Right Wing Nut House

John Little at Blogs of War links to a Lebanese website that reports a military coup is underway in Syria:

No newspapers are getting in or out of Syria, the media is controlled very tight, and the Syrian scene witnessed a dramatic, security deterioration the last 24 hours.

Precise Intelligence reports coming from Syria indicated massive army troops deployment around the capital Damascus. Most of the military Barracks of the Syrian Army around Damascus gave allegiance to the dissidents: Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan and General Ali Safi. These people in the Syrian Army were against the withdrawal from Lebanon.

It is known that President Bashar Assad is in the city of Alleppo, assessing the internal situation within Syria and trying to organize a “forced” return to Damascus.

The Jawa Report has a commenter with this information:

There are several reports on lgf (a couple by me and the original link by someone who’s nic I didn’t get) but they’re all to the free-lebanon.com report. The only other thing I have is some verbal reports that people checking have said the ISPs to Syria have been blocked for a week and that phone calls to friends in Damascus reveal a lot of military and tanks going up and down the streets and in Damascus proper but no one knows why or what happening, just that there’s a lot of rumors going around. And it was a military coup not a coup d’etat. Sorry. But there’s no report of anyone being killed….yet.

If Debka doesn’t have anything, it’s probable that these rumors won’t pan out.

If it is true, it wouldn’t surprise me. Dictators don’t last long when they appear to buckle to outside pressure-especially if it involves a humiliarting retreat for the military.

UPDATE: RUMORS UNTRUE

Got this via Little Green Footballs at Publius Pundit:

DENIED: Just got an email back from Joshua Landis from Syria Comment, who is inside Damascus.

Dear Robert,
Someone has a rich imagination. All is normal here as far as I can tell. Sunny spring day and everyone is bustling about happily. The military attaché at the US embassy just emailed me about what he should wear to dinner tonight - casual or formal? Didn’t suggest bullet proof vest, so I assume all is normal.

Best to you from Damascus.
Joshua

Publius has anothe email from a Syrian in Damascus that says the same thing.

And this on the Lebanese website that started it all:

Ohhhhh. Thanks for the info Robert! Word of warning. Take anything that comes out of LFP with a bucket full of salt. They are the post-Phalange group (the Israeli army’s proxy in Lebanon during the Civil War). Unfortuantely, as much as I support the Lebanese Opposition movement inside Lebanon, the outsiders (like LFP and other American based organisations) have a very different agenda to the real, nationalist independent opposition (like Walid Jumblatt - he’s even called for a dialogue with Hizbollah and close relationship with Syria, even keeping some troops in if there’s no political interference).

Should ‘ve known when even the rumor-mongering Debka site didn’t have anything that it was untrue.