Middle East meltdown: protests over Syria turn deadly in Lebanon – growing chaos in Turkey

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/middle-east-meltdown-protests-over-syria-turn-deadly-in-lebanon/





Middle East meltdown: protests over Syria turn deadly in Lebanon – growing chaos in Turkey
Posted on June 10, 2013 by The Extinction Protocol

June 10, 2013 – LEBANON – Lebanese troops blocked streets in Beirut with tanks and barbed wire for several hours on Sunday after the killing of a protester outside the Iranian embassy raised factional tensions already inflamed by the war in Syria. The man died during a clash between rival groups of Shi’ite Muslims after militiamen from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement opened fire when protesters drew up at the embassy, the latest sign of Syria’s violence spilling over to its neighbors. In Syria itself, fighting intensified in the north, where rebels said President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies were preparing an offensive after success last week in seizing a strategic town further south. In the past week Assad’s forces and Hezbollah captured the town of Qusair, which controls vital supply routes across Syria and with Lebanon, a sign of reversing momentum after the rebels seized swathes of the country in the second half of last year. Battles raged on Sunday near Al-Nubbul and Zahra, two rural Shi’ite Muslim enclaves outside the commercial hub Aleppo in Syria’s north, and intensified in Aleppo itself. “The aim is to use the two villages as forward bases to make advances in Aleppo and its countryside,” said Brigadier General Mustafa Al-Sheikh, a rebel commander and former senior officer in Assad’s military, referring to government tactics. “The regime considers that it has received a shot in the arm after the Qusair battle, but they will find that it will not be easy to advance in Aleppo,” Sheikh said, speaking from an undisclosed location in northern Syria. The civil war now pits Assad, from the Alawite offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and Shi’ite Hezbollah against mainly Sunni Muslim rebel groups. Assad is backed by Shi’ite Iran and armed by Russia. The rebels are armed by Sunni Arab countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and backed by Turkey and the West. Much of the north near the Turkish border has been held by rebels since last year and frontlines inside Aleppo itself have been largely static for months. An article in the semi-official Syrian al-Watan daily said the Syrian army was “deploying heavily in the countryside near Aleppo in preparation for a battle that will be fought inside the city and on its outskirts. Besieged areas will be freed in the first stages and troops which have been on the defensive will go on the offensive,” the article said.
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