Assad set on arms transfers to Lebanon. Israel responds with no-fly zone DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 4, 2013, 12:06 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Bashar Assad arms traffic Saeed Jalili Israel Air Force Hizballah Israel Air Force imposes no-fly zone
Syrian ruler Bashar Assad has ordered the resumption of weapons transfers to the Lebanese Hizballah, debkafile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources report. This was agreed with Iran’s National Security Director Saeed Jalilee, who arrived in Damascus after Israel’s reported air strike last Wednesday, Jan. 30, inter alia, on Syrian trucks preparing to ferry to Lebanon for Hizballah the sophisticated Iran-supplied arms stored at the Jamraya military complex north of Damascus. The Syrian ruler assured the Iranian official that he would not be deterred by what he called acts of “aggression.” It was up to Syria and Iran to put their heads together to find a safe method of getting the hardware across to Hizballah without exposing it to Israeli attack in truck convoys on the open road. Jalilee is still in Damascus. He arrived Saturday to discuss with Syrian and Hizballah how to activate against Israel the secret mutual defense pact binding Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. According to our sources, Israeli military tacticians believe that as winter weather starts clearing up, Syria and Iran will devise crafty methods for outwitting Israel and getting the weapons to Lebanon – for example, disassembling the missiles and launchers and disguising them as non-lethal merchandize. They could then be spirited across from Syria to Lebanon in small packages by the smuggling rings regularly operating on their common border.
In anticipation of such tricks, the Israeli Air Force has in recent days thrown a round-the-clock blanket over the border area. It is constantly monitoring the traffic moving across and is ready to prevent any arms traffic. Without going through any formalities, Israel has thus effectively imposed a no-fly regime over a buffer zone straddling the Syrian-Lebanese border and placed it under the control of its air force.
Israeli officials have been warning for months that the IDF will not allow the transfer of advanced Syrian weapons – including chemical and biological weapons – to terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front and Hezbollah. Without directly confirming the Israel attack on the Jamraya military compound, defense minister Ehud Barak told the Munich security conference Sunday “…what happened in Syria several days ago… that’s proof that when we said something we mean it… and we say that we don’t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.” Israel’s actions to this end, including over flights by its air force which are widely reported by the Lebanese media, were undertaken after Assad was seen to be bent on testing Israel’s resolve to prevent arms transfers to Hizballah. These transfers were expressly prohibited under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the Israeli-Hizballah war in 2006.
Last edited by researcher on Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:23 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : un-pinned by researcher)
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Subject: With US Approval, Israel Plans Syria Escalation Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:43 pm
I posted that guest article under another log in name since deleted.
With US Approval, Israel Plans Syria Escalation New Plan Calls for Ground Invasion, Occupation of 'Buffer Zone' by Jason Ditz, February 03, 2013 Print This | Share This
Few things seem to get Israeli officials planning as quickly as a US imprimatur to launch an attack. Having been given the green light not just for Wednesday’s attacks but for other, future attacks Israel is now said to be planning a dramatic escalation.
The new Israeli plan, under consideration by its leadership, calls not only for additional strikes inside Syria but a full-scale ground invasion across the Purple Line, seizing a 10 mile “buffer zone” on the other side of the line in which to install large numbers of Israeli troops and tanks.
Israel’s previous strikes targeted a military research facility as well as a military convoy parked at a base. The convoy reportedly had anti-aircraft missiles on board, which Israel feared would make its regular attacks on Lebanon much less convenient should they fall into Hezbollah’s hands.
The new strikes would center around a putative Iranian listening post, which Iran is apparently using to keep an eye on Israel, which has regularly threatened to attack them.
The “buffer zone” plan is likely to be far more controversial and potentially explosive, since Israel already has a de facto 10 mile buffer zone it seized in 1967, the Golan Heights. In the past half a century Israel has filled this zone with 20,000 settlers, and the new zone would inevitably look like another land grab.
An Israeli invasion might provoke action from Turkey as well, which condemned Israel’s last strikes and has talked about setting up its own “buffer zone” in the far north, hoping to house Syrian refugees inside of that region instead of inside Turkey itself.
US comments on Israel’s attack amounted to unequivocal endorsement of the strikes and any future strikes, but didn’t specify just how far they’re comfortable with Israel going. Since this plan is under consideration at all, it seems safe to say that the Obama Administration is comfortable with leaving the scope of the war up to Israel, which given its current government’s bellicosity will inevitably mean as broad a scope as possible.
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Subject: Ahmadinejad- pact with Egypt~~4-6 months before Iran reaches nuclear capacity. Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:37 am
Ahmadinejad lands in Cairo 4-6 months before Iran reaches nuclear capacity. DEBKAfile Special Report February 5, 2013, 1:04 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Ahmadinejad Egypt Bashar Assad Binyamin Netanyahu Iran nuclear The Iranian nuclear challenge is coming closer The Iranian nuclear challenge is coming closer
As Israel’s old and new parties face off in the haggling for places in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s third government coalition, they are missing hectic events in the background which spell big trouble on their country’s back, front and side doors. This was heralded not least by the arrival in Cairo Tuesday, Feb. 5, of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his offer of a pact with Egypt to “solve the Palestinian problem,” which in his terms means “wiping Israel off the map.”
Iran’s main ally, the Syrian President Bashar Assad is already assured of his coalition with Moscow and Tehran for keeping his regime firmly in power for the foreseeable future. After nearly two years of bloody conflict for his overthrow, the Syrian opposition is knocking on Assad’s door cap in hand to plead with the tyrant for a negotiated end to the agony. Opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib has been bustling between US Vice President Joe Biden, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi at the Munich security conference, looking for a concerted multi-national effort to open Assad’s door. Iran’s National Security Director Saeed Jalili’s trip to Damascus Saturday, Feb. 2, was avowedly to plan retribution for Israel’s reported air strike on the Jamraya military complex and arms trucks near Damascus last Wednesday. But he also put in a word on behalf of negotiations and a request for Bashar Assad to state his terms for opening dialogue with the opposition. The Syrian ruler is playing hard ball. His strongest card is his regime’s proven survivability in defiance of every Western forecast, including Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s confident prediction since early last year that he would be gone “in weeks.”
Even the Syrian rebels fighting him are beginning to see that they can’t defeat the Assad regime and his army – as debkafile has been reporting for the past year – so long as their archenemy is sustained by Moscow and Tehran with supplies of arms, oil, money and diplomatic support on call.
The Iranian nuclear front never pauses. Tehran can easily afford the optimism voiced by the Iranian foreign minister in Munich Monday, Feb. 4, about the “bilateral dialogue” offered by Vice President Biden, which he welcomed. This is because Iran is no more than four to six months away from its goal. Former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Asher Yadlin, long perceived as the Israeli prime minister’s unofficial spokesman on the Iranian nuclear issue, spoke Monday in his capacity as the head of an Israel research tank, when he said in a lecture that Iran can “achieve breakout in four to six months.” MORE@LINK ABOVE
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Subject: Heavy fighting erupts in Syria Wed Feb 06, 2013 9:26 am
Heavy fighting erupts in Syria after suicide bomb By REUTERS 02/06/2013 16:46 Tweet Clashes follow a suicide car bomb attack on a military intelligence compound; rebels launch offensive, breaking temporary lull. FREE SYRIAN Army fighters pose on a tank FREE SYRIAN Army fighters pose on a tank Photo: Reuters
AMMAN - Heavy fighting erupted in Damascus on Wednesday as rebels launched an offensive against President Bashar Assad's forces, breaking a lull in the conflict, opposition activists said.
Assad's forces also came under attack in the east of the country, where a suicide car bomb struck a military intelligence compound in the city of Palmyra, causing dozens of casualties, they said. Related:
* Third Iron Dome stationed in North amid tensions
Authorities in Damascus closed the main Abbasid Square and the Fares al-Khoury thoroughfare as fighters attacked roadblocks and fortifications with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
"The areas of Jobar, Zamalka, al-Zablatani and parts of Qaboun and the ring road have become a battleground," activist Fida Mohammad said from the district of Qaboun.
Another activist said an army tank stationed at the main al-Kabbas roadblock on the ring road had been destroyed. Residents reported explosions across the east and north of the capital.
MORE@LINK
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Subject: ~!! ALERT !! IDF orders evacuation of civilian aircraft from Haifa airport (getting ready for war?) Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:35 am
IDF orders evacuation of civilian aircraft from Haifa airport
Citing security concerns, the Israeli Airports Authority has instructed all civilian planes making use of the northern airport to divert to other airports • Lebanese reports: Israeli warplanes conducting mock raids over Nabatiyeh.
Lilach Shoval and Daniel Siryoti and Israel Hayom Staff
All aircraft must be evacuated from the Haifa Airport because of security reasons. Pictured above, a local Israeli airport. [Archive] | Photo credit: Moshe Shai A third Iron Dome battery was deployed in northern Israel on Tuesday, amidst tension over the situation in Syria | Photo credit: David Cohen All aircraft must be evacuated from the Haifa Airport because of security reasons. Pictured above, a local Israeli airport. [Archive] | Photo credit: Moshe Shai >
Israel ordered all private aircraft out of the Haifa Airport by 11:00 Wednesday, citing security concerns, Army Radio reported.
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit refused to elaborate but said "security needs relating to the air space in the area have been addressed."
The airport is operated by the Israeli Airports Authority, who told Israel Hayom that any plane that needs to depart or land at the airport would be allowed to do so. However, Army Radio reported that the IDF had imposed a mandatory evacuation of the airport and has restricted flights for civilian aircraft in the area.
The move may be related to reports out of Lebanon that Israeli warplanes were on Wednesday conducting "mock raids" over Lebanese territory. According to the website of the Lebanese Ministry of Information, "Israeli warplanes were conducting mock raids over the area of Nabatiyeh."
The closure of Haifa airport comes a day after the IDF deployed its third Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in northern Israel, a week after the Israel Air Force, according to foreign reports, bombed an arms convoy and a military research center inside Syria.
Israel has said it could use military action to prevent chemical weapons and advanced arms from Syria slipping into the hands of terrorist groups as a result of the civil war there.
According to the Israeli military, the deployment of a third Iron Dome battery in the north was part of the system's operational implementation program at sites around the country.
Two Iron Dome batteries were deployed in Haifa and Safed over the past week, as tension on the northern border increased due to the situation in Syria.
Overall, Israel has five operational Iron Dome batteries. In the coming months, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems will deliver a sixth Iron Dome battery (with upgraded interception capabilities).
Meanwhile, fierce violence continued in Syria on Tuesday. Arab media outlets reported that rebels battled Syrian soldiers in Damascus and its suburbs on Tuesday and that 85 people were killed around the country.
The Syrian military also reportedly surrounded and shelled the city of Daraa in the southwestern part of the country.
Syrian opposition sources said on Tuesday that rebels had successfully gained control of Syrian military checkpoints and roadblocks on major highways across the country.
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Thu Feb 07, 2013 9:57 pm
FRANCE 24 Latest update: 07/02/2013 - Bashar al-Assad - civil war - Syria - unrest
Syrian army battles rebels on edges of Damascus Syria's army has launched a fierce assault against rebel fighters battling to enter the centre of Damascus, blasting strongholds and sealing the main entrances to the capital, as opposition factions bickered over dialogue with the Assad regime.
Israel Air Force now holds key to fate of Damascus, Assad regime DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 9, 2013, 2:06 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Syrian war Israel Air Force chemical weapons Damascus Israeli Air Force F-15-E figher-bombers
The Syrian rebels’ hyped up “Great Confrontation” to capture Damascus the capital has ended in a draw with Bashar Assad’s army like all their previous offensives in recent months. They failed to break through to the heart of the capital past the powerful Syrian army’s 4th Division standing in their path under the command of Gen. Maher Assad, the president’s brother. The rebels also lost their position on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. But amid heavy battles with the division's troops, the rebels are still clinging to the southern suburbs of Damascus. The Syrian capital (1.9 million inhabitants) is therefore the second city after Aleppo (2.3 million) to be divided between the combatants. debkafile’s military sources report that, notwithstanding the bitter fighting, the flow of refugees fleeing Syria has slowed down substantially, as many choose life in war zones over the wretched conditions prevailing in Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian refugee camps, where rudimentary essentials such as food, clean water, heating and basic medical services are lacking for the hundreds of thousands of dispossessed Syrians. Adding to these horrors, some Syrian families are said to be selling their daughters for food. The Syrian outward refugee movement now tends to be internal, people in embattled areas seeking asylum in regions outside the war zones, such as the Druze Mountains southeast of the Golan and Kurdish areas in the north. Since the Israeli air strike on the Syrian military complex of Jamraya on Jan. 30, Syria’s warring sides have been looking over their shoulders to assess Israel’s moves before embarking on the next stage of their contest because of two considerations:
1. debkafile’s military sources report that when the rebels first looked like breaking through to the heart of Damascus in the early part of their offensive – and so forcing Syrian President Bashar Assad to flee the capital – he ordered his army’s 4th Division tanks and short-range surface missiles to be armed with chemical weapons. They were to be used if the city’s defenses were breached. This would have made the battle for Damascus the first Syrian war engagement to deploy chemical weapons in combat. The only military force close enough to prevent this happening and destroying the forces wielding chemical arms was the Israel Air Force. Its intervention would have been critical in giving the rebels victory.
2. Ever since the Jamraya episode, Lebanon military sources report Israel Air Force fighters and surveillance planes are conducting over flights almost every day. According to our military sources, the Israeli aircraft are densely deployed over Syria’s borders with Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, to guard against two eventualities, which the Netanyahu government is bound to preempt:
a) Information has reached US and Israeli intelligence that Bashar Assad has vowed to his close circle that he will make Israel pay for Jumraya.
b) Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has directed the Syrian ruler to make every possible effort to transfer to Hizballah in Lebanon the batch of Iran-supplied sophisticated weapons stored in Syria. This directive was handed to Assad by Iran’s National Security Director Saeed Jalilee when they met in Damascus last Sunday, Feb. 3. All the parties concerned understand that Israel is just as determined to block this transfer as Tehran and Damascus are resolved to get it through.
In view of these challenges and their potential for an armed clash, Israel is keeping an eagle eye on every twist and turn of Assad’s forces in Damascus for any indications of the onset of chemical warfare or traffic on the move toward the Lebanese border with Hizballah’s weapons. The Syrian ruler for his part is busy hatching schemes for keeping this arms traffic out of the electronic sight of the Israel Air Force, whereas the Syrian rebels are laying plans for provoking a clash between the Syrian army and the Israeli air force to provide them with an opportune moment for bringing their “great confrontation” in Damascus to a successful conclusion.
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Subject: US ‘evaluates’ new options for Syria: Kerry Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:04 pm
Sounds like this is an extension of U.S. territory and we need to do something .. kind of notice!
US ‘evaluates’ new options for Syria: Kerry US Secretary of State John Kerry (R) answers a question as Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird looks on during a press briefing following their meeting at the State Department in Washington on February 8, 2013. US Secretary of State John Kerry (R) answers a question as Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird looks on during a press briefing following their meeting at the State Department in Washington on February 8, 2013. Sat Feb 9, 2013 11:9AM
US Secretary of State John Kerry says the White House is considering new options regarding the ongoing crisis in Syria.
"We are evaluating now, we’re taking a look at what steps, if any, diplomatic particularly, might be able to be taken in an effort to try to reduce that violence and deal with that situation," Kerry said in his first news conference as secretary of state on Friday.
The top US diplomat, however, refused to address a question about providing military assistance to the militants fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Kerry’s comments came after outgoing US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said he supports sending weapons to the militants in the Arab state.
Panetta voiced his support in a testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which centered on the attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi in September 2012.
The American official said he and the Pentagon backed the plan proposed by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus to arm and train militants in Syria. (act of war)
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Subject: Israel violates Lebanon's airspace to attack Syria: Analyst Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:13 pm
Israel violates Lebanon's airspace to attack Syria: Analyst An Israeli warplane (file photo) An Israeli warplane (file photo) Sat Feb 9, 2013 6:41PM
As long as the Israeli warplanes are violating the Lebanese airspace without any response or any reaction from the United Nations and from the UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon), which is in South Lebanon, Israel may use the Lebanese airspace again to launch an aerial attack against any other target in Syria.”
Political analyst Elias Farhat Related Interviews:
* 'UN silence emboldens Israel'
Israel violates the Lebanese airspace with a potential intention of launching airstrikes against Syria, a political analyst tells Press TV.
In a Friday interview with Press TV, Elias Farhat lashed out at the UN for emboldening Tel Aviv by keeping silence over Israel’s aggression against the Lebanese airspace.
“As long as the Israeli warplanes are violating the Lebanese airspace without any response or any reaction from the United Nations and from the UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon), which is in South Lebanon, Israel may use the Lebanese airspace again to launch an aerial attack against any other target in Syria,” he said.
“Lebanese government has to raise this issue with the Security Council because Israel uses our airspace to attack a third country which is an aggression; an act of aggression using our airspace,” the analyst stated.
Farhat pointed to Israel’s attack on a research center near the Syrian capital, Damascus, on January 30, and warned that if the Israeli violation of the Lebanese airspace continues, similar attacks against Syria can be expected in the future.
On Thursday, at least 12 Israeli warplanes violated Lebanon’s airspace, conducting several illegal flights over the country.
Lebanon's military often reports airspace violations by Israeli aircraft but does not usually open fire on them. The Israeli military claims the flights serve surveillance purposes.
The airspace violations, which are reported on an almost daily basis, contravene the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1701, which ended the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006.
ASH/SS/SL
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:46 am
Assad’s troops retreat from Golan, leaving Islamist rebels to confront Israel DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 19, 2013, 12:50 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Bashar Assad Syrian army Syrian rebels Golan Israel Al Qaeda Syria
Syrian rebels occupy Golan
President Bashar Assad has evacuated most of the troops of his 5th Army Division from their permanent bases on the Golan opposite Israeli forces and transferred the unit along with its artillery to Damascus, DEBKAfile’s military sources report
Assad’s troops retreat from Golan, leaving Islamist rebels to confront Israel
"Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk so as to look on their nakedness! You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness." Habakkuk 2:15
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Subject: West Pours Arms into Syria as Al Qaeda Mass Slaughters Civilians Sun Feb 24, 2013 9:41 am
MORE @ Blacklisted News Link
West Pours Arms into Syria as Al Qaeda Mass Slaughters Civilians West fueling deadly conflict that has allegedly killed 70,000.
West Pours Arms into Syria as Al Qaeda Mass Slaughters Civilians February 23, 2013 Print Version
Source: Tony Cartalucci, BLN Contributing Writer
Repeat a lie often enough, and hopefully people will begin to believe it. That is what a concerted effort by Western media houses hopes to achieve as they claim the recent flow of heavy weapons from Western nations and their Arab-Israeli partners is boosting "moderate rebels" and "tilting" the balance of Syria's conflict against the Syrian government.
The Washington Post in particular, sets the tempo for this coordinated propaganda campaign, claiming in their report, "In Syria, new influx of weapons to rebels tilts the battle against Assad," that:
A surge of rebel advances in Syria is being fueled at least in part by an influx of heavy weaponry in a renewed effort by outside powers to arm moderates in the Free Syrian Army, according to Arab and rebel officials.
The report also states:
The officials declined to identify the source of the newly provided weapons, but they noted that the countries most closely involved in supporting the rebels’ campaign to oust Assad have grown increasingly alarmed at the soaring influence of Islamists over the fragmented rebel movement. They include the United States and its major European allies, along with Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two countries most directly involved in supplying the rebels.
The Washington Post refuses to use the term, "Al Qaeda," and instead labels the international, Persian Gulf financed, armed, and harbored terror organization as, "radical Islamists." It quotes an unnamed Arab official as saying,:
"If you want to weaken al-Nusra, you do it not by withholding [weapons] but by boosting the other groups
Kitiara
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:03 pm
Loud explosion rocks Syria's Damascus, residents say
The blast came after a series of car bombs in central Damascus last week, the most serious of which killed at least 60 people, according to activists.
Subject: The Prophet Predicts The Fall of Damascus Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:31 pm
February 26, 2013 by count down to zero time
Isaiah The Prophet Predicts The Fall of Damascus. Could it be Happening Now?
Isaiah 17 could be in play in Damascus as I write this report. Things in Damascus are getting worse by the day. Chaos is rampant!
Read this headline. It is an eye-opener! Damascus is Falling Apart
After careful analysis of the headline above, it looks like Isaiah‘s prophecy could be in play. There issocial unrest, faction is turning against faction, the military is bombing its capital city as well are the insurgents. It looks like brother is against brother. If this keeps up the city will fall and be destroyed. The businesses are gone, the Christian population has left and those who still have common sense have fled the country all together.
There have been so many twists and turns over the last few years in the ME, it’s hard to know how the prophecy above will come
to pass. We can say this however, Damascus looks to be in grave danger and Syria is collapsing.
Jeremiah 49:20-24: Therefore hear the counsel of the Lord that He has taken against Edom, And His purposes that He has proposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely the least of the flock shall draw them out; Surely He shall make their dwelling places desolate with them. The earth shakes at the noise of their fall; At the cry its noise is heard at the Red Sea. Behold, He shall come up and fly like the eagle, And spread His wings over Bozrah; The heart of the mighty men of Edom in that day shall be Like the heart of a woman in birth pangs. Against Damascus. “Hamath and Arpad are shamed, For they have heard bad news. They are fainthearted; There is trouble on the sea; It cannot be quiet. Damascus has grown feeble; She turns to flee, And fear has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor.
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Subject: Kerry's 9-nation tour aimed at mounting pressure on Syria: MP Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:52 pm
Kerry's 9-nation tour aimed at mounting pressure on Syria: MP US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives at the Tegel Airport in Berlin on February 25, 2013. US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives at the Tegel Airport in Berlin on February 25, 2013. Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:24PM
An Iran parliament member says the forthcoming US Secretary of State’s nine-nation tour is aimed at creating a united anti-Syria front and securing US energy sources.
Ahmad Bakhshayesh said on Tuesday that the countries that US Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to visit are among the staunchest opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Washington is trying to prop up its foreign policy by creating unity among its old allies,” noted Bakhshayesh, who is a member of Iran Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy.
The lawmaker also pointed out that Kerry’s visit to the European countries, which have long backed Washington’s colonial policies, indicates that the US foreign policy will not undergo any change.
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Subject: Syrian Jets and Rebels Strike in Iraq, 13 Killed Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:46 pm
Syrian Jets and Rebels Strike in Iraq, 13 Killed Across Country by Margaret Griffis, March 06, 2013 Print This | Share This
The war in Syria continues to be a threat to Iraq’s western flank. Violence today included attacks from both the Syrian Air Force and Syrian rebels. Overall, at least 13 Iraqis were killed and eight more were wounded. MORE@LINK
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Subject: Burden of Damascus WW3 for Easter Chemical weapons ‘are being used Thu Mar 07, 2013 9:46 pm
March 8, 2013 by count down to zero time
Burden of Damascus WW3 for Easter Chemical weapons ‘are being used on children and babies in Syria by Assad’s army’
•Medics believe they have detected a nerve gas called Agent XV •Teenage victims are pictured in a French magazine suffering from horrific burns •Chemical weapons are being used against children in war-torn Syria, it was claimed today.Evidence of youngsters including babies being targeted includes pictures of them covered in horrific wounds.Surgeons believe they were caused by nerve gases including one called Agent XV which has been unleashed by the Syrian Army.
The civil war in Syria shows now signs of abating, and there are now claims chemical weapons are being used in the conflict
Paris Match, the French weekly magazine, today publishes disturbing pictures of some of the victims, including a boy identified only by his first name of Omar.
The 13-year-old saw all his family wiped out in an attack on their home in the city of Homs two months ago, saying that they were hit by ‘A bomb like no other’ which caused ‘yellow smoke’.
Omar escaped, but has since suffered all the symptoms of a nerve gas attack, including soars, paralysed limbs, burns and blisters. He has since been evacuated to Libya, where he is undergoing specialist treatment.
Other pictures include one of the hideously deformed hands of Salim, a boy of 11 who was admitted to a Homs hospital in November 2011 suffering from horrific burns.
It is claimed that nerve gas has been unleashed by the Syrian Army in the city of Homs
The French media, including Paris Match, today suggested that evidence of the gas attack means a ‘red line had been crossed’, and that western countries were duty bound to intervene in the civil war.
It follows William Hague, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, hinting that Britain could start arming rebel fighters in Syria within months.
Mr Hague warned this week warned that the conflict was becoming a ‘catastrophic’ humanitarian crisis.
He said that millions of pounds worth of armoured vehicles and body armour would be sent to Syrian rebels fighting to depose dictator Bashar al-Assad.
And he said Britain was ‘ready to move further’ if the fighting, which has already claimed 70,000 lives, continues to intensify.
As the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria topped one million, Mr Hague said Britain believed Assad could use chemical weapons against his own people.
Exodus: A refugee camp in Turkey, near the Syrian border. The UN says more than a million people have fled the bloody civil war and Syria is now heading for disaster
Testing equipment to provide evidence of any use of chemical weapons is also being sent.
Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 with protests against President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian rule.
When the government cracked down on demonstrators, the opposition took up arms and the conflict turned into a full-blown civil war.
The United Nations estimates that more than 70,000 people have been killed.
Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said yesterday the number of refugees has swelled dramatically this year, with most Syrians pouring into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.
The war has escalated in recent months, and more than 400,000 of those people become refugees since the start of 2013.
Guterres said the refugees often arrive in neighbouring countries ‘traumatised, without possessions and having lost members of their families’.
Around half are children, the majority under the age of 11.
Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:41 am
Thanks for posting all the great stuff and pictures!
Here is some new stuff: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9918785/US-and-Europe-in-major-airlift-of-arms-to-Syrian-rebels-through-Zagreb.html
US and Europe in 'major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb' The United States has coordinated a massive airlift of arms to Syrian rebels from Croatia with the help of Britain and other European states, despite the continuing European Union arms embargo, it was claimed yesterday.
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Subject: US-Israel-Turkish-Jordanian HQ to operate in Syria in chemical war Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:58 am
Joint US-Israel-Turkish-Jordanian HQ to operate in Syria in chemical war DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 8, 2013, 6:51 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: chemical weapons Syrian rebels Al Qaeda Syria USS Truman USS Truman on standby for chemical warfare \ A new US-led contingency headquarters for joint US, IsraelU, Jordanian and Turkish operations will go into action inside Syria if any or all these allies should come under chemical or biological attack. Agreement to establish this headquarters was finalized at the talks US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held with visiting Israeli defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Pentagon Tuesday, March 5.
debkafile’s military sources report that Hagel spoke of a chemical war in Syria in terms of an imminent and realistic eventuality. Washington expected the Syrian rebels close to al Qaeda to initiate this type of warfare and the Syria army to fight back in kind. Such an exchange could quickly spill over the Syrian borders to its neighbors, it was likewise predicted. The abduction of 21 UNDOP Filipino UN observers Wednesday, March 6, by the Islamist Martyrs of the Yarmouk, is now seen as tying in closely with the next plans of the Islamist militias of the Syrian rebel force, headed by Jabhat al-Nusra, which are to cement their grip on the Syrian Golan, eastern Syria and the Upper Euphrates, where the important towns of Deir Azor and Abu Kemal are situated.
Therefore, the parties involved in their release refute the optimistic accounts of the blue-helmeted hostages’ early release issuing from Damascus, UN headquarters in New York and Middle East capitals.
By strengthening their holdings in eastern Syria, the Islamist militias believe they would pave the way for the creation of an al Qaeda-dominated territorial entity, the first of its kind, ranging from the eastern outskirts of Damascus to the northern approaches to Baghdad.
Jabhat al Nusra, al Qaeda’s most effective combat force in Syria and Iraq, is determined to go through with this plan, even if it necessitates fighting with the chemical or biological weapons they have managed to get hold of.
The kidnappings of UN observers have attracted worldwide attention and put the Islamist camp now dominating the Syrian rebel movement on the map as a force to be reckoned with and respected – internally and internationally.
The US defense secretary warned his Israeli visitor that the intelligence data reaching him indicates that al Qaeda and its affiliates will prefer multiple chemical attacks inside Syria and across its borders for greater effect, rather than aiming for single targets. Each of the victimized countries will then have to decide whether to react at once, or wait for the member-governments under the new headquarters to get their act together for a collective response.
Our military sources add that the new headquarters places under one roof the American, Israeli, Turkish and Jordanian counter-WMD commands operating separately since last year in Tel Aviv, Ankara, Beirut, Amman and areas abutting Syria.
According to those sources, although US defense spending cuts have held up the overhaul and refitting of the USS Harry S. Truman carrier and its strike force and their departure for the Middle East, the ship and its air combat unit are nonetheless on standby for deployment in the event of chemical warfare raising its head in the Syrian conflict.
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Subject: UN Syrian Golan UN observers scramble to safety in Israel Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:12 pm
Hundreds of UN Syrian Golan UN observers scramble to safety in Israel DEBKAfile Special Report March 11, 2013, 5:25 AM (GMT+02:00)
The flight of hundreds of UN Disengagement and Observers Force (UNDOF) soldiers - Indian, Austrian and Filipino - in trucks and APCs from the Syrian side of Golan into Israel was in full swing early Monday, March 11. debkafile quotes them as telling Israeli officers manning the Israeli side of the enclave that their commanders urged them to get out when they could because “We can no longer vouch for your safety.” Many more UN troops are expected to make their way during the day to refuge in IDF camps across the border. Their officers, they said, had already placed their belongings aboard waiting vehicles ready to move across as soon as they received permission from their governments in Vienna, New Delhi and Manila or the UN Secretariat in New York. Our military sources report that this mass exit signals the breakup of the 1,000-strong UNDOF which for 39 years manned the 8 sq. km separation zone between Syria and Israel. It was set up in 1974 to end the war of attrition fought in the sequel to the Yom Kippur War between the IDF and Cuban armored brigades flown in from Angola by the Soviet Union to support the Syrian army. The UN force’s collapse began with the Croatian government’s recall of its 100 troops last week.
As the peacemakers flee, Russia is today hardly likely to interfere with who gets to control the Golan separation zone which was split between Syria and Israel.
debkafile reports three potential candidates are eying the sliver of land for different reasons:
1. The Martyrs of Yarmuk Islamist militia force of the Syrian rebel movement, which staked its claim last week by kidnapping 21 blue-and-white helmeted Filipino observers on the Golan and later releasing them in Jordan.
It is feared in Washington, Jerusalem and Amman, that Al Qaeda-associated forces will waste no time in overrunning the highly strategic patch of Golan borderland, armed with chemical weapons and even Scud D missiles captured from Syrian army bases. They may even be plotting an attack during President Barack Obama’s visits to Jerusalem and Amman, starting March 20.
debkafile’s military sources report that in sync with the UN observers’ escape, Israeli military reinforcements are massing on the Golan Syrian border. 2. US, Jordan and/or Israel may step in to keep the Islamists out, using either large special forces units for ground raids or a swarm of armed drones. 3. Hizballah militia units were spotted Sunday night on the move from south Lebanon toward the Lebanese-Syrian border areas abutting on the Golan separation zone.
Unreal Combat Footage Shot From Syrian Government Tank Shows Complete Devastation
Adam Taylor Business Insider March 11, 2013
The footage below, uploaded to YouTube by the U.K.’s Channel 4, gives a startling glimpse into the Syrian war from an unusual perspective — the turret of a Syrian government tank.
The video shows Darya, a suburb of Damascus, nearly devastated with the Syrian regime patrolling and shooting at rebel positions.
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Subject: Here is news of Golan: Heavy Fighting near Golan Heights! Thu Mar 14, 2013 9:58 pm
I'm now having trouble with where to post some news regarding both Syria and Israel.
Heavy Fighting near Golan Heights as Rebels Swarm Area 1,000 Rebels Move Into Area Between Damascus, Golan Heights by Jason Ditz, March 13, 2013 Print This | Share This
A major new battle is shaping up in southern Syria, roughly 6 km south of metro Damascus and 25 km from the Golan Heights, with locals reporting large amounts of gunfire and explosions.
The fighting contests a region called Khan Sheih, where the Fourth Mechanized Division, headed by President Bashar Assad’s brother Maher is fighting what rebels say is a combined force of around 1,000 rebel fighters.
The fighting began when a missile squadron’s position was overrun earlier in the week, and troops are now struggling with rebels over control of several towns in the area, with rebels saying their goal is to weaken the army siege on the Damascus suburb of Daraya, long rebel-held.
Rebel and government forces have been fighting in the Golan Heights for weeks, and last week the rebels captured 21 UN soldiers who were monitoring the Syria-Israel ceasefire. The troops were released over the weekend.
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Subject: Syria Losing Control of Iraq Border to al-Qaeda Linked Rebels Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:07 pm
Syria Losing Control of Iraq Border to al-Qaeda Linked Rebels Only One Crossing Remains in Government Hands by Jason Ditz, March 13, 2013 Print This | Share This
The closure of the Rabia Crossing between Iraq and Syria earlier this month was part of a growing trend of Syrian border crossings falling under rebel control. While in Turkey the crossings have given rebels direct access to foreign supplies, Iraq has so far chosen to just close those crossings, it takes supply routes away from the Syrian government.
This has left Syria with fewer and fewer land routes to the outside world, and the al-Walid-at Tanf crossing is the last ground route into neighboring Iraq that government officials can use, along a roughly 600 km border.
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Subject: Assad ready to use chemical weapons Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:25 am
Intelligence chief: Assad ready to use chemical weapons Aviv Kochavi says Islamist groups on Israel’s borders are veering away from global jihad and toward ‘local jihad’
Israel’s military intelligence chief on Thursday said Syria’s embattled president, Bashar Assad, is preparing to use chemical weapons.
Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi told a security conference in the coastal town of Herzliya that Assad is stepping up his offensive against rebels trying to oust him.
He claimed Assad is making advanced preparations to use chemical weapons, but has not yet given the order to deploy them. He did not disclose information about why he thinks Assad is preparing to use them.
Kochavi spoke for the better part of an hour, detailing the effects on Israel of the transformation of the Middle East in recent years.
Kochavi said that across the region, a lack of water, a rising demand for energy and an increasing difficulty in providing food for civilians, coupled with rising religious extremism and the overthrow of the long-enduring dictatorships, have thrown the region into profound tumult, creating “a completely different Middle East.”
The four primary Muslim powers in the region — Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia — are all governed by religious rule, and Israel, “for the first time in decades,” faces strife on four of its borders — Syria, Lebanon, Sinai and Gaza.
Increasingly, continued Kochavi, the Islamist groups on Israel’s borders were veering away from global jihad and toward “local jihad.”
In Syria, the air force is flying 40-50 sorties per day against civilians. The price of bread has gone up sevenfold over the past year. Oil production is down 40 percent. The army is able to draft only 20 percent of each recruited class. Some 45,000 troops have defected. Morale is low, the structure of command is weak, the troops are scattered. Finally, 11 of 17 border crossings are currently in rebel hands.
“Syria as a whole state no longer exists,” Kochavi claimed.
Israel has long expressed concerns that Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons could end up in the hands of groups hostile to Israel like Hezbollah or al-Qaeda-inspired organizations.
Israel has kept out of Syria’s civil war, but it is concerned that violence could spill over the border into northern Israel.
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Subject: CIA to begin covert drone killing program in Syria Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:10 pm
CIA to begin covert drone killing program in Syria
by Phantom Report on March 15, 2013
Source: LA Times
The CIA has stepped up secret contingency planning to protect the United States and its allies as the turmoil expands in Syria, including collecting intelligence on Islamic extremists for the first time for possible lethal drone strikes, according to current and former U.S. officials.
President Obama has not authorized drone missile strikes in Syria, however, and none are under consideration.
The Counterterrorism Center, which runs the CIA’s covert drone killing program in Pakistan and Yemen, recently shifted several targeting officers to improve intelligence collection on militants in Syria who could pose a terrorist threat, the officials said.
The targeting officers have formed a unit with colleagues who were tracking Al Qaeda operatives and fighters in Iraq. U.S. officials believe that some of these operatives have moved to Syria and joined Islamic militias battling to overthrow President Bashar Assad.
The CIA effort, which involves assembling detailed dossiers on key militants, gives the White House both lethal and nonlethal options if it concludes that Syria’s 2-year-old civil war — which has caused 70,000 deaths, according to United Nations estimates — is creating a haven for terrorists. The intelligence files also could be used to help opposition figures with moderate views prevail over extremists.
The targeting is part of an array of CIA and Pentagonresponses and contingency plans as the Syrian bloodletting steadily worsens, threatening regional stability. Other proposals include plans to seize or destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, which are closely monitored by U.S. intelligence, to prevent their misuse.
The targeting officers focusing on Syria are based at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., officials said. The agency has not deployed many American operatives into the war zone, but it works closely with Saudi, Jordanian and other regional spy services active there. CIA officers meet with Syrian rebel leaders in Turkey and Jordan, current and former officials say.
The increased U.S. effort comes as radicalized Islamic fighters have won a growing share of rebel victories. The State Department says one of the strongest militias, Al Nusra Front, is a terrorist organization that is indistinguishable from the group Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Amnesty International reported Thursday that some Syrian opposition fighters routinely executed captives and suspected informants,
MORE@LINK
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Subject: Exclusive: Iran steps up weapons lifeline to Assad Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:11 pm
Exclusive: Iran steps up weapons lifeline to Assad
by Phantom Report on March 16, 2013
Source: Reuters
Iran has significantly stepped up military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in recent months, solidifying its position alongsideRussia as the government’s lifeline in an increasingly sectarian civil war, Western diplomats said.
Iranian weapons continue to pour into Syria from Iraq but also increasingly along other routes, including via Turkey and Lebanon, in violation of a U.N. arms embargo on Iran, Western officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Iraqi and Turkish officials denied the allegations.
Iran’s acceleration of support for Assad suggests the Syrian war is entering a new phase in which Iran may be trying to end the battlefield stalemate by redoubling its commitment to Assad and offering Syria’s increasingly isolated government a crucial lifeline, the envoys said.
It also highlights the growing sectarian nature of the conflict, diplomats say, with Iranian arms flowing to the Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah. That group is increasingly active on the ground in Syria in support of Assad’s forces, envoys say.
The Syrian conflict started out two years ago as a pro-democracy movement. Some 70,000 people have been killed and more than 1 million refugees have fled the violence.
A Western intelligence report seen by Reuters in September said Iran was using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to aid Assad. Iraq denied that report but later made a point of inspecting an Iran-bound flight that it said had no arms on board.
Much of the weaponry going to Syria now, diplomats say, continues to be shipped to Iran through Iraqi airspace and overland through Iraq, despite Baghdad’s repeated promises to put a stop to Iranian arms supplies to Assad in violation of a U.N. arms embargo on Tehran over its nuclear program.
“The Iranians really are supporting massively the regime,” a senior Western diplomat said this week. “They have been increasing their support for the last three, four months through Iraq’s airspace and now trucks. And the Iraqis really are looking the other way.”
“They (Iran) are playing now a crucial role,” the senior diplomat said, adding that Hezbollah was “hardly hiding the support it’s giving to the (Syrian) regime.”
He added that the Syrian civil war was becoming “more and more sectarian,” with Sunnis – an increasing number of whom come from Iraq – battling Shi’ites and members of Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
Ali al-Moussawi, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s media adviser, strongly denied the allegations, saying on Wednesday: “No, such a thing never happened. Weapons did not and will not be transferred from Iran to Syria through Iraq, whether by land or by air.”
Russia, diplomats said, also remained a key arms supplier for Assad. Unlike Iran, neither Syria nor Russia is subject to a U.N. ban on arms trade and are therefore not in violation of any U.N. rules when conducting weapons commerce. But accepting Iranian arms would be a violation of the U.N. Iran sanctions.
Assad’s ally Russia criticizes U.S., European and Gulf Arab governments for their aid to Syrian rebels seeking to topple Assad.
Russia has said repeatedly that its military support for Syria includes anti-missile air defense systems but no attack weapons such as helicopters.
Moscow says it is not wedded to Assad but that the rebels and government should talk and Assad’s departure should not be a condition for a deal as the opposition and its supporters insist. Along with China, it has used its Security Council veto to block punitive U.N. measures against Syria’s government.
ARMS SUPPLIES VIA TURKEY AND LEBANON?
Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s U.N. mission, responded to a request for a comment by saying, “We believe Syria does not need any military help from Iran.”
“Unfortunately the situation in Syria and the whole Middle East region is becoming more and more delicate and risky because of foreign interference and funneling of arms to the extremist groups,” he said, repeating that Tehran wanted to end the conflict through dialogue between the government and opposition.
Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The diplomats cited by Reuters made clear that the principal delivery route for arms to Syria still went through Iraq, despite the existence of alternative supply channels such as Turkish airspace. They also said that Iran Air and Mahan Air were well-known violators of the Iranian arms embargo.
Iran Air and Mahan Air were both mentioned in the intelligence report on Iranian arms shipments to Syria seen by Reuters in September. The U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted Iran Air, Mahan Air and Yas Air for supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
One Western diplomat cited intelligence reports from his country that a new avenue for sending arms to Syria went on occasion through Turkish airspace to Beirut and from there to Syria by truck. There was no suggestion, he said, that Turkish officials were aware of the illicit arms shipments.
Once in Syria, he said, the arms were distributed to government forces and allied militia, including Hezbollah.
“The equipment being transferred by both companies (Iran and Mahan Air) … ranges fromcommunications equipment to light arms and advanced strategic weapons, some of which are being used devastatingly by Hezbollah and the Syrian regime against the Syrian people,” said the Western intelligence report.
“The more sophisticated gear includes parts for various hardware such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), shore-to-sea missiles and surface-to-surface ballistic missiles (SSMs),” the report said. “Other weapons are being used by Syrian security forces, pro-Assad shabbiha militiamen, and Lebanese Hezbollah.”
There are about 5 tons of arms per flight, which are occurring on a near weekly basis, hidden in the bottom of the planes’ fuselages, the report said, adding that arms cargo was removed separately after civilian cargo was unloaded. MORE@LINK
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Subject: British SAS on Syria Alert Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:12 pm
UK special forces are being pulled out of Afghanistan ahead of a planned mission to help Syrian rebels. SAS and SBS commanders are drawing up top secret plans to give the fighters much-needed weapons. A Whitehall source revealed SAS and SBS veterans are being “quietly” withdrawn from Afghanistan to prepare for their new mission. They will be working with guidance from MI6 and their French counterparts, the Directorate-General for External Security, to get a £20million Brit-funded arsenal stockpiled in neighbouring countries into rebel hands.
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Subject: Game-changer:French, British arms may tilt clashes in opposition’s favor in Syria Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:15 pm
Game-changer:French, British arms may tilt clashes in opposition’s favor in Syria
by Phantom Report on March 15, 2013
Source: Today’s Zaman France and Britain seem willing to supply arms to the Syrian opposition, a step which most analysts see as a potential game-changer in the two-year-old Syrian civil war. “This may be taken as an indication that the critical phase on the path to success has been entered,” said Birol Akgün from the International Relations Department of Necmettin Erbakan University in Konya.
French President François Hollande announced, before a European Union summit in Brussels on Thursday, that France would try to convince members of the European Union to lift the arms embargo the union had imposed on Syrian opposition fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime. “Britain and France agree on this option,” the president announced.
“Should the West supply the opposition with heavy weapons, it would seriously change the balance on the ground,” Akgün commented to Today’s Zaman. France and Britain found little support for their proposal to ease the embargo at an EU summit in Brussels, EU diplomats told Reuters, although they asked the bloc’s foreign ministers to look again at the issue next week. “I hope further progress will be made,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said at a press meeting in Brussels on Friday.
Though Cameron noted that Britain, as a sovereign country, wouldn’t have to abide by the renewal of the EU arms embargo on Syrian opposition when the issue comes up in May, he revealed that Britain didn’t want to provide weapons to opposition fighters at the moment. “What we want to do is to work with them and make sure they are doing the right thing,” he said, affirming at the same time that Britain and France share a “common analysis of what is wrong in Syria.”
France is ready to go it alone if its efforts to convince its partners in the EU fail. “Should one or two countries block the move… France itself would take responsibility,” Hollande told press the previous day. The EU sanctions on Syria, of which an arms embargo on the opposition is a part of, are to expire at the end of May, if the EU doesn’t agree to extend the their duration.
Atilla Sandıklı, chairman of the İstanbul-based Wise Men Center for Strategic Studies (BİLGESAM), also believes the supply of heavy weapons such as anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons would substantially strengthen the opposition in their efforts to overthrow the Assad regime. As the opposition forces in Syria develop into a more organized structure, the supply of arms by Western countries would also get a boost, according to Sandıklı.
“If a temporary government is established [by the opposition], with the Free Syrian Army having achieved coming together under a single structure, then Western support would increase, which in turn would facilitate the downfall of the regime,” he told Today’s Zaman.
A senior French official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that anti-aircraft missiles were among weapons that might be supplied to already identified groups of opposition fighters in Syria. Germany is ready to discuss the issue, but Prime Minister Angela Merkel also expressed, at a news conference on Thursday, misgivings that the arms might get into the hands of radicals within the opposition. Germany would take a measured approach, she said.
Yaşar Yakış, president of the Ankara-based Center for Strategic Communication (STRATİM), is of the opinion that supplying the opposition with heavier weapons would only serve to increase the casualties in the civil war. “The reasoning that says providing them with heavier weapons will decrease the death toll is wrong,” he told Today’s Zaman, adding, “Each weapon transported to Syria would just raise the death toll.”
Yakış’s words imply that even if the opposition forces were provided with heavier weapons, it wouldn’t be easy to bring about the downfall of the regime in the short term, given that Russia and Iran, on their part, will continue supplying arms to the Assad regime. Yakış, a former minister of foreign affairs, also warned that providing the opposition with arms without obtaining international legitimacy, which would require a decision to be taken by the United Nations Security Council, would set a bad precedent in international relations.
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:35 am
‘Red line’ Suffocating in the streets: Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria Posted on March 19, 2013 by The Extinction Protocol
Residents and medics transport a wounded Syrian army soldier to hospital Tuesday after heavy fighting in Aleppo province during which both rebels and government forces said a chemical weapon was used.
March 19, 2013 – DAMASCUS – Syria’s government and rebels accused each other of launching a deadly chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday in what would, if confirmed, be the first use of such weapons in the two-year-old conflict. Syria’s state news agency SANA said the rebels had launched a missile, while the rebels said the government had fired a long-range missile with “chemical agents. Terrorists fired a rocket containing chemical substances in the Khan al-Assal area of rural Aleppo,” SANA said. A Reuters photographer visited two hospitals and saw people with breathing problems, who told him that they saw people dying in the streets and that the air smelled strongly of chlorine. U.S. President Barack Obama, who has resisted overt military intervention in Syria’s civil war, has warned Assad that any use of chemical weapons would be a “red line.” A spokeswoman for Britain’s Foreign Office said it was aware of the reports, adding that the use of chemical weapons, if proven, would “demand a serious response from the international community and force us to revisit our approach so far.” Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi put the death toll at 16 and said 86 people were wounded, most of them critically. In a televised news conference, he said the country’s armed forces would never use internationally banned weapons. “Syria’s army leadership has stressed this before and we say it again, if we had chemical weapons we would never use them due to moral, humanitarian and political reasons,” Zoabi said. However, a Syrian rebel commander denied the reports, insisting the government had fired the rocket during intense fighting in the area. “We were hearing reports from early this morning about a regime attack on Khan al-Assal, and we believe they fired a Scud with chemical agents,” Qassim Saadeddine, a senior rebel and spokesman for the Higher Military Council in Aleppo, said. “Then suddenly we learned that the regime was turning these reports against us. The rebels were not behind this attack,” he added. The Reuters photographer, who visited the University of Aleppo hospital and the al-Rajaa hospital in Aleppo city, said he saw patients who were suffering from breathing problems. “I saw mostly women and children,” he said. “They said that people were suffocating in the streets and the air smelt strongly of chlorine. People were dying in the streets and in their houses,” he added. Syrian state TV aired footage of what it said were casualties of the attack arriving at one hospital in Aleppo. Men, women and children were rushed inside on stretchers as doctors inserted medical drips into their arms and oxygen tubes into their mouths. None had visible wounds to their bodies, but some interviewed said they had trouble breathing. Three boys lay on the floor beside each other with drips in their arms. One man was taken from an ambulance wearing combat trousers. An unidentified doctor interviewed on the channel said the attack was either “phosphorus or poison.” -MSNBC
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Subject: McCain and Graham push for US to invade Syria Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:15 pm
McCain and Graham push for US to invade Syria March 20, 2013 Print Version
Source: RT
Syrian government and the opposition accuse each other of using chemical weapons. The US considers this a “red line” – and two US senators are now urging Washington to declare war in response to alleged use of the weapons.
As the Assad government and the opposition throw out accusations over the use of chemical weapons and the US is assessing the situation, two US senators are urging the president to go to war. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) released a statement on Wednesday, urging President Obama to ‘take immediate action’ and consider deploying troops.
"President Obama has said that the use of weapons of mass destruction by Bashar Assad is a 'red line' for him that 'will have consequences,'" the statement reads. "If today's reports are substantiated, the President's red line has been crossed, and we would urge him to take immediate action to impose the consequences he has promised."
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Subject: Rocket fired in Aleppo contained Agent 15 Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:23 pm
DEBKAfile: Rocket fired in Aleppo contained Agent 15 DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 20, 2013, 8:07 AM (GMT+02:00) Tags: chemical weapons Syria Syrian rebels Bashar Assad Barack Obama Troops equipped for chemical warfare
Western military sources have told DEBKA file that three chemicals were believed present in the Scud B rocket which exploded in the Aleppo neighborhood of Khan al-Assal Tuesday March 19: phosphorus, chlorine and Agent 15 or BZ. Although the Assad regime and the rebels charged each other with firing the rocket, which killed 15-31 people and injured more than a hundred, it was not possible to verify which side was actually responsible. The White House denied it was the rebels, while Moscow insisted that it was, in support of the accusation from Damascus. The assumption in Israeli security circles is that either or both sides may have tried a one-shot use of a chemical weapon to test the limits of world-power tolerance. The incapacitating Agent 15 which causes choking is the least harmful of Assad’s chemical arsenal. A US army spokesman said the American armed forces had plans for intervening in the Syrian conflict if chemical weapons were used.
debkafile reported Tuesday:
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Subject: Syrian Rebel Coalition Crumbling: President Resigns Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:59 pm
Syrian Rebel Coalition Crumbling: President Resigns Rebel Military Chief Rejects New PM by Jason Ditz, March 24, 2013 Print This | Share This
Syria’s National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (CORF) has repeatedly claimed to be on the brink of unifying the rebel movement in a way that would facilitate more international aid. This weekend though, it looks like the CORF is on the brink of collapse.
The group’s president, Moaz al-Khatib has announced his resignation today, citing the lack of international support as a principle reason. Khatib had only held the position for a few months, and was controversial in being one of the few rebel figures who gave lip-service to a negotiated settlement, something which riled others in the CORF.
Khatib’s departure leaves Ghassan Hitto, who was named “prime minister in exile” last week, as the closest thing the group has to a leader. Yet his position is enormously weak, and that weakness stretches beyond him being just a few months removed from being a middle manager for a small company in Dallas.
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Subject: US military has plans to bomb and send forces in Syria: Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:34 pm
US military has plans to bomb and send forces in Syria: Washington Post Scores of people, mostly civilians, were rushed to hospitals in Aleppo following the terrorist chemical attack on March 19, 2013. Scores of people, mostly civilians, were rushed to hospitals in Aleppo following the terrorist chemical attack on March 19, 2013. Mon Mar 25, 2013 10:49AM The US military has prepared plans ranging from aerial bombings to deploying troops to “seize [chemical] weapons sites” inside Syria but has reservations against such moves, fearing a political backlash to the US intervention as well as lack of coordination with its regional allies.
“If we had to go in tomorrow, I’d say we aren’t ready,” said an unnamed Obama administration official “involved in the preparations for securing Syria’s chemical weapons” quoted in a Washington Post report on Monday.
“One thing we want to avoid is having one group securing the sites and another group bombing them,” added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Following reports of a chemical attack near the Syrian major city of Aleppo by foreign-sponsored terrorist gangs trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Al-Assad, US President Barack Obama said he had directed his “teams” to “find out precisely whether or not this red line was crossed,” the report adds, suggesting an American effort to blame the attack on the Syrian government.
The Obama administration “has sent thousands of protective suits and more than 150 military personnel to help train special forces teams” near Syria’s border with Jordan, where it claims “the largest” chemical arms depots are located, the report adds, citing US and Middle Eastern officials. MORE@LINK
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Subject: Saudi heavy weapons supply to Syrian rebels breaks up Arab summit in uproar Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:44 pm
Saudi heavy weapons supply to Syrian rebels breaks up Arab summit in uproar DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 28, 2013, 11:13 AM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Saudi Arabia Syrian rebels Rocket launchers Prince Bandar Qatar Turkey Arab League The heavy MLRS rocket launcher in Syrian rebel hands The heavy MLRS rocket launcher in Syrian rebel hands
Syrian rebels fighting for control of the Syria’s biggest town, Aleppo, have obtained their first heavy weapons – 220-mm MLRS rocket launchers – through a large-scale supply operation run by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, according to debkafile’s exclusive intelligence sources.
His agents scoured the Balkans nations of Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo and for large wads of cash snapped up Russian-made MLRS (Smerch) and Hurricane 9K57 launchers capable of firing scores of 220-mm rockets to a distance of 70 kilometers. The Saudis hope to expedite the rebel capture of the big Syrian Nairab air base attached to Aleppo’s international air port. The Saudi prince has personally taken the Nairab battle under his wing, convinced that it is the key to the conquest of Aleppo, once Syria's national commercial and population center, after more than a year’s impasse in the battle for its control. The fall of this air base would also substantially reduce the big Iranian and Russian airlifts to Assad’s army.
Russia brings down its cargo planes loaded with weapons and replacement parts for the Syrian army at Nairab after the air facilities around Damascus were targeted by rebel fire. Moscow has since warned the rebels that if they attack incoming or outgoing Russian planes at Nairab, Russian special forces will come in to wipe out their strength around the base and take over its protection themselves.
Of late, Russian and Iranian arms lifts to Nairab were doubled, after rebels seized many Alawite villages in the Aleppo and Idlib regions of northern Syria.
Members of Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect, their inhabitants, mainly women and children, have been fleeing en masse from their homes in fear of rebel retribution. They are making for the coastal towns of Tartus and Latakia which are still under regime control. The question is for how long. In the third week of March, Russian warships stopped docking at the naval port of Tartus after finding its piers and facilities crowded with Alawite refugees who came up to the Russian seamen begging for food, water and medical aid. From March 21, Russian warships on the Mediterranean were ordered to avoid Tartus and relocate their visits to Lebanon’s Beirut port.
The Saudi operation for shipping heavy rocket launchers from the Balkans to Aleppo is complicated.MORE@LINK ABOVE
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Subject: Rebels Shell Damascus University: 15 Students Killed Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:01 am
Rebels Shell Damascus University: 15 Students Killed White House 'Deeply Concerned' by Attack by Jason Ditz, March 28, 2013 Print This | Share This
A mortar attack by an as-yet-unidentified group of rebels have shelled Damascus University today, killing 15 people and wounding a number of others at the university cafeteria.
The university was likely not the intended target for the attack. Rather, it is located in central Damascus, not far from the Defense Ministry and President Bashar Assad’s official residence, either of which would be something rebels would be eager to hit.
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Subject: Officials: Recent Arms Influx Preparing Rebels to Attack Damascus Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:02 am
Officials: Recent Arms Influx Preparing Rebels to Attack Damascus Increase in Arms Smuggling Portends Push on Capital by Jason Ditz, March 27, 2013 Print This | Share This
On Monday, it was revealed that the CIA is overseeing what is being called a “sharp” increase in weapons being smuggled to the Syrian rebels from abroad. Officials are not only confirming this, but say it is part of a specific policy to set up an attack on the capital.
Syria’s government has mostly given up on fighting rebels in small battles nationwide, and has the bulk of its military forces in and around the capital city of Damascus. Arab officials say the surge in arms is part of a “master plan” to conquer Damascus militarily.
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Subject: WARNING: "Final" Psy-Op Vs. Syria Begins Sat Mar 30, 2013 9:21 am
WARNING: "Final" Psy-Op Vs. Syria Begins March 29, 2013 Print Version
Source: Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer
Out of time, out of legitimacy, and out of options, the West is attempting once again to prop up its faltering terrorist proxies with another psychological operation aimed at breaking the will of the Syrian people, despite the West's multiplying tactical and political shortcomings. It began with a suspicious CBS News/AP report titled, "AP: "Master plan" underway to help Syria rebels take Damascus with U.S.-approved airlifts of heavy weapons," which claims to divulge a "covert" plan by the West to flood Syria's northern and southern borders with increased weapons and fighters for a "final" push to take the capital. The article would claim:
Mideast powers opposed to President Bashar Assad have dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the capital of Damascus, officials and Western military experts said Wednesday.
A carefully prepared covert operation is arming rebels, involving Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, with the United States and other Western governments consulting, and all parties hold veto power over where the shipments are directed, according to a senior Arab official whose government is participating. His account was corroborated by a diplomat and two military experts.
One must question why the Western media would boldly declare to the world what is supposed to be a "covert" operation, if such an operation had any tactical chance of succeeding - unless of course, the announcement was designed to either cover for wide-scale Western special operations inside Syria, or to help achieve a psychological victory (or both) - to induce panic and terror across the Syrian population in tandem with recent, and increasingly barbaric terrorist attacks on Syria's civilians.
One such attack included the recent mortar bombardment of Damascus University which left at least 15 dead. The New York Times seemed to take special pleasure in describing in great detail the disruptive effect the attack had on people attempting to live normal lives during the ongoing conflict in their article, "Syria’s War Invades a Campus That Acted as a Sanctuary."
Now, echos of NATO's spectacularly failed July 2012 "Operation Damascus Volcano" - where the Western media coordinated a propaganda blitzkrieg designed to portray Syria as on the verge of collapsing with Aleppo and Damascus' fall "imminent," are appearing once again in the headlines. Just a day after CBS/AP's announcement of the so-called "covert Master Plan," the Western media is reporting "rebel gains" including the alleged cutting off of Daara in Syria's south - meant to foreshadow the once again "inevitable fall" of Damascus. AFP cited the discredited "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in their article, "Syria rebels seize town on key highway to south: NGO," that:
"Rebels seized control of Dael after destroying the three army checkpoints at the entrances to the town," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "The town is located on a main road linking Daraa to Damascus."
The Britain-based watchdog said that a child was among 10 civilians killed in the fighting for the town over the past 24 hours.
At least 15 rebels and a media activist working with them were also killed, as were 12 loyalist troops, it added.
"Large swathes of Daraa (province) are now under rebel control. Their advance in the south is escalating," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
In actuality, the so-called "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" is a single opposition propagandists, Rami Abdel Rahman, based in a comfortable countryside home in the UK, disingenuously masquerading as a human rights organization. When not feeding the biased-hungry Western media, Rami Abdel Rahman can be found scurrying in and out of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London to meet with Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague.
MORE @ LINK
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Subject: Assad death wrapped in mystery but something has changed significantly Israeli intel: Iran has deployed 50,000 troops in Syria Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:32 am
MARCH 31, 2013 BY COUNT DOWN TO ZERO TIME Assad death wrapped in mystery but something has changed significantly Israeli intel: Iran has deployed 50,000 troops in Syria
TEL AVIV — Israel’s intelligence community has determined that Iran deployed 50,000 troops in Syria.
Israeli military intelligence commander Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi said Iran has taken over much of the Syrian campaign against Sunni rebels. Kochavi said Iran deployed Hizbullah and Shi’ite fighters in Iraq to protect the regime of President Bashar Assad, whose military dropped from 220,000 to 50,000.
Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.
“The damages of the imminent fall of Syria are very high for both Iran and Hizbullah,” Kochavi said. “Iran is losing a sole ally in the region surrounding Israel. It will lose the ability to transfer weaponry through Syria to Hizbullah. Iran and Hizbullah are both doing all in their power to assist Assad’s regime.”
In an address to the Herzliya Conference on March 14, Kochavi cited a much greater level of Iranian military involvement than acknowledged by NATO. The military intelligence chief said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbullah formed a special force assigned to protect the regime in Damascus.
“They support Assad operationally on the ground, with strategic consultation, intelligence, weapons,” Kochavi said.
Kochavi said the 50,000-man force built by Hizbullah and Iran was separate from that of Assad’s military. He said the Iranian-sponsored force, called the “People’s Army” would soon reach 100,000 fighters amid repeated failures by Assad to mobilize Syrians. So far, only 20 percent of required recruits have reported for Syrian military duty.
The People’s Army was said to have been launched in late 2012 and overseen by IRGC Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani. Officials said Suleimani has been in Damascus for the last few months to direct counter-rebel operations.
Kochavi said the People’s Army represented Iran’s determination to remain in Syria even with the fall of the Assad regime. He said neither Iran nor Hizbullah could lose Syria as a strategic hub.
“Most recently, they are establishing a ‘People’s Army’ trained by Hizbullah and financed by Iran, currently consisting of 50,000 men, with plans to increase to 100,000,” Kochavi said. “Iran and Hizbullah are also preparing for the day after Assad’s fall, when they will use this army to protect their assets and interests in Syria.”
At the same time, the Syrian Air Force has also expanded operations. Kochavi said the air force was conducting between 40 and 50 sorties a week and other units were firing the Scud-B and M-600 missiles.
The Assad regime has also fired at least 600 rockets with a conventional payload of 250 kilograms. Kochavi said Assad fired 70 Scuds and M-600s during the two-year revolt.
The intelligence assessment also detected threats by Al Qaida-aligned Syrian rebel militias. Kochavi such militias, which he termed “global jihad terrorists” were spreading throughout Syria as well as Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
“The threat of a security deterioration, caused either by us attacking, or a terrorist attack on us is growing,” Kochavi said.
World Must Unite Against US-Saudi-Israeli Proxy War in Syria
Tony Cartalucci Prison Planet.com March 31, 2013
- US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have conspired to destroy Syria by way of arming sectarian extremists since 2007.
- The West now admits it, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have provided thousands of tons of weapons to militants in Syria – while also conceding that Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra is the best armed, most well equipped militant front in the conflict.
- US, Saudi, Israeli-backed terrorists are now committing a myriad of horrific atrocities against all of Syria’s population, including Sunni Muslims – meaning neither “democracy” nor even “sectarianism” drives the conflict, but rather the destruction of Syria in its entirety.
- US State Department acknowledges Syria faces threat from Al Qaeda, demands blockade of arms/aid from reaching government to fight terrorists the US State Department admits are present in every major Syrian city.
Since 2007, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have been documented as conspiring to overthrow the Syrian government by way of sectarian extremists, including groups “sympathetic to Al Qaeda,” and in particular, the militant, sectarian Muslim Brotherhood. While the West has attempted to portray the full-scale conflict beginning in Syria in 2011 as first, a “pro-democracy uprising,” to now a “sectarian conflict,” recent atrocities carried out by US-Saudi-Israeli proxies have shifted the assault to include Sunni Muslims unable or unwilling to participate in the destruction of the Syrian state.
Such attacks included a mortar bombardment of Damascus University, killing 15 and injuring dozens more, as well as the brutal slaying of two prominent Sunni Muslim clerics - the latest of which was beheaded, his body paraded through the streets of Aleppo, and his head hung from the mosque he preached in. While the West attempts to mitigate these events by labeling the victims as “pro-government,” the reality is that the forces fighting inside Syria are funded, armed, directed, and politically supported from abroad – and therefore do not represent any of the Syrian people’s interests, including those Syrians who do not support the government.
It is abundantly clear that the West’s goal is neither to institute “democracy,” nor even take sides in a “sectarian conflict,” but rather carry out the complete and permanent destruction of Syria as a nation-state, sparing no one, not even Sunnis.
Such a proxy war exists contra to any conceivable interpretation of “international law.” The world is left with a moral imperative to not only denounce this insidious conflict brought upon the Syrian people, compounded and perpetuated entirely by external interests, but demands that concrete action is taken to ensure that this act of aggression is brought to an end.
The US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have admitted to colluding together, flooding Syria with thousands of tons of weapons via Jordan to Syria’s south, and NATO-member Turkey to Syria’s north. And in an otherwise inexplicable conundrum, while the likes of US Secretary of State John Kerry insist this torrent of weapons is being directed to “moderates,” neither the US nor its allies are able to explain why Al Qaeda terror front Jabhatal-Nusra has emerged as the most heavily armed, best equipped militant organization in the conflict.
AP reported specifically in their article, “Officials: Arms shipments rise to Syrian rebels,” that:
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on the sidelines of a Syrian opposition meeting in Italy last month that the weapons are ending up in the hands of secular groups. “I will tell you this: There is a very clear ability now in the Syrian opposition to make certain that what goes to the moderate, legitimate opposition is in fact getting to them, and the indication is that they are increasing their pressure as a result of that,” he said, without elaborating.
But even AP admits that:
Syrian opposition activists estimate there are 15-20 different brigades fighting in and around Damascus now, each with up to 150 fighters. Many of them have Islamic tendencies and bear black-and-white Islamic flags or al-Qaeda-style flags on their Facebook pages. There is also a presence of Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the strongest Islamic terrorist groups fighting alongside the rebels. MORE@LINK
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Subject: Damascus violence forces even most resolute Syrians to flee Wed Apr 03, 2013 9:45 am
Top News Damascus violence forces even most resolute Syrians to flee Wed, Apr 03 07:48 AM EDT image
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A new exodus is flowing from Syria as fighting edges closer to the heart of Damascus - those who swore they would never flee are selling their belongings to escape a battle now raging on their doorsteps.
Many Syrians in the capital had long asserted that the uprising-turned-civil war would not breach the city center. Others insisted they would stay, no matter the consequences.
But fear has begun to grip even the most resolute residents.
For many the tipping point was a hail of mortar bombs and rockets that shook Damascus for several days last month as rebels and troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad brought tit-for-tat bombardments to the core of the capital.
March was the most violent month in Syria's two-year-old civil war, with an estimated 6,000 people killed after increased fighting around Damascus and the southern province of Deraa.
In response, families once determined to remain in the city are packing up and leaving. Others are scrambling to pull together limited resources and, with a heavy heart, are planning an indefinite absence from the only home they have known.
"My wife barely likes to go away on holiday. And now, who would have thought we'd be packing to leave?" said Ibrahim, who owns a textile business that his family had run for generations in this ancient city. "God only knows when we'll be back."
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Subject: Rebels claim Assad used chemical weapons in Damascus attackVideo Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:38 pm
Rebels claim Assad used chemical weapons in Damascus attackVideo shows victims of attack on neighborhood with ancient synagogue have trouble breathing, focusing eyesBy ASHER ZEIGER and STUART WINER April 7, 2013, 5:17 pm 4
A victim of the alleged chemical attack in Jobar. (Screenshot via YouTube)RELATED TOPICS SYRIAN CIVIL WARBASHAR ASSADSYRIAN CHEMICAL WEAPONS Syrian opposition forces claimed a regime attack on a neighborhood in Damascus included chemical weapons that caused shortness of breath in victims.
Activists published a video online Saturday showing victims on gurneys having trouble breathing or focusing their eyes after the attack on the Jobar neighborhood in the northeast of the capital.
Rebels haved claimed several times in the past that they have been victims of chemical attacks by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad during Syria’s bloody two-year civil war.
Over 70,000 people have been killed and over a million have fled during the fighting, according to United Nations figures.
Both rebels and regime forces accused each other of launching a chemical attack near Aleppo in March, though Western experts believe it was actually a strong tear gas, and not a nerve agent, that was used.
In December, rebel forces claimed that Bashar Assad’s regime used poison gas in an attack on Homs that killed six and injured dozens.
None of the attacks, including Saturday’s, have been confirmed.
The Jobar neighborhood is the site of an ancient synagogue, recently looted and destroyed, venerated by Jews as the place Elijah the Prophet hid. Both the rebels and regime blamed each other for the damage to the synagogue.
In mid-March, Damascus called on the UN to investigate the alleged chemical attack near Aleppo, but then refused to grant UN officials full access to the site where Syrian officials claimed the attack occurred.
Both Britain and France said that the probe should also check the rebels’ claims that the government was behind the attack, as well as two other claims of the use of chemical weapons.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded “unfettered access” to areas where chemical weapons may have been used, but so far the ruling authorities have not agreed, the report said. The demand is a necessary condition for the investigation to go ahead, a UN source told AFP.
“It is obvious that to be able to do this work, you need unfettered access, and that is why the secretary general has underscored that in his communications,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
Nesirky made it clear that the investigation is only to establish if chemical weapons were in fact used, and not to level any charges against either side.
While the investigation has yet to be launched, the UN recently announced its plan to broaden the scope of the probe to include incidents other than the March 19 attack that is in question. Russia blasted the announcement as “”unacceptable and intolerable.”
In a statement released by the Russian foreign ministry, spokesman Alexander Lukashevich claimed the UN’s decision to expand the investigation was “”under pressure from Western members of the Council” and that the move “is basically disrupting the investigation into particular reports of the possible use of chemical weapons.”
Moscow has said that the UN investigation should focus solely on the government’s claim that rebel forces used nonconventional weapons.
Times of Israel staff and AP contributed to this report.
Top Syrian Rebel Group Merges With Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Alex Newman New American April 11, 2013
One of the most prominent and powerful rebel factions fighting on behalf of the Obama administration-backed“regime change” operation in Syria formally announced that it was merging with al Qaeda in Iraq, sparking fresh concerns about the U.S. government arming, training, and funding the so-called “revolution.” The latest news comes on the heels of reports that the war-torn nation is on the verge of becoming a haven for Islamic extremists on par with Afghanistan and Iraq as foreign jihadists continue flooding into Syria.
Two days before the explosive announcement, purported al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri called on all Islamic fighters in Syria to join together in the bid to oust the existing regime and seize power. “Do all you can to ensure that the fruit of your struggle, God willing, is an Islamic state,” the terror leader said about the conflict in his most recent message. The new regime, he added, should be “a state that would be a building stone in the return of the rightly-guided caliphate.”
More than a year ago, Zawahiri urged Islamist forces from around the world to join the battle, saying that a Muslim man has a duty to help “his brothers in Syria with all that he can — with his life, money, opinion, as well as information.” The call attracted serious concerns among analysts monitoring the conflict, warning that Western support for the “revolution” was going to bring serious and potentially deadly “blow back” that would last for generations.
The recent merger of the two al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups, known as the “Islamic State in Iraq” and “Jabhat al-Nusra,” will now be called the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.” The official announcement was made by Iraqi al-Qaeda chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an audio message earlier this week that was spread on Islamist websites. Syrian jihadist sources also confirmed the merger, which was reportedly met with celebration among Islamists.
“It is time to announce to the Levantine people and the whole world that Jabhat al-Nusra is merely an extension and part of the Islamic State of Iraq,” al-Baghdadi was quoted as saying in the message, referring to the population inhabiting a region stretching from Turkey to Egypt. The al-Qaeda boss said his Iraqi organization would offer half of its budget to the Syrian “revolution” and implied that the terrorist entity created by the merger would share the same leadership.
According to the Associated Press, which reported the news on April 9, the new jihadist alliance could “become a dominant player” in whatever new regime eventually replaces the secular dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad — assuming, of course, that it does actually collapse in the face of the overwhelming international onslaught. The risks inherent in such a scenario include, among others, the possibility that al-Qaeda militants could seize the existing autocracy’s chemical-weapons arsenal and eventually turn it on Israel or the West in general.
Indeed, multiple rebel factions involved in the war have already stated publicly that once they overthrow Assad and build an Islamic theocracy based on sharia law in Syria, America and Israel will be the next targets. Hundreds of European Islamists who joined the “revolution” also pose a potential threat to Europe if and when they return home, experts say.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t *
The establishment press around the world has largely attempted to downplay the role of al-Qaeda and other jihadists in fighting Assad — not to mention the U.S. government’s crucial part in creating and funding the opposition even before actual war broke out. Presumably the half-baked effort to minimize the influence of extremist elements is aimed at bolstering non-existent public support for Western involvement in the conflict while hiding the fact that Obama and other foreign governments may be laying the ground work for a potential powder keg of “blow back.”
Analysts monitoring the conflict have long known that hardcore Islamists make up much of the “rebel” alliance. The global-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations, which has also played a key role in fomenting and deepening the Syrian bloodbath in an effort to install its Muslim Brotherhood-dominated “Syrian National Coalition” in power, even publicly acknowledged that al-Qaeda forces were crucial to defeating Assad. The al-Nusra front, however, was designated a terrorist organization last year, though it is still doing much of the fighting as foreign arms continue to flow mostly toward jihadist forces in Syria.
The regime in Damascus, of course, has maintained from the start that its forces are fighting terrorists being armed, trained, and funded by Western powers and a motley assortment of Sunni Arab dictators. However, despite the false narrative peddled by much of the “mainstream” media about an alleged home-grown fight for “human rights” and “democracy,” even the AP has finally been forced to partially concede the subversive reality of what is happening on the ground.
“The new group, called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, underscores the growing confidence and muscle of Islamist radicals fighting on the rebel side in Syria’s civil war,” the news agency reported in an article about the merger. “It also bolsters the Syrian government’s assertions that the regime is battling terrorists and that the uprising is a foreign-backed plot.”
Analysts cited in reports agreed that the official merger will help bolster al-Qaeda’s already massive role in the battle, potentially helping its ruthless minions seize power if and when Assad is ultimately overthrown. “It will help them better position themselves in the period after Assad,” noted Director Bilal Saab with the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, North America, about the announcement. “It does matter for them that they’re getting more materiel and more people and more expertise, especially Iraqi veterans who have really been vetted on the battlefield and who have fought coalition forces since 2003.”
Even the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is speaking out about the very real possibility that the consequences of the Obama administration backing “rebel” forces in Syria will be an unprecedented disaster. In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post on April 9, the Iraqi leader installed after the U.S. government’s “regime change” operation in 2003 called for an end to all arms transfers heading into Syria — both to the “rebels” and to the regime, which is being supplied by the governments ruling Russia and Iran.
“We have been mystified by what appears to be the widespread belief in the United States that any outcome in Syria that removes President Bashar al-Assad from power will be better than the status quo,” Maliki wrote. “A Syria controlled in whole or part by al-Qaeda and its affiliates — an outcome that grows more likely by the day — would be more dangerous to both our countries than anything we’ve seen up to now. Americans should remember that an unintended consequence of arming insurgents in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets was turning the country over to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.”
In a bizarre ironic twist, warmongers in Congress on both sides of the aisle are now pointing to the prospect of Obama-backed extremists taking over Syria as a justification to put U.S. troops on the ground. Prominent members of the establishment wing in both the GOP and the Democrat party have recently called for stepping up American involvement in the conflict, which already includes arming, training, and funding rebel forces. Without congressional or constitutional authorization, Obama has alsosurrounded Syria with American troops along its borders with Jordan and Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Islamist regime installed in Libya following Obama’s last lawless United Nations-approved war — which also involved support for al Qaeda fighters to overthrow the existing government — is now pursuing “integration” with the terror regime in Sudan. The Obama-backed ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is receiving billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and advanced military weaponry. Like the new Libyan regime, it is also working to forge what both leaders called “one nation” with the genocidal Sudanese dictatorship — officially listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.
In Syria, an estimated 70,000 people have already been killed in the conflict — mostly civilians. Among the most ruthlessly targeted victims of rebel forces: The Christian and Jewish minorities, which lived in relative peace under Assad’s secular dictatorship. TheObama-backed rebels have been accused of “ethnic cleansing” aimed at extinguishing Christianity in Syria. Experts, however, say the worst is yet to come.
This article was posted: Thursday, April 11, 2013 at 4:15 am
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Subject: Clandestine Warfare:Syria’s war to get dirtier than ever Mon Apr 15, 2013 10:13 am
Clandestine Warfare:Syria’s war to get dirtier than ever April 14, 2013 Print Version
Source: HS
From small clandestine offices in countries as far flung as Qatar, Jordan, Turkey and Croatia, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers have acted as brokers and overseers of a massive arms shipment programme to Syria’s opposition rebels.
With the operation shrouded in secrecy, the CIA declines to comment publicly on the arms supply. US officials instead talk of its existence in a kind of coded doublespeak referring to “a maturing of the opposition’s logistical pipeline.”
But exist it definitely does, and according to arms-trafficking investigators who are monitoring data on the weapons’ supplies, the scale of the shipments is huge.
“A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3500 tons of military equipment,” confirmed Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a recent detailed analysis of the illicit transfer outlined in a New York Times (NYT) investigation.
Read More...
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Subject: Over 1000 Hezbollah Fighters Arrive In Syria To Back Assad Forces Mon Apr 15, 2013 1:41 pm
Well all these things in the world today are going differently than I thought they would to start this war of the end time.
Over 1000 Hezbollah Fighters Arrive In Syria To Back Assad Forces Sunday, April 14, 2013 10:18
(Before It's News)
Picture
Over 1,000 members of the Lebanese Shitte militant group, Hezbollah, entered Syria in the past few days via waterways in the Mediterranean Sea, Saudi daily al-Watan reported on Sunday.
According to the report, around 1,200 fighters arrived to Syria’s Tartus port in order to fight alongside regime troops.
The armed members who arrived from Lebanon to Syria committed “a hideous crime” in the town of Talkalkh, the daily said, adding that tens of thousands of fighters entered from Iraq to aid the Syrian regime.
WW3 proxy war in Syria heats up. -Mort
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Sun Apr 21, 2013 8:15 pm
21 April 2013 Last updated at 17:36 ET Share this pageEmailPrint 2.1K ShareFacebookTwitter Syria army seizes Jdaidet al-Fadl 'killing dozens'
BBC's Jeremy Bowen: "Opposition estimates of the dead, which we cannot confirm, start around 80 and go as high as 450 men, women and children"
Syrian government troops have seized a town near Damascus, killing at least 80 people, including women and children, opposition activists say.
The army stormed the town of Jdaidet al-Fadl after five days of heavy fighting, they report.
Syria's Sana state news agency said government forces "inflicted heavy losses upon terrorists" in the town.
At least 70,000 people have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.
The latest killings come as the army tries to break a ring of rebel-held areas around Damascus.
'Summarily executed' The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group, said it was able to identify at least 80 people killed in Jdaidet al-Fadl, to the south-west of the capital.
The SOHR - which has also released footage of the bloodshed - said some of the victims were summarily killed. There were reports of as many as 250 deaths, it added.
Continue reading the main story Analysis
Sebastian Usher Arab affairs editor Both government and rebel sources confirm that Syrian forces have mounted a major offensive against Jdaidet al-Fadl in the past few days. Both sides also say that government forces have won the battle for now.
But that's all they agree on. The state news agency says simply that the army inflicted heavy losses upon "terrorists" - its standard description of all rebel fighters. But opposition sources say women and children were killed, too.
One source says dozens of people were killed over several days. Another, the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), paints an even worse picture - claiming that Syrian forces committed a massacre after retaking the town.
Videos posted online show rows of dead bodies, swaddled in blood-stained blankets. The LCC says hundreds were killed. There's no independent verification.
The organisation documents and reports incidents and casualties in the Syrian conflict and says its reports are impartial, though its information cannot be verified.
Meanwhile, Reuters news agency quoted an activist in a nearby area as saying that 85 people had been summarily killed in the town.
Abu Ahmad al-Rabi said this included "28 shot at a makeshift hospital after Assad's forces went in Jdaidet al-Fadl".
"We fear that the victims of the massacre are much higher," the activist added.
The Sana news agency confirmed the fighting had taken place in Jdaidet al-Fadl.
It said that a number of "terrorists" were killed and injured, without providing further details.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a doubling of US aid to Syria's rebels to $123m (£81m), including new - non-lethal - military equipment.
Speaking at a meeting of the Friends of Syria group in Istanbul, Mr Kerry described the situation in Syria as "horrific".
The rebels have been pushing for military supplies and insisted that any weapons they received would not "fall into the wrong hands".
The US and EU have so far refused to supply the rebels with weapons, amid concerns that they may end up in the hands of Islamist extremists inspired by al-Qaeda.
Before the Istanbul talks, the main opposition expressed its frustration with the lack of support, urging allies to act more decisively.
Subject: Two armed Hizballah brigades fighting for Assad near Homs Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:38 pm
Two armed Hizballah brigades fighting for Assad near Homs DEBKAfile Special Report April 22, 2013, 9:03 PM (GMT+02:00)
Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, pledged action against the use of chemical weapons in Syria and promised not to allow sophisticated weapons to reach other nations or Hizballah-type organizations. The Golan border would be well guarded, he said, speaking at a joint new conference with visiting US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Monday, April 22. “Whenever there is a problem in our region, we shall respond as we have already done,” said the minister. Ya’alon’s comments present three striking difficulties:
1. Hizballah didn’t wait for advanced weapons to cross from Syria into Lebanon. Two heavily armed combat brigades of this Iranian-backed Shiite militia, each numbering 1,000 men, crossed instead in the opposite direction and are fighting Bashar Assad’s battles around Qusayr 35 kilometers south of Homs. They collect their weapons directly from Syrian military arsenals and arms consignments airlifted in by Iran and Russia.
2, Some Israeli strategists predict that its deep involvement in the Syrian civil war will weaken Hizballah. Others maintain that Hizballah has lengthened its front against Israel into Syria and gained extensive battlefield experience, making it a greater menace to Israel than ever before. The defense minister did not address these developments.
3. He did say the Golan border would be well guarded. But then what about the Lebanese border which has twice erupted into full-scale war ignited by that same Hizballah?
On arrival in Israel, Hagel said the $10 bn arms deals for Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UA are “a very clear signal” to Iran that military options remain on the table over its nuclear program. "The bottom line is that Iran is a threat, a real threat," he said “and must be prevented from developing that capacity to build a nuclear weapon and deliver it.” The arms deal includes KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, anti-air defense missiles and tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey troop transport planes for Israel, and 25 F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to the UAE.
From Israel, the Secretary of Defense continues to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this arms package will take years to deliver. Meanwhile, Secretary Hagel’s talks in Israel were strongly deflected from the nuclear Iran issue by the hotter Syrian crisis, as we reported Sunday.
This was confirmed by the French Le Figaro in its report Monday that Jordan had opened two corridors of its airspace to Israeli Air Force drones seeking to monitor the ongoing conflict in Syria. The Western military source in the Middle East who was cited said Israeli drones fly at night to avoid detection and are also armed and able to hit targets anywhere in Syria.
This report was not confirmed by Israel or Jordan. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was more open when he said in a BBC interview on April 18 that Israel has the right to prevent weapons falling into the wrong hands in Syria. If terrorists seized anti-aircraft and chemical weapons, they could be game changers in the region. Asked if Israel was involved in any action in the Syrian conflict, Netanyahu said he would not confirm or deny this.
He spoke the day after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered 200 troops of the US 1st Armord Division to deploy in Jordan. According to the Pentagon statement, the force will “create an additional capability” for the United States to "potentially form a joint task force for military operations…and be ready for military action if President Barack Obama were to order it.”
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the various military movements around Syria, especially in Jordan and Israel, are laying the groundwork for potential US-Arab-Israeli activity against Syria.
Subject: Syria – When the Dust Clears, What Will be Left? Tue Apr 23, 2013 9:57 am
Syria – When the Dust Clears, What Will be Left?
Posted by lamarzulli on April 23, 2013
by
L. A. Marzulli
Syrian opposition claim dozens killed in ‘massacre’ by Assad forces
Syrian opposition claim dozens killed in ‘massacre’ by Assad forces — RT News
Syrian opposition activists allege that government troops have killed at least 85 people during the storming of a Damascus suburb following five days of fighting.
According to the Syrian opposition, the number of victims of what they described as a “massacre” at the Jdeidet al-Fadel area in the country’s capital may be higher than 250, including women and children. However, it was impossible to independently verify the information.
The bloody civil war in Syria continues as the forces of President Bashar Al Assad continue to fight the rebels. This latest news demonstrates the regime’s brutality and commitment by Assad to hold on to the reigns of power at all costs. There are now reports that Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people. Israel Says Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons – NYTimes.com
There is also Assad’s orders which call for a full-scale attack on Israel if Syria is attacked by outside forces! Assad Threatens Israel if Syria is Attacked – Middle East – News – Israel National News
The situation in Syria is becoming more desperate with no end in sight. What happens to Syria if Assad goes down? Will the Moslem Brotherhood then step in and create another state like we see in Egypt? Will Al Qaeda seize the opportunity to create a Sharia state and perhaps carry cross border raids on Israel? Will Iran step in, as some have already suggested, and set up a puppet government?
Since the Arab Spring the Middle East continues to be unstable and which is an understatement. Scroll down to In Other News, and see the story of what is happening in Iraq, as the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Moslem spirals out of control. There seems to be no end to the bloodshed and the horror of war.
Over a million refugees have left the Syria and any sense of a normal life is a distant memory.
Tensions High After Riot at Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan – NYTimes.com
Through all of this, miraculously Assad has managed to stay in power, at least for now. He’s being propped up in part by Iran and the Russians. However, at some point this must come to an end and when the dust clears one wonders what will be left.
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Subject: Tehran and Assad slide past US and Israeli red lines – nuclear and chemical Tue Apr 23, 2013 6:42 pm
Tehran and Assad slide past US and Israeli red lines – nuclear and chemical DEBKAfile Special Report April 23, 2013, 7:13 PM (GMT+02:00)
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was hardly out of Israel’s door Tuesday, April 23, when a spate of awkward data came spilling out in Tel Aviv.
Iran has crossed the last red line Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu laid down before the UN Assembly last September, said the well-informed former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin. None of the measures for halting Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb have worked, he said. For a while, Tehran was impressed by the Israeli prime minister’s warning, but then went back to uranium enrichment at top speed. By now, Iran has certainly gone past the limit set by Netanyahu. Likud lawmaker Tzahi Hanegbi said Israel has no more than a month or two for stopping a nuclear Iran.
Ron Dermer, a senior Netanyahu adviser and Israel’s next ambassador to Washington, told a group of American Jewish leaders Sunday that the time for action against Iran’s capacity to build a bomb – which he termed an existential threat to Israel - must be counted in months. Piling on the gloom, Brig. Gen Itay Brun reported that the Syrian army had started using chemical weapons against rebel forces, including Sarin and other paralyzing substances, without the world lifting a finger to stop it.
All the red lines had suddenly been knocked over by Iran’s rapid progress toward a nuclear weapon and by Bashar Assad who, backed by Tehran, mocked US President Barack Obama’s warning just a month ago that “proof of chemical weapons use would be a game changer.”
Responding to the Syrian development, Pentagon spokesman George Little, who arrived in Amman Tuesday with the US Defense Secretary, commented: “The Pentagon is continuing to assess reports on the matter and the use of such weapons would be entirely unacceptable.”
For some months, DEBKAfile has been reporting that Iran had trampled over Netanyahu’s red lines for its nuclear program and moved on. On March 19th DEBKAfile’s sources confirmed the finding of concrete evidence that the Syrian army had launched chemical warfare against rebel forces.
It is hard to believe that the Israeli chorus on these matters was spontaneous. Assuming that the various knowledgeable spokesmen shared the same choir master, they must be assumed to have been delivering the same message. It came in three parts:
1. The Israel’s military and defense leaders were not overly impressed by the $10 billion arms package the defense secretary delivered this week. The items listed are useful but don’t top their list of priorities. This coolness was reflected in comments by Israeli military chiefs this week, which underlined the IDF’s ability to deal with Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own and even handle the fallout of this attack coming in the form of joint retaliation by Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
2. The dissonance between Washington and Jerusalem on the issue of a nuclear Iran was present in Hagel’s talks in Israel. President Obama tried telling Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - recipients of the new US arms package - that his pledge to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear bomb means he is willing to wait until Tehran has assembled all the components for a weapon. Israel refuses to wait for Iran to reach that threshold and insists that the moment to strike is now.
3. The revelation that Bashar Assad has flouted the US president’s warning against chemical warfare was intended to push Washington into military action against Syria which may unfold at some point into a strike against Iran.
The Obama administration’s first response to the revelations by Israeli spokesmen came from Secretary of State John Kerry in Brussels. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not confirm comments by the Israeli military's top intelligence analyst that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons, he said Tuesday.
"I talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning. I think it is fair for me to say that he was not in a position to confirm that in the conversation that I had," Kerry told a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. "I don't know yet what the facts are."
Kerry had been asked about comments by Brigadier-General Itai Brun, an Israeli intelligence analyst, at a Tel Aviv security conference that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons, probably nerve gas, in their fight against rebels.
Dove Super Elite
Posts : 81786 Reputation : 524 Join date : 2011-08-18
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/25/hagel-says-evidence-chemical-weapons-were-used-in-syria/ This could go at any moment....or not.
Top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle declared Thursday that the "red line" in Syria has been crossed, calling for "strong" U.S. and international intervention after administration officials revealed the intelligence community believes chemical weapons were used.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, were among those urging swift action.
McCain, who has long called for more involvement in Syria, voiced concern that the administration would use "caveats" to avoid acting on the new intelligence. He said America's enemies are paying "close attention" to whether the U.S. follows through, as the White House signaled it wanted to see more proof before responding to the new information.
"I worry that the president and the administration will use these caveats as an excuse not to act right away or act at all," McCain said.
I want to know the thoughts of God. Everything else is just details. A Miracle is when God makes His Reality our Experience
Dove Super Elite
Posts : 81786 Reputation : 524 Join date : 2011-08-18
Interesting development connected to Boston 'bombers'.
In the past 2 days, Russia has removed over 100 people they consider 'operatives', 'extremists', whatever....all being Muslim with Chechen ties-background.
Speculation is this could be the diplomatic concession Russia was wanting for from the U.S. in exchange for their allowing increased U.S. involvement in Syria.
I want to know the thoughts of God. Everything else is just details. A Miracle is when God makes His Reality our Experience
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Sat Apr 27, 2013 5:28 pm
Iran, not Israel, faces an existential threat, says top US analyst | The Times of Israel Posted by Matt on April 27, 2013 Comments Off
Anthony Cordesman claims all of Islamic Republic’s population centers now within range of Israeli missiles with thermonuclear warheads
Iran, not Israel, faces an existential threat, according to a top US analyst who is considered one of the world’s leading scholars on the Iranian nuclear issue.
In a research paper published last week, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that, in preparation for a nuclear Iran, Israel has been working in recent years to extend the range of its missiles, and that it now poses a real threat to all of the Islamic Republic’s major population centers.
“Israel now poses a more serious existential threat to Iran than Iran can pose to Israel in the near term,” he wrote.
Iran, not Israel, faces an existential threat, says top US analyst | The Times of Israel
Israel wary quiet on Syrian front about to end – US News and World Report Posted by Matt on April 27, 2013 Comments Off
Watching it all unfold from a few kilometers (miles) away are Israeli soldiers atop tanks behind a newly fortified fence, while a large-scale Israeli drill sends off its own explosions in the background.
This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel’s front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst — a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country’s large stockpile of chemical weapons.
In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.
http://www.1913intel.com/2013/04/27/israel-wary-quiet-on-syrian-front-about-to-end-us-news-and-world-report/ Israel wary quiet on Syrian front about to end – US News and World Report
Posted by Matt on April 27, 2013 [Subscribe Here]
Watching it all unfold from a few kilometers (miles) away are Israeli soldiers atop tanks behind a newly fortified fence, while a large-scale Israeli drill sends off its own explosions in the background.
This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel’s front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst — a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country’s large stockpile of chemical weapons.
In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.
Subject: DAMASCUS WATCH 
Mon Feb 04, 2013 11:25 am
