Erstellt am: 3. 7. 2012 - 15:29 Uhr

Still No End in Sight

Reality Check: Michael Lüders on Syria and the cultural treasure at risk in Timbuktu.

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Members of the Syrian opposition at unity talks in Cairo sponsored by the Arab League. Photo: KHALED ELFIQI/EPA

Six months ago the Arab League was assessing the state of the observer mission which had been sent to Syria. Around 100 observers from member countries were in Syria to monitor a plan to stop what back then was “the violent clampdown by security forces against critics of the regime”. Half a year on and we're hearing the terms “war” and “civil war” more often and the Arab League is hosting a meeting in Cairo for the Syrian opposition, which it says must overcome its differences and unite.

Since the revolt began in March 2011, 14,000 people have been killed according to opposition estimates, and the conflict is threatening to spill beyond Syria’s borders. There’s tension between Syria and Turkey after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish jet. Thousands of refugees have fled into Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. There are also reports of dozens of Syrian soldiers, including senior officers, having defected and crossed the border into Turkey. Author and Middle East expert Michael Lüders told Reality Check he expects the conflict in Syria to go on for “quite some time, possibly years to come”.

One of the latest developments is the publication of a report by Human Rights Watch which says that Syrian intelligence agencies are running torture centres in which detainees are beaten with batons and cables, burned with acid, sexually assaulted, and their fingernails torn out. The news doesn’t surprise Michael Lüders, who adds that “unfortunately, opposition groups start to use the same methods”.

President Bashar Assad continues to stand firm, while Russia and China remain opposed to a stronger response from the international community. Michael Lüders explains why he sees no sign of an imminent resolution to the conflict in Syria:

Timbuktu

In the mid-16th century, Mohammed abu Bakr al-Wangari, an Islamic scholar, went to Timbuktu, a religious trading centre and founded the University of Sankoré. During the next 30 years, he amassed handwritten books on subjects ranging from history to poetry to astronomy and it has become one of the largest references of knowledge from the ancient Islamic world. Now Timbuktu’s sites are under threat as militants, who back strict sharia law and consider the local Sufi version of Islam to be idolatrous, have set about the cities’ mausoleums, armed with axes and Kalashnikovs. UNESCO has placed the city on its list of heritage sites in danger. So will the ancient sites suffer the same fate as the 6th Century Buddha statues in Afghanistan, which were blasted by the Taliban? More from the director of the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project Dr. Shamil Jeppie:

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