A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Magda Hassan]

Bill, if you read it again slowly you will see that ideology and tactics and safety and common sense have nothing to do with it but the opportunity to make big $$$$s does.

BRITAM DEFENCE HACKED, CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS LEAKED, SITE OFFLINE!
...
Email between David Goulding who is the Business Development Director of BRITAM and Philip regarding a new offer about an operation in Syria.

"
Phil

We've got a new offer. It's about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington.
We'll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have.
They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record.
Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?

Kind regards

David
"
Note "CW"--> Chemical Weapons

http://www.cyberwarnews.info/reports/a-l...eak-files/

http://www.cyberwarnews.info/2013/01/24/...ow=gallery

They don't need a fake provocation or reason to go into Syria. There's a very good reason why they - NATO or Ruskies haven't gone in full force on either side.

bk

[Peter Lemkin]

Israel bombs Syrian military site

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 8:15a.m. LATEST

By Ben Hubbard

Israel has conducted a rare airstrike on a military target inside Syria, foreign officials and Syrian state TV says, amid fears President Bashar Assad's regime is providing weapons to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah.

A statement from the Syrian military read aloud on state TV confirmed the strike, saying the jets bombed a military research centre in the area of Jamraya, northwest of the capital, Damascus.

The statement said the centre was responsible for "raising the level of resistance and self-defence" of Syria's military. It said the strike destroyed the centre and a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others.

US and regional security officials reported the strike earlier Wednesday but did not say exactly where it took place.

Regional security officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful military force. Among Israeli officials' chief fears is that Assad will pass chemical weapons or sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah - something that could change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel's ability to conduct air sorties in Lebanon.

The regional officials said the shipment Israel was planning to strike included Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically "game-changing" in the hands of Hezbollah by enabling the group to carry out fiercer attacks on Israel and shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones.

Hezbollah has committed to Israel's destruction and has gone to war against the Jewish state in the past.

A US official confirmed the strike, saying it hit a convoy of trucks.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the strike.

The Israeli military declined to comment.

Syria has long been among the militant group's most significant backers and is suspected of supplying with funding and arms, as well as a land corridor to Iran.

This strike, however, comes as Assad is enmeshed in a civil war with rebels trying to oust him. The rebels have seized a large swath of territory in the country's north and established footholds in a number of suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, though Assad's forces still control the city and much of the rest of the country.

While Assad's fall does not appear imminent, analysts worry he could grow desperate as his power wanes and seek to cause trouble elsewhere in the region through proxy groups like Hezbollah.

The Syrian army statement denied that the strike had targeted a convoy headed from Syria to Lebanon, instead portraying the strike as linked to the civil war pitting Assad's forces against rebels seeking to push him from power.

"This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people," the statement said.

The location could not be independently confirmed because of reporting restrictions in Syria.

Syria's government portrays the crisis, which started with political protest in 2011 and has since become a civil war, as a foreign-backed conspiracy meant to destroy the country.

Top Israeli officials have recently expressed worries that if desperate, Assad's regime could pass chemical weapons to Hezbollah or other militant groups.

President Barack Obama has called Syria's use of chemical weapons a "red line" whose crossing could prompt a tougher US response, but US officials say they are tracking Syria's chemical weapons and that they still appear to be under regime control.


The strike, carried out either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, appears to be the latest move in a long running race by Hezbollah to increase its military power while Israel seeks to limit it.

Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

Earlier this week, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defence system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."

If confirmed, the airstrike would be the first inside Syria in more than five years. In September 2007, Israeli warplanes destroyed a site in Syria that the UN nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a secretly built nuclear reactor. Syria has denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008 but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and later build over it.

Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in 2006 after Syrian-backed militants in Gaza captured an Israeli soldier.

And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks, but never did.

The military in Lebanon, which shares borders with both Israel and Syria, said Wednesday that Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity over Lebanon in the past week, including at least 12 sorties in less than 24 hours in the country's south.

A senior Lebanese security official said no Israeli airstrikes occurred inside Lebanese territory. Asked whether it could have been along the border on the Syrian side, he said that that could not be confirmed as it was out of his area of operations.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A Lebanese army statement said the last of the sorties took place at 2 a.m. local time Wednesday. It said four warplanes which flew in over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura hovered for several hours over villages in southern Lebanon before leaving Lebanese airspace.

It said similar flights by eight other warplanes were conducted Tuesday.

A Lebanese security official said the flights were part of "increased activity" in the past week but did not elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The UN Agency tasked with monitoring the Lebanon-Israeli border said in a statement Wednesday it had no information on any strikes near the Syria-Lebanon border. It did note, however, a "high number of Israeli overflights" on Tuesday.

"These air violations have continued on an almost daily basis," it said.

The area of Lebanon where the flights took place borders southern Syria.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon and Lebanese authorities routinely lodge complaints at the UN against the flights.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war, and Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite hostility between the two countries, Syria has been careful to keep the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated to Israeli attacks since.

In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime, to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.

AP

[Magda Hassan]

How the Muslim Brotherhood sees the Syrian Revolution'



Never mind freedom' and democracy', that's all for international public consumption. The statement below is from the Muslim Brotherhood's official plan for Syria, back in March 2011. Notice the identified enemy the secular regime':


It is time for us to come back home and rule Syria under our principles that come from Islam (Sharia) …
The people are now protesting after the allegations of the bloodshed by the government forces …
These demonstrations should be our aid to make our coup and replace the government. We have to ignite rage, incite and exploit that bloodshed and make it our way to come back home and spread our Islamic principles to rule over the political scene in Syria.
It is time to come back home and rule the Syrian Muslim people who live under the umbrella of the secular regime that supports and protects the principles of tolerance, and guarantees the freedom of thinking and embracing whatever belief the people choose. Such a freedom was the main reason that made the other non-Muslim sects of the Syrian people able to step forward and have a rank and a good contribution in the Syrian life, and also share the wealth with the Muslims on their own land.
It is time for us to come back and force all the other non-Muslim sects to shrink and step back. These sects are the infidel Christians, the criminal Alawites and the infidel Druzes …
It is also too important to remind the Syrian Muslims of the intentions of the other sects and their plans against Islam, and against our freedom, so we do not recommend any sort of collaboration even under the most difficult circumstances, because they in their instincts have bad feelings and bad intentions for Islam and for his people. We have to make sure that the revolution will be pure Islamic, and with that no other sect would have a share of the credit after its success …


Dr Muhammed Riyad al-Shaqfa
General Supervisor of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood
Monday, 28 March 2011

Full text here -
http://truthsyria.wordpress.com/2012/02/...evolution/



The MB at work in Egypt

[Magda Hassan]

'People want Assad to stay'

Video here

15 February 2013 Last updated at 08:42 GMT Help

Life has become difficult for the residents of Damascus, in Syria, but little is reported of the lives of those in Damascus who support the Assad regime. BBC reporter Zubeida Malik spoke on the Today programme to some of the government supporters in Syria's capital city.
Thirty one-year-old Damascus resident Zenub, a university teacher who supports the Assad regime, explained that her quality of life has deteriorated significantly since the beginning of the uprising: "We are not free to leave our homes. We hear shooting and explosions every night. I feel in danger when the sun starts to set... we are asking for our freedom to live as we did before."
Abdul, who used to work as a teacher and supports the government, says the conflict has affected the economy in Damascus: "A lot of people are on the streets asking for money. Some people are relying on their savings. The good thing is, the government is giving salaries to their employees. Some company and factory owners have moved to Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan and that means the money has moved to these places."
Abdul remarked that he believes he is supporting the winning side: "I am not depressed about the future because the situation is worse than before, in terms of damages to our country. But in terms of people's minds, I can say now that people have understood that this revolution has damaged us. It's being controlled from outside. A lot of people want Assad to stay."
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme on Friday 15 February 2013.

[Peter Lemkin]

Why Syria Matters
By Rick Staggenborg, MD
With conflicts raging from Libya to Mali in the aftermath of the widely misunderstood "Arab Spring," it is not surprising that few commentators seem to realize the special significance of the battle for Syria. The outcome may determine the success or failure of the effort to create a global corporate Empire nominally directed by the government of the United States and backed by the power of the US military. It is critical that westerners understand this because once such a New World Order is fully established, resistance in the US and elsewhere can only be violent. That could only serve to provide the perfect excuse to use the powers of the police state that is being constructed all around us.

Those who only follow the news in the mainstream media have enough clues to piece the story together, though the truth is to be found in plain sight through the alternative media. To appreciate the real danger humanity faces, we must look at the available information with open eyes, a justified skepticism of government claims and an understanding of the realities of how the global game of Risk is played today. We won't get this perspective from the political pundits whose analyses are premised on an uncritical acceptance of the need for a "war on terror." Anyone who understands the goals of Strategy for Rebuilding America's Defenses (SAD), the white paper put out by Project for a New American Century in 2000, knows that the America's war of terror is a smokescreen for the creation of what amounts to a permanent fascist New World Order.

PNAC laid out its plans for world domination in this seminal document, published one year before the attack on the World Trade Center provided the opportunity to put the strategy into action. PNAC was founded on the assumption that the US had the right and duty to assure a Pax Americana would endure for at least a century, established and maintained through American military superiority in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. SAD described a plan to destabilize any nation whose leaders dared challenge "American interests." In context, the term can only be assumed to mean the interests of international corporations whose executives have dictated foreign policy to the US government at least since the 1954s, when the CIA staged the Guatemalan coup on behalf of the United Fruit Company.

Among nations specifically identified as potential threats in SAD were Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. It may seem surprising that Afghanistan was not on the list, given that negotiations for an American pipeline had broken down in 1998, but perhaps by 2000 the invasion was already a foregone conclusion. After all, General Wesley Clark has reported being informed of a classified memo on or about September 20, 2001 that laid out plans to take down these governments along with Sudan, Lebanon and Somalia. For those who haven't been paying attention, oil-rich southern Sudan seceded in July of 2011, Hezbollah has recently been accused of masterminding a terror attack against Israelis in Macedon, leading to the EU considering putting them on its terrorist list, and the CIA is still busy trying to gain control in Somalia through drones, private contractors and covert means. The claim that Hezbollah was behind the Macedon attack is at best suspicious, pointing to a deliberate effort to implicate a key ally of Syria and Iran.

The timing of the CIA and MI-6 based coup in Libya may have been related to Gaddafi's renewed threat to create a gold-backed dinar to challenge the supremacy of the petrodollar. There had been threats to take out Gaddafi at least since Reagan was in office . In 1996, two MI-5 whistleblowers revealed that one was approached by an agent of MI-6 about illegally funneling money to foreign mercenaries to finance a coup. Gaddafi's socialist government and his efforts to promote Pan-African unity and independence were threats to NATO's vision of an American-led New World Order. When the time came to take him out, NATO used the same means proposed in 1996. Mercenaries backed by the US and its Gulf partners infiltrated the Benghazi region and gained the support of a few malcontents to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy. NATO then sought UN cover in the form of a no-fly zone authorization, which was used as a pretext to eliminate loyalist civilians and the Libyan military through massive air strikes, allowing the terrorist army to murder Gaddafi and take control of the country.

Many wondered why Russia and China did not veto the UN decision on the no-fly zone. After all, they stand to be the biggest losers in the winner-take-all game of global Monopoly in which average citizens of the planet are merely token players. What they did was abstain. By tradition though not law, this is taken to mean that a measure passes in the Security Council. However, when NATO exceeded the mandate of the resolution and murdered an estimated 10,000 loyal Libyan civilians under the doctrine of "responsibility to Protect," both nations decided it was in their interests to not allow the same thing to happen in Syria. This is probably the main reason the Assad government remains in power.

Syria is the key line of defense against US/NATO/Gulf Cooperation Council/Israeli domination of the world's oil supplies exclusive of Latin America and Russia. Its citizens increasingly realize that the survival of sovereignty in Syria may be the last hope of stopping a small band of bankers and their minions from controlling the world. From a larger perspective, the quest to achieve dominance over the rest of the planet in the interest of perpetuating a carbon fuels-based world economy threatens the survival of human civilization as we know it. As long as geopolitics is centered on the conflict over oil and natural gas, the threat of global climate change grows and becomes ever more immediate.

Here is how the dominoes line up: If Syria falls and Hezbollah is named a terrorist organization by the EU, Iran and Russia will stand virtually alone against the powerful alliance of western "democracies," Israel, the Gulf monarchies, the Qatar-backed governments dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. US policy has since 2007 has been to back cooperative "moderate" Sunni monarchies over "radical" Shia governments and groups and their secular allies in Syria and pre-invasion Iraq. This is essential to understanding the US plan to carry out its program of regime destabilization. The Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, seems committed to securing its place in what they seem to assume will be a permanent fascist New World Order. If Iran is destabilized through economic sanctions or eventually attacked by NATO forces with the implicit or explicit blessing of citizens of EU nations, Russia will be essentially isolated and economically devastated by the loss of access for its oil and natural gas to European, Chinese and Indian markets. China in turn will find itself virtually alone in the fight against a worldwide western corporate Empire.

China is heavily dependent on oil from Iran, Myanmar and other regions that have been targeted by NATO, which is seeking to absorb SEATO (the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization). Australia and Japan are going along with the plan to establish NATO economic and military dominance over Asia. Meanwhile, drone bases are being set up in Africa, throughout Asia and in the Americas. Everything is in place to allow the international corporate terrorists who control the US government, military and intelligence agencies to take over the world militarily in areas where it cannot yet dominate economically. In the face of a dollar that is increasingly seen as endangered, the impetus to move rapidly toward a final solution to the problem of democracy is compelling.

With all this happening in front of their eyes, a clueless American public dithers over the economic consequences of having unwittingly allowed corporations to take control of their government, without recognizing that is the problem. Most of those who have not given up on politics altogether engage in endless debate over whether Democrats or Republicans have allowed this to happen when clearly both are responsible. As an example of the lunacy of the state of American politics, supporters of right wing politicians are so fearful of a "socialist" takeover that they have made gun rights a central issue in the political dialogue, joined in support by left wingers who have also concluded that violent revolution is unavoidable.

What would be left in this corporate-controlled New World Order is a China under increasing pressure by the Anglo-American Empire, an economically crippled Russia, a Mideast dominated by overseers of the slave owners of the corporatocracy, a recolonized Africa and Asia and a defenseless and demoralized world citizenry, unable to fight back effectively because any effort to resist would simply increase support for a police state by those remaining in the middle class who are fearful of a mob rule formerly known as "democracy."

[Magda Hassan]

After all this fighting it must be just a few years away when the people will rise up against Assad.....

Exposed
US and Europe in 'Major Airlift of Arms to Syrian Rebels Through Zagreb'

The United States has coordinated a massive airlift of arms to Syrian rebels from Croatia with the help of Britain and other European states, despite the continuing European Union arms embargo, it was claimed yesterday.

By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent

March 09, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - "The Telegraph" -- Decisions by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, to provide non-lethal assistance and training, announced in the past week, were preceded by much greater though less direct Western involvement in the rebel cause, according to a Croat newspaper.

It claimed 3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November.

The story confirmed the origins of ex-Yugoslav weapons seen in growing numbers in rebel hands in online videos, as described last month by The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers, but suggests far bigger quantities than previously suspected.

The shipments were allegedly paid for by Saudi Arabia at the bidding of the United States, with assistance on supplying the weapons organised through Turkey and Jordan, Syria's neighbours. But the report added that as well as from Croatia, weapons came "from several other European countries including Britain", without specifying if they were British-supplied or British-procured arms.

British military advisers however are known to be operating in countries bordering Syria alongside French and Americans, offering training to rebel leaders and former Syrian army officers. The Americans are also believed to be providing training on securing chemical weapons sites inside Syria.

President Barack Obama has been lukewarm about arming Syrian rebels though many of his aides have been privately been keener.

The story in the Jutarnji List newspaper gave the fullest details yet of the arms shipments which have enabled rebel forces to begin advancing across the north of Syria in recent weeks, after months of stalemate.

The weapons, including rocket launchers, recoil-less guns and the M79 anti-tank weapon, have been seen in rebel hands in numerous videos, and were first spotted by an arms expert Eliot Higgins, who blogs under the name Brown Moses. He traced them moving from Dera'a in the south, near the Jordanian border, to Aleppo and Idlib provinces in the north.

Western officials told the New York Times that the weapons had been bought from Croatia by Saudi Arabia, and that they had been funnelled to rebel groups seen by the west as more secular and nationalist.

The British involvement fits with the government's policy of doing all it can to help the rebels within the EU arms embargo, which was modified but not dropped at the start of this month. Croatia, a close western ally, does not join the EU until July 1 and has yet to implement the relevant EU legislation, though it has denied the newspaper's claims.

The claims were denied by the Foreign Office. "While the Foreign Secretary has ruled out no options for the future, the UK has not supplied weapons to the Syrian opposition," a spokesman said. "This would be a clear breach of the current EU arms embargo."

According to the Croat newspaper, the first cargo planes involved with the shipment were from Turkey, but most have been from Jordanian International Air Cargo, whose Russian-made Ilyushin jets have been seen regularly at Zaghreb airport in recent months.

The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime but fear ultra-modern weaponry getting into the hands of jihadists and the PKK Kurdish terror group.

Nevertheless, Mr Higgins has recently posted videos showing some of the Croat weapons in the hands of the jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham.

Although regarded as hostile to the West, it fights closely with other Free Syrian Army units regarded as acceptable recipients of weapons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...agreb.html

[Danny Jarman]

Strategia della tensione in full flow then...

[Magda Hassan]

Strategia della tensione in full flow then...

Indeed. And with the ususal suspects.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime but fear ultra-modern weaponry getting into the hands of jihadists and the PKK Kurdish terror group.
Nevertheless, Mr Higgins has recently posted videos showing some of the Croat weapons in the hands of the jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham.
Although regarded as hostile to the West, it fights closely with other Free Syrian Army units regarded as acceptable recipients of weapons.

Those Croats know how to be geopolitical lackeys.

Whilst the more independent-minded and less compliant Serbs are demonised, Croatian membership of the EU is fast-tracked.

Forget Croatian Nazi and more recent atrocities.

Write Jasenovac and the Ustase out of the history books.

Onward with the Strategia della Tensione.

[Magda Hassan]

Yep, the money is on the weapons deals. Not peace.

Croatia orders withdrawal of its troops from Golan
(AP) 18 hours ago
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) Croatia's parliament has approved the withdrawal of some 100 peacekeeping troops from the Golan Heights amid fears they could be targeted by Syrian government troops fighting the rebels.
Croatian Defense Minister Ante Kotromanovic said Wednesday the pullout will start "very soon" but refused to specify the date for security reasons.
The withdrawal, which had been proposed by the country's president, follows reports claiming that Syrian rebels trying to topple Bashar Assad have been armed with Croatian weapons including machine guns, rifles and anti-tank grenades in an operation approved by the United States and sponsored by some Arab countries.
Croatian officials have denied the reports and said they have jeopardized the safety of Croatian soldiers serving in the U.N. Disengagement Force on the Syria-Israel border.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...704f4c0b46