SUMMARY: What do we know about Russia’s military involvement in Syria? Gwen Ifill speaks to Pavel Baev of the Peace Research Institute Oslo and Steven Simon of Dartmouth College.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): So, what are the Russians up to in Syria, and what’s the impact on the ground?
For some answers, we turn to Pavel Baev, a Russian military scholar and the research director at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, and Steven Simon, a visiting lecturer at Dartmouth College. He served on the National Security Council staff during the Obama and Clinton administrations.
Pavel Baev, what do we know of the extent of the Russian involvement right now in Syria?
PAVEL BAEV, Peace Research Institute Oslo: Very little is actually known for fact, and what is known doesn’t make much sense, because what the Russians are saying is, yes, we are supplying — were supplying small arms, ammunition and personnel carriers and some military advisers and some technical personnel.
This sort of military weapons do not need any technical advisers and personnel. They’re pretty elementary. So the feeling is that the little increase in Russian military deliveries produced a lot of political spin and that was deliberate.
GWEN IFILL: Steven Simon, do we think we’re talking about advisory help or combat help?
STEVEN SIMON, Dartmouth College: Well, we know that the Russians are worried about this — the viability of the Syrian regime right now.
The Syrians have — that is, the regime has absorbed pretty serious losses over the past year. They had a good year in 2014 — 2015, not very good. They lost Idlib. They lost Palmyra. They’re under pressure in the south and now they’re under pressure in the east at Deir el-Zour.
They have got a demographic problem. It’s not clear how long they can actually keep up the fight. For the Russians, the viability of this regime is extremely important for a number of reasons, and I seriously doubt they’re going to let it go down.
I infer from that the kind of assistance they’re preparing to provide to the Syrians will be military assistance, assistance that will help keep the Syrian regime afloat and on the battlefield at a very precarious moment.
So more people will be sacrificed on the alter of despot Bashar al-Assad.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Elsewhere in the Middle East, three Al-Jazeera journalists learned their fate in a Cairo courtroom today, sparking an international outcry.
Jeffrey Brown has the story.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Tanks were deployed and tight security in place for the readings of the verdicts, after a five-month trial that was widely denounced outside Egypt as a sham.
JUDGE MOHAMED NAGY SHEHATA (through interpreter): Seven years of maximum jail time.
JEFFREY BROWN: The sentences for Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, a Canadian- Egyptian, Australian correspondent Peter Greste, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, who received 10 years, led to pandemonium at the court; 17 co-defendants were also sentenced. Fahmy is a former CNN producer who once helped the NewsHour’s Margaret Warner and crew escape an attack by a mob in Cairo
Today, he was yelling, “They will pay for this,” as he and the others were taken away.
His brother, Adel Fadel Fahmy:
ADEL FADEL FAHMY, Brother of Defendant (through interpreter): This is clear-cut corruption; it is a corrupt and politicized case and everything is wrong in this case.
JEFFREY BROWN: Fahmy’s family vowed to appeal, as did Peter Greste’s brother, Mike.
MIKE GRESTE, Brother of Defendant: Wrong verdict. I don’t — I don’t know how the judge came to that decision. I would be very interested to hear his reasons for giving that verdict. But it doesn’t make any sense.
JEFFREY BROWN: The three journalists were arrested last December and accused of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood by reporting on civil strife in Egypt. The Brotherhood had been banned as a terrorist group.
At the time, the journalists were working undercover because the government had accused Al-Jazeera of pro-Brotherhood bias. Last week, the company terminated its operations in Egypt. Al-Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar; the Gulf emirate is a political supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, but the network denies any charges of bias.
AL ANSTEY, Managing Director, Al-Jazeera English: Today was a really grim day for journalists and for journalism.
JEFFREY BROWN: It’s managing director spoke in Doha.
AL ANSTEY: People who respect freedom of expression, people who respect basic freedoms should say, no, enough is enough. Governments who deal with Egypt should recognize the injustice of what took place in Cairo today.
JEFFREY BROWN: Official denunciations also poured in from around the world. This was Secretary of State Kerry from Baghdad.
JOHN KERRY, Secretary of State: Today’s conviction is obviously — it’s a chilling and draconian sentence. And, you know, it’s deeply disturbing to see in the midst of Egypt’s transition.
JEFFREY BROWN: Just a day earlier, Secretary Kerry visited Egypt, with word the U.S. is releasing $575 million in assistance that had been on hold, and that Egypt will be getting Apache helicopter gunships to fight insurgents in the Sinai region.
The secretary met with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, among others. Last year, the former army leader ousted Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and last month, he was elected president himself. All the while, a crackdown on political opponents has intensified. Alaa Abdel Fattah, a leader of the January 2011 revolution, was sentenced last week to 15 years for violating a ban on protests.
And, on Saturday, Mohamed Badie, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, had his death sentence upheld, along with nearly 200 supporters.
SUMMARY: The controversial convictions of three Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt are among the most high-profile cases in a general crackdown on dissent. Jeffrey Brown talks to Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Michael Hanna of the The Century Foundation about the geopolitics behind the convictions and shifting U.S. policy toward Egypt.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Finally tonight: the continuing crackdown in Egypt, this time in the courts; 638 suspected Islamists stood trial today on charges of murder or attempted murder during attacks on police stations back in August. No defense lawyers were present.
Yesterday, in a similar scene, more than 500 suspected supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were sentenced to death.
We explore these developments with former State Department Middle East specialist Michele Dunne. She’s now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
GWEN IFILL: Three Al-Jazeera television journalists arrested in Egypt last December went on trial today accused of terrorism. Proceedings at Cairo’s Tora prison came amid a continued crackdown by Egypt’s military government that has ensnared reporters, as well as the political opposition.
Paul Mason of Independent Television News has our story.
PAUL MASON: Inside, three journalists from the Al-Jazeera network faced terrorism charges. Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohammed and Australian Peter Greste have been held since the 29th of December.
FARAG FATHY, Lawyer for the Defense (through interpreter): We asked that they be released pending investigations, and we also asked to question all witnesses and demanded to question the technical committee that had examined the equipment which was seized.
PAUL MASON: Outside, their supporters waited anxiously for news.
HEATHER ALLAN, Head of News Gathering, Al-Jazeera English: We believe we will be acquitted. The lawyers are fully on board with us. They fully believe in our case. They fully believe that we were just operating as journalists. We don’t have an agenda. We have got nothing against Egypt. We certainly don’t lie or do biased reporting.
PAUL MASON: What they’re accused of is more than that. This police footage complete with doomy soundtrack was played on a pro-government TV channel which labeled them a terrorist cell.
The charges they face today include manipulating footage to give a false image that Egypt is in the middle of a civil war and aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been designated a terrorist group.
NICHOLAS PIACHAUD, Amnesty International: Today’s trial sends a very clear message, I think: Egypt doesn’t tolerate dissent. That is a message at international media, but also national media in Egypt. These men face very serious criminal charges. But I think the real reason they are in jail right now is because they dared to question the narrative of the authorities. And that is really what this trial is about.
PAUL MASON: In December, these three secular youth leaders, instrumental in the original revolution of 2011, were given three years hard labor. The crackdown on the Brotherhood has come alongside repression of bloggers, secularists and democratic opposition parties.
NICHOLAS PIACHAUD:What we have right now is a widening circle of oppression, one that doesn’t just target supporters of Mohammed Morsi and news outlets like Al-Jazeera, but also bloggers like Alaa Abdul Fattah, people who were very opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood when they were in power.
PAUL MASON: The hearing was postponed until the 5th of March. The men remain behind these notorious walls.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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