Who is Seymour Myron
Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer based in Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award.[5]
He first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. In 2004 he reported on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh
Seymour Hersh Says Hillary Approved Sending Libya’s Sarin to Syrian Rebels
The great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in two previous articles in the London Review of Books («Whose Sarin?» and «The Red Line and the Rat Line») has reported that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria; and Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the US could invade and overthrow Assad. «By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria». Hersh didn’t say whether these «arms» included the precursor chemicals for making sarin which were stockpiled in Libya, but there have been multiple independent reports that Libya’s Gaddafi possessed such stockpiles, and also that the US Consulate in Benghazi Libya was operating a «rat line» for Gaddafi’s captured weapons into Syria through Turkey. So, Hersh isn’t the only reporter who has been covering this. Indeed, the investigative journalist Christoph Lehmann headlined on 7 October 2013, «Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria» and reported, on the basis of very different sources than Hersh used, that «Evidence leads directly to the White House, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry». And, as if that weren’t enough, even the definitive analysis of the evidence that was performed by two leading US analysts, the Lloyd-Postal report, concluded that, «The US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT». Obama has clearly been lying.
However, now, for the first time, Hersh has implicated Hillary Clinton directly in this «rat line». In an interview with Alternet.org, Hersh was asked about the then-US-Secretary-of-State’s role in the Benghazi Libya US consulate’s operation to collect weapons from Libyan stockpiles and send them through Turkey into Syria for a set-up sarin-gas attack, to be blamed on Assad in order to ‘justify’ the US invading Syria, as the US had invaded Libya to eliminate Gaddafi. Hersh said: «That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel».
This was, in fact, the Syrian part of the State Department’s Libyan operation, Obama’s operation to set up an excuse for the US doing in Syria what they had already done in Libya.
The interviewer then asked: «In the book [Hersh’s The Killing of Osama bin Laden, just out] you quote a former intelligence official as saying that the White House rejected 35 target sets [for the planned US invasion of Syria] provided by the Joint Chiefs as being insufficiently painful to the Assad regime. (You note that the original targets included military sites only – nothing by way of civilian infrastructure.) Later the White House proposed a target list that included civilian infrastructure. What would the toll to civilians have been if the White House’s proposed strike had been carried out?»
Hersh responded by saying that the US tradition in that regard has long been to ignore civilian casualties; i.e., collateral damage of US attacks is okay or even desired (so as to terrorize the population into surrender) – not an ‘issue’, except, perhaps, for the PR people.
The interviewer asked why Obama is so obsessed to replace Assad in Syria, since «The power vacuum that would ensue would open Syria up to all kinds of jihadi groups»; and Hersh replied that not only he, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff, «nobody could figure out why». He said, «Our policy has always been against him [Assad]. Period». This has actually been the case not only since the Party that Assad leads, the Ba’ath Party, was the subject of a shelved CIA coup-plot in 1957 to overthrow and replace it; but, actually, the CIA’s first coup had been not just planned but was carried out in 1949 in Syria, overthrowing there a democratically elected leader, in order to enable a pipeline for the Sauds’ oil to become built through Syria into the largest oil market, Europe; and, construction of the pipeline started the following year. But, there were then a succession of Syrian coups (domestic instead of by foreign powers – 1954, 1963, 1966, and, finally, in 1970), concluding in the accession to power of Hafez al-Assad during the 1970 coup. And, the Sauds' long-planned Trans-Arabia Pipeline has still not been built. The Saudi royal family, who own the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, don’t want to wait any longer. Obama is the first US President to have seriously tried to carry out their long-desired «regime change» in Syria, so as to enable not only the Sauds’ Trans-Arabian Pipeline to be built, but also to build through Syria the Qatar-Turkey Gas Pipeline that the Thani royal family (friends of the Sauds) who own Qatar want also to be built there. The US is allied with the Saud family (and with their friends, the royal families of Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Oman). Russia is allied with the leaders of Syria – as Russia had earlier been allied with Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya, and Yanukovych in Ukraine (all of whom except Syria’s Ba’ath Party, the US has successfully overthrown).
Hersh was wrong to say that «nobody could figure out why» Obama is obsessed with overthrowing Assad and his Ba’ath Party, even if nobody that he spoke with was willing to say why. They have all been hired to do a job, which didn’t change even when the Soviet Union ended and the Warsaw Pact was disbanded; and, anyone who has been at this job for as long as those people have, can pretty well figure out what the job actually is – even if Hersh can’t.
Hersh then said that Obama wanted to fill Syria with foreign jihadists to serve as the necessary ground forces for his planned aerial bombardment there, and, «if you wanted to go there and fight there in 2011-2013, ‘Go, go, go… overthrow Bashar!’ So, they actually pushed a lot of people [jihadists] to go. I don’t think they were paying for them but they certainly gave visas».
However, it’s not actually part of America’s deal with its allies the fundamentalist-Sunni Arabic royal families and the fundamentalist Sunni Erdogan of Turkey, for the US to supply the salaries (to be «paying for them», as Hersh put it there) to those fundamentalist Sunni jihadists – that’s instead the function of the Sauds and of their friends, the other Arab royals, and their friends, to do. (Those are the people who finance the terrorists to perpetrate attacks in the US, Europe, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, India, Nigeria, etc. – i.e., anywhere except in their own countries.) And, Erdogan in Turkey mainly gives their jihadists just safe passage into Syria, and he takes part of the proceeds from the jihadists’ sales of stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil. But, they all work together as a team (with the jihadists sometimes killing each other in the process – that’s even part of the plan) – though each national leader has PR problems at home in order to fool his respective public into thinking that they’re against terrorists, and that only the ‘enemy’ is to blame. (Meanwhile, the aristocrats who supply the «salaries» of the jihadists, walk off with all the money.)
This way, US oil and gas companies will refine, and pipeline into Europe, the Sauds’ oil and the Thanis’ gas, and not only will Russia’s major oil-and-gas market become squeezed away by that, but Obama’s economic sanctions against Russia, plus the yet-further isolation of Russia (as well as of China and the rest of the BRICS countries) by excluding them from Obama’s three mega-trade-deals (TTIP, TPP & TISA), will place the US aristocracy firmly in control of the world, to dominate the 21st Century, as it has dominated ever since the end of WW II.
Then, came this question from Hersh: «Why does America do what it does? Why do we not say to the Russians, Let’s work together?» His interviewer immediately seconded that by repeating it, «So why don’t we work closer with Russia? It seems so rational». Hersh replied simply: «I don’t know». He didn’t venture so much as a guess – not even an educated one. But, when journalists who are as knowledgeable as he, don’t present some credible explanation, to challenge the obvious lies (which make no sense that accords with the blatantly contrary evidence those journalists know of against those lies) that come from people such as Barack Obama, aren’t they thereby – though passively – participating in the fraud, instead of contradicting and challenging it? Or, is the underlying assumption, there: The general public is going to be as deeply immersed in the background information here as I am, so that they don’t need me to bring it all together for them into a coherent (and fully documented) whole, which does make sense? Is that the underlying assumption? Because: if it is, it’s false.
Hersh’s journalism is among the best (after all: he went so far as to say, of Christopher Stephens, regarding Hillary Clinton, «there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel»), but it’s certainly not good enough. However, it’s too good to be published any longer in places like the New Yorker. And the reporting by Christof Lehmann was better, and it was issued even earlier than Hersh’s; and it is good enough, because it named names, and it explained motivations, in an honest and forthright way, which is why Lehmann’s piece was published only on a Montenegrin site, and only online, not in a Western print medium, such as the New Yorker. The sites that are owned by members of the Western aristocracy don’t issue reports like that – journalism that’s good enough. They won’t inform the public when a US Secretary of State, and her boss the US President, are the persons actually behind a sarin gas attack they’re blaming on a foreign leader the US aristocrats and their allied foreign aristocrats are determined to topple and replace.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2 ... ebels.html
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Syria
Why Obama Prioritizes Ousting Assad Over Defeating Syria’s Jihadists (I)
Why Obama Prioritizes Ousting Assad Over Defeating Syria’s Jihadists (I)
Dr Christina Lin, a leading young scholar on jihadist groups, opens her April 8th commentary at Asia Times: «In a blunder reeking of the fallout caused by supplying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to 1980s mujahideen in Afghanistan, civilian airline passengers are now under threat from Syrian jihadists armed with portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS).
Reports say some American-backed jihadi groups are being equipped with US-made MANPADS. Indications are they’re obtaining these advanced weapons either directly or indirectly from the US or its Mideast allies in connection with a recent escalation in the fighting in Syria.
On April 2, fighting broke out between western-backed al-Qaeda affiliates and the Syrian army, ending the Syrian ceasefire. The groups that broke the ceasefire included al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra), the Chinese Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), The Levant Brigade, the Freemen of Syria (Ahrar ash-Sham), Division 13, and other jihadi groups. According to AP, the US-trained and armed Division 13 is now fighting alongside al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. The latter two are part of the Turkey/Saudi/Qatar-backed Army of Conquest».
That report goes on to document, essentially, that US President Barack Obama is continuing his efforts to replace the the only secular, non-sectarian government in the Middle East, that of the Ba’athist Party, which has always been the only non-religious political party in the Arab world – everything else in Arabia has been fundamentalist-Sunni, to at least some extent. (Think of it: after 9/11, the US government aiding al-Qaeda! The US government is more against Russia than it’s against jihadists – though Russia never invaded the US, and communism is gone!)
Dr Lin quotes a Saudi official as saying (in Germany’s Spiegel), «We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground… just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there». He was referring there to this in 1979, where Obama’s friend Zbigniew Brzezinski explained why the Americans and the Saudis were supplying SAMs to the mujahideen who became al-Qaeda, and he was also referring to this in 1998, where Brzezinski, when asked whether he thought that arming those fundamentalist Sunnis had been a mistake, said that it certainly was not. Obama is continuing in that vein. Brzezinski still was talking there as if Russia equals the USSR, equals «the enemy». Obama acts from that same viewpoint – the viewpoint that will end either in WW III, or in Russia’s capitulation to the US aristocracy.
In their view, the end of communism, and the end of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Soviets’ Warsaw Pact (which was their counterpart to America’s NATO alliance), made and make no difference, and Syria should be ruled by jihadist groups, because its current government is allied with Russia, and Russia always tries to kill jihadists, never allies with them (as the US does).
Obama overthrew the Russia-friendly government of Ukraine and replaced it with an anti-Russian government; he also led the NATO bombing campaign that overthrew the Russia-friendly leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi; and he has since been trying to do the same thing in Syria, to Assad.
Dr Lin continues:
«Now, if it turns out that al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria are indeed armed with MANPADS, it would amount to what former CIA director David Petraeus called ‘our worst nightmare’. The missile would do far more than improve terrorist groups’ military capabilities to conduct future attacks.
A 2005 RAND study also concluded that Jihadists shooting down a civilian airliner would put a temporary freeze on worldwide air travel, causing a $15 billion loss to the world economy. More than a decade after this study, the present-day economic loss would be substantially higher than $15 billion».
Dr Lin’s calling this a «blunder» from Obama is based upon an assumption that Obama isn’t aware of the harms that he’s causing by what he’s doing; but, on the same day, a report, including shocking documentation from Jane’s (the specialist site about military matters), makes clear that Obama is determined to overthrow Assad no matter what the consequences.
The anonymous «Moon of Alabama» blogger posted at Global Research on April 8th, «US Delivers 3,000 Tons Of Weapons And Ammo To Al-Qaeda and Co. in Syria». Shown there is the «Simplified packing list for December 2015 arms» that were sent. The anonymous blogger explained:
«One ship with nearly one thousand tons of weapons and ammo left Constanta in Romania on December 5. The weapons are from Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. It sailed to Agalar in Turkey which has a military pier and then to Aqaba in Jordan. Another ship with more than two-thousand tons of weapons and ammo left in late March, followed the same route and was last recorded on its way to Aqaba on April 4.
We already knew that the ‘rebels’ in Syria received plenty of weapons during the official ceasefire. We also know that these ‘rebels’ regularly deliver half of their weapon hauls from Turkey and Jordan to al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al-Nusra):
Hard-core Islamists in the Nusra Front have long outgunned the more secular, nationalist, Western-supported rebels. According to FSA officers, Nusra routinely harvests up to half the weapons supplied by the Friends of Syria, a collection of countries opposed to Assad...
US and Turkey supported ‘rebels’ took part in the recent attack on Tal al-Eis against Syrian government forces which was launched with three suicide bombs by al-Qaeda in Syria. This was an indisputable breaking of the ceasefire agreement between Russia and the US. It is very likely that some of the weapons and ammunition the US delivered in December were used in this attack».
Consequently, Obama is clearly determined to supply weapons to the jihadists until they win. This is no «blunder». It’s a determination to beat Putin, no matter what. It has consequences not only for the US and for Russia, but for the countries that America invades or whose governments America overthrows. Here are those consequences.
The «2016 Global Emotions Report» by Gallup, surveying over a thousand people in each one of 140 different nations, found that, by far, the people in Syria had «the lowest positive experiences worldwide», the people there were far more miserable than in any other nation. The score was 36 (on a scale to 100). Second and third worst were tied at 51: Turkey because of the tightening dictatorship there as Turkey has become one of Obama’s key allies in toppling Assad; Nepal, on account of the earthquake. Then tied at 54, were three countries, the fourth, fifth, and sixth, most-miserable places to live: Georgia, which still hasn’t recovered from the US-backed wars against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where the majority want to be part of Russia; Serbia, where the majority are opposed to the government’s move to enter NATO; and Iraq, which still hasn’t recovered from Bush’s 2003 invasion. Then tied at 55, are five countries, the seventh-through-eleventh-most-miserable nations: Yemen, where America’s ally the Sauds are dropping American bombs onto Shiite neighborhoods; Bosnia and Herzegovina, which still hasn’t recovered from the civil war and the US bombing; Lithuania, which became impoverished by IMF-imposition of economic austerity, which has prevented economic recovery; Belarus, which will probably be the last country in the world to break away from Marxism; and, finally, the 11th-worst, Ukraine, which prior to the US coup, was less miserable than 29 countries and had a score of 60, which was 5 points higher than today’s – Obama’s coup there has definitely immiserated the Ukrainian people (not to mention displaced millions and slaughtered thousands by the ethnic-cleansing campaign against residents of the former Donbass region of Ukraine).
To what extent would it be sincere, or even honest, then, for the US President to say this?:
«America’s willingness to apply force around the world is the ultimate safeguard against chaos, and America’s failure to act in the face of Syrian brutality or Russian provocations not only violates our conscience, but invites escalating aggression in the future… In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away. Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine’s economy; OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine. And this mobilization of world opinion and international institutions served as a counterweight to Russian propaganda and Russian troops on the border and armed militias in ski masks».
Those «armed militias in ski masks», incidentally, were US-CIA-hired mercenaries. He had to know that; he simply lied.
(to be continued)
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2 ... sts-i.html
Dr Christina Lin, a leading young scholar on jihadist groups, opens her April 8th commentary at Asia Times: «In a blunder reeking of the fallout caused by supplying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to 1980s mujahideen in Afghanistan, civilian airline passengers are now under threat from Syrian jihadists armed with portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS).
Reports say some American-backed jihadi groups are being equipped with US-made MANPADS. Indications are they’re obtaining these advanced weapons either directly or indirectly from the US or its Mideast allies in connection with a recent escalation in the fighting in Syria.
On April 2, fighting broke out between western-backed al-Qaeda affiliates and the Syrian army, ending the Syrian ceasefire. The groups that broke the ceasefire included al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra), the Chinese Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), The Levant Brigade, the Freemen of Syria (Ahrar ash-Sham), Division 13, and other jihadi groups. According to AP, the US-trained and armed Division 13 is now fighting alongside al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. The latter two are part of the Turkey/Saudi/Qatar-backed Army of Conquest».
That report goes on to document, essentially, that US President Barack Obama is continuing his efforts to replace the the only secular, non-sectarian government in the Middle East, that of the Ba’athist Party, which has always been the only non-religious political party in the Arab world – everything else in Arabia has been fundamentalist-Sunni, to at least some extent. (Think of it: after 9/11, the US government aiding al-Qaeda! The US government is more against Russia than it’s against jihadists – though Russia never invaded the US, and communism is gone!)
Dr Lin quotes a Saudi official as saying (in Germany’s Spiegel), «We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground… just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there». He was referring there to this in 1979, where Obama’s friend Zbigniew Brzezinski explained why the Americans and the Saudis were supplying SAMs to the mujahideen who became al-Qaeda, and he was also referring to this in 1998, where Brzezinski, when asked whether he thought that arming those fundamentalist Sunnis had been a mistake, said that it certainly was not. Obama is continuing in that vein. Brzezinski still was talking there as if Russia equals the USSR, equals «the enemy». Obama acts from that same viewpoint – the viewpoint that will end either in WW III, or in Russia’s capitulation to the US aristocracy.
In their view, the end of communism, and the end of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Soviets’ Warsaw Pact (which was their counterpart to America’s NATO alliance), made and make no difference, and Syria should be ruled by jihadist groups, because its current government is allied with Russia, and Russia always tries to kill jihadists, never allies with them (as the US does).
Obama overthrew the Russia-friendly government of Ukraine and replaced it with an anti-Russian government; he also led the NATO bombing campaign that overthrew the Russia-friendly leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi; and he has since been trying to do the same thing in Syria, to Assad.
Dr Lin continues:
«Now, if it turns out that al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria are indeed armed with MANPADS, it would amount to what former CIA director David Petraeus called ‘our worst nightmare’. The missile would do far more than improve terrorist groups’ military capabilities to conduct future attacks.
A 2005 RAND study also concluded that Jihadists shooting down a civilian airliner would put a temporary freeze on worldwide air travel, causing a $15 billion loss to the world economy. More than a decade after this study, the present-day economic loss would be substantially higher than $15 billion».
Dr Lin’s calling this a «blunder» from Obama is based upon an assumption that Obama isn’t aware of the harms that he’s causing by what he’s doing; but, on the same day, a report, including shocking documentation from Jane’s (the specialist site about military matters), makes clear that Obama is determined to overthrow Assad no matter what the consequences.
The anonymous «Moon of Alabama» blogger posted at Global Research on April 8th, «US Delivers 3,000 Tons Of Weapons And Ammo To Al-Qaeda and Co. in Syria». Shown there is the «Simplified packing list for December 2015 arms» that were sent. The anonymous blogger explained:
«One ship with nearly one thousand tons of weapons and ammo left Constanta in Romania on December 5. The weapons are from Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. It sailed to Agalar in Turkey which has a military pier and then to Aqaba in Jordan. Another ship with more than two-thousand tons of weapons and ammo left in late March, followed the same route and was last recorded on its way to Aqaba on April 4.
We already knew that the ‘rebels’ in Syria received plenty of weapons during the official ceasefire. We also know that these ‘rebels’ regularly deliver half of their weapon hauls from Turkey and Jordan to al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al-Nusra):
Hard-core Islamists in the Nusra Front have long outgunned the more secular, nationalist, Western-supported rebels. According to FSA officers, Nusra routinely harvests up to half the weapons supplied by the Friends of Syria, a collection of countries opposed to Assad...
US and Turkey supported ‘rebels’ took part in the recent attack on Tal al-Eis against Syrian government forces which was launched with three suicide bombs by al-Qaeda in Syria. This was an indisputable breaking of the ceasefire agreement between Russia and the US. It is very likely that some of the weapons and ammunition the US delivered in December were used in this attack».
Consequently, Obama is clearly determined to supply weapons to the jihadists until they win. This is no «blunder». It’s a determination to beat Putin, no matter what. It has consequences not only for the US and for Russia, but for the countries that America invades or whose governments America overthrows. Here are those consequences.
The «2016 Global Emotions Report» by Gallup, surveying over a thousand people in each one of 140 different nations, found that, by far, the people in Syria had «the lowest positive experiences worldwide», the people there were far more miserable than in any other nation. The score was 36 (on a scale to 100). Second and third worst were tied at 51: Turkey because of the tightening dictatorship there as Turkey has become one of Obama’s key allies in toppling Assad; Nepal, on account of the earthquake. Then tied at 54, were three countries, the fourth, fifth, and sixth, most-miserable places to live: Georgia, which still hasn’t recovered from the US-backed wars against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where the majority want to be part of Russia; Serbia, where the majority are opposed to the government’s move to enter NATO; and Iraq, which still hasn’t recovered from Bush’s 2003 invasion. Then tied at 55, are five countries, the seventh-through-eleventh-most-miserable nations: Yemen, where America’s ally the Sauds are dropping American bombs onto Shiite neighborhoods; Bosnia and Herzegovina, which still hasn’t recovered from the civil war and the US bombing; Lithuania, which became impoverished by IMF-imposition of economic austerity, which has prevented economic recovery; Belarus, which will probably be the last country in the world to break away from Marxism; and, finally, the 11th-worst, Ukraine, which prior to the US coup, was less miserable than 29 countries and had a score of 60, which was 5 points higher than today’s – Obama’s coup there has definitely immiserated the Ukrainian people (not to mention displaced millions and slaughtered thousands by the ethnic-cleansing campaign against residents of the former Donbass region of Ukraine).
To what extent would it be sincere, or even honest, then, for the US President to say this?:
«America’s willingness to apply force around the world is the ultimate safeguard against chaos, and America’s failure to act in the face of Syrian brutality or Russian provocations not only violates our conscience, but invites escalating aggression in the future… In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away. Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine’s economy; OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine. And this mobilization of world opinion and international institutions served as a counterweight to Russian propaganda and Russian troops on the border and armed militias in ski masks».
Those «armed militias in ski masks», incidentally, were US-CIA-hired mercenaries. He had to know that; he simply lied.
(to be continued)
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2 ... sts-i.html
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria
By ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR
They don’t hate ‘our freedoms.’ They hate that we’ve betrayed our ideals in their own countries — for oil.
In part because my father was murdered by an Arab, I’ve made an effort to understand the impact of U.S. policy in the Mideast and particularly the factors that sometimes motivate bloodthirsty responses from the Islamic world against our country. As we focus on the rise of the Islamic State and search for the source of the savagery that took so many innocent lives in Paris and San Bernardino, we might want to look beyond the convenient explanations of religion and ideology. Instead we should examine the more complex rationales of history and oil — and how they often point the finger of blame back at our own shores.
America’s unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria — little-known to the American people yet well-known to Syrians — sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIL. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely only to compound the crisis.
To understand this dynamic, we need to look at history from the Syrians’ perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.politico.eu/article/why-the- ... ervention/
By ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR
They don’t hate ‘our freedoms.’ They hate that we’ve betrayed our ideals in their own countries — for oil.
In part because my father was murdered by an Arab, I’ve made an effort to understand the impact of U.S. policy in the Mideast and particularly the factors that sometimes motivate bloodthirsty responses from the Islamic world against our country. As we focus on the rise of the Islamic State and search for the source of the savagery that took so many innocent lives in Paris and San Bernardino, we might want to look beyond the convenient explanations of religion and ideology. Instead we should examine the more complex rationales of history and oil — and how they often point the finger of blame back at our own shores.
America’s unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria — little-known to the American people yet well-known to Syrians — sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIL. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely only to compound the crisis.
To understand this dynamic, we need to look at history from the Syrians’ perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.politico.eu/article/why-the- ... ervention/
Re: Syria
The Race For Raqqa And America’s Geopolitical Revenge In “Syraq” (I)
The Mideast will never be the same again after Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria. The US’ previously uncontested hegemony over the region is now an unpleasant memory of the past, but it doesn’t mean that it’s totally squeezed from the area just yet. It now appears as though the US is approaching the last step of its ‘geopolitical grief cycle’, having emerged from a complete panic and a pathetic propaganda war to finally enter the planning stages of what’s shaping up to be its counter-response. The airdropping of 50 tons of weapons and equipment to its newly assembled “Democratic Forces of Syria” proxy in the country’s northeast is indicative of its latest strategy.
The US is pressuring its allied units to race to Raqqa “within weeks” under heavy American air support in order to establish ‘facts on the ground’ that could then influence the post-conflict political reconciliation process along the Brookings Institution’s proposed federalization model. If something similar happens along the same time in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated regions, then a semi-institutionalized and largely autonomous trans-border sectarian entity will be created that would kill any hopes for a revival of the Friendship Pipeline between Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Worse still, it could resurrect the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline to Europe that was one of the reasons for the whole war in the first place, and divide the Russian-led anti-terrorist coalition right down its geographic middle.
Part I speaks on the US’ last-ditch plans to salvage some of its influence in the Mideast, while the second part addresses what Russia and Syria can do to stop it.
American Scheming
The US revealed the hand that it’s ready to play, and it involves suddenly shifting the strategic focus to Raqqa and using any gains that its proxies acquire there as a springboard for forcing (de-facto) federalization upon the country.
Laying The Groundwork
As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, the US is pushing its proxies into a heated race for Raqqa (conceptually predicted by the author in August 2014), understanding very well that if it beats the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in capturing ISIL’s headquarters, then it’ll be the controlling force able to guide any post-conflict political settlement in that region. Therefore, in order to not have its influence in Syria totally expunged by the Coalition of the Righteous (COR), the US is prioritizing this objective over all else, hence the tweaking of its “covert”, off-site training program with the more urgent overt, on-site one. Additionally, it’s expected that the US will refocus its “anti-ISIL” bombings on fulfilling their nominal objective owing to the strategic criticality that it has in finally doing so.
The Race For Raqqa
The rush between the SAA and the “Democratic Forces of Syria” (DFS) to capture Raqqa is eerily reminiscent of the Allied Race for Berlin exactly 70 years ago, complete with both Moscow and Washington approaching the same strategic goal from separate directions (albeit in an indirect manner this time). Just as the Race for Berlin was instrumental in setting the on-the-ground reality that would determine post-war “New Europe”, so too is the Race for Raqqa the main determinant in deciding what the post-war “New Middle East” will look like, which is why the US is in such a frenzy for its supportive forces to seize the city as soon as possible.
Facts on The Ground
Capturing Raqqa might not be enough to solidly put the “DSF” in a position to enforce their American-advised federalization model on the rest of the country, hence the necessity to establish concrete demographic facts on the ground that could facilitate this. There are a couple of scenarios for how this could come about, but one of the most likely deals with the scores of retreating jihadists, squeezed between ever-tightening Turkish and Jordanian border security, fleeing east to make an ostensible final stand with their fellow terrorists-in-arms in the un-“Islamic State’s” ‘capital’. Bringing with them countless human shields (which would be positively referred to by the Western mainstream media as “Sunni refugees”), they’d be able to largely stave off Russian airstrikes at the same time as enacting a massive demographic transformation, all with a wink and a nod from the US.
Strategic Surrender:
So long as America’s proxies capture Raqqa first, then these “Sunni refugees” and their terrorist hostage takers could ‘surrender’ to them instead of to the SAA, the effect of which would be historically similar to retreating Nazis surrendering to the US so as not to fall into Soviet hands. Unlike the USSR which was an actual internationally recognized entity, the “DSF” are legally unrecognized (for now), but by having a mass surrender and “refugee” transfer strategically land in the palm of their hands, they’d de-facto become the on-the-ground ‘authority’ in that part of the country. This in turn would further the federalization plan that they have, and cheering it all along would be the Western mainstream media.
Info Wars:
Just as they slandered the Soviet Army as being ‘barbaric communists’ during World War II and thus ‘justified’ as many last-minute Nazi surrenders to the West as possible, they’ll continue doing the same thing that they’ve already been doing for over four years with the SAA, alleging that it’s an ‘illegitimate’ and ‘barbaric’ entity that has no right to receive surrendering terrorists or freed hostages. The end effect will be the same – the genuine liberating force in the war (the Soviet Army and SAA) is made to look like the bad guys, while the real bad guys (Nazis and Wahhabis) are presented as ‘victims’ of the liberators and garner Western sympathy for that exact reason. One must keep in mind that both situations are examples of high-level information warfare meant to achieve specific geopolitical goals on behalf of the US, and the historical lesson from the end of World War II is being repeated theme-for-theme as the War on Syria rapidly draws towards its end-game conclusion.
Conditionals
Synchronized Surrender In Iraq:
The US’ new strategy is dependent on a few factors, the first of which is that ISIL, if it does in fact surrender to the “DSF”, publicly proclaims that it did so in order to promote a ‘political settlement’ that would give the territory a level of autonomy on par with or even exceeding that of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. Likewise, something similar must happen around the same timeframe in Iraq’s Anbar Province (and potentially even Nineveh) so that a sub-national trans-border Sunni entity can be forged between it and east-of-the-Euphrates portions of Syria’s Ar-Raqqah, Al-Hasakah, and Deir ez-Zor Governorates. This is the only way that the terrorists’ military defeat could be partly transformed into an economic-strategic ‘victory’ for the US as per the de-facto creation of a pro-American satellite in the heart of the Mideast, strengthened by its geographic contiguity to Saudi Arabia and enriched by the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline that will run through it.
Kurdish-Arab Post-War Amity:
Assuming the unfortunate scenario where the US gets close enough to actualize this stratagem, its vision could still crumble at the last minute if there’s a Kurdish-Arab post-war fallout within the “DSF”. After all, the main components of this militant umbrella are the Kurdish YPG militia and the “Syrian Arab Coalition”, and it’s foreseeable that they may differ about the post-war allocation of territory within the proposed federal structure that the US would be promoting. The US, Turkey, and the Gulf States would find it absolutely unacceptable for the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline to go through Kurdish-controlled territory, thus meaning that the “Syrian Arab Coalition” would have to find some sort of ‘accommodation’ with the Kurds to remove them from the northern reaches of Ar-Raqqah Governorate or ensure that this territory doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of any forthcoming Kurdish sub-national entity. Since the Kurds are not expected to abandon the territory that they’re both inhabiting and militarily operating out of, the “Syrian Arab Coalition” may be directed by the US, Turkey, and others to resort to terroristic genocide against them so as to ethnically cleanse the Kurds from this strategic pipeline corridor. The resulting internecine bloodbath might open up the door for a COR counter-offensive that would spell the final end to the US’ Mideast proxy equivalent of the “Battle of the Bulge”.
To be continued…
Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency.
Hamsa Haddad is the Syrian researcher based in Moscow.
http://orientalreview.org/2015/10/14/th ... n-syraq-i/
The Mideast will never be the same again after Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria. The US’ previously uncontested hegemony over the region is now an unpleasant memory of the past, but it doesn’t mean that it’s totally squeezed from the area just yet. It now appears as though the US is approaching the last step of its ‘geopolitical grief cycle’, having emerged from a complete panic and a pathetic propaganda war to finally enter the planning stages of what’s shaping up to be its counter-response. The airdropping of 50 tons of weapons and equipment to its newly assembled “Democratic Forces of Syria” proxy in the country’s northeast is indicative of its latest strategy.
The US is pressuring its allied units to race to Raqqa “within weeks” under heavy American air support in order to establish ‘facts on the ground’ that could then influence the post-conflict political reconciliation process along the Brookings Institution’s proposed federalization model. If something similar happens along the same time in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated regions, then a semi-institutionalized and largely autonomous trans-border sectarian entity will be created that would kill any hopes for a revival of the Friendship Pipeline between Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Worse still, it could resurrect the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline to Europe that was one of the reasons for the whole war in the first place, and divide the Russian-led anti-terrorist coalition right down its geographic middle.
Part I speaks on the US’ last-ditch plans to salvage some of its influence in the Mideast, while the second part addresses what Russia and Syria can do to stop it.
American Scheming
The US revealed the hand that it’s ready to play, and it involves suddenly shifting the strategic focus to Raqqa and using any gains that its proxies acquire there as a springboard for forcing (de-facto) federalization upon the country.
Laying The Groundwork
As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, the US is pushing its proxies into a heated race for Raqqa (conceptually predicted by the author in August 2014), understanding very well that if it beats the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in capturing ISIL’s headquarters, then it’ll be the controlling force able to guide any post-conflict political settlement in that region. Therefore, in order to not have its influence in Syria totally expunged by the Coalition of the Righteous (COR), the US is prioritizing this objective over all else, hence the tweaking of its “covert”, off-site training program with the more urgent overt, on-site one. Additionally, it’s expected that the US will refocus its “anti-ISIL” bombings on fulfilling their nominal objective owing to the strategic criticality that it has in finally doing so.
The Race For Raqqa
The rush between the SAA and the “Democratic Forces of Syria” (DFS) to capture Raqqa is eerily reminiscent of the Allied Race for Berlin exactly 70 years ago, complete with both Moscow and Washington approaching the same strategic goal from separate directions (albeit in an indirect manner this time). Just as the Race for Berlin was instrumental in setting the on-the-ground reality that would determine post-war “New Europe”, so too is the Race for Raqqa the main determinant in deciding what the post-war “New Middle East” will look like, which is why the US is in such a frenzy for its supportive forces to seize the city as soon as possible.
Facts on The Ground
Capturing Raqqa might not be enough to solidly put the “DSF” in a position to enforce their American-advised federalization model on the rest of the country, hence the necessity to establish concrete demographic facts on the ground that could facilitate this. There are a couple of scenarios for how this could come about, but one of the most likely deals with the scores of retreating jihadists, squeezed between ever-tightening Turkish and Jordanian border security, fleeing east to make an ostensible final stand with their fellow terrorists-in-arms in the un-“Islamic State’s” ‘capital’. Bringing with them countless human shields (which would be positively referred to by the Western mainstream media as “Sunni refugees”), they’d be able to largely stave off Russian airstrikes at the same time as enacting a massive demographic transformation, all with a wink and a nod from the US.
Strategic Surrender:
So long as America’s proxies capture Raqqa first, then these “Sunni refugees” and their terrorist hostage takers could ‘surrender’ to them instead of to the SAA, the effect of which would be historically similar to retreating Nazis surrendering to the US so as not to fall into Soviet hands. Unlike the USSR which was an actual internationally recognized entity, the “DSF” are legally unrecognized (for now), but by having a mass surrender and “refugee” transfer strategically land in the palm of their hands, they’d de-facto become the on-the-ground ‘authority’ in that part of the country. This in turn would further the federalization plan that they have, and cheering it all along would be the Western mainstream media.
Info Wars:
Just as they slandered the Soviet Army as being ‘barbaric communists’ during World War II and thus ‘justified’ as many last-minute Nazi surrenders to the West as possible, they’ll continue doing the same thing that they’ve already been doing for over four years with the SAA, alleging that it’s an ‘illegitimate’ and ‘barbaric’ entity that has no right to receive surrendering terrorists or freed hostages. The end effect will be the same – the genuine liberating force in the war (the Soviet Army and SAA) is made to look like the bad guys, while the real bad guys (Nazis and Wahhabis) are presented as ‘victims’ of the liberators and garner Western sympathy for that exact reason. One must keep in mind that both situations are examples of high-level information warfare meant to achieve specific geopolitical goals on behalf of the US, and the historical lesson from the end of World War II is being repeated theme-for-theme as the War on Syria rapidly draws towards its end-game conclusion.
Conditionals
Synchronized Surrender In Iraq:
The US’ new strategy is dependent on a few factors, the first of which is that ISIL, if it does in fact surrender to the “DSF”, publicly proclaims that it did so in order to promote a ‘political settlement’ that would give the territory a level of autonomy on par with or even exceeding that of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. Likewise, something similar must happen around the same timeframe in Iraq’s Anbar Province (and potentially even Nineveh) so that a sub-national trans-border Sunni entity can be forged between it and east-of-the-Euphrates portions of Syria’s Ar-Raqqah, Al-Hasakah, and Deir ez-Zor Governorates. This is the only way that the terrorists’ military defeat could be partly transformed into an economic-strategic ‘victory’ for the US as per the de-facto creation of a pro-American satellite in the heart of the Mideast, strengthened by its geographic contiguity to Saudi Arabia and enriched by the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline that will run through it.
Kurdish-Arab Post-War Amity:
Assuming the unfortunate scenario where the US gets close enough to actualize this stratagem, its vision could still crumble at the last minute if there’s a Kurdish-Arab post-war fallout within the “DSF”. After all, the main components of this militant umbrella are the Kurdish YPG militia and the “Syrian Arab Coalition”, and it’s foreseeable that they may differ about the post-war allocation of territory within the proposed federal structure that the US would be promoting. The US, Turkey, and the Gulf States would find it absolutely unacceptable for the Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline to go through Kurdish-controlled territory, thus meaning that the “Syrian Arab Coalition” would have to find some sort of ‘accommodation’ with the Kurds to remove them from the northern reaches of Ar-Raqqah Governorate or ensure that this territory doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of any forthcoming Kurdish sub-national entity. Since the Kurds are not expected to abandon the territory that they’re both inhabiting and militarily operating out of, the “Syrian Arab Coalition” may be directed by the US, Turkey, and others to resort to terroristic genocide against them so as to ethnically cleanse the Kurds from this strategic pipeline corridor. The resulting internecine bloodbath might open up the door for a COR counter-offensive that would spell the final end to the US’ Mideast proxy equivalent of the “Battle of the Bulge”.
To be continued…
Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency.
Hamsa Haddad is the Syrian researcher based in Moscow.
http://orientalreview.org/2015/10/14/th ... n-syraq-i/
Hezbollah Wages an Existential Battle in Syria
Hezbollah Wages an Existential Battle in Syria
EDITOR'S CHOICE | 28.06.2016
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has announced his intentions to reinforce positions within Syria, particularly in Aleppo. Al-Manar in its article, “S. Nasrallah: Hezbollah Will Reinforce Troops in Aleppo to Achieve Major Victory,” would report that:
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah confirmed on Friday that the party will send more troops to Syria’s Aleppo where a major battle goes on in order to defeat the takfiri-terrorist project backed by Saudi and the US.
Nasrallah would add that the US and its regional allies were preparing to flood Syria with thousands of additional terrorist proxies in a bid to seize Aleppo. He also pointed out how the so-called “ceasefire” was used by various US-Saudi backed terrorist groups to retrench and prepare for the next phase of fighting.
Nasrallah Warned the World in 2007 of Syria’s Coming Catastrophe
In 2007, Nasrallah would give an interview to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?”
In it, Nasrallah would state the following while discussing the ongoing civil war in Iraq, years before the onset of the current Syrian crisis:
Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.”
He believed that attempts would be made to drive Shia’a from Lebanon and Syria as far as southern Iraq, which may explain why the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) finds itself operating conveniently in both Syria and Iraq, serving as a tool to influence not just Syria, but the entire region geopolitically.
Hersh’s 2007 article would also reveal another important aspect of US foreign policy evident at the time and now prophetic in retrospect. The article stated that (emphasis added):
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
In essence, Hersh’s research and interviews revealed that even as early as 2007, the US was working together with regional allies like Saudi Arabia to bolster armed terrorist groups and their political networks, including the Muslim Brotherhood, in preparations to divide and destroy the region, including Syria, as well as Lebanon.
Syria’s Fight is Lebanon’s Fight, is Hezbollah’s Fight
Prominent clearinghouses for Washington talking points, dressed up as journalism like the Daily Beast, have insisted that Hezbollah’s fight in Syria is divorced from the organization’s alleged purpose – which the Daily Beast claims simplistically is “fighting Israel.” In its article, “Hezbollah Fighters Are Fed Up With Fighting Syria’s War,” and in typical Western “journalistic fashion,” the Daily Beast defers to a handful anonymous anecdotal tales to bolster an otherwise baseless premise promoting this factually flawed narrative.
Hezbollah’s purpose for existing is not to “fight Israel.” It is to protect the nation of Lebanon and the people of the Shia’a faith from all threats. Hersh’s 2007 article would reveal that in addition to protecting Shia’a populations, even former CIA operator Robert Baer would admit that Hezbollah would also play a primary role in protecting other minorities across the region, including Christians, when Washington’s Al Qaeda-led proxy war began.
Since Hezbollah’s actual purpose for being is the defense of Lebanon – it is not difficult to see why it has invested itself so heavily in the war raging in neighboring Syria.
The belligerence of Israel’s current regime is only one of many threats that loom large over Lebanon’s future. The expansion of extremist groups ranging from Al Nusra and Al Qaeda, to the Islamic State, fueled by US, Saudi, Turkish, Qatari, and Jordanian cash, arms, and political backing, is another. It constitutes an existential threat not only to Syria, but to its neighbors including Lebanon.
Lebanon, in fact, has served as one of many conduits through which the US-led proxy war’s fighters have moved along with significant amounts of material support. This has led to clashes within Lebanon itself between extremist groups and both Hezbollah and the Lebanese military who attempted to interdict the flow of men and materiel.
But the current impact of Syria’s war on Lebanon is only one threat the nation and its defenders face. The other is the prospect of Syria’s government collapsing and terrorist groups bolstered by the West and its regional allies prevailing – and then spreading.
Libya is a Warning to Syria’s Neighbors: “You’re Next”
As seen in Libya, the Western-induced collapse of a government and subsequent regime change is only the first step of the West’s wider ambitions. Libya was then used as a springboard to send fighters and weapons to other nations targeted by Washington for “regime change.” This included Syria itself.
Observers of the Syrian conflict may recall that in late 2011 and early 2012, Libya contributed a significant number of fighters and weapons to the Syrian conflict, entering the country via NATO-member Turkey with the assistance of the United States government, and spearheading the invasion of Syria’s largest city Aleppo.
In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
It should be noted that US-backed terrorist leader Belhadj is now rumored to play a pivotal role in ISIS’ presence in Libya.
Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit:
Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
It is no coincidence that US-backed terrorist Belhaj would immediately marshal Libyan fighters and weapons to wage America’s proxy war in Syria after the fall of the Libyan government in 2011.
Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and subsequently, CNN whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:
Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.
A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.
CNN also added:
On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.
The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.
With this all in mind, one can only imagine how much greater the reach of these terrorist groups will be with Syria as yet another hub to train, stage in and traffic weapons and fighters from, as the West shifts its proxy war toward Lebanon, Iran, and even as far as southern Russia and western China.
Lebanon, without Syria’s government and military, and with Iran fighting a proxy war that will inevitable cross over into its territory should Syria fall, does not stand a chance against proxies backed by US-led multinational sponsorship of terrorism.
Police patrol in western China where US-backed terrorism actively seeks to undermine peace and stability in a bid to destabilize Beijing. Syria’s fall to US-backed terrorists will enhance America’s ability to project wider terror, further, including China.
Syria’s battle is Lebanon’s battle. It is also Iran’s battle, as well as Russia’s and even China’s. These nations do not support and defend the Syrian government out of an obligation to an ally alone. They do so with the realization of where the conflict will lead to later if not ended in Syria now.
This is precisely why Syria, Russia, Iran, and Lebanon – and to a lesser extent, China – cannot afford to abandon Syria.
This is also why “assurances” from the US that if only “regime change” is accomplished in Syria, the conflict will end, cannot and should not be entertained.
“Regime change” did not end the conflict in Libya, nor Libya’s role in supporting wider conflicts beyond its borders. It will not end in Syria either. It will only lead to the next, and much larger conflict.
Hezbollah is not fighting for “Assad” in Syria. Hezbollah is fighting for Lebanon and the stability of the entire region upon which Lebanon’s future depends.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2 ... syria.html
EDITOR'S CHOICE | 28.06.2016
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has announced his intentions to reinforce positions within Syria, particularly in Aleppo. Al-Manar in its article, “S. Nasrallah: Hezbollah Will Reinforce Troops in Aleppo to Achieve Major Victory,” would report that:
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah confirmed on Friday that the party will send more troops to Syria’s Aleppo where a major battle goes on in order to defeat the takfiri-terrorist project backed by Saudi and the US.
Nasrallah would add that the US and its regional allies were preparing to flood Syria with thousands of additional terrorist proxies in a bid to seize Aleppo. He also pointed out how the so-called “ceasefire” was used by various US-Saudi backed terrorist groups to retrench and prepare for the next phase of fighting.
Nasrallah Warned the World in 2007 of Syria’s Coming Catastrophe
In 2007, Nasrallah would give an interview to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?”
In it, Nasrallah would state the following while discussing the ongoing civil war in Iraq, years before the onset of the current Syrian crisis:
Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.”
He believed that attempts would be made to drive Shia’a from Lebanon and Syria as far as southern Iraq, which may explain why the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) finds itself operating conveniently in both Syria and Iraq, serving as a tool to influence not just Syria, but the entire region geopolitically.
Hersh’s 2007 article would also reveal another important aspect of US foreign policy evident at the time and now prophetic in retrospect. The article stated that (emphasis added):
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
In essence, Hersh’s research and interviews revealed that even as early as 2007, the US was working together with regional allies like Saudi Arabia to bolster armed terrorist groups and their political networks, including the Muslim Brotherhood, in preparations to divide and destroy the region, including Syria, as well as Lebanon.
Syria’s Fight is Lebanon’s Fight, is Hezbollah’s Fight
Prominent clearinghouses for Washington talking points, dressed up as journalism like the Daily Beast, have insisted that Hezbollah’s fight in Syria is divorced from the organization’s alleged purpose – which the Daily Beast claims simplistically is “fighting Israel.” In its article, “Hezbollah Fighters Are Fed Up With Fighting Syria’s War,” and in typical Western “journalistic fashion,” the Daily Beast defers to a handful anonymous anecdotal tales to bolster an otherwise baseless premise promoting this factually flawed narrative.
Hezbollah’s purpose for existing is not to “fight Israel.” It is to protect the nation of Lebanon and the people of the Shia’a faith from all threats. Hersh’s 2007 article would reveal that in addition to protecting Shia’a populations, even former CIA operator Robert Baer would admit that Hezbollah would also play a primary role in protecting other minorities across the region, including Christians, when Washington’s Al Qaeda-led proxy war began.
Since Hezbollah’s actual purpose for being is the defense of Lebanon – it is not difficult to see why it has invested itself so heavily in the war raging in neighboring Syria.
The belligerence of Israel’s current regime is only one of many threats that loom large over Lebanon’s future. The expansion of extremist groups ranging from Al Nusra and Al Qaeda, to the Islamic State, fueled by US, Saudi, Turkish, Qatari, and Jordanian cash, arms, and political backing, is another. It constitutes an existential threat not only to Syria, but to its neighbors including Lebanon.
Lebanon, in fact, has served as one of many conduits through which the US-led proxy war’s fighters have moved along with significant amounts of material support. This has led to clashes within Lebanon itself between extremist groups and both Hezbollah and the Lebanese military who attempted to interdict the flow of men and materiel.
But the current impact of Syria’s war on Lebanon is only one threat the nation and its defenders face. The other is the prospect of Syria’s government collapsing and terrorist groups bolstered by the West and its regional allies prevailing – and then spreading.
Libya is a Warning to Syria’s Neighbors: “You’re Next”
As seen in Libya, the Western-induced collapse of a government and subsequent regime change is only the first step of the West’s wider ambitions. Libya was then used as a springboard to send fighters and weapons to other nations targeted by Washington for “regime change.” This included Syria itself.
Observers of the Syrian conflict may recall that in late 2011 and early 2012, Libya contributed a significant number of fighters and weapons to the Syrian conflict, entering the country via NATO-member Turkey with the assistance of the United States government, and spearheading the invasion of Syria’s largest city Aleppo.
In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
It should be noted that US-backed terrorist leader Belhadj is now rumored to play a pivotal role in ISIS’ presence in Libya.
Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit:
Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
It is no coincidence that US-backed terrorist Belhaj would immediately marshal Libyan fighters and weapons to wage America’s proxy war in Syria after the fall of the Libyan government in 2011.
Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and subsequently, CNN whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:
Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.
A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.
CNN also added:
On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.
The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.
With this all in mind, one can only imagine how much greater the reach of these terrorist groups will be with Syria as yet another hub to train, stage in and traffic weapons and fighters from, as the West shifts its proxy war toward Lebanon, Iran, and even as far as southern Russia and western China.
Lebanon, without Syria’s government and military, and with Iran fighting a proxy war that will inevitable cross over into its territory should Syria fall, does not stand a chance against proxies backed by US-led multinational sponsorship of terrorism.
Police patrol in western China where US-backed terrorism actively seeks to undermine peace and stability in a bid to destabilize Beijing. Syria’s fall to US-backed terrorists will enhance America’s ability to project wider terror, further, including China.
Syria’s battle is Lebanon’s battle. It is also Iran’s battle, as well as Russia’s and even China’s. These nations do not support and defend the Syrian government out of an obligation to an ally alone. They do so with the realization of where the conflict will lead to later if not ended in Syria now.
This is precisely why Syria, Russia, Iran, and Lebanon – and to a lesser extent, China – cannot afford to abandon Syria.
This is also why “assurances” from the US that if only “regime change” is accomplished in Syria, the conflict will end, cannot and should not be entertained.
“Regime change” did not end the conflict in Libya, nor Libya’s role in supporting wider conflicts beyond its borders. It will not end in Syria either. It will only lead to the next, and much larger conflict.
Hezbollah is not fighting for “Assad” in Syria. Hezbollah is fighting for Lebanon and the stability of the entire region upon which Lebanon’s future depends.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2 ... syria.html
Re: Syria
Making a Killing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFkjil2aWhA
Central and Eastern European governments have directed an unprecedented flow of weapons and ammunition to four key backers of Syria’s armed opposition since the escalation of the bloody civil war in 2012.
A yearlong investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reveal for the first time the emergence of an € 1.2 billion arms pipeline fueling conflict in the Middle East, causing untold human suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFkjil2aWhA
Central and Eastern European governments have directed an unprecedented flow of weapons and ammunition to four key backers of Syria’s armed opposition since the escalation of the bloody civil war in 2012.
A yearlong investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reveal for the first time the emergence of an € 1.2 billion arms pipeline fueling conflict in the Middle East, causing untold human suffering.
The Party Is Over: ISIL Is Battered and on the Retreat
The Party Is Over: ISIL Is Battered and on the Retreat
Farsnews
That said, the struggle continues both within and outside the region. Consider the following news headlines:
Syrian Planes Drop "Surrender Now" Leaflets over Militant Positions
Syrian Army Regains Control over Strategic Regions in Hama
Terrorists Stop Civilians from Leaving Aleppo Through 'Safe Passages'
Large Number of Al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham Militants Killed in Homs
Free Syrian Army Group Lays Down Arms, Surrenders
Army, Allies Celebrate Full Liberation of Bani Zeid in Aleppo
Syrian TV Declares Full Freedom of Aleppo's Lairamoun Industrial Zone
Syrian Troops Seize Rebel-Held Area Near Damascus
ISIL on the Defensive, Losing Ground in Iraq
All these new developments have happened in just one week and point to one direction and one direction only: The terrorist groups, including the ISIL and its patrons, are battered and on the retreat in both Iraq and Syria. True, ISIL is unlikely to be defeated this year. But it is losing territory fast and it is important to keep in mind that much of this is irreversible for a host of reasons, including:
- More important is ISIL’s progressive loss of access to the Turkish border which has been largely sealed off by the advance of the Syrian Army assisted by a Russian air umbrella. The narrow corridor between Aleppo and the Euphrates that links the self-declared “Caliphate” to Turkey is also under threat from Kurdish forces in the east and Syrian Army in the west. Once this gap is also closed, ISIL will be unable to receive European jihadists or dispatch terrorists to carry out attacks abroad.
- A large number of terrorists from Al-Nusra, Noureddin Al-Zinki, Free Syrian Army, Ahrar al-Sham and other groups have laid down their arms and surrendered to the Syrian Army in Aleppo province as allied forces (Syrian soldiers backed by Hezbollah, Iranian military advisors and Russian airstrikes) are racing towards Aleppo after completing siege of the city and capturing Bani Zeid, the most vital stronghold of the militants. The allied forces have also managed to cut off supply lines and passages used by the terrorists to move from the North to the Eastern neighbourhoods.
- Al-Nusra Front has announced its break from Al-Qaeda in an apparent bid to gain more political support from foreign powers. The game is to delist the group as a terror entity. This only indicates the political bankruptcy of its regional sponsors led by Saudi Arabia as the founder and principal supporter of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIL, al-Nusra Front and many other terror outfits in the region. Meantime, Al-Qaeda plans to escape the negative impacts of the Al-Nusra's crushing defeat and retreat in Syria.
- President Bashar Assad has offered an amnesty for rebels who surrender within three months. The Syrian Army has dropped thousands of leaflets over militant-held districts in Aleppo, asking residents to cooperate with the military and calling on militants to surrender.
- The same is true in Iraq. The terrorist group is losing terrain every single day, struggling to refill its ranks and more and more unable to mount major operations. Its ability to conduct large-scale offensive operations has primarily stopped and they are more on the defensive, trying to delay allied forces (Iraqi Army, Shiite-Sunni mobilisation units, Iranian military advisors) just to buy time.
Well, the party is clearly over and the foreign-backed terror machine seems to be a doomed project. This is the historical moment we are in. Tragic enough, there is already lots of human suffering and there is going to be more; much more. Those who backed ISIL and many other terror outfits are just going to have to own up to what Syria and Iraq have become. Even long after the remnants of ISIL and Al-Qaeda are gone, the political systems and the economies will remain corrupt and dysfunctional with no easy way out. No amount of foreign aid – if any - is going to change anything — that will take national unity, political action and organising.
On the other hand, the trend lines on the War on Terror, refugee crisis, anti-Islam and anti-Muslim propaganda, failure of Western democracy and the vast militarised police and security system all point toward deep trouble in Europe as well. On refugee and humanitarian issues alone the crisis will deepen and most likely in a dramatic way. Recent terror attacks in France and Germany suggest they are woefully unprepared for what lies ahead.
But at least Western Europe has learned that the US-led War on Terror is bogus and rigged, and that the “moderate” terrorists argument is what has led them to exactly where they are now; broke and under constant terror threats. If they do not have serious foreign policy change it is likely that the ISILs of the world will just keep coming right out of the wars and the security conditions the regime changers of the world have created.
After all, FBI Director James Comey has warned that the “eventual defeat” of ISIL in Iraq and Syria would be causing a major problem in and of itself, creating a large “terrorist diaspora” throughout the West because “not all of the ISIL killers (of European origin) are going to die on the battlefield.”
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950508000518
https://twitter.com/walid970721/status/ ... 3209224193
Farsnews
That said, the struggle continues both within and outside the region. Consider the following news headlines:
Syrian Planes Drop "Surrender Now" Leaflets over Militant Positions
Syrian Army Regains Control over Strategic Regions in Hama
Terrorists Stop Civilians from Leaving Aleppo Through 'Safe Passages'
Large Number of Al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham Militants Killed in Homs
Free Syrian Army Group Lays Down Arms, Surrenders
Army, Allies Celebrate Full Liberation of Bani Zeid in Aleppo
Syrian TV Declares Full Freedom of Aleppo's Lairamoun Industrial Zone
Syrian Troops Seize Rebel-Held Area Near Damascus
ISIL on the Defensive, Losing Ground in Iraq
All these new developments have happened in just one week and point to one direction and one direction only: The terrorist groups, including the ISIL and its patrons, are battered and on the retreat in both Iraq and Syria. True, ISIL is unlikely to be defeated this year. But it is losing territory fast and it is important to keep in mind that much of this is irreversible for a host of reasons, including:
- More important is ISIL’s progressive loss of access to the Turkish border which has been largely sealed off by the advance of the Syrian Army assisted by a Russian air umbrella. The narrow corridor between Aleppo and the Euphrates that links the self-declared “Caliphate” to Turkey is also under threat from Kurdish forces in the east and Syrian Army in the west. Once this gap is also closed, ISIL will be unable to receive European jihadists or dispatch terrorists to carry out attacks abroad.
- A large number of terrorists from Al-Nusra, Noureddin Al-Zinki, Free Syrian Army, Ahrar al-Sham and other groups have laid down their arms and surrendered to the Syrian Army in Aleppo province as allied forces (Syrian soldiers backed by Hezbollah, Iranian military advisors and Russian airstrikes) are racing towards Aleppo after completing siege of the city and capturing Bani Zeid, the most vital stronghold of the militants. The allied forces have also managed to cut off supply lines and passages used by the terrorists to move from the North to the Eastern neighbourhoods.
- Al-Nusra Front has announced its break from Al-Qaeda in an apparent bid to gain more political support from foreign powers. The game is to delist the group as a terror entity. This only indicates the political bankruptcy of its regional sponsors led by Saudi Arabia as the founder and principal supporter of Al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIL, al-Nusra Front and many other terror outfits in the region. Meantime, Al-Qaeda plans to escape the negative impacts of the Al-Nusra's crushing defeat and retreat in Syria.
- President Bashar Assad has offered an amnesty for rebels who surrender within three months. The Syrian Army has dropped thousands of leaflets over militant-held districts in Aleppo, asking residents to cooperate with the military and calling on militants to surrender.
- The same is true in Iraq. The terrorist group is losing terrain every single day, struggling to refill its ranks and more and more unable to mount major operations. Its ability to conduct large-scale offensive operations has primarily stopped and they are more on the defensive, trying to delay allied forces (Iraqi Army, Shiite-Sunni mobilisation units, Iranian military advisors) just to buy time.
Well, the party is clearly over and the foreign-backed terror machine seems to be a doomed project. This is the historical moment we are in. Tragic enough, there is already lots of human suffering and there is going to be more; much more. Those who backed ISIL and many other terror outfits are just going to have to own up to what Syria and Iraq have become. Even long after the remnants of ISIL and Al-Qaeda are gone, the political systems and the economies will remain corrupt and dysfunctional with no easy way out. No amount of foreign aid – if any - is going to change anything — that will take national unity, political action and organising.
On the other hand, the trend lines on the War on Terror, refugee crisis, anti-Islam and anti-Muslim propaganda, failure of Western democracy and the vast militarised police and security system all point toward deep trouble in Europe as well. On refugee and humanitarian issues alone the crisis will deepen and most likely in a dramatic way. Recent terror attacks in France and Germany suggest they are woefully unprepared for what lies ahead.
But at least Western Europe has learned that the US-led War on Terror is bogus and rigged, and that the “moderate” terrorists argument is what has led them to exactly where they are now; broke and under constant terror threats. If they do not have serious foreign policy change it is likely that the ISILs of the world will just keep coming right out of the wars and the security conditions the regime changers of the world have created.
After all, FBI Director James Comey has warned that the “eventual defeat” of ISIL in Iraq and Syria would be causing a major problem in and of itself, creating a large “terrorist diaspora” throughout the West because “not all of the ISIL killers (of European origin) are going to die on the battlefield.”
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950508000518
https://twitter.com/walid970721/status/ ... 3209224193
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
No, Aleppo is not the new Srebrenica – the West won’t go to war over Syria
There are no ‘good guys’ among the Syrian warlords yet, despite all the evidence, we want to find them. It's time to stop lying to the people of the Middle East
As armed rebels – “terrorists” in the eyes of the regime – tighten their grip on the country, at one stage holding 60 per cent of the land, government troops hit back, seizing control of the main roads and laying siege to major towns.
The ruthless dictator, supported by Russia, accuses foreign powers of assisting his rebel enemies. There are massacres by both sides. NGOs fear for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped amid the fighting, while Western powers threaten to strike at the dictator unless he abides by a humanitarian ceasefire.
Sound familiar? Of course. I’m describing Kosovo in 1998, the year before Nato launched its war against Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in Serbia.
The Kosovo Liberation Army – assisted and advised, as we now know, by the CIA – was threatening to seize all of Kosovo, the Serbian province in which Milosevic’s regime had long committed human rights abuses and ethnic murder against its Muslim majority. Milosovic accused Albania of sending weapons into Kosovo with the help of Western powers. All true.
The difference between then and now is that, in 1998, the Western powers were itching for a war with Serbia. Today, those same Western nations will do anything to avoid going to war with Syria.
For Albania, of course, read Turkey. For Milosevic, read Assad. For the KLA, read the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra or Isis or any of the other outfits which we either love or hate in Syria.
But it’s worth remembering how much the humiliation of Bosnia was driving the West to war in Serbia. And it’s not, I fear, by chance that a UN official (widely quoted and, as usual, anonymous) said this week: “Aleppo is the new Srebrenica.” Good soundbite; bad history.
Aleppo’s tragedy is unique and terrible and totally different from the massacre at Srebrenica, the Bosnian mass slaughter of more than 8,000 Muslims by Christian Serb militia in 1995 while Western UN troops watched and did nothing.
READ MORE :-
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ale ... 71466.html
There are no ‘good guys’ among the Syrian warlords yet, despite all the evidence, we want to find them. It's time to stop lying to the people of the Middle East
As armed rebels – “terrorists” in the eyes of the regime – tighten their grip on the country, at one stage holding 60 per cent of the land, government troops hit back, seizing control of the main roads and laying siege to major towns.
The ruthless dictator, supported by Russia, accuses foreign powers of assisting his rebel enemies. There are massacres by both sides. NGOs fear for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped amid the fighting, while Western powers threaten to strike at the dictator unless he abides by a humanitarian ceasefire.
Sound familiar? Of course. I’m describing Kosovo in 1998, the year before Nato launched its war against Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in Serbia.
The Kosovo Liberation Army – assisted and advised, as we now know, by the CIA – was threatening to seize all of Kosovo, the Serbian province in which Milosevic’s regime had long committed human rights abuses and ethnic murder against its Muslim majority. Milosovic accused Albania of sending weapons into Kosovo with the help of Western powers. All true.
The difference between then and now is that, in 1998, the Western powers were itching for a war with Serbia. Today, those same Western nations will do anything to avoid going to war with Syria.
For Albania, of course, read Turkey. For Milosevic, read Assad. For the KLA, read the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra or Isis or any of the other outfits which we either love or hate in Syria.
But it’s worth remembering how much the humiliation of Bosnia was driving the West to war in Serbia. And it’s not, I fear, by chance that a UN official (widely quoted and, as usual, anonymous) said this week: “Aleppo is the new Srebrenica.” Good soundbite; bad history.
Aleppo’s tragedy is unique and terrible and totally different from the massacre at Srebrenica, the Bosnian mass slaughter of more than 8,000 Muslims by Christian Serb militia in 1995 while Western UN troops watched and did nothing.
READ MORE :-
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ale ... 71466.html
Re: Syria
Br GM,,
After reading just the first few sentences, I can say this article you've posted is full of lies and pure propaganda..
That the west won't go to war over Syria?? The truth is the west can't, because Russia is already there and has full control over the sky, sea and ground.
There aren't any "moderat rebels" in Syria. They are all terrorist just with different names and flags which the west and Saudis are arming, trening, supporting and this well documented. This are the same people who terrorising the general population, beheading children, eating human organs and using there woman as sex salves..
Most of the area/land this terrorist are holding, is the dessert, where few people are living.. Most of the biggest citys is under control by the regime..
And by the way, all that is said about the Serbians is also a lie.. It was those wahabbis Bosnians that were terrorising the general public in Serbia..
After reading just the first few sentences, I can say this article you've posted is full of lies and pure propaganda..
That the west won't go to war over Syria?? The truth is the west can't, because Russia is already there and has full control over the sky, sea and ground.
There aren't any "moderat rebels" in Syria. They are all terrorist just with different names and flags which the west and Saudis are arming, trening, supporting and this well documented. This are the same people who terrorising the general population, beheading children, eating human organs and using there woman as sex salves..
Most of the area/land this terrorist are holding, is the dessert, where few people are living.. Most of the biggest citys is under control by the regime..
And by the way, all that is said about the Serbians is also a lie.. It was those wahabbis Bosnians that were terrorising the general public in Serbia..
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
Br Conscious,
I would request you to please read the full article before drawing any conclusions. There are many valid points to substantiate the author's claims. As regards Serbia and the so called wahabis terrorising the Serbs, well I will have to go through its history before I comment.
I would request you to please read the full article before drawing any conclusions. There are many valid points to substantiate the author's claims. As regards Serbia and the so called wahabis terrorising the Serbs, well I will have to go through its history before I comment.
Re: Syria
Br GM,
Ive read the article and I still stand by my first comment.. The truth is the west is using its proxy war against the Syrian people.. The west has been inching to bomb the hell out of Syria for the past five years.. But the general pubic in west has see though there hogwash and waring parties can't gather support to start there bombing campaign and thats the reason they are using there mercenaries (moderate rebels= Jaysh Al-Fath, Harakat Nooreddeen Al-Zangi, Faylaq Al-Shaam, Nusra/Alqaeda, Isis and list goes on and on.........................)
). There is no longer such a thing as “moderate” opposition in Syria.. FSA commander went on record not only to admit his fighters regularly conduct joint operations with al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), but also that he would like to see Syria ruled by Sharia law.
Apparently, moderate can also mean “al-Qaeda affiliated fanatic.”
Obama tried bombing after the deadly chemical attack which killed 1300 people, but he was stopped dead on by Putin. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh released an article highlighting deficiencies in the way the situation was handled: “In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports…citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m- ... hose-sarin
The author of the article you've posted, is using a mix of truths and lies.. And trying to make it sound like it not easy to get the facts right and its hard to distinguish. Those that are well informed know the truth and so do the Syrian population and thats the reason they stand behind Bashar al-Assad.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... propaganda
In fact Bashar al-Assad has a higher approval rating than Barack Obama!! The fact remains that since the conflict erupted in 2011, Assad has held the majority support of his people. The elections in 2014 – which Assad won by a landslide with international observers claiming no violations – is a testament to the fact that although Assad has been accused of serious human rights violations, he continues to remain reasonably popular with the Syrian people.
https://www.rt.com/politics/official-wo ... ll-figaro/
Ive read the article and I still stand by my first comment.. The truth is the west is using its proxy war against the Syrian people.. The west has been inching to bomb the hell out of Syria for the past five years.. But the general pubic in west has see though there hogwash and waring parties can't gather support to start there bombing campaign and thats the reason they are using there mercenaries (moderate rebels= Jaysh Al-Fath, Harakat Nooreddeen Al-Zangi, Faylaq Al-Shaam, Nusra/Alqaeda, Isis and list goes on and on.........................)
). There is no longer such a thing as “moderate” opposition in Syria.. FSA commander went on record not only to admit his fighters regularly conduct joint operations with al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), but also that he would like to see Syria ruled by Sharia law.
Apparently, moderate can also mean “al-Qaeda affiliated fanatic.”
Obama tried bombing after the deadly chemical attack which killed 1300 people, but he was stopped dead on by Putin. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh released an article highlighting deficiencies in the way the situation was handled: “In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports…citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m- ... hose-sarin
The author of the article you've posted, is using a mix of truths and lies.. And trying to make it sound like it not easy to get the facts right and its hard to distinguish. Those that are well informed know the truth and so do the Syrian population and thats the reason they stand behind Bashar al-Assad.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... propaganda
In fact Bashar al-Assad has a higher approval rating than Barack Obama!! The fact remains that since the conflict erupted in 2011, Assad has held the majority support of his people. The elections in 2014 – which Assad won by a landslide with international observers claiming no violations – is a testament to the fact that although Assad has been accused of serious human rights violations, he continues to remain reasonably popular with the Syrian people.
https://www.rt.com/politics/official-wo ... ll-figaro/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
Revealed: the £1bn of weapons flowing from Europe to Middle East
AK-47s, machine guns, explosives and more travel along new arms pipeline from Balkans to countries known to supply Syria
Eastern European countries have approved the discreet sale of more than €1bn of weapons in the past four years to Middle Eastern countries that are known to ship arms to Syria, an investigation has found.
Thousands of assault rifles such as AK-47s, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns are being routed through a new arms pipeline from the Balkans to the Arabian peninsula and countries bordering Syria.
The suspicion is that much of the weaponry is being sent into Syria, fuelling the five-year civil war, according to a team of reporters from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Arms export data, UN reports, plane tracking, and weapons contracts examined during a year-long investigation reveal how the munitions were sent east from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania.
Since the escalation of the Syrian conflict in 2012, the eight countries have approved €1.2bn (£1bn) of weapons and ammunition exports to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey – key arms markets for Syria and Yemen.
In the past, the region had virtually no track record of buying from central and eastern Europe. But purchases appear to be escalating, with some of the biggest deals approved in 2015.
Eastern and central European weapons and ammunition, identified from videos and photos posted on social media, are now being used by western-backed Free Syrian Army units, but are also in the hands of fighters from Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Sham, the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic State, factions fighting for the Syrian president, Bashar-al-Assad, and by Sunni forces in Yemen.
Markings on some of the ammunition identifying the origin and date of manufacture reveal significant quantities have come off production lines as recently as 2015.
The Serbian prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, said at a press conference in June that his country could increase production fivefold and still not meet the demand for arms. “Unfortunately in some parts of the world they are at war more than ever and everything you produce, on any side of the world you can sell it,” he said.
BIRN and OCCRP’s analysis of social media shows Czechoslovak, Yugoslav, Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian weapons being used in training and on the battlefields of Syria, Yemen and Libya.
“If you say that you are fighting Isis you will get whatever you want but if you say that you are fighting against the regime no one cares about you.”
READ MORE :-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... rade-syria
AK-47s, machine guns, explosives and more travel along new arms pipeline from Balkans to countries known to supply Syria
Eastern European countries have approved the discreet sale of more than €1bn of weapons in the past four years to Middle Eastern countries that are known to ship arms to Syria, an investigation has found.
Thousands of assault rifles such as AK-47s, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns are being routed through a new arms pipeline from the Balkans to the Arabian peninsula and countries bordering Syria.
The suspicion is that much of the weaponry is being sent into Syria, fuelling the five-year civil war, according to a team of reporters from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Arms export data, UN reports, plane tracking, and weapons contracts examined during a year-long investigation reveal how the munitions were sent east from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania.
Since the escalation of the Syrian conflict in 2012, the eight countries have approved €1.2bn (£1bn) of weapons and ammunition exports to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey – key arms markets for Syria and Yemen.
In the past, the region had virtually no track record of buying from central and eastern Europe. But purchases appear to be escalating, with some of the biggest deals approved in 2015.
Eastern and central European weapons and ammunition, identified from videos and photos posted on social media, are now being used by western-backed Free Syrian Army units, but are also in the hands of fighters from Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Sham, the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic State, factions fighting for the Syrian president, Bashar-al-Assad, and by Sunni forces in Yemen.
Markings on some of the ammunition identifying the origin and date of manufacture reveal significant quantities have come off production lines as recently as 2015.
The Serbian prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, said at a press conference in June that his country could increase production fivefold and still not meet the demand for arms. “Unfortunately in some parts of the world they are at war more than ever and everything you produce, on any side of the world you can sell it,” he said.
BIRN and OCCRP’s analysis of social media shows Czechoslovak, Yugoslav, Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian weapons being used in training and on the battlefields of Syria, Yemen and Libya.
“If you say that you are fighting Isis you will get whatever you want but if you say that you are fighting against the regime no one cares about you.”
READ MORE :-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... rade-syria
Aleppo Offensive Reveals 'Tectonic Shift' in Capabilities of Syrian Army
Aleppo Offensive Reveals 'Tectonic Shift' in Capabilities of Syrian Army
The media outlet viewed the battle for the Bani Zeid neighborhood as the key in the offensive that was launched in June to prevent radical groups, including al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, from smuggling fighters, weapons and supplies in and out of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city.
"The victory in Beni Zeid gives a real chance to resolve the crisis through political means," As Safir quoted an unnamed high-ranking Syrian official as saying.
The battle that took place on the 49th day of the Aleppo offensive lasted eight hours. The SAA is reported to have encountered almost no opposition from al-Nusra Front and other radical groups in the process.
As Safir maintained that the victory would not have been possible without Russian airstrikes. Syrian Major General Suheil al-Hassan, known as al-Nimr (the Tiger), and the Tiger Forces under his command have also played a major part. By June 10, they managed to cut off militant supply lines from Turkey and capture arms depots.
Thousands of militants "were trapped and lost, according to Syrian estimates, nearly five thousand fighters," the newspaper detailed, adding that Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, one of the key Islamist groups in Aleppo, lost two-thirds of its 8,000 members in the offensive.
"The victories at the Mallah Farms and Beni Zeid have demonstrated a tectonic shift in the offensive capabilities of the Syrian Arab Army," the media outlet noted.
On Sunday, al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham recaptured areas to the southwest of Aleppo, but late on Tuesday Damascus-led forces assisted by Russian warplanes pushed the militants out of two hilltops and two small villages in the suburbs.
In addition, rebels shelled government-held areas of the city, leaving more than 40 civilians dead in the last four days.
Meanwhile, last week, Russia and Damascus launched a major humanitarian operation, opening safe passages for hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo as well as militants willing to lay down arms.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160 ... shortening
The media outlet viewed the battle for the Bani Zeid neighborhood as the key in the offensive that was launched in June to prevent radical groups, including al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, from smuggling fighters, weapons and supplies in and out of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city.
"The victory in Beni Zeid gives a real chance to resolve the crisis through political means," As Safir quoted an unnamed high-ranking Syrian official as saying.
The battle that took place on the 49th day of the Aleppo offensive lasted eight hours. The SAA is reported to have encountered almost no opposition from al-Nusra Front and other radical groups in the process.
As Safir maintained that the victory would not have been possible without Russian airstrikes. Syrian Major General Suheil al-Hassan, known as al-Nimr (the Tiger), and the Tiger Forces under his command have also played a major part. By June 10, they managed to cut off militant supply lines from Turkey and capture arms depots.
Thousands of militants "were trapped and lost, according to Syrian estimates, nearly five thousand fighters," the newspaper detailed, adding that Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, one of the key Islamist groups in Aleppo, lost two-thirds of its 8,000 members in the offensive.
"The victories at the Mallah Farms and Beni Zeid have demonstrated a tectonic shift in the offensive capabilities of the Syrian Arab Army," the media outlet noted.
On Sunday, al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham recaptured areas to the southwest of Aleppo, but late on Tuesday Damascus-led forces assisted by Russian warplanes pushed the militants out of two hilltops and two small villages in the suburbs.
In addition, rebels shelled government-held areas of the city, leaving more than 40 civilians dead in the last four days.
Meanwhile, last week, Russia and Damascus launched a major humanitarian operation, opening safe passages for hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo as well as militants willing to lay down arms.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160 ... shortening
Leaked Isis documents reveal recruits have poor grasp of Islamic faith
Leaked Isis documents reveal recruits have poor grasp of Islamic faith
Recruits ordered 'The Koran for Dummies' and 'Islam for Dummies' to prepare for jihad
The jihadi employment form asked the recruits, on a scale of one to three, to rate their knowledge of Islam. And the Isis applicants, herded into a hangar somewhere at the Syria-Turkey border, turned out to be overwhelmingly ignorant.
The extremist group could hardly have hoped for better.
At the height of Isis' drive for foot soldiers in 2013 and 2014, typical recruits included the group of Frenchmen who went bar-hopping with their recruiter back home, the recent European convert who now hesitantly describes himself as gay, and two Britons who ordered "The Koran for Dummies" and "Islam for Dummies" from Amazon to prepare for jihad abroad.
Their intake process complete, they were grouped in safe houses as a stream of Isis imams came in to indoctrinate them, according to court testimony and interviews by the Associated Press.
"I realised that I was in the wrong place when they began to ask me questions on these forms like 'when you die, who should we call?"' said the 32-year-old European recruit, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said he thought he was joining a group to fight President Bashar al-Assad and help Syrians, not the so-called Islamic State.
The European, whose boyish demeanor makes him appear far younger than his age, went to Syria in 2014. He said new recruits were shown Isis propaganda videos on Islam, and the visiting imams repeatedly praised martyrdom. Far from home, unschooled in religion, having severed family ties and turned over electronic devices, most were in little position to judge.
An AP analysis of thousands of leaked Isis documents reveals most of its recruits from its earliest days came with only the most basic knowledge of Islam. A little more than 3,000 of these documents included the recruit's knowledge of Sharia, the system that interprets into law verses from the Quran and "hadith" — the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.
According to the documents, which were acquired by the Syrian opposition site Zaman al-Wasl and shared with the AP, 70 per cent of recruits were listed as having just "basic" knowledge of Sharia — the lowest possible choice. Around 24 per cent were categorized as having an "intermediate" knowledge, with just five per cent considered advanced students of Islam. Five recruits were listed as having memorized the Quran.
The findings address one of the most troubling questions about Isis recruitment in the United States and Europe: Are disaffected people who understand Sharia more prone to radicalisation? Or are those with little knowledge of Islam more susceptible to the group's radical ideas that promote violence?
The documents suggest the latter. The group preys on this religious ignorance, allowing extremists to impose a brand of Islam constructed to suit its goal of maximum territorial expansion and carnage as soon as recruits come under its sway.
Isis' most notorious new supporters appear to have an equally tenuous link with religion. Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel, who killed 85 people by plowing a truck into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, France, was described by family and neighbors as indifferent to religion, volatile and prone to drinking sprees, with a bent for salsa dancing and a reported male lover.
Unlike Omar Mateen, the Orlando attacker, Bouhlel did not make a public declaration of allegiance to Isis, much less prove he had direct ties to extremists in the war zone. Still, the group was quick to claim both as foot soldiers.
The AP analyzed the Isis entry form documents of around 4,030 foreign recruits who crossed into Syria when the group was rapidly expanding and seizing territory in Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014. At that time, the CIA estimated the extremist group had between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria.
Among the documents were forms for nine of 10 young men from the eastern French city of Strasbourg, all recruited by a man named Mourad Fares. One of them, Karim Mohammad-Aggad, described barhopping in Germany with Fares. He told investigators that Isis recruiters used "smooth talk" to persuade him.
He'd traveled with his younger brother and friends to Syria in late 2013. Two died in Syria, and within a few months, seven returned to France and were arrested. Mohammad-Aggad's brother, 23-year-old Foued, returned to Paris and was one of the three men who stormed the Bataclan in a night of attacks on 13 November that killed 130 people.
"My religious beliefs had nothing to do with my departure," Karim Mohammad-Aggad told the court, before being sentenced to nine years in prison. "Islam was used to trap me like a wolf," he said.
Isis data shows Karim and his brother Foued were among eight in the Strasbourg group listed as having "basic" knowledge of Sharia.
Expressing a common sentiment shared by many Europeans of North African descent, Mohammed-Aggad told the court he felt like an immigrant in Algeria and "a dirty Arab" in France. After just a few months in Syria, he said he left Isis because he was treated by the extremists as an "apostate" — someone who had renounced his religion.
When pressed by the judge on his knowledge of Shariah and how the Isis group implements it, Mohammad-Aggad, a former gas station attendant, appeared dumbfounded, saying repeatedly: "I don't have the knowledge to answer the question."
One of his co-defendants, Radouane Taher, was also pressed by the judge on whether beheadings carried out by the Isis group conformed to Islamic law.
He couldn't say for sure, answering: "I don't have the credentials." That's where Amazon comes in.
The trial of longtime friends Mohammed Ahmed and Yusuf Sarwar, from the British city of Birmingham, revealed the 22-year-olds had ordered "The Koran for Dummies" and "Islam for Dummies" books in preparation for their trip to join extremists in Syria. They were arrested on their return to Britain and convicted in 2014 of terrorism offenses.
Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer with extensive experience with Mideast extremist organizations, said some people claim allegiance to Isis out of religious belief, but that most who join, including those from the West, are people "reaching for a sense of belonging, a sense of notoriety, a sense of excitement."
"Religion is an afterthought," said Mr Skinner, who is also director of special projects at security consultancy the Soufan Group.
Those who truly crave religious immersion would go to Al-Azhar in Cairo, he added, referring to the thousand-year-old seat of learning for Sharia and Quranic studies.
In its recent English language magazine Dabiq, dedicated largely to bolstering its own Muslim credentials, Isis dismissed Al-Azhar as part of an "approach to subdue Muslims through appeasement," with the West.
Mohammed Abdelfadel, an Islamic scholar who heads a German-language unit at Al-Azhar that tracks Isis propaganda and statements, said the group spews superficial notions about what is "halal and haram," or what is permissible and forbidden in Islam. He says the group's propaganda videos lionise Isis fighters as masculine, strong martyrs going to heaven for the sake of God — counter to Islamic laws that forbid terrorism, the murder of non-combatants in war, the imposition of Islam on non-Muslims and other criminal activity.
The recruits' Shariah knowledge is important because Isis not only needs soldiers and suicide bombers, but administrators and Sharia officials to oversee its local courts and judges, who in turn promote Isis ideology.
It also matters because those who've claimed advanced knowledge in Shariah on the Isis entry documents were less likely to want to become suicide bombers, according to a study by the US military's Combating Terrorism Center, an academic institution at the United States Military Academy.
"If martyrdom is seen as the highest religious calling, then a reasonable expectation would be that the people with the most knowledge about Islamic law (Sharia) would desire to carry out these operations with greater frequency," said the report.
However, despite the religious justification that Isis uses for suicide missions, "those with the most religious knowledge within the organization itself are the least likely to volunteer to be suicide bombers," the study found.
Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan said a close look at the Isis group's top commanders shows that many had no religious credentials but, instead, they once held senior positions under Saddam Hussein's secular Baathist government.
Mr Ramadan teaches Islamic Studies at Oxford and has written numerous books on Islam and the integration of Muslims in Europe. He says Muslim scholars must demonstrate that what Isis teaches is wrong.
"The people who are doing this are not experiencing martyrdom, they are criminals. They are killing innocent people. Nothing in Islam, nothing ever can justify the killing of innocent people, never, ever."
The gay European recruit said he converted to Islam because he was interested in the culture and it was easy.
"It only required one prayer and no prior understanding of Islam," he said. "There was no hierarchy and it was all about living a good life."
As a convert with almost no knowledge in Islam, he says he was easy prey.
"People like me were tricked into something that they didn't understand. I never meant to end up with IS."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... st#gallery
Recruits ordered 'The Koran for Dummies' and 'Islam for Dummies' to prepare for jihad
The jihadi employment form asked the recruits, on a scale of one to three, to rate their knowledge of Islam. And the Isis applicants, herded into a hangar somewhere at the Syria-Turkey border, turned out to be overwhelmingly ignorant.
The extremist group could hardly have hoped for better.
At the height of Isis' drive for foot soldiers in 2013 and 2014, typical recruits included the group of Frenchmen who went bar-hopping with their recruiter back home, the recent European convert who now hesitantly describes himself as gay, and two Britons who ordered "The Koran for Dummies" and "Islam for Dummies" from Amazon to prepare for jihad abroad.
Their intake process complete, they were grouped in safe houses as a stream of Isis imams came in to indoctrinate them, according to court testimony and interviews by the Associated Press.
"I realised that I was in the wrong place when they began to ask me questions on these forms like 'when you die, who should we call?"' said the 32-year-old European recruit, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said he thought he was joining a group to fight President Bashar al-Assad and help Syrians, not the so-called Islamic State.
The European, whose boyish demeanor makes him appear far younger than his age, went to Syria in 2014. He said new recruits were shown Isis propaganda videos on Islam, and the visiting imams repeatedly praised martyrdom. Far from home, unschooled in religion, having severed family ties and turned over electronic devices, most were in little position to judge.
An AP analysis of thousands of leaked Isis documents reveals most of its recruits from its earliest days came with only the most basic knowledge of Islam. A little more than 3,000 of these documents included the recruit's knowledge of Sharia, the system that interprets into law verses from the Quran and "hadith" — the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.
According to the documents, which were acquired by the Syrian opposition site Zaman al-Wasl and shared with the AP, 70 per cent of recruits were listed as having just "basic" knowledge of Sharia — the lowest possible choice. Around 24 per cent were categorized as having an "intermediate" knowledge, with just five per cent considered advanced students of Islam. Five recruits were listed as having memorized the Quran.
The findings address one of the most troubling questions about Isis recruitment in the United States and Europe: Are disaffected people who understand Sharia more prone to radicalisation? Or are those with little knowledge of Islam more susceptible to the group's radical ideas that promote violence?
The documents suggest the latter. The group preys on this religious ignorance, allowing extremists to impose a brand of Islam constructed to suit its goal of maximum territorial expansion and carnage as soon as recruits come under its sway.
Isis' most notorious new supporters appear to have an equally tenuous link with religion. Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel, who killed 85 people by plowing a truck into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, France, was described by family and neighbors as indifferent to religion, volatile and prone to drinking sprees, with a bent for salsa dancing and a reported male lover.
Unlike Omar Mateen, the Orlando attacker, Bouhlel did not make a public declaration of allegiance to Isis, much less prove he had direct ties to extremists in the war zone. Still, the group was quick to claim both as foot soldiers.
The AP analyzed the Isis entry form documents of around 4,030 foreign recruits who crossed into Syria when the group was rapidly expanding and seizing territory in Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014. At that time, the CIA estimated the extremist group had between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria.
Among the documents were forms for nine of 10 young men from the eastern French city of Strasbourg, all recruited by a man named Mourad Fares. One of them, Karim Mohammad-Aggad, described barhopping in Germany with Fares. He told investigators that Isis recruiters used "smooth talk" to persuade him.
He'd traveled with his younger brother and friends to Syria in late 2013. Two died in Syria, and within a few months, seven returned to France and were arrested. Mohammad-Aggad's brother, 23-year-old Foued, returned to Paris and was one of the three men who stormed the Bataclan in a night of attacks on 13 November that killed 130 people.
"My religious beliefs had nothing to do with my departure," Karim Mohammad-Aggad told the court, before being sentenced to nine years in prison. "Islam was used to trap me like a wolf," he said.
Isis data shows Karim and his brother Foued were among eight in the Strasbourg group listed as having "basic" knowledge of Sharia.
Expressing a common sentiment shared by many Europeans of North African descent, Mohammed-Aggad told the court he felt like an immigrant in Algeria and "a dirty Arab" in France. After just a few months in Syria, he said he left Isis because he was treated by the extremists as an "apostate" — someone who had renounced his religion.
When pressed by the judge on his knowledge of Shariah and how the Isis group implements it, Mohammad-Aggad, a former gas station attendant, appeared dumbfounded, saying repeatedly: "I don't have the knowledge to answer the question."
One of his co-defendants, Radouane Taher, was also pressed by the judge on whether beheadings carried out by the Isis group conformed to Islamic law.
He couldn't say for sure, answering: "I don't have the credentials." That's where Amazon comes in.
The trial of longtime friends Mohammed Ahmed and Yusuf Sarwar, from the British city of Birmingham, revealed the 22-year-olds had ordered "The Koran for Dummies" and "Islam for Dummies" books in preparation for their trip to join extremists in Syria. They were arrested on their return to Britain and convicted in 2014 of terrorism offenses.
Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer with extensive experience with Mideast extremist organizations, said some people claim allegiance to Isis out of religious belief, but that most who join, including those from the West, are people "reaching for a sense of belonging, a sense of notoriety, a sense of excitement."
"Religion is an afterthought," said Mr Skinner, who is also director of special projects at security consultancy the Soufan Group.
Those who truly crave religious immersion would go to Al-Azhar in Cairo, he added, referring to the thousand-year-old seat of learning for Sharia and Quranic studies.
In its recent English language magazine Dabiq, dedicated largely to bolstering its own Muslim credentials, Isis dismissed Al-Azhar as part of an "approach to subdue Muslims through appeasement," with the West.
Mohammed Abdelfadel, an Islamic scholar who heads a German-language unit at Al-Azhar that tracks Isis propaganda and statements, said the group spews superficial notions about what is "halal and haram," or what is permissible and forbidden in Islam. He says the group's propaganda videos lionise Isis fighters as masculine, strong martyrs going to heaven for the sake of God — counter to Islamic laws that forbid terrorism, the murder of non-combatants in war, the imposition of Islam on non-Muslims and other criminal activity.
The recruits' Shariah knowledge is important because Isis not only needs soldiers and suicide bombers, but administrators and Sharia officials to oversee its local courts and judges, who in turn promote Isis ideology.
It also matters because those who've claimed advanced knowledge in Shariah on the Isis entry documents were less likely to want to become suicide bombers, according to a study by the US military's Combating Terrorism Center, an academic institution at the United States Military Academy.
"If martyrdom is seen as the highest religious calling, then a reasonable expectation would be that the people with the most knowledge about Islamic law (Sharia) would desire to carry out these operations with greater frequency," said the report.
However, despite the religious justification that Isis uses for suicide missions, "those with the most religious knowledge within the organization itself are the least likely to volunteer to be suicide bombers," the study found.
Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan said a close look at the Isis group's top commanders shows that many had no religious credentials but, instead, they once held senior positions under Saddam Hussein's secular Baathist government.
Mr Ramadan teaches Islamic Studies at Oxford and has written numerous books on Islam and the integration of Muslims in Europe. He says Muslim scholars must demonstrate that what Isis teaches is wrong.
"The people who are doing this are not experiencing martyrdom, they are criminals. They are killing innocent people. Nothing in Islam, nothing ever can justify the killing of innocent people, never, ever."
The gay European recruit said he converted to Islam because he was interested in the culture and it was easy.
"It only required one prayer and no prior understanding of Islam," he said. "There was no hierarchy and it was all about living a good life."
As a convert with almost no knowledge in Islam, he says he was easy prey.
"People like me were tricked into something that they didn't understand. I never meant to end up with IS."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... st#gallery
Syrian Army makes huge strides in southern Aleppo
Syrian Army makes huge strides in southern Aleppo
Aleppo, Syria (8:30 P.M.) – The Syrian Armed Forces launched a powerful assault in the southern countryside of the Aleppo Governorate on Tuesday, targeting the important town of Al-Qarassi that is located directly east of Khan Touman.
Led by their elite Tiger Forces, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) attempted to break-through the enemy front-lines at Tal Qarassi this morning; however, Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) managed to repel the attack after several hours of battle.
The Tiger Forces would regroup and then launch a second attack at Tal Qarassi, which proved successful after a short firefight with Jaysh Al-Fateh.
Following the capture of Tal Qarassi, the Syrian Armed Forces seized Tal ‘Amarah, Barandeh, and Qarassi village after breaking through Jaysh Al-Fateh’s first-line of defense.
With the capture of Qarassi, the Tiger Forces are now within striking distance of the strategic village of Khan Touman.
Khan Touman is located along the Aleppo-Damascus Highway (M-5 Highway); it is the primary roadway used by the jihadist rebels to transport supplies and reinforcements to Aleppo City.
AMN Field Correspondent Campaign
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/sy ... rn-aleppo/
Aleppo, Syria (8:30 P.M.) – The Syrian Armed Forces launched a powerful assault in the southern countryside of the Aleppo Governorate on Tuesday, targeting the important town of Al-Qarassi that is located directly east of Khan Touman.
Led by their elite Tiger Forces, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) attempted to break-through the enemy front-lines at Tal Qarassi this morning; however, Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) managed to repel the attack after several hours of battle.
The Tiger Forces would regroup and then launch a second attack at Tal Qarassi, which proved successful after a short firefight with Jaysh Al-Fateh.
Following the capture of Tal Qarassi, the Syrian Armed Forces seized Tal ‘Amarah, Barandeh, and Qarassi village after breaking through Jaysh Al-Fateh’s first-line of defense.
With the capture of Qarassi, the Tiger Forces are now within striking distance of the strategic village of Khan Touman.
Khan Touman is located along the Aleppo-Damascus Highway (M-5 Highway); it is the primary roadway used by the jihadist rebels to transport supplies and reinforcements to Aleppo City.
AMN Field Correspondent Campaign
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/sy ... rn-aleppo/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
10 Facts the Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You About the War in Syria
Corporate media regularly attempts to present Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria as solely responsible for the ongoing conflict in the region. The media does report on events that contradict this narrative — albeit sparingly — but taken together, these underreported details shine a new light on the conflict.
Despite the fact much of the information in this article comes from mainstream outlets, those circulating it refuse to put all of the storylines together to give the public an accurate picture of what is going on in Syria.
Assad may be brutal — and should face trial for allegations of widespread human rights abuses — but this fact alone does not make the other circumstances untrue or irrelevant. People have the right to be properly informed before they allow themselves to be led down the road of more war in the Middle East, and consequently, more terror attacks and potential conflicts with Russia and China.
10: Bashar al-Assad has a higher approval rating than Barack Obama
9: The “moderate” opposition has been hijacked
8: Assad never used chemical weapons on his own people
7: Toppling the Syrian regime was part of a plan adopted shortly after 9/11
6: Iran and Syria have a mutual defense agreement
5: Former Apple CEO is the son of a Syrian refugee
4: ISIS arose out of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, not the Syrian conflict
3: Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia wanted to build a pipeline through Syria, but Assad rejected it
2: Leaked phone calls show Turkey provides ISIS fighters with expensive medical care
1: Western media’s main source for the conflict is a T-shirt shop in Coventry, England
FULL ARTICLE :-
http://theantimedia.org/10-facts-war-syria/
Corporate media regularly attempts to present Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria as solely responsible for the ongoing conflict in the region. The media does report on events that contradict this narrative — albeit sparingly — but taken together, these underreported details shine a new light on the conflict.
Despite the fact much of the information in this article comes from mainstream outlets, those circulating it refuse to put all of the storylines together to give the public an accurate picture of what is going on in Syria.
Assad may be brutal — and should face trial for allegations of widespread human rights abuses — but this fact alone does not make the other circumstances untrue or irrelevant. People have the right to be properly informed before they allow themselves to be led down the road of more war in the Middle East, and consequently, more terror attacks and potential conflicts with Russia and China.
10: Bashar al-Assad has a higher approval rating than Barack Obama
9: The “moderate” opposition has been hijacked
8: Assad never used chemical weapons on his own people
7: Toppling the Syrian regime was part of a plan adopted shortly after 9/11
6: Iran and Syria have a mutual defense agreement
5: Former Apple CEO is the son of a Syrian refugee
4: ISIS arose out of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, not the Syrian conflict
3: Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia wanted to build a pipeline through Syria, but Assad rejected it
2: Leaked phone calls show Turkey provides ISIS fighters with expensive medical care
1: Western media’s main source for the conflict is a T-shirt shop in Coventry, England
FULL ARTICLE :-
http://theantimedia.org/10-facts-war-syria/
-
ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
Captagon: The Jihadist’s Drug
Dubbed the “jihadist’s drug,” Captagon is rapidly flooding the Middle East and is said to be fueling the bloody conflict in Syria. French media recently reported that the Paris attackers may have taken the drug.
Last weekend, Turkish anti-narcotics police seized 11 million Captagon pills in a haul that weighed almost two tonnes. It was set to ship to Gulf countries. Widely banned since the mid-eighties, the pills provide a cheap and long-lasting high and are highly addictive. They also have the potential to cause psychosis and brain damage.
The production of the drug, which keeps fighters awake over long periods of time, is said to be providing income for all factions involved in the Syrian war.
During the last year, shipments of Captagon have been seized on the way to the West Bank, Jordan, Sudan, Syria and the Gulf. In October, Anti-Media reported on a Saudi prince who was arrested for trying to smuggle two tons of the drug onto a plane.
As Syria has been engulfed in war, smugglers of the little-known, highly addictive pills have been forced to find alternate routes through Lebanon.
Lebanese journalist Radwan Mortada has spent 10 years investigating crime, corruption, and the war in Syria. In his documentary for Journeyman Pictures, The Drug Fueling Conflict in Syria, Mortada follows the Captagon trail, from users on the battlefields to traffickers on Lebanese smuggling routes to the kingpins at the top of the supply chain.
“There was no fear anymore”
Since the Syrian war began, police in the region have continued to seize record-breaking numbers of the pills. Lebanon’s biggest haul to date was a whopping 50 million tablets with a street value of $300 million, weighing over 4 tonnes, en route to Dubai.
In Mortada’s documentary, men in Beirut are shown crushing the pills and chopping them into lines. They describe the effects as “better than cocaine” and “really strong and like morphine — for really strong pains.” Their experience points to why Captagon has become the drug of choice for some Syrian fighters.
“There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon,” one ex-fighter said.
“It stops you feeling anything, you know? It makes you numb, numb,” said another, who described the first time he took the drug as making him feel physically fit.
“If there were 10 people in front of you, you could catch them and kill them. You’re awake all the time,” he said. Since 2013, Captagon smuggling in Lebanon has skyrocketed. The Syrian war has not only pushed smuggling through the country, but has allowed gangs to set up makeshift Captagon factories in the country itself.
Mortada’s documentary is the first time an illegal factory has ever been filmed. It shows the pills being packaged and disguised in packets of tissues. Factory workers reveal that they use vegetables, bread, and hair gel for smuggling in Lebanon’s home-grown Captagon trade.
Shia militant group Hezbollah—currently fighting in Syria for the Assad regime—has also been accused of being involved in the trade after two factories were discovered on its premises.
“Standing on their feet”
On the surface, Abu Zeus looks just like a wealthy businessman, but he has been funding Captagon factories for years. He fled Syria when the war began and now resides in Europe. It took Mortada months to persuade him to be interviewed.
Described as being at the top of the supply chain, Abu Zeus boasts on camera of a $6 million profit last year from trading the small pills. The Syrian brigades that have publicly named him as a benefactor number in the thousands, according to Mortada.
Opposed to both the regime and jihadist groups, Abu Zeus brags of keeping the secular groups in Syria “standing on their feet.’’ He boasts of ‘supporting’ around 12,000 armed men.
He claims the Saudis love the drug because of the country’s alcohol ban and admits that selling to them has made him a great deal of money. He’s adamant that his drug profits counter the money from Saudi Arabia that he believes is funding jihadist groups and destroying Syria:
“The truth is that the country that exports terrorism to the Middle East and the protector of terrorism is Saudi Arabia,” he said.
He continued: “The fight is not a revolution anymore, it is a fight between seculars and Salafists — a fight between countries.”
Going some way towards explaining why Captagon is tailor-made for the battlefield—and why some have come to rely on the drug after five years of fighting—another fighter described the drug’s effects. He was frank:
“You don’t have any problems. You don’t even thinking about sleeping or leaving the checkpoint. It gives you great courage and power,” he said.
http://theantimedia.org/captagon-the-jihadists-drug/
Dubbed the “jihadist’s drug,” Captagon is rapidly flooding the Middle East and is said to be fueling the bloody conflict in Syria. French media recently reported that the Paris attackers may have taken the drug.
Last weekend, Turkish anti-narcotics police seized 11 million Captagon pills in a haul that weighed almost two tonnes. It was set to ship to Gulf countries. Widely banned since the mid-eighties, the pills provide a cheap and long-lasting high and are highly addictive. They also have the potential to cause psychosis and brain damage.
The production of the drug, which keeps fighters awake over long periods of time, is said to be providing income for all factions involved in the Syrian war.
During the last year, shipments of Captagon have been seized on the way to the West Bank, Jordan, Sudan, Syria and the Gulf. In October, Anti-Media reported on a Saudi prince who was arrested for trying to smuggle two tons of the drug onto a plane.
As Syria has been engulfed in war, smugglers of the little-known, highly addictive pills have been forced to find alternate routes through Lebanon.
Lebanese journalist Radwan Mortada has spent 10 years investigating crime, corruption, and the war in Syria. In his documentary for Journeyman Pictures, The Drug Fueling Conflict in Syria, Mortada follows the Captagon trail, from users on the battlefields to traffickers on Lebanese smuggling routes to the kingpins at the top of the supply chain.
“There was no fear anymore”
Since the Syrian war began, police in the region have continued to seize record-breaking numbers of the pills. Lebanon’s biggest haul to date was a whopping 50 million tablets with a street value of $300 million, weighing over 4 tonnes, en route to Dubai.
In Mortada’s documentary, men in Beirut are shown crushing the pills and chopping them into lines. They describe the effects as “better than cocaine” and “really strong and like morphine — for really strong pains.” Their experience points to why Captagon has become the drug of choice for some Syrian fighters.
“There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon,” one ex-fighter said.
“It stops you feeling anything, you know? It makes you numb, numb,” said another, who described the first time he took the drug as making him feel physically fit.
“If there were 10 people in front of you, you could catch them and kill them. You’re awake all the time,” he said. Since 2013, Captagon smuggling in Lebanon has skyrocketed. The Syrian war has not only pushed smuggling through the country, but has allowed gangs to set up makeshift Captagon factories in the country itself.
Mortada’s documentary is the first time an illegal factory has ever been filmed. It shows the pills being packaged and disguised in packets of tissues. Factory workers reveal that they use vegetables, bread, and hair gel for smuggling in Lebanon’s home-grown Captagon trade.
Shia militant group Hezbollah—currently fighting in Syria for the Assad regime—has also been accused of being involved in the trade after two factories were discovered on its premises.
“Standing on their feet”
On the surface, Abu Zeus looks just like a wealthy businessman, but he has been funding Captagon factories for years. He fled Syria when the war began and now resides in Europe. It took Mortada months to persuade him to be interviewed.
Described as being at the top of the supply chain, Abu Zeus boasts on camera of a $6 million profit last year from trading the small pills. The Syrian brigades that have publicly named him as a benefactor number in the thousands, according to Mortada.
Opposed to both the regime and jihadist groups, Abu Zeus brags of keeping the secular groups in Syria “standing on their feet.’’ He boasts of ‘supporting’ around 12,000 armed men.
He claims the Saudis love the drug because of the country’s alcohol ban and admits that selling to them has made him a great deal of money. He’s adamant that his drug profits counter the money from Saudi Arabia that he believes is funding jihadist groups and destroying Syria:
“The truth is that the country that exports terrorism to the Middle East and the protector of terrorism is Saudi Arabia,” he said.
He continued: “The fight is not a revolution anymore, it is a fight between seculars and Salafists — a fight between countries.”
Going some way towards explaining why Captagon is tailor-made for the battlefield—and why some have come to rely on the drug after five years of fighting—another fighter described the drug’s effects. He was frank:
“You don’t have any problems. You don’t even thinking about sleeping or leaving the checkpoint. It gives you great courage and power,” he said.
http://theantimedia.org/captagon-the-jihadists-drug/
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: Syria
Assad’s Death Warrant
“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.”
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria, Politico
The conflict in Syria is not a war in the conventional sense of the word. It is a regime change operation, just like Libya and Iraq were regime change operations.
The main driver of the conflict is the country that’s toppled more than 50 sovereign governments since the end of World War 2. We’re talking about the United States of course.
Washington is the hands-down regime change champion, no one else even comes close. That being the case, one might assume that the American people would notice the pattern of intervention, see through the propaganda and assign blame accordingly. But that never seems to happen and it probably won’t happen here either. No matter how compelling the evidence may be, the brainwashed American people always believe their government is doing the right thing.
But the United States is not doing the right thing in Syria. Arming, training and funding Islamic extremists — that have killed half a million people, displaced 7 million more and turned the country into an uninhabitable wastelands –is not the right thing. It is the wrong thing, the immoral thing. And the US is involved in this conflict for all the wrong reasons, the foremost of which is gas. The US wants to install a puppet regime in Damascus so it can secure pipeline corridors in the East, oversee the transport of vital energy reserves from Qatar to the EU, and make sure that those reserves continue to be denominated in US Dollars that are recycled into US Treasuries and US financial assets. This is the basic recipe for maintaining US dominance in the Middle East and for extending America’s imperial grip on global power into the future.
The war in Syria did not begin when the government of Bashar al Assad cracked down on protestors in the spring of 2011. That version of events is obfuscating hogwash. The war began in 2009, when Assad rejected a Qatari plan to transport gas from Qatar to the EU via Syria. As Robert F Kennedy Jr. explains in his excellent article “Syria: Another pipeline War”:
“The $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey….would have linked Qatar directly to European energy markets via distribution terminals in Turkey… The Qatar/Turkey pipeline would have given the Sunni Kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America’s closest ally in the Arab world. ….
In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally….
Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Mid-East and the world…”
Naturally, the Saudis, Qataris, Turks and Americans were furious at Assad, but what could they do? How could they prevent him from choosing his own business partners and using his own sovereign territory to transport gas to market?
What they could do is what any good Mafia Don would do; break a few legs and steal whatever he wanted. In this particular situation, Washington and its scheming allies decided to launch a clandestine proxy-war against Damascus, kill or depose Assad, and make damn sure the western oil giants nabbed the future pipeline contracts and controlled the flow of energy to Europe. That was the plan at least. Here’s more from Kennedy:
“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.
Repeat: “the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline”, he signed his own death warrant. That single act was the catalyst for the US aggression that transformed a bustling, five thousand-year old civilization into a desolate Falluja-like moonscape overflowing with homicidal fanatics that were recruited, groomed and deployed by the various allied intelligence agencies.
But what’s particularly interesting about this story is that the US attempted a nearly-identical plan 60 years earlier during the Eisenhower administration. Here’s another clip from the Kennedy piece:
“During the 1950′s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers … mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism — which CIA Director Allan Dulles equated with communism — particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism….
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 — barely a year after the agency’s creation…. Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. (so)… the CIA engineered a coup, replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, 14 weeks into his regime…..
(CIA agent Rocky) Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1956 with $3 million in Syrian pounds to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Kuwaiti’s democratically elected secularist regime….
But all that CIA money failed to corrupt the Syrian military officers. The soldiers reported the CIA’s bribery attempts to the Ba’athist regime. In response, the Syrian army invaded the American Embassy taking Stone prisoner. Following harsh interrogation, Stone made a televised confession to his roles in the Iranian coup and the CIA’s aborted attempt to overthrow Syria’s legitimate government….(Then) Syria purged all politicians sympathetic to the U.S. and executed them for treason.” (Politico)
See how history is repeating itself? It’s like the CIA was too lazy to even write a new script, they just dusted off the old one and hired new actors.
Fortunately, Assad –with the help of Iran, Hezbollah and the Russian Airforce– has fended off the effort to oust him and install a US-stooge. This should not be taken as a ringing endorsement of Assad as a leader, but of the principal that global security depends on basic protections of national sovereignty, and that the cornerstone of international law has to be a rejection of unprovoked aggression whether the hostilities are executed by one’s own military or by armed proxies that are used to achieve the same strategic objectives while invoking plausible deniability. The fact is, there is no difference between Bush’s invasion of Iraq and Obama’s invasion of Syria. The moral, ethical and legal issues are the same, the only difference is that Obama has been more successful in confusing the American people about what is really going on.
And what’s going on is regime change: “Assad must go”. That’s been the administration’s mantra from the get go. Obama and Co are trying to overthrow a democratically-elected secular regime that refuses to bow to Washington’s demands to provide access to pipeline corridors that will further strengthen US dominance in the region. That’s what’s really going on behind the ISIS distraction and the “Assad is a brutal dictator” distraction and the “war-weary civilians in Aleppo” distraction. Washington doesn’t care about any of those things. What Washington cares about is oil, power and money. How can anyone be confused about that by now? Kennedy summed it up like this:
“We must recognize the Syrian conflict is a war over control of resources indistinguishable from the myriad clandestine and undeclared oil wars we have been fighting in the Mid-East for 65 years. And only when we see this conflict as a proxy war over a pipeline do events become comprehensible.”
That says it all, don’t you think?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/ ... h-warrant/
“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.”
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria, Politico
The conflict in Syria is not a war in the conventional sense of the word. It is a regime change operation, just like Libya and Iraq were regime change operations.
The main driver of the conflict is the country that’s toppled more than 50 sovereign governments since the end of World War 2. We’re talking about the United States of course.
Washington is the hands-down regime change champion, no one else even comes close. That being the case, one might assume that the American people would notice the pattern of intervention, see through the propaganda and assign blame accordingly. But that never seems to happen and it probably won’t happen here either. No matter how compelling the evidence may be, the brainwashed American people always believe their government is doing the right thing.
But the United States is not doing the right thing in Syria. Arming, training and funding Islamic extremists — that have killed half a million people, displaced 7 million more and turned the country into an uninhabitable wastelands –is not the right thing. It is the wrong thing, the immoral thing. And the US is involved in this conflict for all the wrong reasons, the foremost of which is gas. The US wants to install a puppet regime in Damascus so it can secure pipeline corridors in the East, oversee the transport of vital energy reserves from Qatar to the EU, and make sure that those reserves continue to be denominated in US Dollars that are recycled into US Treasuries and US financial assets. This is the basic recipe for maintaining US dominance in the Middle East and for extending America’s imperial grip on global power into the future.
The war in Syria did not begin when the government of Bashar al Assad cracked down on protestors in the spring of 2011. That version of events is obfuscating hogwash. The war began in 2009, when Assad rejected a Qatari plan to transport gas from Qatar to the EU via Syria. As Robert F Kennedy Jr. explains in his excellent article “Syria: Another pipeline War”:
“The $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey….would have linked Qatar directly to European energy markets via distribution terminals in Turkey… The Qatar/Turkey pipeline would have given the Sunni Kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America’s closest ally in the Arab world. ….
In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally….
Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Mid-East and the world…”
Naturally, the Saudis, Qataris, Turks and Americans were furious at Assad, but what could they do? How could they prevent him from choosing his own business partners and using his own sovereign territory to transport gas to market?
What they could do is what any good Mafia Don would do; break a few legs and steal whatever he wanted. In this particular situation, Washington and its scheming allies decided to launch a clandestine proxy-war against Damascus, kill or depose Assad, and make damn sure the western oil giants nabbed the future pipeline contracts and controlled the flow of energy to Europe. That was the plan at least. Here’s more from Kennedy:
“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.
Repeat: “the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline”, he signed his own death warrant. That single act was the catalyst for the US aggression that transformed a bustling, five thousand-year old civilization into a desolate Falluja-like moonscape overflowing with homicidal fanatics that were recruited, groomed and deployed by the various allied intelligence agencies.
But what’s particularly interesting about this story is that the US attempted a nearly-identical plan 60 years earlier during the Eisenhower administration. Here’s another clip from the Kennedy piece:
“During the 1950′s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers … mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism — which CIA Director Allan Dulles equated with communism — particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism….
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 — barely a year after the agency’s creation…. Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. (so)… the CIA engineered a coup, replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA’s handpicked dictator, a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him, 14 weeks into his regime…..
(CIA agent Rocky) Stone arrived in Damascus in April 1956 with $3 million in Syrian pounds to arm and incite Islamic militants and to bribe Syrian military officers and politicians to overthrow al-Kuwaiti’s democratically elected secularist regime….
But all that CIA money failed to corrupt the Syrian military officers. The soldiers reported the CIA’s bribery attempts to the Ba’athist regime. In response, the Syrian army invaded the American Embassy taking Stone prisoner. Following harsh interrogation, Stone made a televised confession to his roles in the Iranian coup and the CIA’s aborted attempt to overthrow Syria’s legitimate government….(Then) Syria purged all politicians sympathetic to the U.S. and executed them for treason.” (Politico)
See how history is repeating itself? It’s like the CIA was too lazy to even write a new script, they just dusted off the old one and hired new actors.
Fortunately, Assad –with the help of Iran, Hezbollah and the Russian Airforce– has fended off the effort to oust him and install a US-stooge. This should not be taken as a ringing endorsement of Assad as a leader, but of the principal that global security depends on basic protections of national sovereignty, and that the cornerstone of international law has to be a rejection of unprovoked aggression whether the hostilities are executed by one’s own military or by armed proxies that are used to achieve the same strategic objectives while invoking plausible deniability. The fact is, there is no difference between Bush’s invasion of Iraq and Obama’s invasion of Syria. The moral, ethical and legal issues are the same, the only difference is that Obama has been more successful in confusing the American people about what is really going on.
And what’s going on is regime change: “Assad must go”. That’s been the administration’s mantra from the get go. Obama and Co are trying to overthrow a democratically-elected secular regime that refuses to bow to Washington’s demands to provide access to pipeline corridors that will further strengthen US dominance in the region. That’s what’s really going on behind the ISIS distraction and the “Assad is a brutal dictator” distraction and the “war-weary civilians in Aleppo” distraction. Washington doesn’t care about any of those things. What Washington cares about is oil, power and money. How can anyone be confused about that by now? Kennedy summed it up like this:
“We must recognize the Syrian conflict is a war over control of resources indistinguishable from the myriad clandestine and undeclared oil wars we have been fighting in the Mid-East for 65 years. And only when we see this conflict as a proxy war over a pipeline do events become comprehensible.”
That says it all, don’t you think?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/ ... h-warrant/
Re: Syria
In about 2 weeks, all the reminding Wahabi/Salafi/Takfiri rodents will be exterminated from Aleppo and the SAA, Hezbollah, Shia militants and Russians will be in total control 
Its pretty sad for all those who dreamed of a "No fly zone" like the one in Libya, NEVER materialised
The Saudi padophile and their Qataris child molesters have gained zero ground from this war
May all of them burn in hell!!
Its pretty sad for all those who dreamed of a "No fly zone" like the one in Libya, NEVER materialised
The Saudi padophile and their Qataris child molesters have gained zero ground from this war
May all of them burn in hell!!
Saudi cleric motivation speech before the attack on Aleppo
Saudi based cleric Sheik Abdullah Al-Muhaisini encourages al-Nusra jihadists (al-Qaeda) before they are sent to die in the Battle for Aleppo, Syria. This cleric has been receiving a lot of attention on Dubai's Orient TV News channel and is hailed as a hero in the US backed Gulf States.Link here to more info on their terrorism support network.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk7cwQEFpzU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk7cwQEFpzU
Re: Syria
In 3 days, the Syrian army liberated 20 sq k of E Aleppo (purple)! Al-Qaesaudi controlled areas in (blue). These areas will soon be liberated next from the saudi backed rodents.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Re: Syria
Military situation in Aleppo Desember 05.
The Saudi moderated pedophiles lost too many ground into the city too fast seems situation is very critical for them. Lets hope each and every slime wahhabi cockroaches with there families get incinerated.
The Saudi moderated pedophiles lost too many ground into the city too fast seems situation is very critical for them. Lets hope each and every slime wahhabi cockroaches with there families get incinerated.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Re: Syria
Rebels Surrender In Parts of Eastern Aleppo -
MIDDLE EAST 01:35 07.12.2016(updated 01:41 07.12.2016)
Rebels associated with Fatah Halab have surrendered nearly all of the districts encompassed in Old Aleppo following the Syrian Army advancing to the west side of Aleppo Airport. This devlopment occurs after a large counteroffensive by rebels at Karm Al-Qaterjy and Karm Al-Maysar failed to yield gains. Syria's Armed Forces also captured Turbet Lala district and the Sha'ar District, much to the rebels' chagrin.
Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2016 ... ns-aleppo/
MIDDLE EAST 01:35 07.12.2016(updated 01:41 07.12.2016)
Rebels associated with Fatah Halab have surrendered nearly all of the districts encompassed in Old Aleppo following the Syrian Army advancing to the west side of Aleppo Airport. This devlopment occurs after a large counteroffensive by rebels at Karm Al-Qaterjy and Karm Al-Maysar failed to yield gains. Syria's Armed Forces also captured Turbet Lala district and the Sha'ar District, much to the rebels' chagrin.
Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2016 ... ns-aleppo/
Re: Syria
Aleppo, on verge of total military victory
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/ma ... y-victory/
Farsnews
The terrorists have so far lost over 40 districts and neighborhoods in Eastern Aleppo and are now in control of only very few districts stretching over an area 7 sq/km or less than 10 percent of what was once their territory for 5 years until this last Summer.
Now the army is gaining ground at an astonishing pace and plans to corner the Jeish Al-Fatah terrorists in one single district.
"If the Syrian government forces manage to seize back Karm al-Deada, al-Fardos and al-Kelaseh districts, the terrorists who are in Sheikh Saeed district will come under the Syrian army's full siege from the Northern and Eastern directions and this region will fall as well," a battlefield source explained on Wednesday evening.
The source went on to say that the Syrian government troops are likely to be faced with some tough resistance in Sheikh Saeed district which is considered the Southern gate of Aleppo city in the South-East.
The clashes are still underway at the Regional Power Company of Sheikh Saeed in the Eastern part of this vital district.
The army units also started a new front in the region after winning back Bab an-Nayrab and advanced towards al-Asliyeh district from Western Bab an-Nayrab and advanced towards Bab al-Maqam district from al-Salehin square.
The latest reports coming from Northwestern Syria said on Wednesday evening that terrorists are still on the run and surrender districts in Southeastern Aleppo without serious resistance as the army's swift advances have gathered even more pace.
Army units seized back Ma'adi district and its surrounding areas South of Aleppo's historical citadel after they recaptured Bab an-Nayrab region.
The army also won back al-Qasiliah and Jbb al-Quebeh districts Southeast of the citadel.
War is now underway further in the South near the rims of the city in al-Salehin district, where the army has already captured the Eastern neighborhoods. The terrorists have reportedly taken shelter in the Western parts of the vast district after they escaped from the Old Aleppo quarter that has the Citadel of Aleppo at its center.
An army colonel said estimates show that al-Salehin district will fall to the government troops in the next few hours.
The Syrian forces also took control of Bab al-Nasr, al-Khandaq road, al-Hamidiyeh, Nour Eddin al-Zanki Street and al-Mashatiyeh in Southeastern Aleppo.
Earlier today, field sources disclosed that the Syrian Army troops and popular forces were in control of at least 85 percent of Eastern Aleppo districts, hitting hard the positions of Jeish al-Fatah terrorists in the few remaining districts still under their control.
The sources said that the army men and popular forces are on the verge of driving terrorist out of the entire neighborhoods of Aleppo city after their victories against militants in the Northeastern districts and recapture of a major part of the districts in the Southeast.
"Terrorists are now trapped in a small area after pulling back forces from the districts in on the Eastern sides of the Citadel of Aleppo and the entire Old Aleppo quarter," they added.
"Terrorists are now retreating towards the neighborhoods of al-Kalasa, Bostan al-Qasr (Bustan al-Kaser), al-Ansari, al-Mash'had, al-Sukri, al-Salehin, Karam al-Da'ada, al-Nezha and a small part of Sheikh Saeed that have remained thus far under their control," the sources went on to say.
A 100-member group of militants from the Jeish al-Fatah coalition gave up fight and surrendered themselves to the army on Wednesday in areas South of the Old Aleppo quarter in Southeastern Aleppo.
The number of militants trying to apply for government amnesty is on the rise, while only a rapidly shrinking 10 sq/km area has remained under their control in the Eastern neighborhoods.
Rifts are widening among Syrian and non-Syrian militants as Damascus has vowed to grant amnesty to Syrian fighters.
Non-Syrian terrorists want to continue battle against government forces, while others want to negotiate with the army for their final evacuation from the city.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950917001675
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/ma ... y-victory/
Farsnews
The terrorists have so far lost over 40 districts and neighborhoods in Eastern Aleppo and are now in control of only very few districts stretching over an area 7 sq/km or less than 10 percent of what was once their territory for 5 years until this last Summer.
Now the army is gaining ground at an astonishing pace and plans to corner the Jeish Al-Fatah terrorists in one single district.
"If the Syrian government forces manage to seize back Karm al-Deada, al-Fardos and al-Kelaseh districts, the terrorists who are in Sheikh Saeed district will come under the Syrian army's full siege from the Northern and Eastern directions and this region will fall as well," a battlefield source explained on Wednesday evening.
The source went on to say that the Syrian government troops are likely to be faced with some tough resistance in Sheikh Saeed district which is considered the Southern gate of Aleppo city in the South-East.
The clashes are still underway at the Regional Power Company of Sheikh Saeed in the Eastern part of this vital district.
The army units also started a new front in the region after winning back Bab an-Nayrab and advanced towards al-Asliyeh district from Western Bab an-Nayrab and advanced towards Bab al-Maqam district from al-Salehin square.
The latest reports coming from Northwestern Syria said on Wednesday evening that terrorists are still on the run and surrender districts in Southeastern Aleppo without serious resistance as the army's swift advances have gathered even more pace.
Army units seized back Ma'adi district and its surrounding areas South of Aleppo's historical citadel after they recaptured Bab an-Nayrab region.
The army also won back al-Qasiliah and Jbb al-Quebeh districts Southeast of the citadel.
War is now underway further in the South near the rims of the city in al-Salehin district, where the army has already captured the Eastern neighborhoods. The terrorists have reportedly taken shelter in the Western parts of the vast district after they escaped from the Old Aleppo quarter that has the Citadel of Aleppo at its center.
An army colonel said estimates show that al-Salehin district will fall to the government troops in the next few hours.
The Syrian forces also took control of Bab al-Nasr, al-Khandaq road, al-Hamidiyeh, Nour Eddin al-Zanki Street and al-Mashatiyeh in Southeastern Aleppo.
Earlier today, field sources disclosed that the Syrian Army troops and popular forces were in control of at least 85 percent of Eastern Aleppo districts, hitting hard the positions of Jeish al-Fatah terrorists in the few remaining districts still under their control.
The sources said that the army men and popular forces are on the verge of driving terrorist out of the entire neighborhoods of Aleppo city after their victories against militants in the Northeastern districts and recapture of a major part of the districts in the Southeast.
"Terrorists are now trapped in a small area after pulling back forces from the districts in on the Eastern sides of the Citadel of Aleppo and the entire Old Aleppo quarter," they added.
"Terrorists are now retreating towards the neighborhoods of al-Kalasa, Bostan al-Qasr (Bustan al-Kaser), al-Ansari, al-Mash'had, al-Sukri, al-Salehin, Karam al-Da'ada, al-Nezha and a small part of Sheikh Saeed that have remained thus far under their control," the sources went on to say.
A 100-member group of militants from the Jeish al-Fatah coalition gave up fight and surrendered themselves to the army on Wednesday in areas South of the Old Aleppo quarter in Southeastern Aleppo.
The number of militants trying to apply for government amnesty is on the rise, while only a rapidly shrinking 10 sq/km area has remained under their control in the Eastern neighborhoods.
Rifts are widening among Syrian and non-Syrian militants as Damascus has vowed to grant amnesty to Syrian fighters.
Non-Syrian terrorists want to continue battle against government forces, while others want to negotiate with the army for their final evacuation from the city.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950917001675
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Re: Syria
With Assad On Verge Of Historic Victory, Syrian Rebels Request A Ceasefire
After nearly six years, Syria's civil war started under Hillary Clinton's watch in March 2011 during the Arab Spring protest, is finally coming to an end.
The battle for one of the most contested Syrian cities during the war, Aleppo - which was Syria's most populous city before the war - is almost over and the "rebel forces" who live in the city eastern part, realizing they are on the verge of losing, have finally come to the negotiating table but it is too late.
Recall that as we reported last week, the Syrian army had recaptured as much as as 40% of the militant held part of the city in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold. As of today, that number has nearly doubled. According to the Russian Reconciliation Center which is facilitating and overseeing the Syrian civil war, government forces have liberated 15 more eastern Aleppo neighborhoods in the last 24 hours, adding that the advance has allowed the Syrian Army to evacuate 1,200 residents of the city. The Syrian authorities now “fully control 50 neighborhoods in the eastern part of [Aleppo] that account for 70 percent of the territory that was initially controlled by the militants.” So facing the imminent loss of their most important stronghold, the Syrian rebels in besieged eastern Aleppo called on Wednesday for an immediate five-day ceasefire and the evacuation of civilians and wounded, but gave no indication they were ready to withdraw as demanded by Damascus and Moscow.
In a statement calling for the truce, the rebels made no mention of evacuating the several thousand fighters who are defending an ever shrinking area of eastern Aleppo. However, Syria and Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have said they want rebels to leave Aleppo and will not consider a ceasefire unless that happens according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Assad's forces are piling on the pressure: "It's been a tragedy here for a long time, but I've never seen this kind of pressure on the city - you can't rest for even five minutes, the bombardment is constant," a resident said. "Any movement in the streets and there is bombardment (on that area) immediately," said the east Aleppo resident contacted by Reuters, who declined to be identified. Fear gripped the remaining residents as food and water supplies were cut off.
The rebels have suffered a series of staggering losses in Aleppo over the past 10 days or so as Assad’s Russian-backed forces have captured neighborhoods the opposition had controlled since 2012. Rebel-held areas of Aleppo have shrunk to about a third of their former size, the WSJ reports.
Syrian government troops patrolled a newly captured neighborhood in eastern
Aleppo on Wednesday
In addition to being a critical catalyst in the war, one which would shift the balance of power toward Assad's regime, retaking Aleppo would also be a success for Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow's ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi'ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad. As such, the Syrian government now appears closer to victory than at any point in the five years since protests against Assad evolved into an armed rebellion.
* * *
Tasting victory, outside of Aleppo the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. "The decision to liberate all of Syria is taken and Aleppo is part of it," Assad said in a newspaper interview, according to pro-Damascus television station al-Mayadeen. He described the city as the "last hope" of rebels and their backers.
The Syrian army now controls all of the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site including the Umayyad Mosque, which had been held by rebels, the Observatory said. Explosions and artillery fire could be heard on Syrian state television in districts around the citadel which overlooks the Old City as the army pressed its offensive. More neighborhoods were expected to fall but rebels were fighting ferociously.
Rebels have lost control of about 75 percent of their territory in eastern Aleppo in under 10 days, Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said. It is their desperation that brought the rebels to the negotiating table: the "humanitarian initiative" published by rebels called for the evacuation of around 500 critical medical cases.
Realizing it has all the leverage, the Kremlin has refused to comply with the proposed truce, however it said on Wednesday that a potential U.S.-Russia deal to allow Syrian rebels to leave Aleppo safely was still on the agenda. Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months.
To move the proposal forward, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Kerry in Hamburg on Wednesday at 8 p.m. local (1900 GMT). A U.S. official said they were likely to discuss safe passage for rebels out of Aleppo. However, as of a couple of days ago, moderate opposition groups with whom U.S. officials had been in contact were "less than inclined" to make any such deals, the official said, on condition of anonymity. Lavrov will also meet with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Russian agencies reported.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a week-long ceasefire. Moscow correctly said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce. The Syrian army's advance is a "strategic victory" that will prevent foreign intervention and alter the political process, Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar told reporters in Damascus.
"Those who believed in the Syrian triumph, know that (the rebels') morale is at its lowest and that these collapses that have begun are like domino tiles," he said. But perhaps most surprising, was that an official with an Aleppo rebel group, who declined to be named, told Reuters the United States appeared to have no position on the Syrian army assault on Aleppo, just weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office. In other words, both Assad and Putin are taking advantage of the political power vacuum in the US to finally push the remaining rebels out of their hideout and end the war once and for all.
"The Russians want the fighters out and they (the Americans) are ready to coordinate over that", said the Turkey-based official, citing indirect contacts with U.S. officials.
* * *
There is one final factor which effectively assures an Assad victory: the weather. As winter sets in, siege conditions are increasingly desperate, exacerbated by increasing numbers of displaced residents and food and water shortages. A U.N. official said on Wednesday about 31,500 people from east Aleppo have been displaced around the entire city over the past week, with hundreds more seen on the move on Wednesday.
Yet few rebels had quit Aleppo so far, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who as has often been the case, described those were left there as "terrorists" who were uniting around fighters from the group formerly known as the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Civilians wanting to leave east Aleppo should be evacuated to the northern Aleppo countryside, rather than Idlib province, the rebel document said. Idlib is dominated by Islamist groups including Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, and is facing intense bombardment by Russian warplanes. On the other hand, “Russia wants to move them to Idlib. The fighters have a choice: survive for an extra couple of weeks by going to Idlib or fight to the very end and die in Aleppo," one senior European diplomat, who declined to be named, said. "For the Russians it’s simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket.”
On Russian-U.S. talks, the diplomat said: “The assumption is that the U.S. has influence on the ground. I don’t think that’s the case.” Which means that the US has essentially given up and has handed over victory in Syria's half-decaded long proxy war to Putin. He will be delighted to accept.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-0 ... -ceasefire
After nearly six years, Syria's civil war started under Hillary Clinton's watch in March 2011 during the Arab Spring protest, is finally coming to an end.
The battle for one of the most contested Syrian cities during the war, Aleppo - which was Syria's most populous city before the war - is almost over and the "rebel forces" who live in the city eastern part, realizing they are on the verge of losing, have finally come to the negotiating table but it is too late.
Recall that as we reported last week, the Syrian army had recaptured as much as as 40% of the militant held part of the city in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold. As of today, that number has nearly doubled. According to the Russian Reconciliation Center which is facilitating and overseeing the Syrian civil war, government forces have liberated 15 more eastern Aleppo neighborhoods in the last 24 hours, adding that the advance has allowed the Syrian Army to evacuate 1,200 residents of the city. The Syrian authorities now “fully control 50 neighborhoods in the eastern part of [Aleppo] that account for 70 percent of the territory that was initially controlled by the militants.” So facing the imminent loss of their most important stronghold, the Syrian rebels in besieged eastern Aleppo called on Wednesday for an immediate five-day ceasefire and the evacuation of civilians and wounded, but gave no indication they were ready to withdraw as demanded by Damascus and Moscow.
In a statement calling for the truce, the rebels made no mention of evacuating the several thousand fighters who are defending an ever shrinking area of eastern Aleppo. However, Syria and Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have said they want rebels to leave Aleppo and will not consider a ceasefire unless that happens according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Assad's forces are piling on the pressure: "It's been a tragedy here for a long time, but I've never seen this kind of pressure on the city - you can't rest for even five minutes, the bombardment is constant," a resident said. "Any movement in the streets and there is bombardment (on that area) immediately," said the east Aleppo resident contacted by Reuters, who declined to be identified. Fear gripped the remaining residents as food and water supplies were cut off.
The rebels have suffered a series of staggering losses in Aleppo over the past 10 days or so as Assad’s Russian-backed forces have captured neighborhoods the opposition had controlled since 2012. Rebel-held areas of Aleppo have shrunk to about a third of their former size, the WSJ reports.
Syrian government troops patrolled a newly captured neighborhood in eastern
Aleppo on Wednesday
In addition to being a critical catalyst in the war, one which would shift the balance of power toward Assad's regime, retaking Aleppo would also be a success for Vladimir Putin who intervened to save Moscow's ally in September 2015 with air strikes, and for Shi'ite Iran, whose elite Islamic Republic Guard Corps has suffered casualties fighting for Assad. As such, the Syrian government now appears closer to victory than at any point in the five years since protests against Assad evolved into an armed rebellion.
* * *
Tasting victory, outside of Aleppo the government and its allies are also putting severe pressure on remaining rebel redoubts. "The decision to liberate all of Syria is taken and Aleppo is part of it," Assad said in a newspaper interview, according to pro-Damascus television station al-Mayadeen. He described the city as the "last hope" of rebels and their backers.
The Syrian army now controls all of the Old City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site including the Umayyad Mosque, which had been held by rebels, the Observatory said. Explosions and artillery fire could be heard on Syrian state television in districts around the citadel which overlooks the Old City as the army pressed its offensive. More neighborhoods were expected to fall but rebels were fighting ferociously.
Rebels have lost control of about 75 percent of their territory in eastern Aleppo in under 10 days, Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, said. It is their desperation that brought the rebels to the negotiating table: the "humanitarian initiative" published by rebels called for the evacuation of around 500 critical medical cases.
Realizing it has all the leverage, the Kremlin has refused to comply with the proposed truce, however it said on Wednesday that a potential U.S.-Russia deal to allow Syrian rebels to leave Aleppo safely was still on the agenda. Damascus and Moscow have been calling on rebels to withdraw from the city, disarm and accept safe passage out, a procedure that has been carried out in other areas where rebels abandoned besieged territory in recent months.
To move the proposal forward, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Kerry in Hamburg on Wednesday at 8 p.m. local (1900 GMT). A U.S. official said they were likely to discuss safe passage for rebels out of Aleppo. However, as of a couple of days ago, moderate opposition groups with whom U.S. officials had been in contact were "less than inclined" to make any such deals, the official said, on condition of anonymity. Lavrov will also meet with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Russian agencies reported.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a week-long ceasefire. Moscow correctly said rebels used such pauses in the past to reinforce. The Syrian army's advance is a "strategic victory" that will prevent foreign intervention and alter the political process, Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar told reporters in Damascus.
"Those who believed in the Syrian triumph, know that (the rebels') morale is at its lowest and that these collapses that have begun are like domino tiles," he said. But perhaps most surprising, was that an official with an Aleppo rebel group, who declined to be named, told Reuters the United States appeared to have no position on the Syrian army assault on Aleppo, just weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office. In other words, both Assad and Putin are taking advantage of the political power vacuum in the US to finally push the remaining rebels out of their hideout and end the war once and for all.
"The Russians want the fighters out and they (the Americans) are ready to coordinate over that", said the Turkey-based official, citing indirect contacts with U.S. officials.
* * *
There is one final factor which effectively assures an Assad victory: the weather. As winter sets in, siege conditions are increasingly desperate, exacerbated by increasing numbers of displaced residents and food and water shortages. A U.N. official said on Wednesday about 31,500 people from east Aleppo have been displaced around the entire city over the past week, with hundreds more seen on the move on Wednesday.
Yet few rebels had quit Aleppo so far, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who as has often been the case, described those were left there as "terrorists" who were uniting around fighters from the group formerly known as the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Civilians wanting to leave east Aleppo should be evacuated to the northern Aleppo countryside, rather than Idlib province, the rebel document said. Idlib is dominated by Islamist groups including Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, and is facing intense bombardment by Russian warplanes. On the other hand, “Russia wants to move them to Idlib. The fighters have a choice: survive for an extra couple of weeks by going to Idlib or fight to the very end and die in Aleppo," one senior European diplomat, who declined to be named, said. "For the Russians it’s simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket.”
On Russian-U.S. talks, the diplomat said: “The assumption is that the U.S. has influence on the ground. I don’t think that’s the case.” Which means that the US has essentially given up and has handed over victory in Syria's half-decaded long proxy war to Putin. He will be delighted to accept.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-0 ... -ceasefire
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Re: Syria
Watch Canadian Journalist Completely Dismantle Mainstream Narrative on Syria
Must watch video of Eva Bartlett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AisvBNXPdG8
Freelance journalist Eva Bartlett is no stranger to the Syrian conflict, having visited the country repeatedly since the conflict began to get a sense of the realities on the ground. This week, confronted by a mainstream journalist regarding the lies presented in media coverage of Syria, Bartlett succinctly laid out exactly what the problem was.
On Friday, the Canadian journalist and human rights activist took part in a press conference organized by the Syrian mission to the United Nations. After delivering her remarks regarding the current situation in Aleppo and throughout the country, in which she pointed out Western media bias regarding the conflict, Bartlett was asked by a journalist from the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten what the incentive was for Western media to spin a false narrative.
Agents of Chaos: 'Just as Life in Syria Shows Promise of Getting Back to Normal, US Ramps Up War'
The Norwegian journalist asked her about "the agenda from us in the Western media, and why we should lie –why the international organizations on the ground should lie?…How can you justify calling all of us liars?"
Pointing out that there are "certainly honest journalists among the very compromised establishment media," Bartlett started off by challenging the assertion about the 'international organizations' on the ground in eastern Aleppo. The reality, she noted, is that "there are none."
"These organizations are relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR], which is based in Coventry, UK, which is one man. They're relying on compromised groups like the White Helmets. Let's talk about the White Helmets: They were founded in 2013 by a British ex-military officer, they have been funded to the tune of $100 million by the US, UK, Europe and other states."
Bartlett also recalled that while the White Helmets "purport to be rescuing civilians in eastern Aleppo and Idlib…no one in eastern Aleppo has heard of them; and I say 'no one' bearing in mind that now 95% of these areas of eastern Aleppo are liberated." At the same time, "The White Helmets purport to be neutral, and yet they can be found carrying guns and standing on the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers."
Furthermore, she noted, "their video footage actually contains children that have been 'recycled' in different reports; so you can find a girl named Aya who turns up in a report in say August, and she turns up in the next month in two different locations."
"So they [the White Helmets] are not credible. The SOHR are not credible. 'Unnamed activists' are not credible. Once or twice maybe, but every time? Not credible. So your sources on the ground – you don't have them," Bartlett said.
Bartlett then turned to the Norwegian journalist's second question. "As for…the agenda of some corporate media: it is the agenda of regime change. How can the New York Times…[or] Democracy Now…maintain until this day that this is a civil war in Syria? How can they maintain until this day that the protests were unarmed and non-violent until say 2012? That is absolutely not true. How can they maintain that the Syrian government is attacking civilians in Aleppo, when every person that's coming out of these areas occupied by terrorists is saying the opposite?"
A second journalist asked the panel about the disconnect between Western and Syrian/Russian media coverage of the situation in Aleppo in recent days, including the terrorists' tendency to mine areas they have left, and the joint Syrian-Russian effort to evacuate civilians from militant-controlled areas.
"You ask why we aren't seeing this," Bartlett chimed in. "This relates to the other gentleman's question about why most of the corporate media are telling lies about Syria. It's because this is the agenda; if they had told the truth about Syria from the beginning, we wouldn't be here now. We wouldn't have seen so many people killed."
Syrian pro-government forces walk amidst the rubble in old Aleppo's Jdeideh neighbourhood on December 9, 2016
© AFP 2016/ George OURFALIAN
West Deprived of 'Heavy Arguments' Against Russia, Damascus in Aleppo
"In fact," she noted, "what the Russian media…is [showing] is exactly what the Syrian media is saying, and it shows what independent people in Syria are saying."
With regard to other flaws in mainstream media coverage, including the sensitive topic of alleged Syrian and Russian air force attacks on hospitals, Bartlett offered another example of media manipulation. "They have manufactured stories, and I can give you a precise account," she said.
"In April this year," there was a story about "a hospital called the Al-Quds Hospital – which in a concerted effort all media said was attacked, targeted and badly damaged by either the Syrians or the Russians. In fact the Russians had satellite imagery showing that this hospital was in the shame shape that it was in in October 2015. No difference; it was not attacked."
Continuing, Bartlett recalled that "months later, the Guardian, a prominent British newspaper, actually said that the Al-Quds hospital that it had alleged months prior to be attacked and destroyed, was treating victims of so-called chemical weapons attacks. So even the media that is lying is inconsistent in their lies." In the meantime, she added, unfortunately, Western governments and the media have ignored real attacks on hospitals throughout Syria by anti-government rebels and terrorists.
The full press conference can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebE3GJfGhfA
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2016 ... nce-syria/
Must watch video of Eva Bartlett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AisvBNXPdG8
Freelance journalist Eva Bartlett is no stranger to the Syrian conflict, having visited the country repeatedly since the conflict began to get a sense of the realities on the ground. This week, confronted by a mainstream journalist regarding the lies presented in media coverage of Syria, Bartlett succinctly laid out exactly what the problem was.
On Friday, the Canadian journalist and human rights activist took part in a press conference organized by the Syrian mission to the United Nations. After delivering her remarks regarding the current situation in Aleppo and throughout the country, in which she pointed out Western media bias regarding the conflict, Bartlett was asked by a journalist from the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten what the incentive was for Western media to spin a false narrative.
Agents of Chaos: 'Just as Life in Syria Shows Promise of Getting Back to Normal, US Ramps Up War'
The Norwegian journalist asked her about "the agenda from us in the Western media, and why we should lie –why the international organizations on the ground should lie?…How can you justify calling all of us liars?"
Pointing out that there are "certainly honest journalists among the very compromised establishment media," Bartlett started off by challenging the assertion about the 'international organizations' on the ground in eastern Aleppo. The reality, she noted, is that "there are none."
"These organizations are relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR], which is based in Coventry, UK, which is one man. They're relying on compromised groups like the White Helmets. Let's talk about the White Helmets: They were founded in 2013 by a British ex-military officer, they have been funded to the tune of $100 million by the US, UK, Europe and other states."
Bartlett also recalled that while the White Helmets "purport to be rescuing civilians in eastern Aleppo and Idlib…no one in eastern Aleppo has heard of them; and I say 'no one' bearing in mind that now 95% of these areas of eastern Aleppo are liberated." At the same time, "The White Helmets purport to be neutral, and yet they can be found carrying guns and standing on the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers."
Furthermore, she noted, "their video footage actually contains children that have been 'recycled' in different reports; so you can find a girl named Aya who turns up in a report in say August, and she turns up in the next month in two different locations."
"So they [the White Helmets] are not credible. The SOHR are not credible. 'Unnamed activists' are not credible. Once or twice maybe, but every time? Not credible. So your sources on the ground – you don't have them," Bartlett said.
Bartlett then turned to the Norwegian journalist's second question. "As for…the agenda of some corporate media: it is the agenda of regime change. How can the New York Times…[or] Democracy Now…maintain until this day that this is a civil war in Syria? How can they maintain until this day that the protests were unarmed and non-violent until say 2012? That is absolutely not true. How can they maintain that the Syrian government is attacking civilians in Aleppo, when every person that's coming out of these areas occupied by terrorists is saying the opposite?"
A second journalist asked the panel about the disconnect between Western and Syrian/Russian media coverage of the situation in Aleppo in recent days, including the terrorists' tendency to mine areas they have left, and the joint Syrian-Russian effort to evacuate civilians from militant-controlled areas.
"You ask why we aren't seeing this," Bartlett chimed in. "This relates to the other gentleman's question about why most of the corporate media are telling lies about Syria. It's because this is the agenda; if they had told the truth about Syria from the beginning, we wouldn't be here now. We wouldn't have seen so many people killed."
Syrian pro-government forces walk amidst the rubble in old Aleppo's Jdeideh neighbourhood on December 9, 2016
© AFP 2016/ George OURFALIAN
West Deprived of 'Heavy Arguments' Against Russia, Damascus in Aleppo
"In fact," she noted, "what the Russian media…is [showing] is exactly what the Syrian media is saying, and it shows what independent people in Syria are saying."
With regard to other flaws in mainstream media coverage, including the sensitive topic of alleged Syrian and Russian air force attacks on hospitals, Bartlett offered another example of media manipulation. "They have manufactured stories, and I can give you a precise account," she said.
"In April this year," there was a story about "a hospital called the Al-Quds Hospital – which in a concerted effort all media said was attacked, targeted and badly damaged by either the Syrians or the Russians. In fact the Russians had satellite imagery showing that this hospital was in the shame shape that it was in in October 2015. No difference; it was not attacked."
Continuing, Bartlett recalled that "months later, the Guardian, a prominent British newspaper, actually said that the Al-Quds hospital that it had alleged months prior to be attacked and destroyed, was treating victims of so-called chemical weapons attacks. So even the media that is lying is inconsistent in their lies." In the meantime, she added, unfortunately, Western governments and the media have ignored real attacks on hospitals throughout Syria by anti-government rebels and terrorists.
The full press conference can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebE3GJfGhfA
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2016 ... nce-syria/
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.