The Syrian army made advances against militants in provinces outside the capital city Damascus and near the Turkish border, Syrian state television reported Sunday.
BEIRUT, MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Government forces advanced toward the Zabadani district northwest of Damascus with the help of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group, where eight insurgents were reported killed and nine others captured.
Don’t look now but ISIS fighters are just a few short miles away from Bashar al-Assad’s Presidential Palace in Syria after taking control of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus where some 18,000 are trapped in what the UN calls a “beyond inhumane” situation. The camp, which has been under siege by the Assad regime for years came under attack by ISIS earlier this month who reports indicate may be working alongside al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm al-Nusra in what would be a break with recent precedent. Some Palestinian factions — who, alongside the Free Syria Army are battling ISIS for control of the camp — have reportedly agreed to acquiesce to an operation by the Assad regime which has offered to provide arms to the Palestinians if it means helping them expel ISIS from the area, although, as the BBC reports, the main Palestinian militia fighting ISIS, Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis (who pledge allegiance to Hamas and are also battling al-Nusra in Yarmouk) have agreed to no such thing. Meanwhile, the Assad government is allegedly using “indiscriminate” barrel bombing in an effort that’s ostensibly designed to weaken ISIS forces.
So summing that up, ISIS, possibly in conjunction with al-Qaeda, have taken control of a strategic refugee camp in Damascus, which was previously under siege by Assad and previously controlled by Hamas-linked militiamen who are not keen on cooperating with Assad, who is offering to arm the Palestinians while simultaneously bombing everyone. As Al Jazeera notes, this is a “siege within a siege”:
While Obama desperately tries to stick to his now crushed “Nobel peace prize winner” image, by not succumbing to an all-out land war in the one nation where his progressive “pacifism” brought him fame (and according to some, the presidency), namely Iraq, the rest of militant, “interventionist” US foreign policy is rapidly starting to resemble that waged by the most brutally rabid, neo-con Republican leader. Case in point an absolute stunner reported minutes ago by the WSJ, according to which the White House has decided to provide pickup trucks equipped with mounted machine guns and radios for calling in U.S. airstrikes to some moderate Syrian rebels aided by American B-1B bombers!
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is sending the first wave of about 100 US forces to the Middle East in the coming days to train and equip Syrian opposition fighters battling Islamic State militants.
The US troops, mostly special operations forces from the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), will begin arriving in countries outside Syria in the next few days, Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said on Friday.
“They’re going to … take a look at what’s there and prepare for further deployments,” according to Kirby, who last week said several hundred troops from foreign governments were also expected to train the Syrian fighters.
The US military has announced it will send about 400 specialists and hundreds more “enabling forces” to train the rebel Syrian opposition as Washington takes its fight against the Assad government and Islamic State to a new level.
The Pentagon mission, expected to begin as early as March, envisions US specialists training Syrian opposition forces from military bases in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, Cmdr. Elissa Smith, a Defense Department spokeswoman, was quoted by the Army Times as saying.
In addition to the 400 military specialists, so-called “enabling forces,” which are to serve as a security detail, will also accompany the trainers, Smith said.
Following al-Baghdadi’s threats this morning, and General Dempsey’s warnings, it appears things are escalating once again in The Middle East:
*ISIS, AL-QAEDA AFFILIATE AGREE TO FIGHT TOGETHER IN SYRIA: AP
As AP reports, the deal could be a heavy blow to Washington’s strategy against the
Islamic State group, relying on arming moderate rebel factions to push
back extremists in Syria. It appears The West is “gonna need a bigger coalition.”
BREAKING: AP Sources: Islamic State, al-Qaida affiliate agree to fight foes together in Syria.
Two Syrian opposition figures say the Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s branch met last week and agreed to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents.
Obama is now – after the fact – scrambling to justify bombing the sovereign nation of Syria without the permission of either the Syrian government or even the United States Congress by saying that we were going after the super-evil Khorasans, who were about to attack us.
My God! That sounds terrifying … like a cross between Genghis Khan, Klingons and the Kardashians!
There’s just one wee little problem … the Khorasan threat is as as fake as the Kardashians’ physiques. (Admittedly, it’s confusing, given that the Kardashians have also inserted themselves right in the middle of the Syrian conflict.)
ISIS fighters have seized an oilfield on the Syria-Iraq border, snatching it from the control of rival militants. The Pentagon has said while it considers the Iraqi Army capable of defending Baghdad, outside aid may be required to repel the jihadists.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the key oil field in the Deir al-Zor province had fallen under the control of fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) on Thursday.
“ISIS took control of the Al-Omar oil field,” located north of the strategic town of Mayadin, also under its control since dawn Thursday, said the Observatory.
The group cited an amateur video that was posted on YouTube purporting to show the capture of the oilfield. The footage shows a bearded man who is identified by the cameraman as Commander Hommam boasting that the field was taken without a single shot being fired.
“We took it [the oil field] over without any fighting. They fled like rats,” the commander said, referring to fighters from the Syrian opposition group al-Nusra who had previously been controlling the oilfield.
At a secret base in Qatar, the US military is training rebels to raid Syrian government troops and vehicles, as well as to “finish off the soldiers still alive after an ambush,” first-hand interviews in a Frontline documentary have revealed.
The documentary, scheduled to air Tuesday night on PBS stations, offers rare insight into how Washington is fostering the armed insurgency against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
It features interviews by journalist Muhammad Ali with Syrian rebels presented as members of a “moderate faction” who describe a clandestine meeting with their “American handlers” in Turkey, along with the receiving of weapons and ammunition and the subsequent travel to Qatar for training.
This will end well. President Obama is, according to WSJ, close to authorizing the US military to train “moderate” Syrian rebels. The move – clearly expanding Washington’s role in the conflict and a subtle side-swipe at Putin – is aimed at providing a seemingly arbitrary group of rebels with weapons training to fight against both Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s army as well as Al-Qaeda-linked groups. One quick question – how will Obama determine who is ‘moderate’ and who is full Al-Qaeda-tard?
A new military training program, if implemented, would supplement a small train-and-equip program led by the Central Intelligence Agency which Mr. Obama authorized a year ago.
The head of the UN weapons inspectors said that the American case for Syrian government firing chemical weapons was weak, because the rockets can only go 2 miles … but government-held territory is much further away.
A team of security and arms experts, meeting this week in Washington to discuss the matter, has concluded that the range of the rocket that delivered sarin in the largest attack that night was too short for the device to have been fired from the Syrian government positions where the Obama administration insists they originated.
This was the neo-conservatives’ victory lap when they supposedly achieved one of their main stated goals: to discover and neutralize terrorist organizations, primarily al Qaeda.
There are reports that some third countries are training Syrian rebels to use chemical weapons in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. The intention is to put the skill to use in new false flag actions in Syria, he explained.
The suspected training happened in Afghan territories not under control of the government in Kabul, Lavrov said.
“Some reports indicate that [Al-Qaeda-linked radical] Al-Nusra Front is planning to smuggle toxic compounds and relevant specialists into Iraqi territory to stage terrorist attacks there this time,” Lavrov said.
Let’s see here: the party attacking the embassy of Assad-supporting Russia in Damascus is a) the Syrian government or b) the local Al Qaeda-funded Islamist fanatics and Qatari mercenaries, aka “rebels”? Surely a YouTube clip will promptly emerge, confirming it was a).
MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.
Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.
Last month, Syriareport.net reported that a group of so-called ‘Syrian rebels’ kidnapped a Christian teenager in Al-Qusayr and repeatedly raped her for the next several days.
Elements of Jabhat al-Nusra (Syrian Al Qaeda)al and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) reportedly took part in the atrocity.
Once abducted, the girl identified only as “Miriam,” was forced into a temporary marriage with the commander of Jabhat al-Nusra and raped. He then renounced their marriage, only to pass her onto another militant for the same treatment.
One after another, a total of fifteen Islamist rebels “married” the young girl, raped her and renounced the marriage, a process which continued for more than two weeks.
After all had their way with her, the girl was executed.
To date, Syrian Report and the Modern Tokyo Times are the only news outlets to report this story.
This Syrian civil war is extremely sad and tragic, but it has become abundantly clear that there are no “good guys” when it comes to the main factions factions fighting. The idea that we would provide aid to a side that is allied with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group used to justify the destruction civil liberties domestically, is beyond absurd.
As we see from today’s New York Times article, these rebel factions are not fighting for peace or democracy, but more often than not for simple bloodthirsty revenge. Some of the factions are actively trying to form an Islamist state, while others are calling for the extermination of an entire group of people based solely on the fact they are part of a particular religious group, the Alawites.
The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.
The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.
The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as “the Uncle,” fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoner’s head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.
This scene, documented in a video smuggled out of Syria a few days ago by a former rebel who grew disgusted by the killings, offers a dark insight into how many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow.
In the more than two years this civil war has carried on, a large part of the Syrian opposition has formed a loose command structure that has found support from several Arab nations, and, to a more limited degree, the West. Other elements of the opposition have assumed an extremist cast, and openly allied with Al Qaeda.
Russia needs convincing proof, not rumors, from UN experts that chemical weapons were used in Syria, said the Russian president in an interview with First Channel and AP. It is up to the UN Security Council to decide on the next course of action, he said.
Speaking to journalists from Russia’s state Channel 1 television and Associated Press, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of decisive statements regarding the supposed use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, which evoked a threat of a US-led strike on Syria.
“We believe that at the very least we should wait for the results of the UN inspection commission in Syria,” Putin said, adding that so far there is no information about what chemical agent exactly was used in the attack in Damascus’ suburbs and who did it.
“I’ve already said I find it absolutely ridiculous that [Syrian] government’s armed forces, which today are actually on an offense mission and in some regions have already encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off, that the Syrian army has used prohibited chemical weapons,” Putin said.
“They know all too well that this could become a cause for sanctions and even for a military operation against them. That’s stupid and illogical.”
“We proceed from the assumption that if anyone has information that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regular army, then such proof must be presented to the UN Security Council and the UN inspectors,” Putin said, stressing that the proof must be “convincing” and not based on “rumors” or any sort of “eavesdropped intelligence data,” conversations etc.
“Even in the US there are experts who question the reliability of the facts presented by the administration. These experts do not exclude the possibility that the Syrian opposition has conducted a pre-planned provocation in order to give their sponsors a reason for military intervention,” he acknowledged.
Putin later leveled criticism at US Secretary of State John Kerry as he spoke to human rights activists on Wednesday, saying Kerry “lied” by claiming there was no Al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria and that the military strike against President Assad will not boost the terrorist network’s presence in the region.
“They lie, plainly. I watched the Congressional debate. A congressman asked Mr. Kerry: “Is there any Al-Qaeda [in Syria]? There are reports they have been growing stronger.” He [Kerry] replied: “No. I say with all responsibility: there is no [Al-Qaeda] there,” Putin explained.
U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey testified that he has provided President Barack Obama with options for the use of force in Syria, including “kinetic strikes.”
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