Anne Barnard, doing her best for the Free Syrian Army cause, as usual

Look at these passages in her article:  she even tries to justify decisions by Jarba:  " its supporters hope that it will at least lead to increased humanitarian access and local cease-fires to make life easier for Syrian civilians."  As to how dialogue with the regime will increase humanitarian access, no one knows.  And just as Ms. Barnard has simply and casually distorted speeches and rhetoric by Nasrallah and Asad, she does it again here: "The government dismisses all opposition to its leadership as terrorism".  Say what you want against the lousy regime (and I do), but the regime does not in fact dismiss all opposition as "terrorism" and it always in fact makes distinctions between "patriotic opposition" and "hired opposition", regardless of the repressive practices of the regime.  We are talking about professional journalism and accuracy here and not about marshaling all the polemical weapons against the regime, as one reads in the propaganda of the Fee Syrian Army and in the dispatches of Ms. Barnard.  Ms. Barnard has repeatedly claimed in the past that Asad in his speeches dismissed the armed groups as "Sunni extremists" when he never invoked those terms at all (the Times had to print a correction on that one although it justified its usage by stating that Buthayna Sha`ban once used the word Wahhabi--I kid you not).   And finally, notice that Ms. Barnard does not mention that a Syrian rebel groups claimed responsibility (in vulgar sectarian terms) for the car bomb in Hirmil:  "The rocket attack came one day after a suicide car bombing killed four people, including the bomber, in the town of Hermel farther north along the border."