Subject: Turkey Has Let Foreign Supported Terrorists from 83 Countries Enter Syria to Topple Government Wed Nov 06, 2013 9:56 pm
Turkey Has Let Foreign Supported Terrorists from 83 Countries Enter Syria to Topple Government
on November 6, 2013
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad says Ankara government has let militants from 83 countries to enter Syria.
Turkey, one of the key supporters of the war in Syria, has been widely criticized by Damascus for leaving its borders open to smugglers to enter force and weapons. A report by the American Pentapolis Agency of statistics on September showed at least 130 thousand non-Syrian militants are fighting in Syria.
Most of these militants used to enter Syria from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, but nowadays Turkey borders are militants’ major supply rout which has turned Aleppo, located near northeastern borders ofSyria with Turkey, a main bastion for foreign-backed militant groups.
Muqdad further referred to the Geneva 2 talks aimed at finding a solution to end the conflict and said, Syrian government is determined to help the Geneva-based talks bear results, and to do that ‘putting an end to violence and terrorism must be the top most priority”.
The Syrian official said supporters of the terrorists in his country were from both Western countries such as United States and France and some Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia. “Syrian people consider them responsible for damaging their country,” he added.
He added Washington shows double-standard policies and plays a misleading role regarding Syria. “Despite all these we tell them (supporters of the war) that we will continue to resist,” Muqdad added.
The war in Syria started in March 2011, when pro-reform protests turned into a massive insurgency following the intervention of Western and regional states.
The unrest, which took in terrorist groups from across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, has transpired as one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history.
According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced due to the turmoil that has gripped Syria for over two years.
Source: Global Research Source: http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/turkey-has-let-foreign-supported-terrorists-from-83-countries-enter-syria-to-topple-government/
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Subject: Syrian army breaks rebel hold on southern Damascus suburbs Thu Nov 07, 2013 11:28 am
Syrian army breaks rebel hold on southern Damascus suburbs
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis1 hour ago
Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad hold up their weapons and erect a Syrian national flag …
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian army and loyalist fighters on Thursday captured a strategic southern suburb of Damascus, threatening rebel control of the wider area and cutting off a supply route for insurgents around the capital, opposition activists said.
The town of Sbeineh is the third rebel neighborhood to fall to government forces since the army, aided by Shi'ite militias from Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, launched an offensive last month aimed at breaking resistance to President Bashar al-Assad around Damascus, the sources said.
"Regime troops backed by Hezbollah stormed Sbeineh. The Free Syrian Army pulled out after fierce battles over the past nine days," the Sham News Network, an opposition monitoring group, said in a statement.
Syria's 2-1/2-year-old conflict began as peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule, but it has transformed into a civil war with sectarian dimensions. Assad is from the country's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, which has largely stood behind him. Syria's Sunni Muslim majority has led the uprising.
Syrian state television said the army had achieved "complete control" over Sbeineh, which it called "a hotbed for militants and a supply center for weapons and ammunition".
"They headed in the direction of Hajar al-Aswad and al-Qadam and the surrounding areas, and we will pursue them there," an army officer said, referring to the rebel fighters who fled following the battle.
The officer was speaking to Syrian television in a live broadcast from Sbeineh, where shattered buildings and deserted bunkers made of sand bags and metal barrels showed the intensity of the fighting in the area, which has been under siege for months.
Assad's army has been using a blockade tactic against the rebel-held suburbs that ring the capital. The forces have slowly advanced as they try to drain the rebels - and the civilians that live among them - of food and supplies.
Sbeineh, comprised of residential buildings and a large industrial zone, is situated on the highway linking Damascus to the Jordanian border, and is adjacent to Hajar al-Aswad, a southern district on the outskirts of the capital. Opposition sources have said that Nusra Front leader, Abu Muhammad al-Golani, was living in the town but it was not clear if he was still there.
Over the last few weeks southern Damascus has been hit by heavy rocket and artillery barrages while the Shi'ite militias in the nearby district of Saida Zainab conducted most of the street fighting, diplomatic and rebel sources said.
Speaking from southern Damascus, activist Rami al-Sayyed said rebel defenses were exposed when loyalist forces easily infiltrated a front manned by fighters operating under the military council command, an Arab- and Western- backed rebel formation based in Turkey.
"The rebels began to find themselves encircled and had to pull out. Sbeineh was key to the defense of the southern neighborhoods. Hajar al-Aswad is now vulnerable," Sayyed said.
While Assad has been relying more on his militia allies, fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant, which is heavily comprised of foreign jihadists, have joined Islamist rebel brigades and Free Syrian Army units to defend southern Damascus, opposition sources said.
The Iranian Mehr news agency said on Monday that Mohammad Jamalizadeh, a commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, was killed in Syria in the last few days after volunteering to defend the Saida Zainab shrine, a few kilometers to the east of Sbeineh.
(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Subject: Scores killed as rebels battle to break siege of Damascus suburbs Sun Nov 24, 2013 6:00 pm
Scores killed as rebels battle to break siege of Damascus suburbs Reuters By Erika Solomon
Shi'ite fighters, who support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, search for rebels from house to house in the countryside near Damascus. View gallery . .
By Erika Solomon
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Fierce fighting to the east of Damascus has killed more than 160 people in the past two days as Syrian rebels struggle to break a months-long blockade by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, activists said on Sunday.
It began on Friday when rebel units attacked a string of military checkpoints encircling the opposition-held suburbs in an area known as Eastern Ghouta, which has been under siege for more than six months.
Local and international aid workers say Assad's forces appeared to be trying to starve out residents - indiscriminately affecting civilians as much as rebel fighters.
The blockade has cut off rebels' weapons supplies and helped turn the tide of fighting around the capital in Assad's favor.
The battle has also drawn in hundreds of foreign fighters on both sides, underlining how Syria's civil war has stirred Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian tensions across the region.
View gallery."People loot furniture after soldiers loyal to Syria's … People loot furniture after soldiers loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad took control of Huja … "It is a ferocious fight between the two sides because it's a struggle over our ultimate fate here," said Bara Abdelrahman, a media activist with the rebel Islam Army brigades in the area.
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 100,000 people, according to the United Nations, and is also destabilizing Syria's neighbors.
Foreign powers are trying to bring the warring sides together for a peace conference in Switzerland before the end of the year, dubbed 'Geneva 2'. On Sunday, Syria's peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met with members of the opposition to discuss the talks, which many rebel groups have rejected without a clear guarantee that Assad will step down.
Assad's government says it welcomes talks but will not accept any preconditions.
Meanwhile, Assad's forces, emboldened by gains in central Syria in recent months, have been seizing back towns in the rebels' northern stronghold.
View gallery."Shi'ite fighters, who are fighting alongside forces … Shi'ite fighters, who are fighting alongside forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, take … REBELS ADVANCE IN GHOUTA
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had advanced in Eastern Ghouta in recent fighting, seizing some small villages and the once government-held town of Deir Attiya.
Assad's forces responded with three air raids, it said.
The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels have drawn support from radical Sunni groups such as al Qaeda and other foreign militants. Shi'ite governments and militias have thrown their weight behind Assad, who is from Syria's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ism.
Rebels say Lebanon's Shi'ite guerrilla movement Hezbollah has joined the Eastern Ghouta battle on Assad's side, as has the Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade, a militia that includes Shi'ite fighters from around the Middle East.
View gallery."A Shi'ite fighter rides his bicycle on a damaged street … A Shi'ite fighter rides his bicycle on a damaged street after soldiers loyal to Syria's President Ba … The Britain-based Observatory, a pro-opposition group with a network of activists across Syria, said it had documented about 100 deaths on the rebel side on Friday and Saturday in Eastern Ghouta, and more than 60 among forces fighting for Assad.
But it said there were likely to be more deaths that had not been documented.
"This battle has been one of incredible human losses," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory. "The fighting is spreading all over the eastern suburbs."
There was no comment on casualty figures from government spokesmen.
The United States, which backs the opposition, and Russia, Assad's main arms supplier, have been pushing for peace talks but a major sticking point has been the role of Shi'ite power Iran, Assad's main ally.
View gallery."People loot furniture after soldiers loyal to Syria's … People loot furniture after soldiers loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad took control of Huja … Opposition forces fear a deal curbing Tehran's nuclear program will lead Washington to ease pressure on Iran and Assad in Syria.
Brahimi held separate talks with Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva in the past two days but did not meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as expected.
The envoy is to host talks in Geneva on Monday between U.S. Under Secretary Wendy Sherman and Russia's deputy foreign ministers, Mikhail Bogdanov and Gennady Gatilov.
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Subject: 250 Hezbollah fighters slain in Damascus, rebels claim Fri Nov 29, 2013 9:44 am
250 Hezbollah fighters slain in Damascus, rebels claim
Also, 40 people reportedly killed in Syrian army Scud attack in Raqqa after missile slams into crowded market
BY STUART WINER November 28, 2013, 1:12 pm
A Syrian rebel fires a weapon towards Syrian government troops loyal to President Bashar Assad in, Syria., Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)
Syrian rebels claimed Thursday that they killed 250 Hezbollah fighters and captured dozens in fierce battles in the suburbs of Damascus, while a missile attack reportedly killed 40 people in the city of Raqqa.
Hebrew media sources, citing the Lebanese al-Mustaqbal newspaper, reported the claim by the Free Syrian Army on Thursday, although the information could not be confirmed by other sources.
According to Israel Radio, Hezbollah acknowledged the deaths of three of its fighters, including the nephew of a Lebanese minister, in battles near Damascus, but not the 250 claimed by the rebels. The Local Coordination Committees in Syria reported only 17 deaths in Syria on Thursday.
Opposition sources in Syria also made as-yet unsubstantiated claims Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces used chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Jobar. No deaths were reported.
In eastern Syria, Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya reported that Syrian government forces launched a Scud missile at Raqqa that slammed into a market, killing 40 people and injuring over 200. Dozens more people were believed to be trapped under the rubble after the impact.
in the three-year old civil war comes as the government and the rebels fighting to bring it down tentatively agreed to hold talks in Geneva at the beginning of 2014.
However, both sides have already made statements suggesting they have very different expectations from the negotiations. The rebels see the talks as aimed at bringing about the removal of Assad from power, while the government has made it clear it has no intention of stepping down. The opposition has also demanded the establishment of humanitarian corridors to areas that the regime has under siege as a precondition to attending the talks.
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Subject: Battle for Syria : A “master plan” for the rebels to seize Damascus Mon Dec 02, 2013 9:02 am
Battle for Syria : A “master plan” for the rebels to seize Damascus on December 2, 2013 Posted In: Islamic Militancy, Middle East
Source: Time/AP
Quote :
The Arab official said there was a “master plan” for the rebels to seize Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke to the AP on condition that their identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation was covert.
Officials: Arms Shipments Rise to Syrian Rebels
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.
The Arab official said the number of arms airlifts has doubled in the past four weeks. He did not provide exact figures on the flights or the size of the cargo. Jordan opened up as a new route for the weapons late last year, amid U.S. worries that arms from Turkey were going to Islamic militants, all four told The Associated Press in separate interviews. Jordan denies helping funnel weapons to the rebels.
The two military experts, who closely follow the traffic, said the weapons include more powerful, Croatian-made anti-tank guns and rockets than the rebels have had before.
The Arab official said there was a “master plan” for the rebels to seize Damascus. He and the diplomat spoke to the AP on condition that their identities and their nationalities not be disclosed because the operation was covert.
“The idea is that the rebels now have the necessary means to advance from different fronts — north from Turkey and south from Jordan — to close in on Damascus to unseat Assad,” the Arab official said. He declined to provide details, but said the plan is being prepared in stages and will take “days or weeks” for results.
Rebels have captured suburbs around Damascus but have been largely unable to break into the heavily guarded capital. Instead, they have hit central neighborhoods of the city with increasingly heavy mortar volleys from their positions to the northeast and south.
But rebels in the south are fighting to secure supply lines from the border with Jordan to the capital, and the new influx of weapons from Jordan has fueled the drive, a rebel commander in a southwestern suburb of the capital said. The consensus among the multiple rebel groups was that Damascus is the next objective, he added.
“There is an attempt to secure towns and villages along the international line linking Amman and Damascus. Significant progress is being made. The new weapons come in that context,” said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Syrian government reprisal. He said his own fighters on the capital’s outskirts had not received any arms from the influx but that he had heard about the new weapons from comrades in the south.
Syria’s rebels, who are divided into numerous independent brigades, have long complained that the international community is not providing them with the weaponry needed to oust Assad, drawing out a civil war that in the past two years has killed more than 70,000 people and displaced 3.5 million Syrians, nearly a third of them fleeing into neighboring countries.
But the United States in particular has been wary of arming the rebellion, fearing weapons will go to Islamic extremists who have taken a prominent role in the uprising. Washington says it is only providing non-lethal aid to the rebels. The U.S. involvement in the arms channels opened up by its regional allies is aimed at ensuring the weapons are not going to militants.
The Arab official, the diplomat and the military experts said the material was destined for “secular” fighters not necessarily linked to the Free Syrian Army, the nominal umbrella group for the rebels. Jordan and other Arabs have been critical of the FSA, which they accuse of having failed as an effective or credible force because its elements lack the fighting skills and military prowess.
The four described a system in which Saudi Arabia and Qatar provide the funding for the weapons, while Jordan and Turkey provide the land channels for the shipments to reach the rebels, while all coordinate with the U.S. and other Western governments on the shipments’ destinations. All must agree for a shipment to go through. The Arab official said some of the arms are being purchased from Croatia, or from U.S. drawdowns in unspecified European countries. He said other sources were black market arms dealers across Europe and the Mideast.
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Subject: Israeli Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Units Active in Damascus Battles Mon Dec 02, 2013 9:04 am
Israeli Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Units Active in Damascus Battles on December 2, 2013 Posted In: Israel, Middle East, Wars And Rumors Of War
Roughly Translated
Israel military in East Gouta to Damascus? Battles, which began last Friday, a surprise attack on the outposts of the Syrian army in the far East Gouta, may turn out to be the first occasion involving Israelis effectively in the Syrian war along one of the parties.
According to sources cross, the Israelis have made a reconnaissance maps and pictures of the Syrian army positions to the nucleus of the attacking force, which was launched from Jordan, under the leadership of co-ordinated intelligence Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel.
But Israeli contribute in the battle of the big East Gouta was a pillar whole attack. According to information security, the Israelis succeeded before the start of the first wave of the attack to disrupt communications system for the Fourth Division and the Republican Guard and units of the elite forces for «Hezbollah» The factions «Abu al Fadl al Abbas» Iraq in the region.
During the first hours of the attack, the Israelis used electronic means of encryption, and managed to disrupt radio communications between Syrian groups and their allies on the first line of defense, which was breached quickly, and led to the fall of the seven villages and farms in the area of turf. It has become known that the units of the fourth division stationed in the region had lost contact with the leaders in the region, and the units to the protection lines groups retreating towards the second line of defense to prevent the attackers from progress toward their goal of strategic Otaiba, which forms the entrance to East Gouta, and the key to the siege around.
The attack succeeded to isolate groups of the Republican Guard and «Brigade of Abu al Fadl al Abbas» from each other, and lost many of its elements. And succeeded reinforcements that arrived to the area of prairie restoration headquarters and more barriers and sites that were lost, and the re-organization of parallel lines of defense, and restored contact groups that have lost. So could «Hezbollah» retrieve a set of seven fighters from the elite forces, the opposition said it killed during the attack, as he emphasized «the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights» elements that have regained contact their leadership.
And military experts assert that the process of disabling communication quality witnessed by Gota bore the hallmarks of electronic devices known in the Israeli media «Hezbollah» When the Syrian army. And works «Hezbollah» to protect networks contacts, to retain the wired devices and protection, a network impenetrable or disabled.
And characterized the offensive operation, which was conducted by the Chamber of Saudi Arabia – American joint in Jordan, in the absence of the fundamentalist «Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant» (Daash) them, who were excluded from the process at the request of U.S., in order to preserve confidentiality, and to avoid the strategy «Daash» that rely on intrusion suicidal wide in the early stages of the attacks, the attackers lose the element of surprise in the feature area has not seen major military operations, since the Syrian army arrived before month and a half leading up to the edge of the desert to Jordan about, updated siege for «free army» in the region.
It seems that the attackers relied on the experience of Israelis in cutting communications to quickly access to the first line of defense of the Syrian army, to the extent dispense wave «Alangmasien» First and bombers from «Daash» or «Front victory». Was not able to «Daash» from entering the battlefield, but on the second day of the attack, after Absorb Syrian army wave offensive first, while reaching additional troops from the elite units in the «Hezbollah» which began, as well as the Syrian army, a counter-offensive in the region, still in progress so far.
source
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Subject: DESTRUCTION OF DAMASCUS ??? is it not done by what we thought it would be??? Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:19 pm
Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:36 am
Syria's starving hordes: In a biblical picture of suffering, crowd stretching for as far as the eye can see gathers amid the rubble of Damascus for UN food hand-outs
Palestinian area of Damascus has been sealed on and off since July
Photograph shows first food parcel arrival in Yarmouk late last month
Yarmouk is yet again cut off from aid following clashes in Syria's capital
175 rebel fighters killed in a Syrian army ambush near Damascus today
By SARA MALM PUBLISHED: 06:55 EST, 26 February 2014 | UPDATED: 10:15 EST, 26 February 2014
Hundreds of men, women and children fight to get to the front of the queue as a refugee camp in Damascus receives food parcels after being cut off for months.
Today the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) called on rebel forces and Al-Assad’s troops alike to allow ‘safe and unhindered humanitarian access’ to thousands of civilians in Yarmouk, a Palestinian district in the Syrian capital.
Yarmouk has seen some of the worst fighting in the capital, leading to severe food shortages and widespread hunger.
Scroll down for video
Hour of need: Residents of Syria's besieged Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp, south of Damascus, crowding a destroyed street during a food distribution led by the UN agency
UNWRA chief Chris Gunnes spoke today after a rare visit to Yarmouk on Monday where relief agencies have found it particularly difficult to provide food and medical assistance.
Yarmouk Camp has been sealed since July 2013, resulting in acute and widespread deprivation, including severe malnutrition, while civilian residents are constantly exposed to the threat of death, injuries and trauma of the armed conflict.
The UN was given access to the camp by the Syrian authorities late January, which is when the photograph was taken.
However, following clashes in northern Yarmouk earlier this month, UNRWA said distribution of food parcels and medical supplies has been suspended yet again.
Christopher Gunness, from UNRWA, said: ‘It is impossible not to be touched by the apocalyptic scenes emerging from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, besieged and cut off for months.
Devastation in Yarmouk, Syria is 'unbelievable': UNRWA head
Eyes of hunger: A child sitting on a broken sidewalk in the Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk in Damascus, Syria
‘The images are at once epic and personal. Row upon row of gaunt faces, serried ranks of grimy, raged figures; the delicate, hunger-ravaged features of children waiting in line for an UNRWA food parcel; the face of a mother creased in grief for a deceased child; tears of joy as a father is reunited with a long-lost daughter.
'These are the vignettes of inhumanity that have become the regular fare of nightly news bulletins. They are UNRWA's daily reality.’
The reports of humanitarian crisis came as more than 175 rebels and foreign fighters, including ‘Saudis, Qataris and Chechens,’ were killed Wednesday in a Syrian army ambush near Damascus, state news agency SANA reported.
It said an army unit ‘spotted Al-Nusra Front (jihadist) and Liwa al-Islam (Islamist) terrorists’ near Damascus, and ‘killed 175 of them and wounded several others.’
Yesterday the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres warned that Syrians could soon overtake Afghans as the world's biggest refugee population.
Ongoing battle: A rebel fighter fires towards pro-regime forces during clashes in Sheikh Najar area of the restive Syrian city of Aleppo on February 25
The organisation is predicting that the number of displaced Syrians will pass four million by the end of 2014.
Opposition activists say more than 140,000 people have died in the conflict, which enters its fourth year next month. The U.N. says 9.3 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance.The number of Afghan refugees was 2.6 million at the end of 2012, UNHCR says.
Syrians, with nearly 2.5 million registered as refugees, should overtake that long before the end of the year. About one-half of the refugees are children.
‘It breaks my heart to see this nation that for decades welcomed refugees from other countries ripped apart and forced into exile itself,’ Guterres told the U.N. General Assembly. Just five years ago, Syria hosted the world's second-largest number of refugees, he said.
Syria's neighbors now plead for assistance as hundreds or thousands of people flee into their countries every day.
The number of Syrian refugees now registered in far smaller Lebanon, for example, is the equivalent of having 71 million of them registered in the United States or almost 15 million in France, Guterres said.
Subject: Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of time Thu Apr 03, 2014 7:25 am
Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of time
. View gallery
Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by Al-Wafaa campaign at the Palestinian refugee camp of …
By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Conflict in Syria kills hundreds of thousands of people and spreads unrest across the Middle East. Iranian forces battle anti-Shi'ite fighters in Damascus, and the region braces for an ultimate showdown.
If the scenario sounds familiar to an anxious world watching Syria's devastating civil war, it resonates even more with Sunni and Shi'ite fighters on the frontlines - who believe it was all foretold in 7th Century prophecies.
From the first outbreak of the crisis in the southern city of Deraa to apocalyptic forecasts of a Middle East soaked in blood, many combatants on both sides of the conflict say its path was set 1,400 years ago in the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad and his followers.
Among those many thousands of sayings, or hadith, are accounts which refer to the confrontation of two huge Islamic armies in Syria, a great battle near Damascus, and intervention from the north and west of the country.
The power of those prophecies for many fighters on the ground means that the three-year-old conflict is more deeply rooted - and far tougher to resolve - than a simple power struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and his rebel foes.
Syria's war has killed more than 140,000 people, driven millions from their homes and left many more dependent on aid. Diplomatic efforts, focused on the political rather than religious factors driving the conflict, have made no headway.
"If you think all these mujahideen came from across the world to fight Assad, you're mistaken," said a Sunni Muslim jihadi who uses the name Abu Omar and fights in one of the many anti-Assad Islamist brigades in Aleppo.
"They are all here as promised by the Prophet. This is the war he promised - it is the Grand Battle," he told Reuters, using a word which can also be translated as slaughter.
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Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the Al-Wafaa campaign at the besieged al-Yarmouk c …
On the other side, many Shi'ites from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are drawn to the war because they believe it paves the way for the return of Imam Mahdi - a descendent of the Prophet who vanished 1,000 years ago and who will re-emerge at a time of war to establish global Islamic rule before the end of the world.
According to Shi'ite tradition, an early sign of his return came with the 1979 Iranian revolution, which set up an Islamic state to provide fighters for an army led by the Mahdi to wage war in Syria after sweeping through the Middle East.
"This Islamic Revolution, based on the narratives that we have received from the prophet and imams, is the prelude to the appearance of the Mahdi," Iranian cleric and parliamentarian Ruhollah Hosseinian said last year.
He cited comments by an eighth century Shi'ite imam who said another sign of the Mahdi's return would be a battle involving warriors fighting under a yellow banner - the color associated with Lebanon's pro-Assad Hezbollah militia.
"As Imam Sadeq has stated, when the (forces) with yellow flags fight anti-Shi'ites in Damascus and Iranian forces join them, this is a prelude and a sign of the coming of his holiness," Hosseinian was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. MEDIEVAL BATTLEFIELDS Islam split into its Sunni and Shi'ite branches during a war over the succession to the leadership of the faith in the generation that followed the Prophet Mohammad's death in 632. The hadith, or sayings of the prophet and his companions, have been handed down orally over the centuries and are the most important sources of authority in Islam after the Quran itself. Many date back to those medieval battlefields in what are now Syria and Iraq, where the two main Islamic sects took shape.
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A rebel fighter stands on the back of a pick-up truck as he mans an anti-aircraft weapon in Morek vi …
The historical texts have become a powerful recruitment tool, quoted across the region from religious festivals in Iraq's Shi'ite shrine city of Kerbala to videos released by Sunni preachers in the Gulf, and beyond.
"We have here mujahideen from Russia, America, the Philippines, China, Germany, Belgium, Sudan, India and Yemen and other places," said Sami, a Sunni rebel fighter in northern Syria. "They are here because this what the Prophet said and promised, the Grand Battle is happening."
Both sides emphasize the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic state which will rule the world before total chaos.
Although some Sunni and Shi'ite clerics are privately skeptical of the religious justifications for the war, few in the region express such reservations in public for fear of being misinterpreted as doubters of the prophecies.
"Yes some of the signs are similar but these signs could apply at any time after the fall of the Islamic state (1,000 years ago)," one Sunni Muslim scholar in Lebanon said, asking that he not be identified. "There is no way to confirm we are living those times. We have to wait and see."
For the faithful, the hadith chart the course of Syria's conflict from its beginning in March 2011, when protests erupted over the alleged torture of students and schoolboys who wrote anti-Assad graffiti on a school wall in Deraa.
"There will be a strife in Sham (Syria) that begins with children playing, after which nothing can be fixed," according to one hadith. "When it calms down from one side, it ignites from the other."
Hadith on both sides mention Syria as a main battlefield, naming cities and towns where blood will be spilled.
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Rebel fighters prepare to head out towards the frontline in Morek village in the northern Hama count …
Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. The whole region will be shaken from the Arabian Peninsula to Iraq, Iran and Jerusalem, according to some texts.
Saudi Arabia will collapse. Almost every country in the Middle East will face unrest.
One statement says "blood will reach knee-level".
A widely circulated hadith attributed to Mohammad says Sham, or Syria, is God's favored land. Asked where the next jihad will be, he replies: "Go for Sham, and if you can't, go for Yemen ...(though) God has guaranteed me Sham and its people."
Another refers to Muslims gathering "at the time of war in Ghouta, near a city called Damascus". Ghouta, east of Syria's capital, has been a rebel stronghold for the last two years.
A Sunni hadith speaks of a battle in a town called Dabeq, in northern Syria near the Turkish border, and intervention by a foreign army to split the Muslim fighters - seen by some as a reference to a possible Turkish incursion.
ARAB SPRING GIVES WAY TO SECTARIAN STRUGGLE
Syria's civil war grew out of the "Arab Spring" of pro-democracy revolts in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 after Assad's forces cracked down hard on peaceful protests.
But because Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shii'ism, and most of his opponents are Sunni Muslims, the fighting quickly took on a sectarian character, which has largely overwhelmed the political issues.
"These hadith are what the Mujahideen are guided by to come to Syria, we are fighting for this. With every passing day we know that we are living the days that the Prophet talked about," said Mussab, a fighter from the Nusra Front, a Sunni hardline group linked to al Qaeda, speaking from Syria.
Murtada, a 27-year-old Lebanese Shi'ite who regularly goes to Syria to battle against the rebels, says he is not fighting for Assad, but for the Mahdi, also known as the Imam.
"Even if I am martyred now, when he appears I will be reborn to fight among his army, I will be his soldier," he told Reuters in Lebanon.
Murtada, who has fought in Damascus and in the decisive battle last year for the border town of Qusair, leaves his wife and two children when he goes to fight in Syria: "Nothing is more precious than the Imam, even my family. It is our duty."
Syria's civil war built upon sectarian conflicts elsewhere, especially in Iraq and Lebanon, leading to a growing sense across the region that all those power struggles in individual countries were part of a titanic battle for the future.
Abbas, a 24-year-old Iraqi Shi'ite fighter, said he knew he was living in the era of the Mahdi's return when the United States and Britain invaded Iraq in 2003.
"That was the first sign and then everything else followed," he told Reuters from Baghdad, where he said was resting before heading to Syria for a fourth time.
"I was waiting for the day when I will fight in Syria. Thank God he chose me to be one of the Imam's soldiers."
Abu Hsaasan, a 65 year old pensioner from south Lebanon, said he once thought the prophecies of the end of days would take centuries to come about.
"Things are moving fast. I never thought that I would be living the days of the Imam. Now, with every passing day I am more and more convinced that it is only a matter of few years before he appears."
(Editing by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff)
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Posts : 3 Reputation : 2 Join date : 2014-04-04
Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Fri Apr 04, 2014 3:33 am
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Subject: Apocalyptic prophecies thicken Syria’s vicious war Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:06 am
Apocalyptic prophecies thicken Syria’s vicious war
Carnage just start of titanic battle for the entire Mideast, mujahedeen say
REUTERS, AFP-JIJI
BEIRUT/DAMASCUS – Conflict in Syria kills hundreds of thousands of people and spreads unrest across the Middle East. Iranian forces battle anti-Shiite fighters in Damascus, and the region braces for an ultimate showdown.
If the scenario sounds familiar to an anxious world watching Syria’s devastating civil war, it resonates even more with Sunni and Shiite fighters on the front lines — who believe it was all foretold in seventh-century prophecies.
From the first outbreak of the crisis in the southern city of Deraa to apocalyptic forecasts of a Middle East soaked in blood, many combatants on both sides of the conflict say its path was set 1,400 years ago in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers.
Among those many thousands of sayings, or “hadith,” are accounts that refer to the confrontation of two huge Islamic armies in Syria, a great battle near Damascus and intervention from the north and west of the country.
The power of those prophecies for many fighters on the ground means that the 3-year-old conflict is more deeply rooted — and far tougher to resolve — than a simple power struggle between President Bashar Assad and his rebel foes.
Syria’s war has now killed more than 150,000 people, driven millions from their homes and left many more dependent on aid. Diplomatic efforts, focused on the political rather than religious factors driving the conflict, have made no headway.
“If you think all these mujahedeen came from across the world to fight Assad, you’re mistaken,” said a Sunni Muslim jihadi who uses the name Abu Omar and fights in one of the many anti-Assad Islamist brigades in Aleppo.
“They are all here as promised by the prophet. This is the war he promised — it is the Grand Battle,” he said, using a word that can also be translated as slaughter.
On the other side, many Shiites from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are drawn to the war because they believe it paves the way for the return of Imam Mahdi — a descendant of the prophet who vanished 1,000 years ago and who will re-emerge at a time of war to establish global Islamic rule before the end of the world.
According to Shiite tradition, an early sign of his return came with the 1979 Iranian revolution, which set up an Islamic state to provide fighters for an army led by the Mahdi to wage war in Syria after sweeping through the Middle East.
“This Islamic Revolution, based on the narratives that we have received from the prophet and imams, is the prelude to the appearance of the Mahdi,” Iranian cleric and parliamentarian Ruhollah Hosseinian said last year.
He cited comments by an eighth-century Shiite imam who said another sign of the Mahdi’s return would be a battle involving warriors fighting under a yellow banner — the color associated with Lebanon’s pro-Assad Hezbollah militia.
“As Imam Sadeq has stated, when the (forces) with yellow flags fight anti-Shiites in Damascus and Iranian forces join them, this is a prelude and a sign of the coming of his holiness,” Hosseinian was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.
Islam split into its Sunni and Shiite branches during a war over the succession to the leadership of the faith in the generation that followed Muhammad’s death in 632. The hadith, or sayings of the prophet and his companions, have been handed down orally over the centuries and are the most important sources of authority in Islam after the Quran itself. Many date back to those medieval battlefields in what are now Syria and Iraq, where the two main Islamic sects took shape.
The historical texts have become a powerful recruitment tool, quoted across the region from religious festivals in Iraq’s Shiite shrine city of Kerbala to videos released by Sunni preachers in the Persian Gulf and beyond.
“We have here mujahedeen from Russia, America, the Philippines, China, Germany, Belgium, Sudan, India and Yemen and other places,” said Sami, a Sunni rebel fighter in northern Syria. “They are here because this what the prophet said and promised — the Grand Battle is happening.”
Both sides emphasize the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic state that will rule the world before total chaos.
Although some Sunni and Shiite clerics are privately skeptical of the religious justifications for the war, few of them in the region express such reservations in public for fear of being misinterpreted as doubters of the prophecies.
“Yes, some of the signs are similar, but these signs could apply at any time after the fall of the Islamic state (1,000 years ago),” one Sunni Muslim scholar in Lebanon said, asking that he not be identified. “There is no way to confirm we are living those times. We have to wait and see.”
For the faithful, the hadith chart the course of Syria’s conflict from its beginning in March 2011, when protests erupted over the alleged torture of students and schoolboys who wrote anti-Assad graffiti on a school wall in Deraa.
“There will be a strife in Sham (Syria) that begins with children playing, after which nothing can be fixed,” according to one hadith. “When it calms down from one side, it ignites from the other.”
Hadith on both sides mention Syria as a main battlefield, naming cities and towns where blood will be spilled.
Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. The whole region will be shaken from the Arabian Peninsula to Iraq, Iran and Jerusalem, according to some texts.
Saudi Arabia will collapse. Almost every country in the Middle East will face unrest.
One statement says “blood will reach knee level.”
A widely circulated hadith attributed to Muhammad says Sham is God’s favored land.
Asked where the next jihad will be, he replies: “Go for Sham, and if you can’t, go for Yemen . . . (though) God has guaranteed me Sham and its people.”
Another refers to Muslims gathering “at the time of war in Ghouta, near a city called Damascus.” Ghouta, east of Syria’s capital, has been a rebel stronghold for the last two years.
A Sunni hadith speaks of a battle in a town called Dabeq, in northern Syria near the Turkish border, and intervention by a foreign army to split the Muslim fighters — seen by some as a reference to a possible Turkish incursion.
Syria’s civil war grew out of the “Arab Spring” of prodemocracy revolts in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 after Assad’s forces cracked down hard on peaceful protests. But because Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite faith, and most of his opponents are Sunni Muslims, the fighting quickly took on a sectarian character, which has largely overwhelmed the political issues.
On Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 150,344 people had been killed on both sides of the conflict since it broke out in March 2011. The toll from the Britain-based group, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria, includes 51,212 civilians, among them 7,985 children.
At least half a million more people have been wounded, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has warned that the situation in Syria is “catastrophic” and is urging that greater field access be secured for the provision of humanitarian aid.
Meanwhile, the United Nations now identifies Syrians as the world’s largest refugee population, with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimating some 2.6 million Syrians have registered as refugees in neighboring countries in the Middle East. As for conditions inside Syria, the United Nations describes the situation as “critical,” with 40 percent of the hospitals destroyed and 20 percent of the others not functioning properly.
But those factors have not deterred a stream of new recruits headed to Syria’s front lines.
“These hadith are what the mujahedeen are guided by to come to Syria, we are fighting for this. With every passing day, we know that we are living the days that the prophet talked about,” said Mussab, a fighter from Jabhat al-Nusra, a Sunni hard-line group linked to al-Qaida, speaking from Syria.
Murtada, a 27-year-old Lebanese Shiite who regularly goes to Syria to battle against the rebels, says he is not fighting for Assad, but for the Mahdi, also known as the Imam. “Even if I am martyred now, when he appears I will be reborn to fight among his army, I will be his soldier,” he told reporters in Lebanon.
Murtada, who has fought in Damascus and in the decisive battle last year for the border town of Qusair, leaves his wife and two children when he goes to fight in Syria: “Nothing is more precious than the Imam, even my family. It is our duty.”
Syria’s civil war built upon sectarian conflicts elsewhere, especially in Iraq and Lebanon, leading to a growing sense across the region that all those power struggles in individual countries were part of a titanic battle for the future.
Abbas, a 24-year-old Iraqi Shiite fighter, said he knew he was living in the era of the Mahdi’s return when the United States and Britain invaded Iraq in 2003.
“That was the first sign and then everything else followed,” he told reporters from Baghdad, where he said he was resting before heading to Syria for a fourth time.
“I was waiting for the day when I will fight in Syria. Thank God he chose me to be one of the Imam’s soldiers.”
Abu Hassan, a 65-year-old pensioner from south Lebanon, said he once thought the prophecies of the end of days would take centuries to come about.
“Things are moving fast. I never thought that I would be living the days of the Imam. Now, with every passing day, I am more and more convinced that it is only a matter of few years before he appears.”
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Subject: Re: DAMASCUS WATCH Fri Apr 04, 2014 10:42 am
More Evidence U.S. Funds Al-Qaeda Terrorists In Syria, Christians Beheaded By Kurt Nimmo Apr 03, 2014
WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO
Earlier this year, the United States and the Gulf monarchies initiated a propaganda effort designed to sanitize the image of the mercenaries fighting to topple the Syrian government. According to The Telegraph, mercenary groups “best equipped to take on the extremists" were given millions of dollars to go up against al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS), which was said to have “hijacked" the foreign effort to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The British newspaper reported Jamal Maarouf, with the help of the CIA and Saudi and Qatari intelligence, created the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF), a collection of “moderate" fighters who reportedly launched attacks against the ISIS and its jihadist allies.
As it turns out, the war against ISIS is not what the establishment media in the West make it out to be. On Wednesday, Maarouf told The Independent the fight against al-Qaeda was “not our problem" and admitted the mercenaries he leads with U.S., Saudi and Qatari help conduct joint operations with Jabhat al-Nusra, seen as the de facto al-Qaeda branch in Syria. Maarouf told the newspaper he does not have a problem working with al-Qaeda so long as the objective is the ouster of the al-Assad government.
In fact, according to Maarouf, his benefactors told him to provide al-Nusra with weapons despite the aforementioned propaganda campaign designed to give the impression “moderates" are fighting the good fight against al-Qaeda in Syria. He said if “the people who support us [U.S., Saudis, Qataris] tell us to send weapons to another group, we send them. They asked us a month ago to send weapons to Yabroud so we sent a lot of weapons there. When they asked us to do this, we do it."
According to Barak Barfi, a research fellow for the globalist funded New America Foundation, al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked group known for summarily executing Syrian soldiers and other atrocities (including beheading Christians; see the video above), receives weapons indirectly from SRF.
Maarouf's revelation, however, is not news. In December, The Washington Post and other establishment media outlets reported the United States and its partners are involved in a “cold-war style of warfare" which includes the use of “proxies to punish Assad." The mention of the term Cold War alludes to covert intelligence operations, the hallmark of decades of undeclared warfare against the Soviet Union.
In an effort to minimize the fact the United States is colluding with an enemy aligned with a terrorist organization allegedly responsible for attacking the United States, the Post reported:
The United States government knowingly contributed to the territorial gains of radical Islamists allied to our gravest enemy in an effort to hijack the Syrian Revolution and install Sharia Law in a very rich and very powerful country. In an effort to thwart the fear of the public that the U.S. would be supporting radical Jihadists, the secretary of state made a statement that he was certain that only 25 percent of the rebels were Jihadists. There are roughly a hundred eighty thousand Syrian Rebels, and as of now an estimated one hundred thousand of those rebels fall under the command of the Islamic Front.
In other words, in an effort to subvert a sovereign nation and decide who will rule over it (and who will cooperate with the financial elite), the United States is only partially collaborating with declared enemies. This is, we are assured, better than fully cooperating with them.
Once again, this is sheer and transparent propaganda designed to minimize the obvious fact the United States does not differentiate between enemies and allies (who often, as Taliban did, become tomorrow's sworn enemies if so declared by geopolitical imperatives decided upon by the global elite).
“For half a century the United States and many of its allies saw what I call the ‘Islamic right' as convenient partners in the Cold War," writes Robert Dreyfuss in his book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. The Afghan Mujahideen, enthusiastically supported by the CIA in its successful covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, would ultimately produce both al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a fact admitted by Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, CIA director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Naturally, this fact – the United States not only creates and supports the likes of al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, to name but two, but itself constitutes the largest, most organized, well-funded and dangerous terrorist organization in the world – is never mentioned by the establishment media, even when U.S. proxies, headed up by war profiteers such as Jamal Maarouf, admit they are in league with brutal sadists who behead innocents, execute prisoners of war, and desecrate Christian churches.
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Subject: US arms Syrian rebels with first heavy weapons, anti-tank BGM-71 TOW missiles - raising war stakes Mon Apr 07, 2014 8:32 am
US arms Syrian rebels with first heavy weapons, anti-tank BGM-71 TOW missiles - raising war stakes
BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report Apr 7, 2014, 8:56 AM (IDT)
Two Syrian rebel militias judged moderate in Washington have in the last few days taken delivery and begun using – mostly in the Idlib region - the first advanced US weapon to be deployed in more than three years of civil war, DEBKAfile reveals. It is the heavy anti-tank, optically-tracked, wire-guided BGM-71 TOW, capable of piercing 50mm thickness of Syrian tank armor at a range of 4 kilometers - delivered to the new FSA chief Brig-Gen. Abdul-Hila al Bashir in Quneitra for the south, and Syrian Revolutionary Front’s Jamal Maarouf in the north.
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Subject: Assad musters large Syrian-Hizballah-Iraqi force to recover forward Golan position opposite Israel Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:56 am
Assad musters large Syrian-Hizballah-Iraqi force to recover forward Golan position opposite Israel
Climbing up Tel Al-Ahmer, Syrian Golan DEBKAfile Exclusive Report Apr 9, 2014, 12:04 PM (IDT)
The Syrian army’s 90th Brigade’s loss of the forward Tel Al-Ahmar Golan position to rebel forces including al Qaeda’s Nusra Front was Bashar Assad’s most humiliating military setback in the past year. Situated on the Israeli border, that position commands the Golan town of Quneitra opposite the Israeli army. Determined to recover it, Assad has mustered a Syrian-Hizballah-Iraqi Shiite expeditionary force. Israel will have to decide how to deal with violations of the Golan demilitarized zone if the Syrian army uses heavy armor and mounts air strikes against the rebels.
Subject: New Syrian-Iranian chlorine bombs make mockery of US-Russian chemical accord and UN monitors Mon Apr 21, 2014 8:13 am
New Syrian-Iranian chlorine bombs make mockery of US-Russian chemical accord and UN monitors
Liquid chlorine gas: Assad's new chemical weapon
DEBKAfile Special Report Apr 21, 2014, 2:55 PM (IDT)
On April 11, Syrian planes dropped Chinese-manufactured chlorine gas canisters rigged with explosive detonators on Kafr Zita near Hama. Since then, British and French intelligence sources report at least four such attacks against the northern towns of Idlib and Homs and the Harasta and Jobar districts outside Damascus. Assad is dropping these crippling gas bombs at the rate of one every three days, mocking the 2013 Kerry-Lavrov chemical disarmament pact. DEBKAfile: Iran is buy Chinese chlorine in industrial quantities off the Internet from a Hangzhou-based firm.
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Subject: IDF Shuts Down Border as Syrian War Moves Closer (Video) Tue May 13, 2014 9:28 am
IDF Shuts Down Border as Syrian War Moves Closer (Video) Posted by: Lea Speyer May 13, 2014 , 11:33 am
Quote :
“Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.” (Isaiah 13:15)
IDF tanks seen in the Golan Heights near the Israel-Syria border. (Photo: IDF) As the crisis in Syria heats up, the IDF is not taking any chances when it comes to protecting its borders.
A recent video emerged claiming that Syrian rebels captured the villages of Quneitra and Qunaytirah, not far from the Israel-Syria border in the Golan Heights. As a result, the IDF took proactive steps in help stem the flow of possible violence spilling over into Israel.
The IDF closed the Quneitra crossing several times this week and has even refused UNDOF forces to pass through. An IDF spokeswoman told AFP that the area was closed “for security reasons.”
Radical and moderate Islamist rebel groups announced that they would now seek to capture the village of al-Hamidia along the Quneitra crossing as well as the a-Rawdi crossing. According to a statement in the video by the rebels, the operation is meant to remove the Syrian government from the area.
The rebels hope that the newest operation would allow them to reach their final goal in the area, that of overtaking the villages of Jabta Elhashab and Taranja, which is directly adjacent to the Israel border.
The video, which was published on the rebel groups Facebook page, claims that it has been aided by the Araya al-Jihad (Jihad Squadrons) and Harchat Mujahedeen a-Shaham (Syrian Jihad Warriors Movement). At one point, the rebels are mere feet away from the border fence.
During the video, the men are seen being lectured about the importance of “Jihad for Allah.” The rebel leader stated that the overall goal was the implementation of Sharia law in the region and not removing Assad from power.
At several points throughout the video, armed rebels can be seen in pickup trucks waving the notorious black flag associated with al-Qaeda which reads, “There is no God but Allah.”
Since the beginning of the civil war, Israel has raised its alert level on the border.
IDF soldiers stationed along the border with Syria are put on high alert each time either rebel or government forces gather close to Israeli territory. The IDF has encountered live rounds and shells being shot into Israel from Assad and rebel forces fighting one another.
Rebel video from Quneitra (Reuters)
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/15027/idf-shuts-border-syrian-war-moves-closer/#tbIUpLbec6Dvr0xi.99
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Subject: Hagel’s talks in Jordan and Israel to determine if Syrian rebel Golan offensive expands to Damascus Thu May 15, 2014 8:01 am
Hagel’s talks in Jordan and Israel to determine if Syrian rebel Golan offensive expands to Damascus
US and Jordanian special forces
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 15, 2014, 10:41 AM (IDT)
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in Israel Wednesday May 14 for talks with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon from an inspection of the US-Jordanian underground command center located 10 kilometers north of Amman, DEBKAfile reports. It was the first visit by a high-ranking US official to a US military facility directly involved in the Syrian war. His talks in Jordan and Israel will determine whether the US-backed rebel forces engaged in battle for control of the Golan town of Quneitra, open a new southern front against Bashar Assad and threaten Damascus.