State Dept. releases a bird’s eye view of Syria crackdown

The State Department wants you to see the crackdown in Syria. Today, it uploaded eight satellite images showing how President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have positioned artillery toward major protest centers.

The release was accompanied by a note by U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. “[S]ome try to equate the violence perpetrated by the regime with the violence perpetrated by the opposition,” he wrote. “[I]t is unfair to do so when one side is using such heavy weaponry… We are intent on exposing the regime’s brutal tactics for the world to see.”

That’s an argument that seems designed to undermine the case of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who criticized the recent Security Council resolution on Syria for not condemning the violence of armed groups within the country in the same language it used toward the Assad regime.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at a press briefing today that the United States will be releasing more declassified satellite imagery in the coming days. “Our intent here is to, obviously, expose the ruthlessness…of this regime and its overwhelming predominant military advantage and the horrible kinds of weaponry that it’s deploying against its people,” she said.

More pictures appear after the jump.