A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Magda Hassan]

Forgot to post this last night before I went to bed.

The Syrian TV chanels were attacked and now is off the interent... We expect that the attack will be extended to the satellite channels and then Al Jazeera and other imperialists chanels will start broadcasting lies about widespread Syrian army desertion and assasination of top military and political leaders, including President Asad... DO not believe them, alll lies ... Damascus is very calm and the Syrians are determined to defeat the Israeli-imperialist conspiracy...

Don't know what the internet and media situation is like today. Time will tell.

[Magda Hassan]

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[TD="bgcolor: #FFFFFF"][B]French Defense Ministry: Journalist Jacquier Killed by Syrian Opposition Gunmen's Fire[/B]

Jul 18, 2012

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PARIS, (SANA) A source at the French Defense Ministry stressed to the Le Figaro Newspaper that the French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, who was killed on January 11th , 2011 in Homs, died in a blast of a mortar fired by the armed terrorist groups in the city.
In his article, Georges Malbrunot quoted a source in the Ministry of Defense in Paris as saying that the information collected from the site of the accident and the tests of shells affirmed that Jacquier was killed by a 18-mm mortar fired from a neighborhood where gunmen were gathering.
The source added that all investigations and analysis clearly showed the source of fire and that all authorities concerned including the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, the General Directorate for External Security and diplomats at the French Embassy in Damascus approved the result.
The writer said that the French journalist who worked as TV reporter for France 2 TV channel was killed by a blast of a mortar fired by mistake by what he called Syrian rebels as the journalist was in a pro-government neighborhood and he was wounded by shrapnel from a shell as he was leaving the building along with other French and Swiss journalists.
Malbrunot said that the results reached by the French Defense Ministry stressed the information published by Le Figaro newspaper a week after the accident basing on a statement for an official in a so-called human rights association in Homs as saying that "we made a big blunder".
He added that article 44 of the document indicated that the reports submitted by the UN observers revealed that the French journalist was killed by a mortar fired by the opposition, indicating to the presence of many reports and a detailed text written by the Arab observers in Homs that is at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo but it has never been published.
Malbrunot quoted an official in the Syrian opposition as saying that he asked the AL Secretary General's Assistants about not publishing the second report and was answered that France and Qatar, who were chairing the AL Ministerial Committee, asked them not to publish it as the issue was referred to the French judiciary.
The opposition official, according to Malbrunot, said that both France and Qatar support the so-called free army and it will not serve their interest if any opposition member was accused of killing Jacquier.
Malbrunot said that the Elysée, having admitted that it has no evidence on the killing of Jacquier, preferred that the government would have been the one responsible for committing the crime to prevent the journalists from investigating the opposition's movement against him.
Malbrunot said that the juridical investigation in the killing of the French journalist opened by the prosecutor was inclined to the hypothesis of blunder, quoting a juridical source as saying that it was clear that it was not one aimed bullet.
R. Raslan/ H. Said
http://sana.sy/eng/22/2012/07/18/432294.htm

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[Bill Kelly]

No Jim, I am not suggesting anything of the sort.

Jim has no idea what you're talking about....

Appologeeze Jan, my fingers slipped, but I know who I'm talking with and want to be clear as to what I am saying.

And Peter, it isn't very hard to figure out who the bad guys are - the ones with the military police state who torture children, don't allow journalists in the country they think they own and can pass along power to their children, and are using artillery to their own people, and the people are the good guys.

If any of them were trained by NATO then it will be the second time in two years that NATO has assisted the right side, Libya being the first.

I don't understand leftest and liberals who check to see who the CIA and NATO is supporting before making up their minds as to who is a tyrant and who is the freedom fighter.

Now they are finally doing what they have to do, and use assassination as a weapon against Assad, as he has used it against them.

BK

[Magda Hassan]

Sorry Bill but there is just a 100 kinds of wrong in what you've just written here. We all know it has nothing to do with dictators. The US having created and certainly worked with most of them. Nor is it to do with helping the Syrian people. If the US cared about liberating people in the Middle East they would get NATO to arm the Palestinians to get their land back. They'd be threatening to bomb Israel for their dangerous unaccountable nuclear (and chemical and biological) weapons programme. Or over throw the House of Saud and get women the right to freedom of movement, assembly and speech and universal suffrage. But they are not doing that are they?

And Peter, it isn't very hard to figure out who the bad guys are - the ones with the military police state who torture children, don't allow journalists in the country they think they own and can pass along power to their children, and are using artillery to their own people, and the people are the good guys.

You must mean then the US then with its cult of death? The children it kidnapped from their countries they invaded and now imprisoned in Guantanamo being tortured? Or perhaps the children it puts on death row to be executed? Or the collaterally damaged executed children of Vietnam, Korea, China, Pakistan, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Panama, Guatemala, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Iran, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Grenada and Peru? The US with a for profit prison industrial complex which needs bodies, preferably black and brown, to warehouse and use as slave labour and charge 10 times more than it would take to put them through college or put them up in the Hilton hotel for the same period of time? The police military state like the US which is the biggest supplier and pusher of weapons in the world and who goes into all corners of the world to cause chaos and mayhem to sell their deadly products because there is no profit for the corporations in peace? The war and death economy is the only one there by the looks of it. The US which out sources it's torture programme to countries like Libya and Syria and Egypt? The US, a country which has never met a dictator it didn't like and couldn't do business with as long as they were their puppet? And most all of them were made in the USA. And do you mean political prisoners like Leonard Peltier, Bradley Manning, Dr Martin Luther King, the Cuban 5, Mumia Abu-Jamal, David Rice, Angela Davis, Veronza Bowers Jr, Geronimo Pratt, and who knows how many Occupiers and just 1,000's of socially and politically unconnected poor people and people with mental health problems? And the place where Reporters Without Borders now place the US at number 47 in press freedom. The US home of the House of Un American Activities where people were only free to support the party line. It is still in effect if not law now with the Patriot Act. Where tourists are barred from entry to the US because of jokes on Twitter. The land of SOPA, ACTA, and PIPA and a dozen others coming off the legislative assembly to censor and control the internet. Where you can be extradited from New Zealand or the UK for downloading a song and spend 50 years in jail for it but if you are working for the CIA in Pakistan and you murder some locals they'll smuggle you out. Where the 1% rule the country because they own it.

If any of them were trained by NATO then it will be the second time in two years that NATO has assisted the right side, Libya being the first.

NATO, or as many call it, New Aryan Teutonic Order, does nothing right. It can't even read a map. Syria and Libya are no where near the North Atlantic. NATO was founded in fascism by fascists. NATO has no business even existing let alone destroying other people's countries. It is a criminal enterprise and will produce nothing positive any more than being on the receiving end of La Cosa Nostra brings any social, political or personal benefit.

I don't understand leftest and liberals who check to see who the CIA and NATO is supporting before making up their minds as to who is a tyrant and who is the freedom fighter.

I don't understand how some good but naive or tunnel visioned people can't see that the corporate brand USA and Israeli project and the massive military protection that they both need to exist are the biggest threat to world peace we have and that they are tyrannical and never fight for any one's freedom except the freedom of the corporations of the 1% to exploit local resources for their own obscene profits and power.

Now they are finally doing what they have to do, and use assassination as a weapon against Assad, as he has used it against them.
BK

I find terrorism of any kind appalling and reprehensible. I don't care who does it. The US and other countries should be condemning in the strongest words what has happened in Syria. The fact that they are not sends all the wrong messages and shows them to be the hypocrites they are. Tell me about what happened on September 11th 2001 again? Tell me what happened on 9th of November 1938? Tell me what happened 22nd of July 1946? Tell me what happened 21st of December 1988. What happened September 18th 1982? Why are you not cheering these appalling events as well? The rule stands for all or it stands for none. Don't be surprised when your nation has another 911 or when another President is executed in public. And don't be surprised if others rejoice. If Assad is a criminal let him be charged and stand trial. Like Bush and Blair and Cheney and company.

[Magda Hassan]

This is the video in which the terrorists claim to have recorded the operation in Damascus yesterday:

[Magda Hassan]

Syria 24 English
6 minutes ago
#Syria #RealSyria sources - the Syrian authorities arrested the bomber who targeted a building of national security in #Damascus
he was employed in the National Security Building as a secretary.

Al Mayadeen

[Keith Millea]

I have to differ from Bill Kelly.Bill seems to think the Arab Spring started in Tunisia.But,if you apply the (sponsor,facilitator,mechanic)template to this ugly situation,the start of these uprisings stem from the PNAC doctrine that was introduced in the late nineties.And we have not diverted from that doctrine one iota.

Sponsor=Neo-con Zionists

facilitator=US,Nato,Saudi Arabia,Israel

mechanics=Syrian fighters,mercenaries,terrorists

Am I wrong???

[Phil Dragoo]

Peter

You caught my eye:

Assad and his 'friends' are thugs and dictatorial. The opposition is made up of IMHO both real disaffected and NATO trained agents [with their own agenda]. A very messy situation. Hard to find the good guys. Easy to find many bad ones. The average Syrian is the victim and the good people who suffer.

Much helpful insight there in my view.

I have seen the Arab Spring as a CIA/NATO replacement of secular regimes with Islamist ones.

Yet the titular POTUS holds harmless the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Was this prescribed by the 2004 CFR paper "Iran: Time for a New Approach" by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Gates.

Followed by the 2007 NIE stipulating Iran had no nuclear weapons program or ambition.

Surely the Arab Spring is a continuation of the removal of the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, a favor for either or both Saudi and Iran.

Robert Baer 25-year-CIA case officer insists USG is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saudi.

Hillary's fake sanctions on Iran don't penalize China, buyer of Iran energy, opposer of Syrian intervention. Russia provides arms to Assad.

The son of El Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz is being as flexible as he can under the circumstances.

Why doesn't Huma instruct Hillary to spiral into Damascus, zigzag across the tarmac, and order Assad to get on the plane to the Hague.

Kabuki konflict in Potemkinistan: macropower overshadows popular rising.

Oooh, Big Brother three nights a week

[Magda Hassan]

Coming and going....

Syria rebels 'control all Iraq border points'
(AFP) 14 hours ago BAGHDAD Syrian rebels took control of all border crossings between Iraq and Syria on Thursday, Baghdad's deputy interior minister told AFP."All the border points between Iraq and Syria are under the control of the Free Syrian Army," Adnan al-Assadi told AFP by telephone."The border points and all the outposts are under the control of the Free Syrian Army."The Syrian army are focusing on Damascus."Assadi also said there was fighting under way between the Syrian army and rebels across the border from the northern Iraqi region of Sinjar.The top official said Iraqi border guards had witnessed the Free Syrian Army take control of a border outpost, detain a Syrian army lieutenant colonel, and then cut off his arms and legs."Then they executed 22 Syrian soldiers in front of the eyes of Iraqi soldiers."The account of the killings could not be independently verified.Assadi added: "If this situation continues, we are going to close the entire border with Syria."Earlier, an Iraqi border police lieutenant colonel told AFP that clashes began at noon at the Albu Kamal crossing in Anbar province.""And then in the evening, we saw the Syrian flag being brought down and the flag of the Free Syrian Army replaced it," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity."We saw people wearing dishdashas (traditional Arab robes) and holding guns and they were walking inside the border post. We closed the border and we sent more patrols and more checkpoints along all the border with Syria."Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh meanwhile told Iraqiya state television that four planeloads of Iraqis had been flown from Syria back to Iraq on Thursday.Also on Thursday, officials in western Anbar province, which borders Syria, said thousands of Iraqi families crossed from Syria back into their home country after Baghdad appealed for them to return to avoid escalating violence in Iraq's western neighbour.Anbar provincial council chief Saadun Obeid Shaalan said provincial authorities had provided Iraqis crossing the border with "humanitarian aid and 60 buses have entered Iraq, carrying Iraqis emigrating from Syria."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art...bf6266.391

Syrian forces recapture areas across the country from rebels

BY ADMIN â‹… JULY 19, 2012 â‹…
PressTV
Thu Jul 19, 2012 Syrian security forces have recaptured a number of areas across the country from armed anti-government rebels, Press TV reports.The forces retook control of the al-Midan neighborhood in Damascus and the Silqin area in Idlib.They also managed to recapture the al-Bukamal area near the Iraqi border as well as Bab al-Hawa close to the Turkish border.Syria has been experiencing unrest ever since March 2011, with demonstrations being held both against and in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government.The Syrian government says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.Damascus also says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country and the security forces have been given clear instructions not to harm civilians.
http://declanoshea.net/2012/07/19/syrian...om-rebels/

[Magda Hassan]

Israel, U.S. discuss possibility of IDF strike against Syria, report says

Administration officials speaking to the New York Times say Washington isn't currently advocating such a measure, since officials fear it would bolster Assad.

By Haaretz | Jul.19, 2012 | 9:56 AM

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The report came after several top U.S. officials arrived in Israel for talks in recent weeks, including National Security Adviser Tom Dinilon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.U.S. security officials have discussed with their Israeli counterparts the possibility that Israel could strike Syria's weapons facilities, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing administration officials.
On Wednesday, administration officials told the New York Times that Pentagon officials discussed whether or not Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, as part of a larger Syria strategy.
According to the officials, Washington is not advocating such an attack, because of the inherent risks such a move would bring, and because it would, the report said give "an Assad an opportunity to rally support against Israeli interference."
The Syria issue was included in the discussions between Donilon and Israeli officials, a White House official told the New York Times.
The report came hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday that the situation in Syria is "spinning out of control," adding that President Bashar Assad's government would be held responsible if it failed to safeguard its chemical weapons sites.
Syria's defense minister and Assad's brother-in-law were killed in a Damascus suicide bomb attack carried out by a bodyguard on Wednesday, the most serious blow to the president's high command in the country's 16-month-old rebellion.
"This is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control," Panetta said, adding that the international community needed to "bring maximum pressure on President Bashar Assad to do what's right, to step down and allow for that peaceful transition."

Panetta's comments to a Pentagon news conference followed closed door talks with his British counterpart, Defense Secretary Philip Hammond. Hammond, speaking alongside Panetta, said he believed the situation in Syria was deteriorating and "becoming more and more unpredictable."
The Damascus attack, Hammond said, showed the country's growing instability as the violence gets closer to the heart of the government.
"I think what we're seeing is an opposition which is emboldened, clearly an opposition which has access increasingly to weaponry, probably some fragmentation around the edges of the regime as well," he told reporters.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/...s-1.452166