DAMASCUS WATCH

Tehran presses Assad to send Hizballah sophisticated anti-air interceptorsDEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 28, 2013, 11:22 PM



Self-propelled SA-17 anti-air interceptor


Israeli Air Force jets were reported flying over Damascus in the last few hours by foreign sources. According to debkafile’s Iranian and intelligence sources, Iran has been pushing Bashar Assad hard to let Hizballah have sophisticated weapons, including self-propelled SA-17 interceptor missile systems. Tehran is reminding the Syrian ruler of the debt he owes Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah who was ready to deploy 5,000 out of Hizballah’s 8,000 combat-ready fighters to Syrian battlefields to fight rebel forces and keep the Assad regime in power.

Assad is therefore in no position to spurn Tehran’s demand.
And so, preparations for sending those weapons systems across to Lebanon have been sighted in the last few days at Syrian military bases. Israeli Air Force are said to be overhead monitoring these movements after Israel repeatedly warned Damascus any attempts to make such transfers would draw a reaction.

On Jan. 30, Israel bombed a convoy passing through Jamraya near Damascus on its way to Lebanon with a consignment of sophisticated weapons systems for Hizballah.

The drone launched on April 25 from Lebanon, which Israeli fighter planes shot down opposite Haifa, is seen now as a counter-warning from Tehran that if Israel strikes another arms convoy on its way from Syria to Lebanon, the next drones flying over Israel would be armed and come in numbers.

The Israeli security cabinet held a long session on the Syrian question Sunday, April 28, headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. They reached a number of decisions on how to handle the latest developments on the Syrian front, including evidence of the use of chemical weapons.

Earlier Sunday, debkafile ran the following exclusive report:
Israel and Turkey agreed last week to start pooling their incoming intelligence on the Syrian civil war, debkafile’s intelligence sources report exclusively. Exchanges will take place at the highest level between Mossad Director Tamir Pardo and Hakan Fidan, head of Turkey’s MIT.

The United States will also provide additional security for Syria’s southern neighbor by the relocation of US Patriot missile interceptors from West Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to northern Jordan opposite the Syrian border.

US Patriots were deployed on the Turkish-Syrian border last year.
The new Patriot deployment indicates that the Obama administration is now treating the peril to its allies from Syria as greater than the Iranian menace.

Things are also on the move in the Turkish-Israeli arena.
Advantage was taken of the Israeli delegation’s visit to Istanbul Monday, April 22, for negotiations on the amount of compensation to be paid out to the families of the nine Turks who died in a clash of arms with Israeli naval commandoes in May 2010, when their ship, the Mavi Marmara, was stopped from completing its mission to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

As first reported by the last DEBKA-Net-Weekly, the negotiating session was brief. Criteria for determining the amounts of the payouts were settled in less than an hour. A joint Israeli-Turkish group is to calculate the sums and refer their estimates back to the delegations for approval.

The two delegations then got down to the brass tacks of the most pressing issues of interest to them both.
A day earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry had urged Turkey to hurry up and restore its relations with Israel because of the urgent security interests they shared with one another and the United States in the Middle East:

The turbulence in Syria and Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb posed extreme perils to all three nations.
The delegations responded by launching into an intense discussion of ways to further their military and intelligence cooperation for the common benefit.

One immediate decision was for Turkey and Israel to set up a joint mechanism for sharing intelligence on the Syrian conflict.
Turkey and Israel are reputed to have the best Syrian intelligence in the business, but their methods of gathering information, its content and their sources vary.

The Turks use Syrian rebels and Lebanese informants operating in Syria. They don’t command the electronic resources which Israel possesses. The two agencies also maintain contact with different rebel militias.

It was quickly recognized that both agencies have much to gain from a arrangement for sharing their input without further delay.

http://www.debka.com/article/22934/Tehran-presses-Assad-to-send-Hizballah-sophisticated-anti-air-interceptors

Syrian powder keg has exploded: Major conflict in the Middle East likely weeks away
Posted on April 30, 2013 by The Extinction Protocol



April 30, 2013 – SYRIA – Two people were killed and 20 others were injured in northwestern Syrian province of Idlib Tuesday after warplanes dropped bags containing “strange substances,” Al-Jazeera reported, saying the suspicious material was apparently chemical weapons. Videos uploaded by the Qatari news network show casualties having difficulties breathing treated in makeshift hospitals. One video showed a healthcare professional drawing attention to the white foam coming out of an injured man’s mouth. The issue of possible chemical attacks by President Bashar Assad’s government has become a crucial factor that could lead to the United States and other western powers stepping up their involvement in the Syrian civil war. Both Washington and Jerusalem have expressed concern about chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups – either hardline Islamist rebels fighting to topple Assad or his regional allies. Last week rebels claimed 42 people suffocated to death following a chemical attack by Assad’s forces on a Damascus suburb. Also last week, official mouthpiece Al-Watan said numerous regime fighters were hospitalized suffering from similar symptoms, namely difficulties in breathing. Some of the casualties have died, Al-Watan reported. Meanwhile, the bloodshed in Syria goes on as it has for every other day over the past three years. Opposition sources said 119 people were killed Monday as a result of fierce fighting between rebel forces and Assad loyalists throughout the country. The majority of the casualties came from different Damascus suburbs and as well as from the towns of Aleppo and Daraa. The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper published statements by a Lebanese source claiming that Hezbollah is prepared for any military development. According to the source, this is in light of the meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, in which the two coordinated their stances regarding the support of Damascus. According to the report, sources in Lebanon believe that a war will break out within six weeks, involving Lebanon, Syria and possibly, Iran. –Ynet News



http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4374213,00.html




Washington draws up plans to attack Syrian sites: There is increasing speculation that Washington is considering an aerial or sea missile attack on Syrian chemical weapons sites, a CNN correspondent reported on Monday. The report quoted an anonymous senior administration official as saying, “there is intensified planning in the works. As the situation in Syria becomes more grave and as we are increasingly concerned about chemical weapons use in Syria, it’s the responsibility of the U.S. military to prepare detailed options,” the official said. U.S. President Barack Obama has not asked for the strike options yet, but the Pentagon is preparing all military options, the official continued. Foot troops involvement has been discussed, but a missile strike is a far likelier scenario, even though Syrian chemical stockpiles are constantly moved around the country to avoid being located. Israel has joined Turkey and Jordan in discussions about possible courses of action if Syria threatens them with the use of chemical weapons, according to the report. There is increasing speculation that Washington is considering an aerial or sea missile attack on Syrian chemical weapons sites, a CNN correspondent reported on Monday. The report quoted an anonymous senior administration official as saying, “there is intensified planning in the works. As the situation in Syria becomes more grave and as we are increasingly concerned about chemical weapons use in Syria, it’s the responsibility of the U.S. military to prepare detailed options,” the official said. U.S. President Barack Obama has not asked for the strike options yet, but the Pentagon is preparing all military options, the official continued. Foot troops involvement has been discussed, but a missile strike is a far likelier scenario, even though Syrian chemical stockpiles are constantly moved around the country to avoid being located. Israel has joined Turkey and Jordan in discussions about possible courses of action if Syria threatens them with the use of chemical weapons, according to the report. Recently Egyptian and Iranian government officials conducted a meeting to discuss their growing concerns that the U.S. may choose to carry out a military operation in Syria, Arab newspaper ‘Al-Akhbar’ reported. –Jerusalem Post

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/US-mulls-way-to-hit-Syria-chemical-weapons-sites-311548



Moscow suspends flights over Syria: Moscow has asked Russian airlines to suspend all their flights over “war zones” after Syria had allegedly fired two missiles at a Russian aircraft carrying 159 passengers. Rosaviatsia, the aviation watchdog in Moscow, said the recent “hostilities” against the Russian passenger jet in Syria prompted the move. The watchdog said in a statement: “Taking into account recommendations by the International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO]…Rosaviatsia deems it necessary to recommend that the Russian airlines suspend the flights of passenger planes, including those in transit flights, over the territory of countries where combat actions are taking place.” The Russian foreign ministry has said the authorities would be investigating the alleged Syrian missile attack. The ministry said its officials have tried to contact Syrian authorities over the issue. Moscow had admitted that the aircraft had faced danger but said it was unclear whether it was a targeted attack. “Syrian [officials] informed us that on Monday morning, unidentified forces launched two ground-to-air missiles which exploded in the air very close to a civilian aircraft belonging to a Russian airline,” an informed source in Moscow told the Interfax news agency. The pilots managed to maneuver the flight saving the lives of dozens of passengers. -IB Times

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/462789/20130430/russia-passenger-plane-flight-syria-missile-moscow.htm

Syria: Another chemical attack near Turkey border

http://www.prisonplanet.com/syria-another-chemical-attack-near-turkey-border.html

MICHAEL WILNER
Jerusalem Post
April 30, 2013

UNITED NATIONS – Syrian envoy Bashar al-Ja’afari announced Tuesday that a new chemical attack has occurred in a small town near its border with Turkey.

Ja’afari claimed that, as the Syrian army was making gains on the territory against rebel forces in the north, plastic bags filled with white powder were distributed. The powders produced symptoms among residents associated with the effects caused by chemical weapons, he said.

“The victims were transported into Turkey to be treated in Turkish hospitals and then, of course, today or tomorrow you will hear again that the Turkish government has new tools indicating that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own people,” Ja’afari charged.

Meanwhile, opposition activists said Tuesday that an airstrike done by the Syrian army on a headquarters of a rebel brigade along the Turkish border killed at least five people and wounded dozens more.

Full story here.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Blast_Hits_Damascus_City_Centre/25703/0/0/0/Y/M.html

Blast Hits Damascus City Centre
May 1, 2013
Print Version

Source: NTDTV

The Syrian government blames rebels for a bombing that killed at least 13 people on one of the main streets of the Syrian capital.

Chaos on the streets of Damascus after a bomb detonates on a main road in the Syrian capital.

The target was not immediately clear, but the blast exploded near the former Interior Ministry building.

State-run Suriya television reported at least 13 killed and 70 injured.

The British-based Syrian Observatory said nine civilians and three security personnel had been killed, but anticipated that the death toll would rise.

Pro-government channel, al-Ikhbariya, broadcast instrumental music over images of bloody streets.

Iranian troops face Israel from Syria. US video shows upgraded bunker busterDEBKAfile Special Report May 3, 2013, 3:12 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Iran, Syria, Hizballah, IDF, bunker-busters,



Iranian Basij militiamen land in Syria


US officials recently gave Israel a video demonstration of the new features which enable its biggest bunker buster bomb (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) to destroy Iran’s underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordo near Qom, in a bid to dissuade Israel from a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
This is reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The video displayed the improved bomb, which Israel does not have, as hitting the ground near its target and setting off a massive underground explosion.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this videotaped demonstration was in line with the Obama administration’s latest campaign to convince Israel that the US is getting ready to strike Iran itself.
In actual fact, the improved American MOP is not news - any more than the Israeli Air Force’s possession of bombs capable of penetrating the Fordo underground plant. This capability has given Israeli officials the confidence to assert that Israel can destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own.

What Washington has in common with Jerusalem is that while both make no secret of their capabilities – and Israeli leaders are also free with threatening rhetoric - neither is actually exercising them.

The only parties on the move are Iran and Hizballah.
At the end of the week, DEBKAfile’s military sources report that both established a military presence in Syria and Lebanon, just across Israel’s two northern borders. An Iranian airlift placed Iranian boots on the ground in Syria for the first time in more than two years of its civil war. It was also the first time Israel had ever seen uniformed Iranian soldiers present at close quarters on the soil of a close neighbor.

The arrivals are members of the violent Basij volunteer militia which is trained in urban combat tactics for suppressing anti-regime unrest in Iranian cities. They are the first Iranian troops to confront Syrian rebels in combat. Roughly 6,000-8,000 militiamen have arrived so far – a figure comparable to the size of the Hizhballah elite units fighting for Bashar Assad in Syria.

The Basij militiamen were stationed in Damascus and sent to guard Syrian Shiite border villages situated opposite Hizballah-controlled South Lebanon. This deployment has placed Iranian troops opposite the intersection of the Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese borders.
Iran’s expanding military intervention in Syria accounts partly for this week’s surprise call-up of thousands of Israeli reservists for duty on the country’s northern borders. Although they were sent home after 24 hours to disguise their mission and calm rising tensions, they were in fact ordered to report back Sunday, May 5. These reservists will then pick up the gear and weapons needed for real combat, and take up positions along Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon.

Sirens blared over parts of the Golan Friday, May 3, their sensors touched off by the preparations for these military movements. The official pretext offered of a “technical glitch” was about as convincing as the Israeli military spokesman’s attempt to deny knowing who sent a drone from Beirut towards Israel on April 25.

The sirens on the Golan were apparently not loud enough to be heard in Washington and Jerusalem.

Syria conflict: 'Dozens executed' in village



This picture provided by activists purports to show Syrian soldiers at the scene of the killings

More than 40 people have been killed by government forces in a village in north-western Syria, activists say.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Violations Documentation Centre both listed the names of people they said were executed in al-Bayda, near the port of Baniyas, on Thursday.

An online video appears to show seven bodies in pools of blood, but state media made no mention of any incidents.

The main opposition group accused the government of a "large-scale massacre".

"It is time for the world to intervene and put an end to the grievous crimes of the Assad regime," the National Coalition said in a statement.

The BBC's Jim Muir reports from neighbouring Lebanon that the alleged incident highlights the sectarian nature of Syria's conflict, as the minority Alawite-dominated government struggles for survival against an uprising rooted in the majority Sunni community.

On Friday, the Syrian Observatory, a UK-based activist group that monitors human rights violations on both sides of the conflict via a network of contacts, said the army was bombarding Sunni areas in Baniyas.



'House-to-house searches'

In al-Bayda, the Syrian Observatory said that at least 50 people had been "summarily executed, shot to death, stabbed or set on fire".

The killings were carried out by government troops, supported by pro-government militiamen known as "shabiha", it added.

"Dozens of civilians from al-Bayda have gone missing, and we don't know whether they have been arrested, killed or fled," said the group's director, Rami Abdul Rahman.

"Many villagers have fled to Sunni districts in southern Baniyas, as there is no refuge for them in Alawite areas."


Mr Abdul Rahman said troops were still in al-Bayda on Friday, conducting house-to-house searches. Telephone and internet services to the village had been cut, he added, making it difficult to verify reports.

Al-Bayda is reportedly a predominantly Sunni Muslim village located in an area dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect.

The Alawites are an offshoot of Shia Islam, and Mr Assad's government is allied to both the Shia rulers of Iran and the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, whose fighters have been active within Syria.

Our correspondent says another incident likely to fuel sectarian tensions has been reported on Facebook - the desecration of a shrine near Damascus for a revered figure among Shias, Hujr Bin Adi.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Damascus on Friday, state media reported that rebels fired two rockets at the international airport.

The report said the rockets damaged a commercial aircraft and set a fuel depot on fire before the blaze was brought under control.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama said the US would look at all options to end the conflict in Syria. US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, said Washington was rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels.

Mr Obama said he would not rush into a decision, and wanted to ensure action did not make the situation in Syria more deadly or complex.

More than 70,000 people have died over the last two years in Syria, according to the UN. More than a million have fled the country, with millions more displaced internally.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22398831

Israel jets fly over E. Lebanon, head north over Beirut, after striking targets in Syria DEBKAfile Special Report May 4, 2013, 12:48 PM



Israeli troops in combat gear on Golan border


Israeli military activity is reported in Lebanon Saturday, May 4 and not just over Syria.
US sources said earlier Israeli warplanes had struck targets in Syria including a chemical weapons depot outside Damascus, firing missiles remotely from Lebanese air space and the Golan starting Friday and continuing up until early Saturday, May 3. An Israeli spokesman confirmed only an air strike in Syria against a shipment of long-range surface missiles.

The latest reports from Lebanon point to expanding Israeli military activity inside Lebanon as well.
They describe Israeli warplanes as flying “at a medium altitude over the Eastern and Western Mountain ranges of the Beqaa Valley.”

DEBKAfile: Hizballah strongholds are located in this region which is close to the Syrian border. Other warplanes were described as heading north over Beirut.
One Lebanese source claimed Israeli ground troops had descended from the Mt. Dov-Hermon range, crossed the Lebanese border and entered the Shebaa Farms region.
None of these reports are confirmed by Israel, Lebanon or Syria. But

DEBKAfile notes that if Israeli troops have indeed penetrated Lebanon to a depth of 5-7 kilometers and reached the Shebaa Farms, they have taken up positions opposite the 30 Syrian Shiite villages guarded by incoming Iranian elite Basij militiamen.

DEBKAfile reported exclusively Friday that thousands of Basij militiamen had just been airlifted from Iran to Syria, establishing an Iranian military presence opposite Israel from Syria as well as Lebanon. They joined a comparable number of Hizballah militiamen fighting for the Bashar regime.

Given the rush of adverse military developments across Israel’s northern borders, its operations in Syria and Lebanon are expected to continue and even expand.

This is also indicated by last week’s mobilization of thousands of reservists for an event termed by the IDF spokesman “a military exercise” beginning Sunday, May 5 along Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon.

The spokesman was clearly trying to misdirect attention from Israel’s preparations for an important military operation by announcing a routine drill.

DEBKAfile adds: The initial claim by Syria, Iran and Hizballah of ignorance of any Israeli action is unlikely to hold up for long. They might keep up the act if the Israeli strike turned out to be a one-off against a single target - the picture the “Israeli official” tried to present after the event.

But if there is more to come, Bashar Assad, Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah will not let Israel go unchallenged. This threesome is undoubtedly on the phone at this moment working on their response.
Some of the earlier reports by US media claimed Israeli jets were seen Saturday before dawn circling over Assad's presidential compound in Damascus before moving on to target a weapons site. The Israeli jets reportedly received fire but returned to base unscathed.

DEBKAfile’s military sources added that the start of the Israeli air force operation could have been fixed precisely by the sirens which went off suddenly over the Golan Friday afternoon and again before dawn Saturday. The IDF spokesman said they were set off by a “technical glitch.” They now prove to have been triggered automatically by Israeli aerial movements. For five days, Lebanon has been reporting Israeli warplane intrusions of its air space.

http://www.debka.com/article/22948/Israel-jets-fly-over-E-Lebanon-head-north-over-Beirut-after-striking-targets-in-Syria-

Israel attacked Syria with US green light: Iran’s defense minister



Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi
Sun May 5, 2013 9:20AM GMT

The Syrian state television reported on Sunday that Israel has attacked the Jamraya research center, located northwest of the capital, Damascus. The center had been targeted by another Israeli airstrike back in January.”



“The Zionist regime’s (Israel) attack against this country (Syria), which was launched with the US green light, unmasked the connection between the mercenary terrorists and their supporters and the Israeli occupying regime,” Vahidi said on Sunday.

The Syrian state television reported earlier on the day that Israel has attacked the Jamraya research center, located northwest of the capital, Damascus. The center had been targeted by another Israeli airstrike back in January.

The Sunday attack came shortly after Tel Aviv confirmed that its warplanes had hit another target in Syria on Friday.

On Saturday, US President Barack Obama said the Israeli regime had the right to launch airstrikes on Syria.

“The adventurism of the Zionist regime (Israel) in the region will heighten the anti-Zionism waves and shorten the life of this fake regime,” Vahidi said.

The Iranian defense minister warned that the sinister measures by Israel jeopardize the security of the entire region and noted that such moves by Tel Aviv reveal the regime’s confusion over the current developments across the Middle East.

The turmoil in Syria began over two years ago, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed. The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said in April that the situation in the country was improving as the army enjoys popular support in the fight against terrorism.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/05/05/301898/israel-struck-syria-with-us-green-light/

This is the Syria’s “doomsday ” weapon........

Unmanned Syrian Mig-21 fitted for chemical warfare?
Posted by i-HLS



The Syrian air force Russian-made MiG-21 plane landed with in the King Hussein military base in Mafraq. Jordan has granted political asylum to the Syrian pilot, Colonel Hassan Merei al-Hamade.
Is this Syria’s “doomsday ” weapon? Intelligence sources say that the Syrian air force has adapted old Russian made MIG-21 fighter aircraft to fly unmanned and carry chemical warfare materials. This information is now being investigated by a number of intelligence organizations i-hls reports.

A Syrian MiG-21, that landed in Jordan in June 2011 flown by a Syrian air force colonel, had been adapted to fly unmanned and carry a “deadly volume of chemical weapons. According to intelligence sources there are indications that Russian engineers helped with the upgrade.

The Syrian pilot colonel Hassan Hamada, took off in his MiG-21 from al-Dumair military airport northeast of Damascus and flew to King Hussein Air Base just across Syria’s southern border with Jordan. Upon landing in Jordan, Hamada removed his rank and requested political asylum.

The Syrian regime immediately admitted the pilot had defected and called him a traitor. But unlike in earlier defections Syria has put heavy pressure on Jordan to return the MIG-21.

http://defense-update.com/20130505_syrian-mig-21-were-fitted-for-chemical-warfare.html

Israel declares state of alert after allegedly launching two airstrikes on Syria - report
Get short URL Published time: May 05, 2013 15:27
Edited time: May 05, 2013 18:10



Israeli soldiers stand next to an "Iron Dome" short-range missile defence system near the northern Israeli city of Haifa on January 28, 2013. (AFP Photo)

Conflict, Military, Israel, Syria, Missile defense, Army
Israel has declared a state of alert on its embassies, consulates, and missions around the world after reportedly launching two airstrikes on Syria, Al-Mayadeen reported. The IDF has deployed a rocket defense system in the north of the country.

The airspace over northern Israel and Haifa area was said to be closed off to civilian flights after reports came that two Iron Dome batteries were moved also to the north of the country. Officials did not offer much comment.

The only reaction came from a military source, who said the IDF moved the batteries as part of "ongoing situational assessments," AP reports.

The deployment came several hours after Israel carried out what is believed an airstrike in Damascus that attacked a shipment of Iranian-made missiles bound for Hezbollah.

Shortly after that Lebanon’s TV Al-Mayadeen reported that Syria pointed missile batteries at Israel.

The Israeli Defense Forces allegedly carried out a second consecutive strike on targets within Syria’s territory. The aim was reportedly Fateh-110 missiles Israeli sources said were meant for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, considered as a terrorist group by Tel Aviv.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t mention the fact of the strike or Iron Dome deployment directly at a public appearance on Sunday, but spoke pointedly about a commitment to keeping Israel secure.

"[My father] taught me that the greatest responsibility we have is to ensure Israel's security and guarantee its future," he said.

Soon after that Haaretz reported that the airspace over the country's north as well as Haifa area are closed off to civilian flights. The ban is expected to hold till Thursday at least.



US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pose with military personnel next to a battery of Iron Dome, a short-range missile defence system, on March 20, 2013 at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. (AFP Photo)

Public bomb shelters in the city would not be opened on Sunday in order to avoid fear-mongering, Israeli media report, citing Mayor Nissim Malka.

Earlier this week, the IDF already deployed two Iron Dome batteries near the cities of Haifa and Safed in the north of the country.

The defense system protects against short-range rockets; during Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 it was said to have intercepted over 80 per cent of the incoming rockets from Gaza.

Back in January, the IDF took similar deploying actions – just several days before another alleged airstrike on a weapons convoy in Syria which reportedly headed for Hezbollah. Israel never publicly admitted they were behind the strike.

Israel claimed many times it wants to stay out of the Syrian war, but Netanyahu and other top officials has been repeatedly saying that the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent sophisticated weapons from flowing from Syria to Hezbollah or other extremist groups.

Technically, Israel and Syria have been at war since Israel captured Golan Heights territories from Syria in the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1981, the Israeli Knesset passed the ‘Golan Heights Law’, which unilaterally proclaimed Israel's sovereignty over the territory. The annexation was condemned by the United Nations Security Council in UN Resolution 497 of December 17, 1981.

http://rt.com/news/israel-syria-iron-dome-844/

42 Syrian soldiers dead in reported Israeli strike: Syria promises punishing response
Posted on May 6, 2013 by The Extinction Protocol



May 6, 2013 – SYRIA - Concern over the possibility of broader war in the Middle East grew Monday in the wake of reported airstrikes on Syrian military installations. The reported strikes killed 42 Syrian soldiers, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday, citing medical sources. It said 100 people remained missing. The Syrian government warned Sunday’s apparent strikes — which followed one last week attributed by Syria to Israel – “opens the door wide for all the possibilities.” Syrian ally Iran warned of a “crushing response” while Russia called reports of Israeli involvement “very worrying.” But an Israeli general who commands forces on the Syrian border said “there are no winds of war,” according to the Israel Defense Forces website. The heightened tensions come amid questions over possible chemical weapon use in Syria and international debate over how to respond to the country’s bloody civil war, in which more than 70,000 people have died in more than two years of fighting. On Monday, a U.N. official spoke of strong suspicions that rebels, not Syrian government forces, have used chemical weapons. Syria claimed Israeli missiles struck at its military facilities on Sunday. According to the state-run SANA news agency, Israeli missiles struck a research center in Jamayra, a facility in Maysaloun and what the news agency described as a “paragliding airport” near Damascus. The blasts prompted terrified residents nearby to run for cover. “Everything kept exploding over and over again,” said Anna Deeb, whose family lives just over a mile away. “We could hear gunshots, we could hear people screaming. … We didn’t know what to do, and there was a problem with us breathing because the smoke was too much.” Syria says the attack followed another Israeli airstrike late last week. Israel has not confirmed or denied that its forces were involved in any attacks inside Syria, but a U.S. official told CNN’s Barbara Starr on Monday that Israeli forces conducted Sunday’s strike, as well as one last week. Sunday’s strike targeted a research facility in a mountainous area near Damascus and weapons that were to be transferred to Hezbollah, according to the source. The earlier strike, which U.S. officials had previously said happened Thursday or Friday, targeted Fateh 110 missiles stored at the Damascus airport, the source said. -CNN

Syria: Attack on military facility was a ‘declaration of war’ by Israel
Posted on May 6, 2013 by The Extinction Protocol



May 6, 2013 – SYRIA – A series of massive explosions illuminated the dark sky over Damascus early Sunday, igniting renewed claims that Israel has launched attacks into the war-torn country. Syria’s government said the explosions were the second Israeli airstrike in three days. The latest target, officials said, was a military research facility outside the Syrian capital. A top Syrian official told CNN in an exclusive interview that the attack was a “declaration of war” by Israel. Syrian authorities vowed to retaliate against Israel but did not specify what action they would take. The Israeli military would not confirm or deny the Syrian claim that Israel fired rockets that hit the Jamraya research center in the Damascus suburbs. “We do not comment on these reports at all,” an Israeli military representative said. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed “grave concern” over the reports of Israeli airstrikes in Syria Sunday but stressed that the U.N. is not “in a position to independently verify what has occurred,” his spokesman said. Sunday’s explosions mark the third time Israel has been accused of striking inside Syria this year. The blasts rocked a large military area in the suburbs of Syria’s capital, prompting terrified residents nearby to run for cover. “Everything kept exploding over and over again,” said Anna Deeb, whose family lives just over a mile away. “We could hear gunshots, we could hear people screaming. … We didn’t know what to do, and there was a problem with us breathing because the smoke was too much.” Syrian state-run TV claimed that the Israeli rocket attack on the research center aided rebels, who have been battling government forces in the region. And the government’s Syrian Arab News Agency said mortar shells “fired by terrorists” damaged residential neighborhoods nearby. But state media reports did not provide details about what type of research occurs in the facility, or how much damage occurred there after Sunday’s attack. Even with details about the explosion unclear, tensions ran high in the volatile region Sunday amid word of the reported attack, which was condemned by some officials across the Middle East. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad said the attack represented an alliance between Islamic terrorists and Israel. “When they attack, this is a declaration of war. This is not something that is (new),” al Mekdad said. “We dealt with this on several occasions, and we retaliated the way we wanted, and the retaliation was always painful to Israel, and they will suffer again.” After an emergency meeting of Syria’s Cabinet on Sunday, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said on state television that the attack””opens the door wide open for all possibilities” but did not specify what those possibilities would be. Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby condemned what he called Israeli strikes on Syrian territories and called for the United Nations Security Council to “move immediately in order to stop and prevent Israeli attacks on Syria.” Foreign ministers in Egypt and Iran also condemned the reported Israeli attack. Ban’s spokesman said the U.N. secretary-general “calls on all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict.” Amid the heightened tensions, Israel appeared to be stepping up defense efforts. An Israeli Army official told CNN that two rocket interception batteries have been deployed to northern Israel. And the Israeli Airport Authority said Sunday that it had closed northern airspace over the country to civil aviation flights. -CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/05/world/meast/syria-violence/?hpt=hp_c2

Dempsey’s Bombshell: No US Attack on Iran, Ever – Op-Eds – Israel National News
1913Intel August 6, 2013 Iran, Israel, U.S.

Quote :

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military  intervention in Syria.  http://www.levin.senate.gov/download/?id=f3dce1d1-a4ba-4ad1-a8d2-c47d943b1db6.  While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously.
While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself.  So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy.  The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would occur if the US militarily intervened in Syria to defeat Assad.
However, Obama’s real addressee was not Sen. Levin, but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Obama’s real message: Bibi, forget about an American attack on Iran.
Dempsey’s Bombshell: No US Attack on Iran, Ever – Op-Eds – Israel National News

Right now this is bad news for Israel. Later it will be very bad news for the US and Europe (the EU). There will be no stopping Iran once it gets a nuclear arsenal ( a few hundred weapons) in about another 10 years. MAD does not apply, and Iran is seeking to facilitate the return of the Mahdi. That implies the elimination of the US, Europe and Israel.
Actually, it wouldn’t take all that many nuclear weapons to destroy the US and Europe. Iran could just use a few EMP weapons for each. Within a few years most people would be dead.
If the US were to attack Iran, then what is likely to happen? Both Russia and China have implied they will protect Iran and hinted at the use of nuclear weapons. If Israel attacks Iran, then it’s neighbors might launch a massive missile attack over all of Israel. This might force a nuclear response from Israel.
This is just a big mess that the US allowed to happen by doing nothing.

Quote :

This is just a big mess that the US allowed to happen by doing nothing.

Oh we did something alright. We knowingly threw Israel under the bus!!!

Russia suggests Syria ‘chemical attack’ was ‘planned provocation’ by rebels

http://rt.com/news/russia-syria-chemical-attack-801/

he said she said, devils one & all.

Add: "This comes on the same day that the UN inspectors arrive in Damascus to investigate allegations of use of toxic arms"

Syria claims its all a setup

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said Moscow hopes that UN experts will conduct “objective investigation of all possible cases of use of chemical weapons on Syrian territory.”
"We hope that the results will clarify the issue and will help to dispel numerous speculations around the alleged use of the Syrian chemical weapons that simultaneously create a positive background for the moves towards the start of the political process of settlement of the Syrian crisis",

http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-attack-cooperation-841/

Sad day when I trust rt.com as much or more than American media. There were stories awhile back that some Syrian military had been well paid by 'unknown' to defect, taking government issued 'everything' with them. Regardless of where blame rests I think we all know how this plays out eventually.

Report: Syrian rebel forces trained by West are moving towards Damascus
By JPOST.COM STAFF
08/23/2013 10:17


Le Figaro reports rebel soldiers trained by US, Jordan, Israel crossed border to Syria on Aug 17.


Free Syrian Army's Tahrir al Sham brigade fighters in Mleha suburb of Damascus, January 26, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

Guerrilla fighters trained by the West began moving towards Damascus in mid-August, French newspaper Le Figaroreported on Thursday.

Le Figaro reported that this is the reason behind the Assad regime's alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus on Wednesday morning, as UN inspectors were allowed into the country to investigate allegations of WMD use.

The first group of 300 handpicked Free Syrian Army soldiers crossed the border on August 17 into the Deraa region, and a second group was deployed on August 19, the paper reported.The rebels were trained for several months in a training camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border by CIA operatives, as well as Jordanian and Israeli commandos, the paper said.

The paper quoted a researcher at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis as saying the trained rebels group was passing through Ghouta, on their way to Damascus.

In June, the Los Angeles Times reported that CIA operatives and American special operations units have been training Free Syrian Army soldiers with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons since late 2012.

The newspaper reported that the training took place at covert bases in Jordan and Turkey.

So far, the Obama administration has been hesitant to sanction large-scale military aid to the rebels for fear that the arms could end up in the hands of radical Islamists currently fighting in the Assad regime.

Washington has been urged by lawmakers at home and critics abroad to increase involvement in the Syrian conflict, which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands in the last two years.

The United States has left about 700 combat-equipped troops in Jordan after a training exercise there, at the request of the Jordanian government, US President Barack Obama said on Friday.

"This detachment that participated in the exercise and remained in Jordan includes Patriot missile systems, fighter aircraft, and related support, command, control, and communications personnel and systems," Obama said.

A team of United Nations chemical weapons experts arrived in Damascus on Sunday to investigate the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war.

President Bashar Assad's government and the rebels fighting him have accused each other of using chemical weapons, a step which the United States had said would cross a "red line" in a conflict which has killed 100,000 people.

The UN team, including weapons experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, will try to establish only whether chemical weapons including sarin and other toxic nerve agents were used, not who used them.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Syrian-rebel-forces-trained-by-West-are-moving-towards-Damascus-324033

The sarin shells fired on Damascus - by Syrian 4th Division’s 155th Brigade - were followed by rockets on Israel and car bombings in Lebanon


Assad's chemical weapons arsenal

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis Aug 24, 2013, 11:32 AM (IDT)

Within 48 hours, Assad and Iran launched a three-point punitive offensive for foreign intervention in the Syrian war, DEBKAfile reports. The facts: The sarin nerve gas shells which claimed more than 1,000 Syrian lives Wednesday, Aug. 21, were fired by the 155th Brigade of the Syrian army’s 4th Division commanded by Gen. Maher Assad from Mount Kalmun. This atrocity was followed by a rocket attack on Israel from Lebanon and deadly blasts in Tripoli. The price for not stopping Assad and Tehran now is likely to become even grimmer.

More>

MOre of the 'he said' & 'she said'.

http://rt.com/news/rebel-tunnel-damascus-chemical-940/


Syrian rebels use toxic chemicals against govt troops near Damascus - state media

Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons against regime forces in the Damascus suburb of Jobar, where soldiers discovered stockpiles of toxic poisoning antidotes, state media reports.
According to SANA citing “an official source” suffocation cases among army soldiers have been reported.

The source told the agency that army unit pushed into the area, where soldiers were attacked, and seized a warehouse containing material labeled 'Made in KSA' as well as a large number of protective masks.

If Syria is attacked without Russian retaliation, then to me that means that zero has made a deal with Russia not to interfere.  And what does Russia get?  The US.

Maybe this is where the nukes come in.......it's getting interesting....

Syrian Official: If Damascus is Attacked, Tel Aviv Will Burn

A senior official in the Syrian army warns the West: waging a war on Syria will be reciprocated with an attack on Tel Aviv.


By Elad Benari
First Publish: 8/28/2013, 3:13 AM


Syrian Army soldier in Aleppo
Reuters

A senior official in the Syrian army warned the United States and its partners on Tuesday that waging a full-scale war on Syria would be reciprocated with an immediate attack on Tel Aviv.

"If Damascus comes under attack, Tel Aviv will be targeted too and a full-scale war against Syria will actually issue a license for attacking Israel," the Syrian army source told the IranianFars news agency.

"Rest assured that if Syria is attacked, Israel will also be set on fire and such an attack will, in turn, engage Syria's neighbors," he added.
The source also warned the U.S. and other Western states that if Syria grows weak, certain irresponsible groups will be formed which will endanger Israel's security.

"Therefore, weakening the central government in Damascus will actually start growing attacks on Israel and will create insecurity for that regime," he claimed.
"Thus, a U.S. attack on Syria will herald frequent strikes and attacks on Israel, not just by Damascus and its allies in retaliation, but by extremist groups who will find a ground for staging their aspirations," he concluded.

The comments come amid growing speculations that U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western countries are planning to respond in some form to a deadly chemical attack in Syria last week, which killed hundreds.

Senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday that the United States may launch strikes against the Syrian regime “as early as Thursday.”

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem vowed on Tuesday that his countrywill defend itself in case of any Western military strikes against it.

"We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal. The second choice is the best: we will defend ourselves," Muallem said in a televised news conference.

Muallem's warning follows a threat by a top Syrian official if his country was attacked by western states it would react by attacking Israel.

Speaking to an Arabic-language radio station, Syria's Deputy Information Minister Halaf Al-Maftah said that Israel would face a coalition consisting of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria in the event of any attack against Assad. In addition, terrorist groups in Syria and Lebanon would attack Israel with full force, he warned.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that Israel will strike back “fiercely” if Syria attacks it.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/171355#.Uh1oaBssmPs

Report: Syrian Army Seals Damascus, Prepares ‘Martyrs’

The Syrian army continues to prepare for strikes with Damascus shutdown, ‘martyr’ pilots.


By Maayana Miskin
First Publish: 8/29/2013, 6:25 PM


View of the Syrian capital Damascus
AFP/File

The Syrian army is blocking off entrances to Damascus in advance of anticipated airstrikes by Western armies, Lebanese media outlets reported Thursday.

According to Al-Arabiya, quoting Syrian rebel sources, the Syrian army is also continuing to evacuate its bases in the region, and has left the Damascusinternational airport.

Residents of Damascus are reportedly storing food, water and other essential supplies in case airstrikes begin in the near future. Those living near army command centers have evacuated their homes.

However, Al-Arabiya also spoke with many Damascus residents who appeared unconcerned, and said they do not believe there is cause to panic.

The British Guardian spoke to a Syrian army officer who claimed that the army has also prepared crews of “martyrs” who are willing to stop United States warplanes using kamikaze attacks.

"If the US and British armies launch a single rocket we will launch three or four, and if their warplanes raid our skies they will face hell fire,” he declared.

"If we are unable to shoot down their warplanes with artillery, we have military pilots who are ready to attack these foreign warplanes by their own warplanes and blow them up in the air."

Thirteen pilots, and a total of more than 8,000 Syrian soldiers, have expressed willingness to die in suicide missions if necessary, he claimed, adding, “I myself am ready to blow myself up against US aircraft carriers to stop them attacking Syria and its people."

The Syrian regime continues to deny involvement in the chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week that has led U.S. and British leaders to openly consider military intervention.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/171419#.UiANhRssmPt

Putin, the new American darling ???

This is a re-post of GROUNDZERO's without the mess. Sorry GZ but I had to delete your original post.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/biblical-doom-of-damascus-right-before-our-eyes/#DwS8qAJeWUivDCVy.99

WND wrote:

With U.S. warships looming offshore, reports of chemical weapons and saber-rattling from Iran about the coming of Armageddon, the nation of Syria and its capital, Damascus, are at the epicenter of what some suggest may become a prophesied battle of biblical proportions.
“Many students of the Word of God see a major alignment of ancient prophecies regarding the end times being fulfilled right before our eyes,” asserts Carl Gallups, pastor, radio host and author of “The Magic Man in the Sky: Effectively Defending the Christian Faith.” “More importantly, we are the first generation in history to see such dramatic and striking alignments.”
Gallups points to the biblical passage of Psalm 83 – which tells of the nations surrounding Israel conspiring against it – and especially to Isaiah 17, which tells of a day when Damascus, often cited as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, will be utterly destroyed.
“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap,” states the ancient prophet Isaiah. “The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the LORD of hosts.”
“I also want to note,” adds author of “The 9/11 Prophecy,” James F. Fitzgerald, “that the prophecy of the destruction of Damascus in Isaiah 17 is directly connected in its context to the fall of Ephraim and the Northern Kingdom of Israel as Isaiah previously warned in chapter 9:10. That is the same prophecy messianic rabbi Jonathan Cahn has written about in ‘The Harbinger’ and in ‘The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment’ documentary, where he’s applied the specific pattern of judgment there to the remarkable events that have transpired here in America after 9/11.”
Certainly, Damascus has become the center of international attention and fears of war.
As WND has reported, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has publicly made the case for an American strike on Syria over the nation’s alleged use of chemical weapons on rebel forces among its own people, even as U.S. warships loom offshore.
Meanwhile, Syria ally Iran has threatened to launch “thousands of missiles” on Israel if President Obama follows through on the proposed attack, and Iran’s politicians have claimed the conflict could prompt “the end of times and the coming of the last Islamic messiah,” including an Armageddon-like battle for worldwide Islamic governance.
The result is an international powder keg that could easily explode beyond Syria’s borders, and President Obama is holding the match.
“The ancient Hebrew prophecy contained in Isaiah 17 is presently poised to find final fulfillment, and it could easily be provoked by a poorly calculated political move by America,” claims Bill Salus, author of “Psalm 83: The Missing Prophecy Revealed.” “Current contemplations of the Obama administration to strategically strike Syria to punish the Assad regime for using chemical weapons on his Syrian countrymen could be the spark that sets the entire Mideast ablaze. President Assad has threatened to attack Tel Aviv on several occasions during the Syrian revolution, and his latest threats have prompted Israelis to scramble for gas masks.
“In tandem a prophecy in Psalm 83 predicts that a climactic concluding Arab-Israeli war is coming, and Syria and Israel are listed among the participants,” Salus told WND. “It is reasonable to presume that we are living in the days of Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83, and that a single U.S. missile landing anywhere in Syria could provoke the ‘Mother of All Mideast Wars’ that is predicted in the Scriptures!”
Fitzgerald explains there may indeed be something greater than politics pushing Obama’s current actions.
“We have no vital national interest to be served in Syria by involving ourselves in their civil war,” Fitzgerald told WND, “except to see that Syria doesn’t fall into the hands of al-Qaida and the radical Islamists. Yet it seems the Obama administration is now planning to take sides in this internal struggle with the rebels that include terrorists like al-Qaida, and they’re doing so even with the help of Republicans like John McCain and Lindsay Graham.
“But if we’re being pulled into this war, against our own vital national interests, it’s because we have a ‘hook in our mouth’ that is drawing us to further national judgment,” he continued. “As I spell out in my book with lots of evidence, post-9/11 America is a nation under judgment. In that regard, I show exactly how the next major end-time prophecy to do with our nation is the imminent coming of World War III. That war will reduce us once and for all from our superpower status – as we know must happen from the book of Revelation. That’s why there is no doubt in my mind that getting involved in Syria’s civil war – even in the face of Russia’s strong warnings – is going to contribute to the future coming of a world war with Russia and Iran.”
Evidence revealed
But could these events really be the foretold culmination of biblical prophecy?
It appears the jury is still out on definitively saying yes.
“With all of the chaos in Syria continually growing more and more unstable, it is certainly understandable that many students of Scripture are looking to Isaiah 17 and asking if its fulfillment could be imminent,” states Joel Richardson, author of “Mideast Beast” and “The Islamic Antichrist”, in a WND commentary.
But Richardson warns some are trying too hard to make the events line up, like predicting Israel will use a nuclear bomb to fulfill Isaiah 17′s destruction of Damascus.
“For those sensationalists who are predisposed to believe that Israel is about to hit Damascus with a nuclear bomb,” Richardson writes, “the question must be asked: How wise would it be to drop a nuclear bomb on a city that lies less than 50 miles from your own border?”
Richardson asserts the context of Scripture points instead to the destruction of Damascus only in the end times.
“If one examines this larger portion of Isaiah’s prophecy in its proper context, rather pulling out a single verse here or there, then it is clear that its ultimate context is the Day of the LORD, the judgment against the nations and the return of Jesus,” Richardson asserts. “On this point, I find myself in full agreement with Dr. Tommy Ice: ‘It appears to be an event that will occur at the end of the seven-year tribulation as the Lord not only judges and destroy Damascus, but all of Israel’s historic enemies that surround her. If one examines the broader context of Isaiah 17 and takes account of the section where it is located, it becomes clear that it is a section in which the Lord prophesizes (sic) judgment upon all the Gentile nations that have opposed Israel. This will all happen at the end of the tribulation in conjunction with the second coming of Christ to the earth.’”
Yet even Richardson admits the belief that the events of Isaiah 17, Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38 and 39 could be happening right here, right now, is becoming an “emerging popular view.”
Gallups explains, “Respected teachers of end-time prophecies have devised several scenarios of interpretation regarding these prophetic alignments. Some prophecy experts are quite adamant that they have discovered the correct and exact layout and timeline. I will not be so bold as to declare an exact timeline, but understanding that prophetic Scripture almost always has an historical context and fulfillment in the day in which it was written as well as a message for the future, let me make a few biblically sound observations.
“Isaiah 17 is one important part of the larger prophecy that Isaiah sets forth in Chapters 13-23, which tell of judgments not only against Israel, but against all of the surrounding Gentile (mostly Muslim) nations,” he continues. “Isaiah 17 tells us Damascus will be leveled and in ruin, Aram will fade away as well (the southern region of Syria), Aroer (the northern region of Jordan) will be greatly affected, entire regions of northern Israel will become virtually desolate, the entire nation of Israel will be greatly and adversely affected for a long period of time. Given the massive and devastating armament capabilities of Israel and the chemical weapons cache of Syria, one can easily see how today’s escalating conflict can fulfill these prophecies.
“In Psalm 83, the Arab (Muslim) nations surrounding Israel will attack her in her perceived weakness, yet Israel will prevail,” Gallups continues, “and in Ezekiel 38-39, another alliance of more outlying nations (mostly Muslim) attacks Israel, again perceiving vulnerability on Israel’s part. God intervenes supernaturally, and Israel is spared.”
Walid Shoebat, who co-authored “God’s War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible” with Richardson, has also found what he believes may already be fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
“We can sense the beginning signs for the fulfillment of Isaiah 17′s destruction of Damascus when we witness the influx of refugees from Syria to Jordan as predicted by the prophet Amos: ‘I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD’ (Amos 1:5),” Shoebat told WND. “It is here that we find the amazing precision of Bible prophecy: Aven is Damascus today, and Damascus is also literally mentioned here by name. Syrians are leaving by the droves into Jordan and precisely ‘unto Kir,’ which is Kir-Moab (Isaiah 15:1). Today that region is called Kerak. When we review both the ancient map and the statistics of the recent influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan, we find that over a half million Syrians already fled to ‘the borders of the land of Moab now called Kerrek [Kerak].”
Whether these things are all happening now or are set to happen in the future, however, there’s one point at which the prophecy students agree: “The apparent context of all these passages,” states Gallups, “is that their fulfillment is found in the very last days – shortly before the biblical Day of the LORD, and the return of Jesus.”
Gallups concludes, “Given the headlines of today’s news and the current Middle East upheaval, as well as Syria being at the epicenter of a major war in the region, I fail to see how any serious student of the Word could not see that these, indeed, are very prophetic times in which we are living.”

Syria crisis: Obama hints at wider action against Assad
Sep03
on September 3, 2013
Posted In: Middle East, OBAMA


There are indications that President Obama is planning much wider military action against Syria’s Assad regime than previously thought.

Rather than a “shot across the bow” designed to dissuade the regime from further chemical weapons attacks, the military strike would seek to substantially “degrade” the Syrian government’s military capability.

Such an attack would target military aircraft, artillery and the rockets the White House believes were used to launch a sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburbs on 21 August.

The attack could be supported by an increase in US help for the Syrian rebels.
The notion that Obama is planning a more broad-reaching intervention emerged overnight after Republican senator John McCain attended a meeting at the White House.

McCain told the New York Times he was “encouraged” that the Obama administration was planning a military intervention that would substantially “degrade” Assad’s military capability while also lending more support to the Syria rebels.

No specific details of that support were discussed, McCain said.

The paper points out that McCain has previously said he would support US intervention in a Congress vote if “the president did more to arm the Syrian rebels and the attack was punishing enough to weaken the Syrian military.”

McCain says he was also informed by the White House that a covert effort by the US to arm and train Syrian rebels was beginning to yield results. The first “50-man cell of fighters, who have been trained by the CIA” had begun operations in Syria, he said.

Republican senator Lindsay Graham, who also attended the meeting at the White House, said: “It is all in the details, but I left the meeting feeling better… that the purpose of the attack is going to be a little more robust than I thought.”

Here is a round-up of other key developments:

French intelligence dossier says Assad launched chemical attack

France has released a nine-page intelligence dossier that says President Assad carried out a “massive and co-ordinated” chemical attack that is believed to have killed hundreds of people on 21 August, The Guardian reports. The document is based on a detailed technical analysis of evidence from the site of the atrocity supplemented by “additional elements gathered in co-operation with our principal partners”.

The French dossier states: “Syria has one of the most important operational stocks of chemical weapons as part of an old and diversified programme that has been the subject of surveillance by the French [intelligence] services, and those of our principle partners, for a long time. This programme is one of the primary threats in terms of the proliferation of arms of massive destruction …”

The dossier concludes that “on 21 August 2013 the Syrian regime launched an attack on certain areas of the Damascus suburbs held by opposition units, using a combination of conventional weapons and the massive use of chemical weapons.”
Assad warns of ‘regional war’ if US attacks Syria

In an interview with Le Figaro, Assad warned the US and France they risked setting off a “powder keg” if they attack his regime. He also repeated his denial that his forces had used chemical weapons, saying such an attack would be “illogical”.
“Those who make accusations must show evidence,” Assad told the paper. “We challenge the United States and France to do this. Obama and Hollande have been incapable of doing this, including for their own people.”

Assad said an attack on Syria would unleash “chaos and extremism” and possibly lead to a regional war.

Putin under growing pressure

Russia’s President Putin will be confronted with an array of evidence about the use of chemical weapons in Syria when he attends the G20 summit in St Petersburg this week. He will also be urged to show a “new diplomatic flexibility”, says The Guardian and “come closer” to accepting that President Assad has to stand aside.

Russia has been the Syrian government’s staunchest ally, but evidence collected by Western intelligence agencies will turn up the pressure on its president to adopt a more flexible approach to the crisis, the paper says.

More than two million refugees have fled Syria

More Syrians are now displaced than any other nationality, the UNHCR has said. At least 700,000 have fled to Lebanon and the threat of US strikes means the exodus will continue. “Syria is haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs,” the UNHSCR said in a statement. Around half of those forced to leave are children, with about three-quarters of them under 11.

More on Syria crisis: Obama hints at wider action against Assad

The ‘calamity of the century’: Syrian civil war prompts world’s biggest refugee crisis as UN reveals TWO MILLION people have fled fighting
Sep03
on September 3, 2013
Posted In: Middle East

• More than 6million Syrians in total have been forced out of their homes with 2million leaving the country altogether
  
• 5,000 flee into neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan every day as civil war rages
  
• Angelina Jolie blasts Western ‘complacency’ and calls for more humanitarian aid to held the refugees
  
• British Government pledges £348million to stave off disaster for refugees in largest ever disaster aid commitment
  
• Barack Obama is set to hold vote on whether to attack the Assad regime after British MPs vote against air strikes
  

The Syrian civil war has now forced 2million refugees to flee the country, it was revealed today – and one person leaves every 15 seconds.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees described the conflict as ‘the great tragedy of this century’ as he laid bare the scale of the suffering it has caused, with more than 1million children forced out of their homeland.

In addition to those who have left Syria during the two-and-a-half-year war, 4.25million people have been displaced within the country.

In total, around a third of the population have been forced to leave their homes, meaning the conflict has prompted the world’s biggest refugee crisis.



Giant: The Zaatari camp has ballooned to such a huge size that it is now Jordan’s fifth-biggest city

President Bashar Assad has warned that a Western military strike in response to last month’s chemical weapons attacks could provoke a regional war.

UN special envoy Angelina Jolie said the world is ‘tragically disunited’ on how to end the bloody conflict, which has so far cost more than 100,000 lives, but must do more to help its victims.

 Concerns: William Hague and Angelina Jolie have both urged the international community to act over Syria new world order propagandist and CRF member angelina jolie goes to the camps as an apologist for britain and american policy Forgetting to mention who started the war..They are there to give sympathy for these victims of the war that Hauge and cameron financed and started along with Obama this is an example of a NWO serial killer ( William Hague) come to delight in his victims misery accompanied with Glamorous hollywood vampire and CRF member Angelina Jolie who similarly gets her Jollies from pretending to want to help the victims through UN programs knowing fine well that most of the evil Plots and diabolical actions of world governments happen there. When she and other celebrities went to haiti after the earthquake she and others like morgan freeman who idiotically claimed the earthquake was cause by global warming were flown in first class and the aid workers who had paid many of them to go there and help people had to make way for this wicked witch who after some good propaganda pictures flew straight back out again. They are a disgusting example of the shallow hypocrisy and vain propaganda attempts by the main stream media to lie about the causes of the war with photos and video set to appeal to emotions of people with cognitive dissonance as the media propaganda heats up because people are at last waking up to the lies.

• Jolie continues.
  
  

‘The world risks being dangerously complacent about the Syrian humanitarian disaster,’ the Hollywood actress said. ‘The tide of human suffering unleashed by the conflict has catastrophic implications.

‘If the situation continues to deteriorate at this rate, the number of refugees will only grow, and some neighbouring countries could be brought to the point of collapse.

‘The world is tragically disunited on how to end the Syria conflict. But there should be no disagreement over the need to alleviate human suffering, and no doubt of the world’s responsibility to do more.’

Destinations: A handful of neighbouring countries have borne the brunt of the refugee influx

 

Leaving home: Some of the 2million Syrians who have been forced to flee their homeland thanks to the civil war

 

Youngsters: More than half of the 2million refugees are children less than 17 years old

 

At the border: A total of more than 6million people have been displaced within Syria or forced to leave the country

 

 
High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said: ‘Syria has become the great tragedy of this century – a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.

‘The only solace is the humanity shown by the neighbouring countries in welcoming and saving the lives of so many refugees.’

More than 97 per cent of Syria’s refugees are hosted by countries in the immediate surrounding region which urgently need massive international support to help them deal with the crisis, the agency said.

With an average of almost 5,000 Syrians fleeing into neighbouring countries every day, the need to increase significantly humanitarian aid and development support to host communities has reached a critical stage, it added.

By the end of August, 2million Syrians had applied to register as refugees – including 716,000 in Lebanon, 515,000 in Jordan, 460,000 in Turkey, 168,000 in Iraq and 110,000 in Egypt.

More than half – 52 per cent – of the refugees are children aged 17 or under.

Crossing over: Refugees arriving over the weekend in Turkey, which is one of the countries hardest-hit by the influx of fleeing Syrians

 
Read more:

Excellent coverage. Thank you!

REMEMBER THE PEACE AGREEMENT.

I'm sure Israel wants their enemies stripped first.

I believe that's what's really going on.

What's coming in the Middle East? The prophetic Psalm 83 War!

The Bible has foretold of a regional war in the later days. A proxy war with Iran behind the scenes pulling the strings that will involve many of Israel's Arab neighbors, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and yes, Syria. The prophecy even tells of Syria using weapons what we now would call either biological or chemical weapons on Northern Israel. Does all of this sound plausible that could even happen very soon? We think so too.

more

http://www.arewelivinginthelastdays.com/road/mewar.html

CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
Sep05
on September 5, 2013
Posted In: Middle East, Usa, Wars And Rumors Of War

---

By Matthew M. Aid Source: Information Clearinghouse

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

“The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew,” he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons’ use — even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.

If a warhead, by design or by chance, were to hit the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) near Damascus, the consequences could be catastrophic," Aleksandr Lukashevich said in a Wednesday statement.

http://rt.com/news/syria-strike-nuclear-disaster-427/

BREAKING: China Sends Warships & 1000 Marines to Syria, Accuses the U.S. of lying About Syria And Ignoring International Laws. Russia Sends another Amphibous Assault Ship. Turkey Sends More Troops to Syria Border
September 6th, 2013
17 9 0 0 50


Report: Russia sends another navy ship towards Syria
MOSCOW – Russia is sending its large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov towards the Syrian coast, state news agency Interfax quoted a navy source as saying on Friday.



Western naval sources reported Friday that a Chinese landing craft, the Jinggangshan, with a 1,000-strong marine battalion had reached the Red Sea en route for the Mediterranean off Syria.
http://www.debka.com/newsupdate/5640/



China is accusing the U.S. of lying about Syria. They say the U.S. has made a mess of Iraq and Afghanistan. They wrote it was the Rebels that committed the chemical attack and the U.S is ignoring that fact as they want war for political reasons.



http://sherriequestioningall.blogspot…




 
Report: China Sends Warships to Coast of Syria
http://www.infowars.com/report-china-sends-warships-to-coast-of-syria/



U.S. Already Has Military Forces Well Within Range For A Syrian Strike
http://www.floatingpath.com/2013/09/04/u-s-already-military-forces-well-within-range-syrian-strike/
Turkey sends more troops to Syria border
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/09/06/322375/turkey-increases-troops-on-syria-border/

Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/china-accuses-the-u-s-of-lying-about-syria-and-says-u-s-ignoring-international-laws-china-sends-warships-to-syria-joining-russian-warships-in-mediterranean-sea/#HadjARRcFSc4TXXj.99

I thought Russia and China were part of the Armageddon armies.

Take this with salt!

From Debka News:

Obama opts to expand Syria operation with allied air strikes
DEBKAfile September 6, 2013, 12:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

US military sources report that President Barack Obama has decided to expand the US operation against Syria’s chemical weapons. Instead of confining the action to Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from warships, he is now turning to the introduction of air strikes by US, French, Turkish and Saudi bombers. DEBKAfile: This indicates that the US targeting inventory will include Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles and air bases, a development that will almost certainly bring about Syrian and Hizballah reprisals against US interests in the region as well as Israel.

http://www.debka.com/newsupdate/5641/

Echoed here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-expands-list-of-potential-targets-in-syria/

We know we are in the last days before Messiah's glorious return. Things are going to get mighty interesting (read: GNARLY) these next few years. Keep looking up.

Quote :

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)

Quote :

For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. (Isaiah 41:13)

Quote :

So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can Man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:6)

And my personal comforting favorite;

Quote :

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)

Let's not forget about these nut-jobs:

Iran builds up its ‘foreign legion’ in Syria

How many of these rascals have been posing as Mexicans & slipping across the border over the last few years?

"Non-Mexicans are spilling over the border in record numbers — some from countries with terrorist ties — and most are set free soon after being captured. "

"According to the Border Patrol, some 465,000 OTMs have taken advantage of this "catch and release" policy to settle here in the U.S. "It's an insane policy which encourages OTMs to come into the country illegally, and we shouldn't be shocked that they are coming in record numbers,"

Article is from 2005 so not like its cutting edge info and they've had plenty of time to build their numbers....

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-25-csm-otm_x.htm

Syria Is Just Another Domino In The New World Order
September 9, 2013 by Bob Livingston 

PHOTOS.COM

“It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.” — Gen. Douglas MacArthur

Quietly slipping by unnoticed under the din surrounding the Obamacare train wreck, National Security Agency snooping, Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservatives, Benghazi and the host of other scandals and criminality perpetrated upon Americans by the undocumented White House alien and his psychopathic elected class enablers was an important date in U.S. history: Aug. 7, 1990.

What is its significance? It was the beginning of George H.W. Bush’s New World Order which, it turns out, is perpetual war on behalf of Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S. petrodollar. On that date, the American republic was laid on the altar of the military-industrial complex and American empire and sacrificed for something much more important to the moneyed elites than the American people.

U.S. combat troops first arrived in Saudi Arabia on that date, which was just days after the Iraqi Republican Guard made mincemeat of the Kuwaiti military and Iraq “annexed” the tiny oil kingdom — which, thanks to U.S.-developed technology, had been stealing oil from Iraq by slant-drilling into the Rumaila oil field — and began threatening the House of Saud. Bush, tied for many years via his CIA-backed Zapata Oil interests and the Council on Foreign Relations to the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families, was the right man in the right place at the right time for the establishment of a New World Order.

On Jan. 17, 1991, with a host military assets from the United States and a coalition of Western and Islamist countries firmly in place, the perpetual war began with an aerial bombardment designed to soften up Iraqi troops. The United States has been at war ever since. Realize there is a generation of Americans who have never seen their country at peace.

After making short work — the ground campaign lasted all of 100 hours — of the supposedly fearsome Iraqi Republican Guard, Bush and Bill Clinton after him spent the next 12 years bombing Iraqi targets, destroying Iraq’s infrastructure and causing the deaths of as many as 500,000 Iraqi children under the imprimatur of the United Nations.

And then came 9/11 (the 12-year anniversary of which falls on Wednesday), the false flag operation designed to send the war and propaganda machine into high gear and kick-start the process that had been languishing far longer than the planners envisioned.

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.” – Gen. Douglas MacArthur

There are many questions about 9/11 that remain unanswered and, except for by a discerning few, largely unasked. I have pointed some of them out before here and here. And then there are the links to Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In the hours after the Twin Towers (and Building 7) collapsed in New York, about 1,000 Muslims and as many as 200 Israelis were rounded up and taken into custody by the Feds. The fact that Israelis were caught in the dragnet in connection to the 9/11 attacks was glossed over by the mainstream media, except for Carl Cameron, then of FOX News. He produced a four-part series that showed a number of the Israelis rounded up had prior knowledge of the attacks and were tracking those implicated in the hijackings. Cameron’s reports have since been scrubbed from FOX’s website, but can be viewed here. These facts were confirmed by the German weekly Die Zeit and Salon. But they were curiously omitted from the official 9/11 Commission report.

Also omitted were the known ties between powerful Saudi interests — including the royal family — and Mohammed Atta and 11 of the hijackers.
While the American “security” apparatus was letting Saudis with ties to the accused terrorists and the royal family escape the U.S. via chartered flights during a time when all flights into and out of the country were supposedly grounded, it was working to cover known ties that Bush Administration officials and other elites in and out of government—including Representatives Dennis Hastert, Dan Burton, Roy Blunt, adulterous Bob Livingston, Stephen Solarz and Tom Lantos, according to FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds — had with some of the participants.

Ten days after 9/11, Gen. Wesley Clark went to the Pentagon to see Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield. While there, he spoke to a general who told him there would be an attack on Iraq. Six weeks later, that same general told Clark of a memo indicating there were plans to destroy the regimes of seven countries in five years (including Libya, Syria and Iran).

Those plans were formed many before, Clark says, because it was then he recalled a 1991 meeting he had with then-Undersecretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz who told him Operation Desert Storm had shown military brass that the United States could make war on anyone it pleased and that it was time clean up the old Soviet Mideast client states — including Syria and Iran — before another superpower came along. Wolfowitz said it would happen within 10 years.

That ambitious goal was missed, but the plan to destroy the Mideast continues apace. The perpetual war — the globalist’s and Bush’s New World Order — has two dominoes still to knock down.

President Barack Obama is driving us to war in Syria because he’s doing the will of his globalist masters. Congress — even if it has the will — is probably powerless to stop it.

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” — George Orwell

Assad says his friends will hit US and allies if struck

Syrian leader says attackers could ‘expect everything. Not necessarily from the government,’ doesn’t rule out use of chemical weapons

By GAVRIEL FISKE September 9, 2013, 2:40 pm 4




Bashar Assad speaking to Charlie Rose. (Screenshot: CBS News)

Syrian President Bashar Assad warned America and its allies to expect multiple forms of retaliation, possibly including a chemical attack, if the US goes ahead with a military strike on Syria, in remarks published Monday by CBS News.

Assad, speaking to Charlie Rose in a Damascus interview, said Syria was “not the only player in the region” and, if an attack occurs, the US and allies in return “should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government.”

“You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology. You have everything in this region now,” Assad said, in what CBS News said was likely a reference to his close allies Iran and Hezbollah, which have threatened to hit Israel.

When asked if the response to a US attack could include chemical weapons, the Syrian leader replied that “it could happen” but only “if the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have it.”

“I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller,” Assad added. Damascus currently maintains that rebel groups hold chemical weapons.

Assad was “remarkably calm” during the interview, even when discussing claims that he had used chemical weapons on his own people, Rose told “CBS Evening News” on Sunday.

In an excerpt posted online at CBS, Assad continued to deny that his government has used chemical arms and said that “we are not sure that anything happened.”
“Our soldiers, in another area, were attacked chemically,” Assad said. “But in the area where they say the government used chemical weapons, we only have video, pictures and allegations. We were not there, our forces, our police, our institutions, don’t exist,” he added.

“How can you talk about what happened if you don’t have evidence?” Assad asked, adding that the the US has so far not produced “a single shred” of evidence linking his government to the attack.

Rose’s full interview with Assad is scheduled to be broadcast on PBS’s “Charlie Rose Show” on Monday evening in the US, and excerpts are to be shown on “CBS This Morning,” airing at 7 a.m. Eastern Time Monday.

Israeli officials have ramped up preparations in the past weeks ahead of expected US military action against Syria, though they have also tried to calm the country, saying there is little chance Syria, Iran or terror group Hezbollah will retaliate, as they have threatened.

Turkey and Jordan have also begun to boost readiness in preparation for possible US action. Over the past couple of days, the Turkish army was reported to have stationed anti-aircraft missile batteries along the country’s border with Syria, according to Israel Radio.

In Jordan, security officials said authorities had begun taking precautions ahead of a US strike, according to an Israel Radio report Sunday, citing Jordanian media.
The possible US strike would come in response to a reported chemical attack by the Syrian regime in late August that left some 1,400 people dead according to an American assessment. Obama is hoping to get approval from Congress later this week for  a “limited” punitive response.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials have assessed a “low” probability of the Assad regime or its allies hitting Israel in response to a US-led attack on Syria, though Syrian and Iranian leaders have repeatedly threatened to strike Israel if Obama goes ahead with military intervention.

Aaron Kalman and Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/assad-says-his-friends-will-hit-us-and-allies-if-struck/

Approx. 1600 hours, 10 Sept. 13 Syria's foreign minister says President Bashar Assad's regime will declare its chemical weapons arsenal and sign the chemical weapons convention.

Walid al-Moallem also says Syria is ready to cooperate fully to implement a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons arsenal under international control and it will stop producing chemical weapons.

He adds that Syria will also place chemical weapons locations in the hands of representatives of Russia, "other countries" and the United Nations.

He spoke Tuesday exclusively to the Al-Mayadeen TV station.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/syria-chemical-weapons-convention_n_3901417.html?ncid=webmail1

http://www.newswatchcanada.ca/

The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism report states that the regime has a large
supply of VX, which is a deadly nerve gas, as well as Sarin, the agent thought to have been used in the chemical
weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus last month that killed 1,400 people. The think tank has presented
an inventory of Syria's production and storage facilities that it states the regime began stockpiling in the 1980s. ~
Graphic News, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Global Security Telegraph

Saudi black op team behind Damascus chem weapons attack – diplomatic sources

More egg in the American eye.

http://rt.com/news/syria-sarin-saudi-provocation-736/

"Based on data from a number of sources a picture can be pieced together. The criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was done by a black op team that the Saudi’s sent through Jordan and which acted with support of the Liwa Al-Islam group,” a source in the diplomatic circles told Interfax. "

The allegations mirror a number of earlier reports, which pointed to Saudi Arabia as the mastermind behind the sarin gas attack, which almost led to US military action against Syrian government.

As we've said, I think....the end of Saudi oil dominance is the end of the American petro-dollar
and probably THE END of our economy as we've known it.

The oil coalition that Russia is building is a possible death-knoll to the whole Saudi-U.S. shebang.
And a collapsed Syria would severely threaten Russia's current plan.


You'd think Russia would agree to becoming Israel's guardian angel/defender in exchange for oil, and just  be done with the whole mess.

Wouldn't that leave the U.S. in a pickle.   
OH!  AND give us a new place to look for the anti-christ!   whoa....or 'woe'...

Sooo much going on Dove. Saudi oil & Saudi money run the U.S. by proxy at the moment, although the relationship appears tenuous at best. When the U.S. economy implodes there will most likely be an unprecedented 'Arms Race' for all of the surplus hardware and personnel.

"The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-ramping-up-covert-training-program-for-moderate-syrian-rebels/2013/10/02/a0bba084-2af6-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html

When not found faking WMD strikes, they can be found equipping and training heart eating, torturing musloid barbarians....No rest for the wicked.

quietobserver wrote:

When not found faking WMD strikes, they can be found equipping and training heart eating, torturing musloid barbarians...

 
But they are MODERATE BARBARIANS!  


 

Weapons, fighters flow to Syria's next battlefront as offensive looms

The Assad regime appears poised to attack the strategic rebel-held Qalamoun region, which separates regime strongholds of Damascus and Syria's coast. Rebel forces have swelled in preparation.


By Nicholas Blanford2 hours ago



Opposing sides in Syria’s grueling civil war are girding for the opening of a key battlefront in the coming weeks, with expectations that the fighting will spill over into Lebanon.


The Syrian Army, backed by militants from Lebanon's Hezbollah, is poised to launch an offensive to dislodge rebel groups from the Qalamoun region, a strategic area of arid mountains lying between Damascus and Homs, adjacent to Lebanon’s eastern border. The rebels are aware and are preparing to defend their ground, which has been an essential staging ground for attacks. 


“We are getting ready to be attacked in Qalamoun. All the factions have set aside their differences and are prepared for the attack. We know it’s coming soon,” says Khaled, a stocky Lebanese Sunni from Lebanon’s northern Bekaa Valley who has fought with Syrian rebel groups since the early stages of the uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.


Khaled and other Syrian and Lebanese fighters interviewed say they believe the attack will begin before the onset of the winter rains, which suggests within the next month. Sources close to Hezbollah, which is expected to play a major role in an attack on Qalamoun, say it will begin soon after the three-day Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, which ended Thursday.



Both the Assad regime and rebel forces have a vested interest in controlling the Qalamoun area. For the regime, it represents a vital lifeline connecting Damascus to Homs and to the Mediterranean port of Tartous, the gateway to the coastal mountains running north to Latakia. That is the heartland of Syria’s Alawite community, a Shiite splinter sect to which the Assad family belongs. Regime dominance of Qalamoun would also effectively seal off the eastern border with Lebanon, severing rebel forces in Syria from Arsal, a Lebanese Sunni-populated border town that is a bedrock of support for the Syrian opposition.


For the rebels, holding Qalamoun complicates the regime's goal of establishing a corridor between the capital and the coast and serves as a useful launchpad for the battles around the northern and eastern edges of Damascus. The handful of stony trails that head west from Qalamoun across the Lebanon-Syria border allow fighters to reach Arsal, where they can rest and recuperate from wounds, or visit their families who have sought refuge in the Lebanese town, doubling its pre-war population of 40,000.


WAITING PERIOD OVER


A regime assault on Qalamoun was expected in early summer after the fall of Qusayr, a rebel-held town five miles north of Lebanon's border that was overrun in a 17-day offensive spearheaded by Hezbollah. Most of the survivors from Qusayr fled to the Qalamoun area. Hezbollah fighters said in early July that they had carried out reconnaissance missions in the Qalamoun area and were drawing up plans to drive out rebel forces.


The offensive was postponed, however, possibly due to the bitter fighting in recent months in the northern and eastern neighborhoods of Damascus, where regime troops backed by Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite auxiliaries have struggled to break the tenacious hold of rebel forces.


However, in the past three weeks, the long-awaited Qalamoun offensive has seemed increasingly imminent.


Lebanese politicians allied with the Assad regime have discussed the upcoming attack in public, and some have warned against Hezbollah's involvement. On Monday, Rifaat Eid, the head of the Arab Democratic Party, an Alawite political body, warned that Saudi Arabia, a key backer of some Syrian rebel factions, was planning to “burn Lebanon” in retaliation if Hezbollah joined the battle in Qalamoun.
“Saudi Arabia is running the battle in Qalamoun and we have information that it warned Hezbollah against participating in the battle, [or else] it will cost [the Shiite party] a lot in the Bekaa and even in north Lebanon,” he said in a news conference.


REBEL BUILDUP


The rebels have used the summer months to build up their forces in the Qalamoun area, particularly with well-armed, well-trained jihadist groups. The leading rebel forces there are the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, the hardline Salafist Ahrar al-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid, and Liwa al-Islam, according to rebel sources. According to a diplomatic report prepared by a European embassy in Beirut, the rebels had around 5,000 fighters in the Qalamoun area a few months ago, including 200 from Jabhat al-Nusra and 300 to 400 from Ahrar al-Sham.


“Now, the rebels have in excess of 40,000 fighters in Qalamoun,” the report says, adding that most are affiliated with hardline Islamist factions.

View gallery."


A Free Syrian Army fighter fires an anti-tank missile towards what the FSA said were locations contr …

The rebels even have a weapons and munitions production line with mortar tubes, base plates, and rounds being manufactured in foundries in the town of Yabroud. A diplomatic source in Beirut with access to intelligence information said that the rebels are producing up to 40 mortars a day and have even begun manufacturing their own ammunition for AK-47 rifles.


Furthermore, they successfully stormed Syrian Army ammunition depots in the Qalamoun area and seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition. On Aug. 2, rebel groups overran three Syrian Army ammunition storage sites in the Qalamoun area, which yielded large quantities of advanced anti-tank missiles.


Still, the regime has not been routed from the region. The Syrian Army holds a string of bases across Qalamoun, including large missile facilities with bunkers dug into the sides of mountains at Adra and Nasiriyah. The bases, like regime islands in a rebel sea, allow the Army to shell opposition-held areas and have prevented the rebels from completely severing the Damascus-Homs highway, especially the section between Yabroud and Deir Atiyah.


“The Army is strong there,” says Abu Omar, a resident of Arsal who provides logistical support for Syrian rebel factions. “If we fire one shell at them, they fire 400 back at us.”


Even the population of the area is not entirely supportive of the rebel cause. Towns with Christian populations like Maaloula, Sednaya, and Yabroud tend to be more tolerant of the regime and wary of the increasingly Islamist leanings of the rebel groups.


“Seventy percent of Yabroud is with the regime, even though rebels are in the town. The Christians there don’t interfere with us. Flita is with the regime. That’s why all the villages around Flita are shelled but Flita is left alone,” says Khaled, the Lebanese fighter, whose wife is a Sunni from Yabroud.


NO BORDERS IN THIS WAR


Sources close to both Hezbollah and Syrian rebel factions believe that Arsal’s strong logistical connection to the Qalamoun area means that once the offensive begins, the fighting will spill into Lebanon. The cross-border tracks connecting Arsal to Qalamoun are tenuous lifelines for the Lebanese town which is otherwise surrounded to the north, west, and south by Shiite-populated villages with a strong Hezbollah presence. If Hezbollah is able to cut the tracks between Arsal and the border, the Sunni town will become isolated.


Further inflaming tensions between Arsal and nearby Hezbollah-supporting villages are the allegations that residents of the Sunni town have been responsible for a string of attacks against Shiite areas, including rocket barrages and roadside bombs.


Omar al-Attrash from Arsal was named as the alleged organizer of a car-bomb attack in Beirut’s mainly Shiite southern suburbs in August that left 22 people dead. Mr. Attrash was killed in uncertain circumstances on Oct. 11, when his vehicle was hit by a missile while driving along a track between Arsal and the Syrian border.


The residents in Arsal say they have been stocking up on medical supplies and bringing in more fighters from Syria in readiness for expected fighting with Hezbollah in the barren rugged mountains between Arsal and the border.


“Qalamoun is not Qusayr,” says Abu Omar, referring to the Syrian town seized by Hezbollah in June. “The mountains are rugged and we are reinforcing and rearming. We know this battle is coming and we will fight to the last man.”


http://news.yahoo.com/weapons-fighters-flow-syrias-next-battlefront-offensive-looms-133331614.html

Syrian media: Troops kill 40 rebels near Damascus

 
By ALBERT AJI and BASSEM MROUE3 hours ago



.
View gallery

FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows rebels from al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, as they sit on a truck full of ammunition, at Taftanaz air base, that was captured by the rebels, in Idlib province, northern Syria. An Islamist extremist group affiliated with al-Qaida, Jabhat al-Nusra has emerged as one of the most powerful rebel factions on the battlefield.(AP Photo/Edlib News Network, ENN, File)

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian government troops on Friday ambushed rebels near the capital, Damascus, killing at least 40 opposition fighters, state media reported. The ambush was part of the military's offensive against rebel strongholds around President Bashar Assad's seat of power.


Also Friday, Kurdish gunmen battled jihadi rebels in a northeastern Syrian town along the border with Iraq, leaving a number of casualties on both sides, activists said. Such battles have become increasingly common in Syria's bloodletting, adding another complex layer to the civil war, now in its third year.


The ambush near Damascus came hours after Assad's forces captured the town of Hatitat al-Turkomen south of the city, securing a key highway that links the capital with the Damascus International Airport.


State-run SANA news agency said 40 rebels were killed in the ambush, which took place near the Otaiba area, and that a large arms cache was seized, including anti-tank rockets. The area is part of a region known as Eastern Ghouta, which was the scene of a horrific chemical weapons attack in August, when several hundred people, including many women and children, were killed.


An unidentified Syrian army officer in the area told state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV station that there were foreign fighters among the dead and that the ambush followed an intelligence tip.


The TV broadcast footage showing more than a dozen bodies of men lying on the ground in an open area near a small river, along with scattered automatic rifles and hand grenades. A scroll on the TV read: "Eastern Ghouta is a graveyard of terrorists."


"It was a highly accurate operation," the officer told Al-Ikhbariya. "We will be moving from one victory to another."


Another soldier, who was also not identified, said the rebels belonged to the Islam Brigade and an al-Qaida-linked faction, Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front.


The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that tracks Syria's crisis, said at least 20 fighters were killed in the ambush but gave no further details.


In other violence, the Observatory reported that a car bomb blew up outside a mosque in the village of Wadi Barada, and that 40 people were either killed or wounded in the blast. State-run news agency SANA said the car blew up as people were rigging it with explosives.


On the Kurdish-jihadi battles, the Observatory said Kurdish gunmen made advances in the predominantly Kurdish province of Hassaekh. The Kurdish militiamen entered the town of Yaaroubiyeh on Friday, clashing with several jihadi groups, including al-Qaida-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and Nusra Front.


Rebel-held Yaroubiyeh lies along one of the main border crossing points into Iraq and its capture would give the Kurdish militiamen a direct supply line from Iraq's northern Kurdish region.


The area has seen heavy fighting before and clashes between Kurdish fighters and jihadis in northern Syria have killed hundreds of people in the past months. Also, in March, gunmen killed 51 Syrian soldiers after they crossed from Yaaroubiyeh. The Syrians had crossed into Iraq to seek refuge following clashes with rebels on the Syrian side of the border.


The Observatory said Friday's clashes left casualties on both sides but gave no specifics. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said at least two were killed.


Meanwhile, Syrian helicopter gunships attacked several areas of the rebel-held northern town of Safira, southeast of the heavily contested city of Aleppo, the country's largest. A military complex near the town is believed to include an underground facility for chemical weapons production and storage.


France-based Doctors Without Borders said 130,000 people have fled Safira this month and that the town has been under intense bombardment since Oct. 8. A statement from the group said 76 people had died in the town itself.


"These extremely violent attacks have pushed the populations that had already fled the war to a new exodus," Marie-Noelle Rodrigue from the group was quoted as saying.


She warned that those who fled are arriving in areas already saturated with displaced people.


In another development Friday, Norway turned down a U.S. request to receive the bulk of Syria's chemical weapons for destruction, saying it doesn't have the capabilities to complete the task by the deadlines set by an international chemical watchdog.


The Norwegian foreign minister, Boerge Brende, said his country could not find a port that could receive the required amount of chemical agents and didn't have the capacity to treat some of the waste products resulting from the destruction of the munitions.


The United Nations has set a mid-2014 deadline for the destruction of Syria's arsenal — a deadline Brende said was too tight for Norway.


It was unclear whether Norway's decision could delay compliance with the deadline for the destruction of weapons.


The Syrian conflict, which began as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad in March 2011, has triggered a humanitarian crisis on a massive scale, killing more than 100,000 people, driving nearly 7 million more from their homes and devastating the nation's cities and towns.


The country is now carved up into rebel- and regime-controlled regions and fighting rages on unabated in many areas. It's those areas through which chemical weapons inspectors would have to navigate as they struggle against the tight deadlines to complete dismantling Syria's chemical stockpiles.

Russian-made SA-8 missiles stopped from reaching Hizballah


DEBKAfile Exclusive Report Oct 31, 2013, 10:59 PM (IDT)

A US official Thursday night, Oct. 31, confirmed Arab reports that Wednesday night, the Israeli Air Force attacked a consignment of Russian-made SA-8 Gecko Dgreen mobile missiles in the Syrian port of Latakia to prevent its delivery to Hizballah. Other foreign sources said Israel also struck a similar consignment in Damascus. DEBKA: The leak from Washington to US media angered Israeli officials. US sources explained that the administration, immersed in joint diplomacy on Syria with Moscow, had to demonstrate it was not involved in the Israeli operation.
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