More history for the day

Rod Nordland and Hwaida Saad have an article in The New York Times about Syria:

Syrian insurgents fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad struck at high-profile targets in the capital region for the third time this week, demonstrating their increasing effectiveness and reach.
The latest attack was a double bombing. One bomb was detonated in the parking garage of the Palace of Justice in downtown Damascus, according to Syrian state television, and the other at a city police station, according to local residents. The day before, an attack destroyed another pro-government television station, and the opposition Free Syrian Army struck the barracks of the elite Republican Guard, next to the palace of President Assad.
These assaults followed a wave of high-level military defections from Assad’s forces, and a surprise visit by the former head of the opposition Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghalioun, who crossed into Syria and toured what he called liberated territory in Idlib, a city near the Turkish border.
While none of these developments were militarily decisive, they have helped build a public perception that the opposition, while still clearly an underdog fighting a large military machine, was finally making some headway.
Even Assad, who has often belittled the Syrian insurgency as an insignificant and unpopular movement, led by what he calls foreign-backed terrorists, has tacitly acknowledged his opponents’ tenacity, telling the cabinet that the government was engaged in a war.
The Syrian opposition has been far less successful off the battlefield at creating any impression of organized momentum. A bewildering array of groups claim to speak for the movement, including public figures who still cooperate with the Assad government and members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Abdul Baset Sayda, the leader of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella organization of expatriate dissidents, was chosen from the Kurdish minority in Syria as a compromise figure whom everyone could agree on.
All of Syria’s nongovernment opposition forces are expected at a meeting convened by the Arab League in Cairo. That such a gathering is happening for the first time in the sixteen-month uprising is telling. “There’s consensus on the essentials,” said Fayez Sara, a prominent opposition figure who has remained inside Syria. “The regime has to be removed.” Beyond that, however, differences are rife.
The conflict has long since moved past unarmed opposition groups holding demonstrations and enduring shelling and attacks from government forces as a result. Now in cities throughout Syria, including the capital, Damascus, and the largest city, Aleppo, the opposition has coalesced around armed groups identifying themselves as elements of the Free Syrian Army. From bases in refugee camps on the Turkish side of the border, the flow of weapons, medical supplies and money has increased.
And this all comes at a time when the authorities in Turkey, a former ally of Assad’s, have stepped up their militarization of the 550-mile border with Syria in response to the Syrian downing of a Turkish jet last week.
The conflict has also greatly increased in tempo and violence on all sides. Last June, there were about fourteen deaths of civilians and opposition fighters a day, or 411 total, according to figures compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based expatriate group with a network in Syria, which bases its data on victims who are positively identified. This month, the group said, about three thousand have already been killed so far.
The violence has especially worsened since the United Nations monitoring mission suspended its activities on 16 June. It has remained hobbled in Damascus and other major cities. As a result, Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, is convening an international conference of major powers and Syria’s neighbors in Geneva, many of whom are pushing for a political solution that would involve the removal of Mr. Assad.
That would make the conference of Syrian opposition figures even more important, but sniping among them has begun. A statement released by the Syrian National Coalition, a group led by a Syrian human rights activist, Ammar Qurabi, said the council should be considered one of many factions. “Negotiating or having dialogue with any one opposition faction is against the will of the people and the Syrian revolution,” the group said.
Even the Syrian National Council is a mixture of many factions, and Free Syrian Army officers have yet to acknowledge any particular political leadership. A Free Syrian Army commander, Colonel Riad al-Assad, and other rebel officers have at times been openly critical of the Syrian National Council.
On the ground in Syria, fighters have been exultant about their recent successes, however Pyrrhic they appear to be. Moaz, an activist from Damascus, said in a Skype interview that he recently visited Hammih in central Syria and was stunned to see the entire city under the Free Syrian Army’s control. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was no presence of government forces or regime people,” he said. There were also, however, no residents left in the city.
Many of the rebels’ victories so far have been, at best, qualified. The blasts in Damascus wounded a few people, according to Syrian authorities. The attack on the television station  disabled its broadcasts for less than a day, and while seven guards and news media workers were reported killed, the deaths also brought international and American condemnation for an attack on journalists.
Rebels initially sought to present that attack’s perpetrators as a defecting unit of the elite Republican Guard assigned to the television station, but local residents told journalists that the only guards there were local security guards, not military units. The attack on the Republican Guard base earlier in the week was described by the rebels themselves as only a probe by a small unit of fighters.
They still face a military machine half a million strong, and their lack of political unity makes it difficult for international backers to focus their support. “Even if we have a thousand FSA soldiers, that is nothing compared to the government’s military force,” Sara said. That makes the political cohesiveness of the opposition all the more important, he said. “I don’t deny that we have our differences,” he said, “but the opposition today is much better than yesterday.”

Rico says the group's name is reminiscent of the Free Wales Army, known to Brits at the time as the Fucking Welsh Arabs... And why is it that Rico can only hear Peter O'Toole's voice (in Lawrence of Arabia) saying 'Damascus'?