationship, and she died taking several of his best guarded secrets with her. But as one of the few constants in his turbulent and troubled life, Devi was perhaps the only woman he tolerated for several years as a part of his inner circle. That Devi and Anju Mahendru (his long-time girlfriend) shared less than a cordial relationship, eventually led to Devi's ouster from his sprawling seaside bungalow, sentimentally christened Aashirwad. By then, of course, Rajesh had dramatically married the alarmingly young and startlingly beautiful Dimple Kapadia in a midnight ceremony that caught the press sleeping.

There was however, another lady love (she shall go nameless), who understood the essential Jatin (Rajesh Khanna's real name) when she shared his life and home. She was a stunning, sexy actress at the time. And much younger too. In her company, Rajesh Khanna apparently discovered long suppressed aspects of himself and she claimed she freed him from the countless hang-ups he'd harboured as a diffident young man.During a conversation, she spoke candidly about introducing this insecure, uptight, self-conscious superstar to the abundant pleasures of skinny dipping and enjoying the sun on their naked bodies on a foreign beach. "I liberated Kaka from all his inhibitions," she laughed fondly at the memory.

Were they truly in love? She smiled and shook her head, "Kaka was incapable of loving anyone. He was only ever in love with himself!"

What does it matter now? Gone is the man who gave Indian fashion the ever popular Guru Shirt and so much more. At a time when film publicity was handled by oily chaps who'd show up with grainy movie stills, it was Rajesh Khanna who effortlessly dominated Bollywood and captured hearts like no other hero before or after him. The fans who stood outside Aashirwad for hours on end just to catch a glimpse of their film god, were not hired by canny publicists. The women who slashed their wrists each time he was linked to a co-star (Mumtaz, Sharmila Tagore) or wrote him letters in their own blood when his film was a hit, were not stunts staged for Breaking News.

Perhaps, Rajesh Khanna himself could not comprehend the extent of his power over the lives of people who worshipped him. Which is why there is a satisfying sense of closure now that he is no more. For the one thing nobody can ever deny Kaka is this - everything that Rajesh Khanna did, it was in his way.

Libyans turn out big, then celebrate historic election

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- After four decades of political exclusion, Libyans on Saturday night celebrated a historic election that many saw as the African nation's first steps to building a free and democratic nation.

The landmark parliamentary vote was marred in places by disruptions that prompted polling centers to close, but the overall turnout was higher than expected.

Preliminary reports indicate more than 1.6 million of the nation's 2.8 million registered voters -- or about 60% -- went to the polls, High National Election Commission chairman Nuri Khalifa Al-Abbar said late Saturday, according to the Libyan state news agency.

Votes were cast as planned at 98% of all polling stations, Al-Abbar said earlier in the day.

And by Saturday night, after the final votes were cast, there was revelry as drivers honked their horns around the capital of Tripoli as they and other Libyans rejoiced at the country's transformation over the past year.

The city's main square -- once called Green Square for Gadhafi's political philosophy outlined in his Green Book but now known as Martyr's Square for all those who fell in last year's revolution -- became a focal point for the celebrations, with it and the surrounding streets packed with cars.

"We never ... voted before, we never did elections before, so it's totally new to us," said blogger and medical student Ruwida Ashour from the eastern city of Benghazi. "It won't be easy (but) it's our country."

The last time Libya held an election was almost half a century ago and for many people, the act of casting a ballot was novel after 42 years of Moammar Gadhafi's autocratic rule.

Besides significant participation among average citizens (about 80% of the nation's 3.5 million eligible voters registered ahead of the vote), the election indicated there was strong interest among people interested in being part of the nation's fledgling government as well. More than 3,500 candidates stood in the election for a 200-seat national assembly, with the winners expected to be announced by the end of next week.

Months after Gadhafi's fall, Libyans vote Saturday for a new assembly

Sizzling summer temperatures did not keep people away in Tripoli, where loudspeakers blared: "Allahu akbar" (God is great).

Hanaa bin Dallah, 32, carried her 2-month-old son Rahman with her to the polls. She was heartened by the participation of so many people, despite the weather.

"I hope my word will make a difference -- not like the past," she said.

Hawwaa BouSaida, 65, said she had never been to school in her life but was proud to be voting.

"After 42 years of not even not knowing what elections are, and were blinded, we are voting today for the first time," she said.

Akram Mohamed BinRamadan returned from exile in Britain to fight last year with the rebels. Still dressed in military fatigues, he said it was time now to stop the fighting and begin the difficult task of rebuilding the nation.

"I think it's time to take all these off," he said. "This is going to be a free country."

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement congratulating Libyans "for another milestone on their extraordinary transition to democracy."

"After more than 40 years in which Libya was in the grip of a dictator, today's historic election underscores that the future of Libya is in the hands of the Libyan people," Obama said. "...As they begin this new chapter, the Libyan people can count on the continued friendship and support of the United States."

More than 13,000 soldiers were on the streets Saturday. But not all went smoothly.

Two polling centers were set ablaze in the eastern city of Benghazi, said Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, head of the EU election assessment mission. And in two other cities, polls did not open until 2 p.m. (six hours before they were set to close).

In the eastern city of Ajdabiya, five polling centers opened but four others on the outskirts did not.

On Friday, anti-aircraft fire hit a Libyan air force helicopter transporting ballot boxes from the eastern city of Benghazi to nearby areas, the Interior Ministry said. One person was killed. It was unclear who was behind the attack.

And protesters earlier this week attacked a warehouse and torched ballots and other election materials.

Tunisia hands former Gadhafi PM over to Libya

This was one of several anti-election incidents staged by Libyans in the east who see an unequal distribution of seats in the national assembly. The 200 seats are allocated by population, reserving 100 for the western Tripolitania, 60 for Cyrenaica in the east, and 40 for the south.

The mistrust stems from the many years of Gadhafi's rule, under which the eastern region felt largely neglected and marginalized. Benghazi emerged as the cradle of the Libyan uprising but many of its residents now feel their revolution has been usurped by the National Transitional Council based in Tripoli.

Mohammed al-Sayeh, a member of the National Transitional Council, dismissed the disruptions as "minor" and said there was no lack of trust between east and west.

"Libya will be always united," he said. "It is the first fair and legitimate election."

Authorities flew in fresh ballots printed in the United Arab Emirates, but the shipment did not arrive in time for all the Ajdabiya polls to open.

Seven other polling stations in and around Benghazi were also closed due to pro-federalist threats against voters.

As the polls came to a close Saturday evening, Lambsdorff said it was too early to tell whether the election had been compromised by the violence.

"Again, we are talking about single isolated incidents," Lambsdorff said.

Saturday's vote is sure to be a litmus test for post-Gadhafi Libya. The new national assembly will be tasked with appointing a transitional government and crafting a constitution.

The nation's new leaders, however, will have their work cut out for them as they begin a new, more democratic era.

Amnesty International published a scathing report this week about what it described as lawlessness in Libya, with the advocacy group urging the nation's authorities to establish a functioning judiciary and rein in revolutionary militias that are accused of committing a plethora of human rights violations.

The disparate groups came together to topple Gadhafi but remain divided along regional lines. More than 200,000 Libyans are still armed and often operate outside of the law, according to Amnesty.

Rights group: Rein in Libyan militias

Security is just one of many obstacles.

The new government must figure out how to unify the country as it moves forward. That includes a reconciliation process for Gadhafi loyalists.

And there is the task of rebuilding a nation ravaged by dictatorship and last year's conflict.

The National Transitional Council, Libya's de facto rulers since Gadhafi was captured and killed in October, inherited a land where few civil institutions existed. The new government will have to create a functioning society out of that vacuum.

Libyans are clamoring for basic services. Heaps of trash litter roads because of the lack of proper disposal services, and assuring adequate health care is a priority for many.

Ahmed Shalabi, a Libyan doctor pursuing post-graduate training in Britain, said Gadhafi systematically destroyed Libyan institutions. From health care to education, the country has to start from scratch.

He said he was ecstatic and incredulous to be casting a ballot, a notion that seemed implausible all his life. That was the first step, he said, to severing Libya from Gadhafi's legacy.

And after that?

"The constitution. The constitution. The constitution," Shalabi said. "If we get that right, everything else will fall into place."

Campaign posters and billboards in Libyan cities and towns advertised all the candidates running. Most are unknown to Libyans, much like the political process itself. Gadhafi was not one to cultivate political culture.

But Libyans have high hopes for their future.

"If Libya's issues are a mosaic, I believe I hold one piece of it," said Awziya Shweigi, one of the thousands of candidates. "It might be a small one, but an effective one that completes it."

A geneticist by trade, she has been working to identify the bodies of those who died in Libya's eight-month uprising. Now, she said she wants to do more.

Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has been in Libya ahead of the parliamentary vote, said he was guardedly optimistic about Libya's transition.

"The glaring shortfalls in the transition are the lack of development in the security sector and the continued activity of powerful militias," Wehrey wrote on the think tank's website.

"It's tempting on the surface to see the situation on the ground as chaotic and alarming with armed men roving the streets. But it's not all bad news, in many cases the militias actually maintain a degree of discipline, provide pre-election security, and work with the government to police their own areas -- so things are being kept under control, at least for now. The key question is how these militias will react to the election results and the subsequent distribution of power among tribes and towns."

Shweigi said she may not be an expert on defense or the national budget, but as a woman, she represents a large part of Libyan society. She is a widow and mother of six, and said her experience with family will make her an asset.

She has been campaigning on the streets, fully covered in Islamic dress, talking to women -- and men.

That's a huge change in this Islamic nation, said Samer Muscati of Human Rights Watch.

"Previously we would not have as many pictures of women outside in public spaces, and now that's becoming a normal event at least in Tripoli and some other areas as well," he said. "So I think this election is changing women's participation not only in politics but also in a larger scale."

Shweigi said she doesn't expect to win Saturday.

But she, like so many other Libyans, feels she was born again after Gadhafi was gone. And she wanted to experience the fruits of the revolution.

Euro 2012: Spain seal their place in history with Italy's destruction

For Spain there was symmetry and symbolism in success – and style too. The cycle was completed against Italy, the same team against whom it had all begun. Once the team that never won, they have become the team that never lose – European, world and European champions, two consecutive qualifying campaigns with perfect records, 10 wins out of 10, and 10 successive knockout games across two Euros and a World Cup without conceding a goal, stretching back six long years. And now they put four goals past Italy: Silva, Alba, Torres, Mata. No side have ever achieved what Spain have achieved. Surely no one has ever won an international final with such authority. No other team have scored four in a European final.
This will forever be recalled as Spain's era, unrivalled by any team. Forty-four years it took them to win a major tournament. In four years they have won two more. No other team have retained this trophy and yet at times it felt as if winning this tournament was an obligation; winning it well was an obligation, too. Spain fulfilled both brilliantly. Fernando Torres scored in this final just as he scored against Germany in 2008. It was Spain's third and it gave him the tournament's Golden Boot. Juan Mata came on for his first minutes of the tournament. He scored with his first touch – 12 goals scored, one conceded.
Spain's era began with a penalty shoot- out against Italy in 2008. It was only the quarter-final but the Spanish had finally broken a barrier that had stood before them for 24 years, one that had seemed insuperable. Spain feared Italy, the team that many liked to portray as everything Spain were not: dirty, cynical, boring … successful. Even Torres later said of the quarter-final: "That was the night that we won the European Championship."
This was the night that they won it again. Torres scored again. Now it is Spain who are insuperable. No one has ever won three major tournaments in a row. As Iker Casillas had admitted, there would never again be anything like 2008 and 2010.
"It is different," he said on the eve of this game – 2008 had been the explosion, success at last 44 years later but 2010 was "nervous" – first Europe, then the world. "Success debilitates you but we have been lucky that we have good players who have not lost their competitive spirit," Vicente del Bosque said.
That side of Spain's game is often forgotten. "It is not enough," Del Bosque says, "to have talent." Yet Spain have talent, so much of it that just competing, achieving something unique, has been treated as if it is not enough.
Here it was not just the fact that they won but the way they won. There was a sensation that Spain needed a final like this. Different demands are made of great teams, debates sparked. "Tournaments," said Del Bosque, "always concentrate debate and tension. It's impossible to win over everyone all of the time." Those debates have been destroyed. Did anyone remain unconvinced on Sunday night? Spain were not just better; they were brilliant.
They had the lead inside 14 minutes and never looked like relinquishing it. Andrés Iniesta's pass was slotted diagonally into the area for a run from Cesc Fábregas. He got to the byline and pulled it back for David Silva, racing in from deep to head home. It was Silva's second goal of the competition; he also has three assists. Like Spain's goal against Italy in their opening game, it was also an expression of what Del Bosque seeks with a striker-less formation. There is no fixed point; instead there is combination, control, mobility, unpredictability, players arriving not waiting.
Asked whether he would play an attacker before the match, Del Bosque had replied: "I'll play three of them." "Yes," came the retort, "but will any of them be No9s?" "People who can create and score goals," the Spain coach said. When Silva headed in, Spain had taken five shots already. They had begun with speed, moving the ball with intensity and intent. Now they were 1-0 up.
Italy had already played their part before the goal and they sought the equaliser after it. They had not come simply to stop Spain. Casillas was forced to intervene on a couple of occasions. "Of course the games are not as good when [only] one team try to attack and the other team defend," Iniesta had said. Here Italy attacked. And so did Spain. If control was harder to find, spaces appeared; the game was longer, less compressed. There was space in front of the Italian defence; space behind it too. Spain had not finished with less than half the possession since the final four years ago. Italy had 53% of the ball in the first half. Spain had two goals.
For a man whose position has been questioned constantly, Fábregas's impact on this tournament has been huge. Xavi's, on the other hand, had not been. "I would have liked to have been more transcendental than I have been," he admitted on the eve of the final. The remark is all the more striking because he is the man who perhaps embodies best of all the style that has made Spain different. In Kiev it was a different story. With Iniesta he took central stage again, always involved, his passing crisp and clever. He had space ahead of him, runners too. That had largely been denied him during this championship.
Shortly before the interval that runner was Jordi Alba. Spain may play without strikers but Alvaro Arbeloa has had more touches in the opposition penalty area than any other defender here and now it was Alba, one of the stand out performers of Spain's championship, who bombed forward. Once a member of the front three, he had been converted by the Valencia coach Unai Emery into a full-back. But Alba, who this week confirmed that he is returning to Barcelona, where he started out as a teenager, has not forgotten his roots. The interception happened deep inside his own half. A first-time touch inside and off he went on a run. Five yards, 10, 20, 30, 40, faster and faster. As he screeched past the last defender, the ball appeared ahead of him, perfectly weighted by Xavi. A touch to control was followed by a tidy finish.
"If we can crush them, we crush them," Luis Aragonés told his players at Euro 2008. That Spain do not has been one of the accusations most often levelled at them here. "Those people who think we are playing boring... in my opinion they don't understand the game," Fábregas said. "This feels really amazing, one of the best days of my life. I don't think we're ready to see what we have done yet. Three major trophies in a row has never been done before in the history of football."
They crushed Italy, not any team but Italy. This was the defining game and Spain can now be defined only with ever-increasing superlatives. Iniesta said: "We gave our best performance in the last game. This is unrepeatable." Torres slotted past Gianluigi Buffon, then Mata finished too. And the night ended with the centre-back, Sergio Ramos, attempting to score with a back-heel from three yards out. Four goals were enough – four.