Iran Increasing Support to Help Assad Kill His People

Just as the latest chilling reports of government crackdowns in Syria emerged -- today, a 12-year-old boy was reportedly killed by security forces and a 10-year-old arrested to punish his parents -- another report surfaced that Bashar Assad's buddies in Tehran are playing an "increasingly active" role in the violent crackdown on demonstrators. Reports the Guardian:

"A senior western diplomat in Damascus expanded upon assertions, first made by White House officials last month, that Iran is advising President Bashar al-Assad's government on how to crush dissent.

The diplomat pointed to a 'significant' increase in the number of Iranian personnel in the country since protests began in mid-March.

Mass arrests carried out by door-to-door raids, similar to those that helped to crush Iran's 'green revolution' in 2009, have been ramped up in the past week.

Human rights groups suggest more than 7,000 people have been detained in total since the uprising began. More than 800 people are said to have died, up to 50 of them during last Friday's 'day of defiance'. 'Tehran has upped the level of technical support and personnel support from the Iranian Republican Guard to strengthen Syria's ability to deal with protesters,' the senior western diplomat said, adding that the personnel were not involved in any physical operations on the ground and numbered in the few hundreds.

'Since the start of the uprising, the Iranian regime has been worried about losing its most important ally in the Arab world and important conduit for weapons to Hezbollah [in Lebanon],' the diplomat said."

Also among this weekend's casualties are four women who were killed when government forces opened fire on an all-female demonstration against the regime.

Britain is among the nations now trying to get the United Nations to refuse Syria a seat on the Human Rights Council, a denial that should be a no-brainer but the body doesn't exactly have a golden record of weeding out human-rights abusers from its ranks. A supporter of Syria's appointment? Bahrain, where the ruling regime has enjoyed its own brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

If anyone harbors any doubts about the murderous acts of the Assad regime, take a look at the numerous videos of the carnage shot by brave Syrians and uploaded to YouTube (such as this one of Dara'a crackdown -- warning, the footage is bloody and graphic). Look at what Bashar Assad does to his own people.