Daily Beast: your first source on foreign affairs now tackles Syria

"It should be noted that Awad al Ali’s judgment, while widely endorsed by top-level defectors from the Assad regime, is not shared by the U.S. government, which holds that Al Qaeda terrorists were behind the string of bombings. The CIA declined to comment."  Who cares. Keep telling us your stories from the cafes of Istanbul. We are riveted, man.  "The interview in an Istanbul cafe, his first, lasted six hours."  Did you drink coffee or tea? Please tell us more. You seem to have obtained deep knowledge of the Middle East in those cafe meetings.  And i don't know about you, but Youtube evidence has always impressed me: "One element in the evidence al Ali cited was a YouTube video shown at the time in which a military defector, identified as Lt. Abdulkader al Khatib, claimed that Syrian state security had requisitioned seven corpses to be brought to the scene of the first explosion."  Look: how many evidence do you need? One is enough for me but he produces more than one: "Another piece of evidence arguing that the bombings were staged, rebel supporters say, was the speed with which state television aired a report blaming al Qaeda for the attack." And there is more: "According to the two former officials, the bombings were timed in almost every instance to impress visiting diplomats."  But Amb Robert Ford has this to add to make the plot thicker: "Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, said the bombing remains a mystery. “I don’t think we know how it was done,” he said."   Let me tell you this:  if someone deserve a Pulitzer for spending hours in Istanbul cafes, it is this writer of the series.  Cafe life is his calling.  Please encourage him not to quit.