Excerpts:Israel says no vehicle destroyed in Golan. Lebanon re Hezbollah in
Syria May 21, 2013

+++SOURCE: The Syria Report 20 May ’13:”Syrian Pound Decline Driving
Dollarization Risk”
SUBJECT: Syria pound vs $
QUOTE: “Value of $ continues to rise”
TEXT:The value of the US dollar continued to rise in the Syrian currency
market, reaching 150 pounds last week before slightly receding today.

+++SOURCE: The Syria Report 20 May ’13:”Services Industry Loses 5,000
Companies from Uprising”
SUBJECT: 5,000 service companies lost from uprising
TEXT:Syria’s services sectors accumulated losses of SYP 1.35 trillion as a
result of the uprising and the violence gripping the country, according to
Omar Ghalawanji, Deputy PM in charge of the services sector.

+++SOURCE: The Syria Report 2 May ’13:”0Sugar Crop to Witness Dramatic Drop”
SUBJECT: Syria sugar beet output to drop by two thirds
TEXT:Syria’s sugar beet output is forecast by the Ministry of Agriculture to
drop by two thirds.

+++Subject: Unlikely alliance to oppose Muslim Brotherhood
+++SOURCE: Egypt Daily News 21 May ’13:”Unlikely Alliance to Oppose Egypt's
Rulers”
SUBJECT:2 Politically divergent parties bond to opposeMuslim \Brotherhood
FULL TEXT: Two ideologically opposed Egyptian political groups are banding
together to check the ruling Muslim Brotherhood's growing power and
challenge it in the coming parliamentary elections.

The unlikely alliance between Islamic fundamentalists and a loose coalition
of secularists isn't about common principles—they share few—but rather a
political calculation to dethrone the Brotherhood, whose popularity has
waned amid Egypt's economic and political chaos, officials from both parties
say.

+++SOURCE: Saudi Gazette 21 May ’13:”Israel denies claim Syria destroyed
vehicle in Golan “
+++SUBJECT: Israel says no vehicle destroyed in Golan
QUOTE: “ The Israeli military denied the claim”
FULL TEXT:DAMASCUS — Syria's army has destroyed an Israeli military vehicle
that it said had crossed the sensitive ceasefire line in the Golan Heights,
the military declared on Tuesday[21 May] in a televised statement.

"Our armed forces have destroyed an Israeli vehicle with everything that it
had in it... The vehicle had crossed the ceasefire line and was moving
towards the village of Bir Ajam, situated in the liberated Syrian zone" of
the Golan, the statement said.

The army did not specify when the vehicle had been destroyed.

However, the Israeli military denied the claim.

An army spokeswoman said a vehicle had been damaged by gunfire from Syria
but no Israeli soldiers were hurt.

Israeli troops returned fire after the incident, which the military had
announced earlier in the day. — Agencies

+++The New York Times 22 May’13:”Hezbollah’s Role in Syria War Shakes the
Lebanese”, by Anne Barnard

SUBJECT: Lebanon re Hezbollah in Syria

QUOTE:”Hezbollah is asking fighters for their deepest sacrifice in Syria
yet”

EXCERPTS: :NABI CHIT, Lebanon — At the entrance to this village in Hezbollah’s
Bekaa Valley heartland, under a sign welcoming visitors to “The Citadel of
Resistance,” workers on Monday[20 May] hoisted a freshly printed banner
honoring a young man described as one of Hezbollah’s latest martyrs — killed
in battle not with Israel, the foe the group’s guerrillas train to fight,
but with Syrian rebels.

Down the road, another dead fighter’s uncle, Fayez Shukor, welcomed mourners
under a tent overlooking the valley as the sun set on a day that had seen
Hezbollah’s death toll rise to unexpected heights as the group joined Syrian
forces trying to storm the rebel-held Syrian city of Qusayr. His nephew, he
had said earlier, died on Sunday alongside 11 other Hezbollah fighters
killed in a single rebel attack.

Lebanon reeled Monday[20 May] from the twin realizations that Hezbollah, the
nation’s most powerful military and political organization, was plunging
deeper into a war the country has tried to stay out of, and that the group
was taking unaccustomed losses. Mr. Shukor, a former government minister
from Lebanon’s Arab Socialist Baath Party, walked a careful line between
supporting a declaration by Hezbollah that Syria’s fight is its fight and
acknowledging the contradiction of fighting fellow Arab Muslims instead of
Israelis.

. . .

The Free Syrian Army, the loose-knit rebel umbrella group backed by the
United States, issued a statement bound to fuel its frontal battle with
Hezbollah, attacking the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. “We are today
calling Nasrallah a killer of the Syrian people,” a spokesman, Louay Mekdad,
told the Al-Arabiya channel.

The battle also increasingly seemed to pit Hezbollah, the region’s most
battle-hardened Shiite force, head-on against Sunni jihadis, some accused of
affiliation with Al Qaeda. Rebels flying the black banner often used by Al
Nusra Front, the extremist rebel group — listed, like Hezbollah, as a
terrorist group by the United States — filmed themselves attacking armored
vehicles at close range with machine guns and taking deadly fire.

The heat of the fighting brought into sharp relief the danger of a regional
nightmare, all-out war between Shiites and Sunnis. Some rebel supporters
urged on the fighters against the “impurity” of Hezbollah, a phrase that
resonates as a slur against Shiites.

Echoes of the fight rippled across Lebanon, divided between supporters and
opponents of Mr. Assad roughly, though not entirely, along sectarian lines.
In the northern city of Tripoli, which supplies Sunni fighters to rebel
ranks, three Lebanese soldiers were killed Monday[20 May] in clashes with
rebels. . . .
==========
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA