A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Magda Hassan]

Syrian army retakes Golan crossing point from rebels

By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS
06/06/2013 14:31

Hours after opposition victory over Assad regime forces at Quneitra, media reports indicate that Syrian soldiers have taken back border crossing; IDF tells Golan farmers to keep away from border after mortar shell lands nearby.

UNDOF soldiers enter Israel from Syria (Ariel Jer Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
Syrian rebels seized a UN-manned crossing between Syria and the Golan Heights on Thursday, opposition sources said, but Israeli security sources reported Syrian troops later retook it after heavy fighting.
The rarely used Quneitra crossing, in a UN-patrolled demilitarized zone on the Golan Heights, is the only transit point between Syrian and Israeli disengagement lines set in 1974. Battles for its control seemed likely to heighten Israeli security concerns stoked by Syria's civil war.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an Austrian Defense Ministry spokesman said rebels had taken the crossing, which is operated by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) near the Syrian city of Quneitra.
Austrians account for about 380 of the 1,000-strong UNDOF mission, and the Austrian spokesman said the peacekeepers had withdrawn to their bunkers and had suffered no casualties.
Several hours after the transit point was seized, Israeli security sources said the Syrian army had recaptured the area, and Syrian state television reported "the crossing is now safe". The Syrian Observatory said it was not clear who was in control.
Israel is worried that the Golan, which it captured from Syria in 1967, and where battles between the two enemies were again fought in 1973, will become a springboard for attacks on Israelis by jihadi fighters who are trying to topple Assad.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the area leading to Quneitra had been closed and that two Syrians who were wounded in the fighting had been taken into Israel for treatment. She could not say whether they were rebels or army soldiers.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Thursday morning that the Quneitra border crossing on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights had been routed by rebels fighting forces loyal to the embattled Assad, Army Radio reported.
Hours later, however, Channel 10's web site quoted Arab news sources as reporting that the Syrian military had regained control over the crossing.
Israeli authorities have instructed their citizens to keep away from the border fence area, as heavy fighting continues between the warring parties.
The IDF filed a complaint to the UN over the Syrian army's presence in the ceasefire area, Israel Radio reported.
The head of the United Nations' peacekeeping operations confirmed there had been incidents on the Syrian-Israeli border.
"Yes there was shooting," Herve Ladsous told reporters during a visit to Paris, adding the UN would maintain its involvement in the nearby Golan Heights region.
"We are following events in the Golan Heights, which is a very sensitive region, with particularly close attention," he added, while not confirming that the crossing had been captured.
Ladsous said the 1,000-strong United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) had taken measures to ensure the safety of its personnel but stressed that its involvement was not called into doubt by the incidents.
"We are doing everything we can to reduce risks. We have closed posts that were too exposed, reinforced our equipment and vehicles, and our activities are more static," he said.
Quneitra is significant since control over the crossing point is considered one of the more symbolic demonstrations of power exercised by the Damascus government.
Israeli military sources told Army Radio in recent weeks that a takeover of the Quneitra crossing by rebels would constitute a major turning point in Jerusalem's attitude toward the conflict ravaging its neighbor to the northeast.
Earlier on Thursday, a mortar shell landed at a United Nations base in Quneitra, just a few hundred meters from the border fence separating Israel and Syria, according to media reports Thursday.
In addition, authorities have banned civilians from entering Kibbutz Ein Zivan, a communal settlement that lies hundreds of meters away from the border fence, according to Israel Radio.


According to news reports, the military has also sealed off the section of Route 98 which extends from Aloni Habashan to Kibbutz Ein Zivan.
Alex Shalom, an Israeli farmer from the Golan Heights, said he saw heavy smoke rising from the crossing and Israeli military ambulances evacuating people from the site.

[Magda Hassan]

During Quneitra Clashes, Israel Threatened to Attack Syrian Forces, UN Peacekeeping Chief Says

At special UNSC session, Herve Ladsous said that Assad regime military tanks entered Golan Heights demilitarized buffer zone during clashes at Quneitra border post, and IDF threatened to respond.Israeli defense officials deny threat of attack.

By Barak Ravid

June 08, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "Haaretz" - UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said at a closed emergency session of the UN Security Council on Friday night that Israel threatened to attack President Bashar Assad's troops near the border with Syria, during clashes Thursday between rebels and the Assad regime.

During the meeting with 15 members of the Security Council in New York, Ladsous said that the Israel Defence Forces and Syrian military were on the verge of the most direct military clash between the neighboring countries on the Golan Heights front in the past 40 years.

Blogger Nabil Abi Saab published a UN document on his blog UN Report, which contains most of what Ladsous said at the New York meeting. The document, titled "Note on developments in UNDOF," said that after the rebels' conquest of Quneitra, the Syrian military put five tanks and five armored personnel carriers in the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan.

This extraordinary Syrian step jolted the IDF troops in the area, and even reached the office of Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon. "The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) informed the UNDOF Force Commander that should the movement of SAAF tanks continue, the IDF would take action," the document states. "Subsequently, the UNDOF Force Commander conveyed the message to the Senior Syrian Arab Delegate (SSAD), UNDOF's main interlocutor on the Bravo side."

The Syrian response was quick to arrive, according to the document. "The SSAD informed the UNDOF Force Commander that the presence of the tanks was solely for the purpose of fighting the armed members of the opposition and asked that the IDF not take action."

Israel defense officials said on Saturday that Israel did pass warnings to Syria through UNDOF, but that these were only about violations of the May 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, and did not contain the threat of attack.

Ladsous told the UNSC meet that, at the time of the meeting, the Syrians had four tanks and three armed personnel carriers in the demilitarized zone, a breach of the May 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria. He added that Israel informed the UNDOF commander that it had given medical treatment to 16 armed Syrian opposition members, all of whom were returned to the Syrian side of the border after treatment.

Worries over the aftermath of Austria's withdrawal of its some 300 troops from the 1-000 strong UNDOF force were also discussed at Friday's UNSC session

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, president of the Security Council this month, told reporters after the session that the council is examining the possibility of changing the force's mandate, in a way that would strengthen its abilities to function under the current regional climate.

Grant stated that on the 26 of June, a vote will take place on extending the forces' presence by six months. Before the referendum, UNDOF will present the Security Council with various possibilities for reworking the peacekeeping force's mandate.

The British Ambassador also stated that in the meantime, the Security Council has approached the Austrian government with a request to put off recalling the Austrian troops for as long as possible, in order to provide more time for an alternative solution to be found. Grant pointed out that UNDOF also approached India and the Philippines with requests to send additional troops to complement the forces those nations have already provided. A similar request was made to Fiji, which too provides a small contingent of soldiers to UNDOF.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, amid the escalated fighting in Syria and the questionm marks over the UN's peacekeeping force at the Israel-Syria border. The conversation took place shortly after Putin offered to beef up the United Nations' presence along the border. The offer was declined by the United Nations.

The Kremlin spokesman who announced that the conversation took place said Netanyahu and Putin discussed the situation in Syria, but did not provide further details as to the content of their conversation.

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved

[Jan Klimkowski]

The West is desperate to arm these "freedom fighters".

The reporting frame is from the right-wing Daily Mail, but the murder of the 14-year-old boy clearly seems to have happened.

There are photos at the link.

Islamic group shoot dead Syrian 14-year-old boy in front of his parents for blasphemy after saying 'he wouldn't even give the Prophet a free coffee'

Mohammad Qataa was shot in the face and neck by Al Qaeda-linked gunmen
Teenager was heard arguing while working as street vendor selling coffee
Britain has been looking to lift embargo on shipping weapons to rebels
Twin suicide blasts kill at least 14, including police officers, in Damascus
Russian President Vladimir Putin blames the West for Middle East chaos

By Simon Tomlinson

PUBLISHED: 08:46, 11 June 2013 | UPDATED: 17:25, 11 June 2013

An Islamic group shot dead a Syrian 14-year-old boy in front of his parents for blasphemy after overhearing him say he 'wouldn't even give the Prophet a free coffee.'

Mohammad Qataa was shot in the face and neck a day after being seized by members of an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A photo released by the Observatory showed Qataa's face with his mouth and jaw bloodied and destroyed as well as a bullet wound in his neck.

A picture taken from a video uploaded on YouTube by the Aleppo Media Centre allegedly shows 14-year-old Mohammad Qataa (right) who was killed by insurgents for apparently insulting the Prophet Mohammad

An image grab taken from Syria's official television channel al-Ikhbariya reportedly shows the body of 14-year old Mohammad after he was shot dead

Today it emerged Qataa was working as a street vendor in the al-Shaa district of Aleppo when three members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a militant group that started off known as the Nusra Front, overheard him arguing with a friend over a bill.

It is thought the boy had given his friend a coffee which the friend wanted to pay for later.

'Mohammad Qataa was working at his street trolley and remarked to his friend that even if the Prophet Mohammad came down he would not give him credit,' said Rami Abdulrahman, who heads the UK-based human rights group, told The Times.

The three fighters overheard and accused the teenager of blasphemy and insulting the prophet.

The gunmen took Qataa on Saturday and brought him back alive in the early hours of Sunday to his wooden stand, with whiplash marks visible on his body.

This picture from a video released by the Aleppo Media Centre reportedly shows Mohammad's parents who watched as their son was shot dead in the street by an Al Qaeda-linked group

A image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on June 10, 2013 shows the father of the 15-year old boy, Mohammad Qataa

Qataa's parents said the youth had taken part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Aleppo

The gunmen belonged to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a militant group that started off known as the Al-Nusra Front (file picture)

U.N. LOOKING TO RESETTLE 10,000 SYRIAN REFUGEES IN GERMANY

The United Nations refugee agency is talking to Germany about resettling up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Tuesday.

UNHCR was also working with other European governments to find ways to resettle some of the 1.6million Syrians who have fled the country, a number the United Nations expects to reach 3.45million by the end of 2013, Edwards said.

The UN agency plans to hold a meeting on the subject with governments around the end of June in Geneva, but details and the participants were not yet known, he said.

Specific numbers had not yet been discussed with other countries.

However, resettlement is only an option for the most vulnerable cases and the bulk of the refugee burden will still fall on four of Syria's neighbours: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

People gathered around him and a member of the fighting brigade said: 'Generous citizens of Aleppo, disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the prophet is a polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this.'

'He then fired two bullets from an automatic rifle in view of the crowd and in front of the boy's mother and father, and got into a car and left,' the report said.

Abdulrahman said the boy's mother had pleaded with the killers, whose Arabic suggested they might not be Syrian, not to shoot her son.

'The Observatory cannot ignore these crimes, which only serve the enemies of the revolution and the enemies of humanity,' said Rami Abdulrahman.

Qataa's parents said the youth had taken part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Aleppo.

Since last year, large parts of the city have fallen under the control of Islamist brigades, including the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, as well as other rebel units.

Britain and France worked together last month to lift a European Union embargo on arms shipments to Syrian rebels, giving them the flexibility to send weapons to forces against President Bashar Assad.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that no such decision had yet been taken and promised for the first time to give lawmakers a vote in parliament if and when it was.

But Prime Minister David Cameron's government is split on the issue, with some ministers fearing such a move could worsen the bloodshed and drag Britain into a protracted conflict.

It also raises concerns that weapons could be used by Islamist extremists to commit atrocities like this most recent execution.

And in a surprising development today, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted al-Assad could have avoided the bloody civil war by responding more quickly to demands for change.

In comments to Russia's English-language state television network RT, Putin repeated that Russia is not acting as an advocate for Assad but broadly blamed the West for violent upheaval in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, two suicide bombers hit a central Damascus square today, killing at least 14 people, activists and the state media reported.

Activists said one of the explosions took place inside the police station there and that many among the dead were policemen.
Syrians stands in front their restaurant after a twin suicide bombing struck the Al-Marja Square in Damascus

Syrians stands in front their restaurant after a twin suicide bombing struck the Al-Marja Square in Damascus

Activists said one of the explosions took place inside a police station, killing several officers

Syrian state TV quoted a security official as saying 14 people died in explosions caused by two 'terrorist' suicide bombers near a police station in the bustling Marjeh Square in the heart of the capital.

The official said another 31 were wounded.

The state-TV Ikhbariya TV station showed footage of broken shop facades and mangled cars in the central square as ambulance workers were seen carrying the wounded on stretchers.

The attacks in the capital are the first since government troops, backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, captured Qusair, a strategic town in the central province of Homs, the linchpin linking Damascus with the regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast.

Following the capture of Qusair, Syrian state-run media and the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV have said the regime is preparing an offensive reportedly named Operation Northern Storm to recapture Aleppo.

[Magda Hassan]

The US is to supply direct military aid to the Syrian opposition for the first time, the White House has announced.
President Obama made the decision after his administration concluded Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad were using chemical weapons, a spokesman said.
Ben Rhodes did not give details about the military aid other than to say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before".
The US had warned any use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line".
The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says the US announcement is one that the Syrian opposition has been pushing and praying for for months.

Analysis

Ian Pannell, BBC News, Washington
America now believes that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have used small quantities of chemical weapons, apparently crossing President Obama's "red line". After the experience of Iraq, many will question this until the "evidence" is made public. The BBC investigated one of these incidents, and establishing proof beyond doubt is extremely difficult.
The US says it will now increase "military support" to the armed opposition led by Gen Idris. What we do not know is whether that means providing weapons.
If the US does and the objective is to press President Assad to attend peace talks, that will be a difficult and lengthy task while Iran and Hezbollah actively bolster Damascus. If the aim is to facilitate a military victory for the rebels, that will require a massive flow of weapons, it will further regionalise the conflict, and will undoubtedly lead to even more death.

It seems clear that President Obama has finally been persuaded, as Britain and France have argued, that the battlefield cannot be allowed to tilt strongly in the regime's favour, as is currently happening, he adds.
Washington's "clear" statement was welcomed by Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
"Urgent that Syria regime should let UN investigate all reports of chemical weapons use," he said on his official Twitter feed.
But a spokesperson for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the BBC that he remained against "any further militarisation" of the conflict in Syria, saying the people there need peace not more weapons.
'High confidence'
Mr Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr Obama, said the US intelligence community believed the "Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times over the last year".
He said intelligence officials had a "high confidence" in their assessment, and also estimated that 100 to 150 people had died from chemical weapons attacks, "however, casualty data is likely incomplete".
Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

The President has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has"

Ben Rhodes US Deputy National Security Adviser

• Audio statement from Ben Rhodes
  
• Text statement from Ben Rhodes
  

"We have consistently said the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses red lines that have existed in the international community for decades," Mr Rhodes said.
Mr Rhodes said President Obama had made the decision to increase assistance, including "military support", to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and Syrian Opposition Coalition.
He did not give details of the aid, but administration officials have been quoted by US media as saying it will most likely include sending small arms and ammunition.
The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that Washington could provide anti-tank weapons.
Syria's rebels have been calling for both anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington is also considering a no-fly zone inside Syria, possibly near the border with Jordan, that would protect refugees and rebels who are training there.
When asked whether Mr Obama would back a no-fly zone over Syria, Mr Rhodes said one would not make a "huge difference" on the ground - but would be costly.
He said further actions would be taken "on our own timeline."
The CIA is expected to co-ordinate delivery of the military equipment and train the rebel soldiers on how to use it.
Until now, the US has limited its help to rebel forces by providing rations and medical supplies.
Mr Rhodes said the White House hoped the increased support would bolster the effectiveness and legitimacy of both the political and military arms of Syria's rebels, and said the US was "comfortable" working with SMC chief Gen Salim Idris.

What is sarin?

• One of a group of nerve agents invented by German scientists as part of Hitler's preparations for World War II
  
• Huge secret stockpiles built up by superpowers during Cold War
  
• 20 times more deadly than cyanide: A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a person
  
• Called "the poor man's atomic bomb" due to large number of people that can be killed by a small amount
  
• Kills by crippling the nervous system through blocking the action of an enzyme
  
• Can only be manufactured in a laboratory
  
• Very dangerous to manufacture
  

• Syria's chemical weapons stockpile
  

"It's been important to work through them while aiming to isolate some of the more extremist elements of the opposition, such as al-Nusra," he said.
A senior pro-Kremlin politician in Russia - an ally of Syria - said US claims of the Assad government's use of chemical weapons were "fabricated".
Likening it to when the US wrongly claimed Saddam Hussein held chemical weapons in Iraq, Alexei Pushkov, head of lower house of parliament foreign affairs committee, tweeted: "Obama is taking the same path as George Bush."
'Long overdue'
The US decision marks a significant escalation of the proxy war that has been gathering pace in Syria, our Beirut correspondent says.
The support of the West's regional allies, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, had helped the rebels in the days after the uprising became militarised.
But the tide turned after the Assad government turned to Moscow and Tehran for help. Hezbollah fighters have also been involved in the government's counter-offensive.
Now the West is lining up to try and help the rebels, but that is likely to take many months with more bloodshed and destruction, our correspondent adds.
UK and French leaders have long argued that President Bashar al-Assad must be made to realise that he cannot secure a military victory against his opponents and must be forced to the negotiating table, according to BBC political editor Nick Robinson.
The White House announcement immediately shook up the ongoing debate in Washington DC over how the US might provide assistance to the rebels.
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been particularly strident in their calls for military aid, said the finding must change US policy in Syria. They called for further action, saying US credibility was on the line.
"A decision to provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to opposition forces in Syria is long overdue, and we hope the president will take this urgently needed step," they said in a joint statement.

"But providing arms alone is not sufficient. The president must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad's ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air."
The White House announcement came on the same day the United Nations said the number of those killed in the Syrian conflict had risen to more than 93,000 people.
A UN report released on Thursday found at least 5,000 people have been dying in Syria every month since last July, with 30,000 killed since November.

More than 80% of those killed were men, but the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says it has also documented the deaths of more than 1,700 children under the age of 10.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22899289

[David Guyatt]

Yep, Uncle's chosen fig-leaf soldiers were getting their arses kicked by Assad's boys, so it's time to step in big time and save they day.

Syria is going down, is the message Owarma is sending.

Then it only leaves the big one, Iran.

[Jan Klimkowski]

More "dodgy dossiers"?

Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said US officials had briefed Russia on the allegations against Assad. "But I will say frankly that what was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing," he said. "It would be hard even to call them facts."

Russia dismisses US claims of Syrian chemical weapons use

Moscow says evidence it has been shown 'does not look convincing', and cautions US against arming Syrian rebels

Miriam Elder in Moscow and Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 June 2013 14.29 BST

Vladimir Putin with his foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov. Photograph: Butsenko Anton/Corbis

Russia has dismissed US assertions that Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people, and said any US move to arm Syrian rebels would jeopardise efforts to convene a peace conference.

Responding to White House moves to broaden its military support for the forces lined up against Assad's regime, the Kremlin said it was not convinced by the pretext for doing so.

Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said US officials had briefed Russia on the allegations against Assad. "But I will say frankly that what was presented to us by the Americans does not look convincing," he said. "It would be hard even to call them facts."

The White House said late on Thursday that it would supply direct military aid to Syria's rebels after concluding that government forces had used chemical weapons, something Barack Obama has called a "red line".

David Cameron told the Guardian on Friday that Britain shared the Americans' "candid assessment".

In Damascus, Syrian officials denounced the US verdict as a "caravan of lies" and said Washington's decision to arm the rebels was a "flagrant double standard" in its dealings with terrorism.

"The White House … relied on fabricated information in order to hold the Syrian government responsible for using these weapons, despite a series of statements that confirmed that terrorist groups in Syria have chemical weapons," the foreign ministry said.

Russia has consistently obstructed US-led attempts to bring sanctions against Assad's regime for the bloody conflict that has resulted in almost 100,000 deaths in Syria, and millions of people displaced. Officials say they do not support Assad and are merely against foreign intervention on principle, but Moscow has continued to supply arms and other aid to Assad as his last major ally alongside Iran.

The issue of arming the rebels has taken on extra urgency in recent days as pro-Assad forces are believed to be moving towards Aleppo, Syria's second city, for a possible showdown with rebel forces that could change the course of the two-year conflict. Heavy fighting was reported in Aleppo on Friday morning.

It remains unclear exactly what weaponry the Americans might supply. Senator John McCain, one of the strongest proponents of US military action in Syria, said he was told on Thursday that Obama had decided to "provide arms to the rebels". Officials told the Associated Press that details were being finalised but that the weapons might include small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired remote-propelled grenades and other missiles.

The CIA was expected to be tasked with teaching the rebels how to use the weapons, AP reported. The New York Times gave a similar outline of the arms involved and said anti-aircraft munitions, hotly sought after by the rebels, were not under consideration. Syrian rebel groups have repeatedly called for both anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

Analysts suggested that the US might step up the intelligence effort in Syria and possibly use groups of special forces to advise and train rebel groups rather than intervene overtly with military force.

There is deep concern in British military and intelligence circles about the prospect of direct US military intervention in Syria. Even establishing no-fly zones or "safe areas" would be extremely risky and lead to confrontation with Syrian forces, observers warned.

"There is no political appetite for it, in Washington or in London, and even Paris has gone quiet," said Brigadier Ben Barry, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Russia has insisted on a diplomatic solution, but an international peace conference announced by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has been plagued by disagreements from the start, including over Russian demands that Iran attends the talks.

Ushakov said US pledges of military aid to the opposition would further complicate attempts to convene a conference. "If the Americans … carry out more wide-scale aid to the rebels and opposition, it will not make organising the international conference easier," he said.

The Russian foreign ministry reiterated that position in a statement released on Friday, but said it remained committed to holding an international peace conference. It said US arms deliveries to the rebels would "drive up the level of violent confrontation and violence against innocent civilians".

[Magda Hassan]

Russian MP Accuses U.S. Of Fabricating Syrian Chemical Weapons Report

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/14/2013 07:50 -0400
Following yesterday's "news" that the US is rerunning the Iraq invasion script has been busy collecting made up solid evidence proving the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, which it would use as a basis for yet another foreign intervention including a no-fly zone and arming the Syrian rebels (just to accelerate the passage of a Qatari natgas pipeline into Europe, bypassing Gazprom, and installing another puppet Muslim Brotherhood government in the Mid-East), the entire world waited with bated breath to learn what Russia's response, and remember to Russia Syria is a key geopolitical outpost and critical national interest, to US allegations would be.
The wait was short-lived. As Novosti reports at least someone, somewhere has had the guts to call out this farce of an intervention from an official standpoint: "A US government report concluding Syria has used chemical weapons against rebels, crossing what US President Barack Obama has previously described as a "red line," is a fabrication, a senior Russian lawmaker said Friday. "Information about the usage of chemical weapons by Assad is fabricated in the same way as the lie about Hussein's weapons of mass destruction." Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, said on Twitter.
The truth-telling continues:

President Obama "is going the same way" as former President George W. Bush did then, Pushkov said.

Pushkov is known for also being quite a truth-teller in the past. From June of 2012:

I think that what we had been hearing from the US is very partial. Somehow the US thinks that the only source of civil war in Syria is the government, which is not the case. There are 33 thousand people who are fighting the Syrian government, and they're fighting the Syrian government with heavy weapons, not just Kalashnikovs and pistols. It's heavy machine guns, it's anti-tank guns and all of this armament was on display when a ship coming from Libya full of US weapons was arrested in Lebanon. On the photos you can see what kind of armament was sent to the insurgents. It's Syrian force which has been trained outside of Syria.Some of them are really professional fighters. There's some information about people who have been fighting in Libya, now are fighting on the side of the insurgents. I think that the US had better look at what kind of people they try to support there and what these people will bring to Damascus. Until now Syria was a secular country where different ethnicities and different religious factions were living in peace and for many years, - that's very valuable. You have Christians, Sunnis, Alawis, Druze, Kurds and quite a few other groups. And if all of this explodes, I don't think that we'll have 10 thousand victims, we'll have maybe 100 thousand victims. Russia wants to prevent this explosion. What we hear from our Western partners is that Assad should go and they are willing to support the insurgency. But supporting the insurgency, they are basically throwing oil into the flame. That is why Russia suggested having international conference where we can try to find the solution that would be proposed to both sides in the Syrian conflict. The key Russian position is that we are ready to influence Assad's government, but the West should influence the insurgents. Otherwise it will not work out.

Do you think that the Western media was unfairly portraying Russia?

I think one of the reasons the West has been so critical about Russia in the Syrian issue is that the West doesn't have the policy at all towards Syria. I'm not pretending that Russia has the answers, but Russia fulfills a very important role for the Western media. By this could not criticize their own governments for not having any kind of solutions. Because the only political program the West has is that Assad should go. OK, what happens after Assad goes? How the regime falls? Who will come in its place?

Is Russia prepared for that situation?

Russia is ready to look for answers together with Western countries. And we don't accept this kind of criticism. And we don't accept this kind of mythology that insurgents are poor foreign people.Because we know very well that they have been financed and armed by monarchies of the Persian Gulf. They don't even hide this fact and I hardly see a situation where democracy in Syria will be established with the help of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

And finally there have been some accusation that Russian foreign policy towards Syria is driven by its business interests. How do you respond to that?

I think that the most important thing is not business. Syria doesn't play such a huge role in Russian foreign trade. The key factor in the Russian position is a very clear stand against the so-called regime change, against the so-called humanitarian intervention. We think that the Libyan example showed that these kinds of interventions lead to chaos and to the creation of a parallel international law: when you have a UN charter and at the same time you have some kind of parallel law which is being conducted by either friends of Syria or the Coalition of the Willing, something which goes around the UN rules or charters. We don't want to accept a world where there would be another international law instead of internationally accepted one. Syria is just a very serious example of the Russian desire to fight for international law which is universally accepted.

Ah, the new normal: when Russia is telling the truth, and the USSA is openly lying.
Things will get more interesting when instead of using a proxy to tell the world how he feels, Putin actually takes the microphone in one of his signature brutally candid exposes. Also being former KGB, who knows just what revelations he may bring to the table regarding claims of prior "humanitarian" US interventions around the world, liberating so much crude oil from the heathen natives.
Things will get most interesting when the Russian armada currently stationed in Cyprus and swimming around in the Mediterranean, decides to park in the Russian naval base in Tartus. Because last we checked it was a no-fly zone, not a no-sail zone...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-14...ons-report

[Adele Edisen]

Weekend Edition June 14-16, 2013

The End of Syria as We Know It?

Why Obama is Declaring War on Syria

by FRANKLIN LAMB

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/14/w...-on-syria/

Beirut.

The short answer is Iran and Hezbollah according to Congressional sources. "The Syrian army's victory at al-Qusayr was more than the administration could accept given that town's strategic position in the region. Its capture by the Assad forces has essentially added Syria to Iran's list of victories starting with Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, as well as its growing influence in the Gulf."

Other sources are asserting that Obama actually did not want to invoke direct military aid the rebels fighting to topple the Assad government or even to make use of American military power in Syria for several reasons. Among these are the lack of American public support for yet another American war in the Middle East, the fact that there appears to be no acceptable alternative to the Assad government on the horizon, the position of the US intelligence community and the State Department and Pentagon that intervention in Syria would potentially turn out very badly for the US and gut what's left of its influence in the region. It short, that the US getting involved in Syria could turn out even worse than Iraq, by intensifying a regional sectarian war without any positive outcome in sight.

Obama was apparently serious earlier about a negotiated diplomatic settlement pre-Qusayr and there were even some positives signs coming from Damascus, Moscow, and even Tehran John Kerry claimed. But that has changed partly because Russia and the US have both hardened their demands. Consequently, the Obama administration has now essentially thrown in the towel on the diplomatic track. This observer was advised by more than one Congressional staffer that Obama's team has concluded that the Assad government was not getting their message or taking them seriously and that Assad's recent military gains and rising popular support meant that a serious Geneva II initiative was not going to happen.

In addition, Obama has been weakened recently by domestic politics and a number of distractions and potential scandals not least of which is the disclosures regarding the massive NSA privacy invasion. In addition, the war lobby led by Senators McClain and Lindsay Graham is still pounding their drums and claim that Obama would be in violation of his oath of office and by jeopardizing the national security interest of the United States by allowing Iran to essentially own Syria once Assad quells the uprising." Both Senators welcomed the chemical weapons assessment. For months they have been saying that Obama has not been doing enough to help the rebels. "U.S. credibility is on the line," they said in a joint statement this week. "Now is not the time to merely take the next incremental step. Now is the time for more decisive actions," they said, such as using long-range missiles to degrade Assad's air power and missile capabilities. Another neo-con, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) said the opposition forces risk defeat without heavier weapons, but he also warned that may not be enough. "The U.S. should move swiftly to shift the balance on the ground in Syria by considering grounding the Syrian air force with stand-off weapons and protecting a safe zone in northern Syria with Patriot missiles in Turkey," Casey said.

According to some analysts, Obama could alternatively authorize the arming and training of the Syrian opposition in Jordan without a no-fly zone. That appears unlikely according to this observers Washington interlocutors because the Pentagon wants to end the Syrian crisis by summers end, the observer was advised "rather than working long term with a motley bunch of jihadists who we could never trust or rely on. The administration has come to the conclusion apparently that if they are in for a penny they are in for a pound, meaning would not allow Iran to control Syria and Hezbollah to pocket Lebanon."

Secretary of State Kerry had meetings with more than two dozen military specialists on 5/13/13. The Washington Post is reporting that Kerry believes supplying the rebels with weapons might be too little and too late to actually flip the balance on the Syrian ground and this calls "for a military strike to paralyze Al-Assad's military capacities." A Pentagon source reported that the USA, France, and Britain are considering a decisive decision to reverse the current Assad momentum and quickly construct one in favor of the rebels" within a time period not exceeding the end of this summer.

Shortly after the meetings began, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia quickly returned to Saudi Arabia from his palace at Casa Blanca, Morocco after receiving a call from his intelligence chief, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. Bander reportedly had a representative at the White House during the meetings with President Obama's team. King Abdullah was reportedly advised by Kerry to be prepared for a rapid expansion of the growing regional conflict.

What happens between now and the end of summer is likely to be catastrophic for the Syrian public and perhaps Lebanon. The "chemical weapons-red line" is not taken seriously on Capitol Hill for the reason that the same "inclusive evidence" of months ago is the same that is suddenly being cited to justify what may become essentially an all-out war against the Syrian government and anyone who gets in the way. Hand wringing over the loss of 125 lives due to chemical weapons, whoever did use them, pales in comparison to the more 50,000 additional lives that will be lost in the coming months, a figure that Pentagon planners and the White House have "budgeted" as the price of toppling the Assad government.

"We are going to see a rapid escalation of the conflict", a staffer on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee emailed this observer: "The president has made a decision to give whatever humanitarian aid, as well as political and diplomatic support to the opposition that in necessary. Additionally direct support to the (Supreme Military Council), will be provided and that includes military support." The staffer quoted the words of Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes to the media on 5/13/13 to the same effect.

A part of this "humanitarian assistance" the US is going to established in the coming weeks a "limited, humanitarian no-fly zone, that will begin along several miles of the Jordanian and Turkish borders in certain military areas into Syrian territory, and would be set up and presented as a limited bid to train and equip rebel forces and protect refugees. But in reality, as we saw in Libya a Syrian no fly zone would very likely include all of Syria.

Libya's no-fly zones made plain that there is no such thing as a "limited zone". Put briefly, a "no-fly zone" means essentially a declaration of all-out war. Once the US and its allies start a no fly zone they will expand it and intensify it as they take countless other military actions to protect its zones until the Syrian government falls. "It's breathtaking to contemplate how this in going to end and how Iran and Russia will respond," one source concluded.

The White House is trying to assuage the few in Congress as well as a majority of the American public that it can be a limited American involved and that the no-fly zone would not require the destruction of Syrian antiaircraft batteries. This is more nonsense. During the no-fly zone I witnessed from Libya in the summer of 2011 the US backed it up with all manner of refueling, electronic jamming, special-ops on the ground and by mid-July a kid peddling his bike was not safe. Over the 192 days of patrolling the Libyan no-fly zones, NATO countries flew 24,682 sorties including 9,204 bomb strike sorties. NATO claimed it never missed its target but that was also not true. Hundreds of civilians were killed in Libya by no-fly zone attack aircraft that either missed their targets and emptied their bomb bays before returning to base while conducting approximately 48 bombing strikes per day using a variety of bombs and missiles, including more than 350 cruise Tomahawks.

At a Congressional hearing in 2011, then US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates got it right when he explained which discussing Libya "a no-fly zone begins with an attack to destroy all the air defenses … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. But that's the way it starts."

According to the accounts published in American media, Obama could alternatively authorize the arming and training of the Syrian opposition in Jordan without a no-fly zone. That appears unlikely because the Pentagon wants to end the Syrian crisis by summers end, the observer was advised "rather than working long term with a motley bunch of jihadists who we could never trust or rely on. The administration has come to the conclusion apparently that if they are in for a penny they are in for a pound."

In response to a question from this observer about how he thought event might unfold in this region over the coming months, a very insightful long-term congressional aid replied: "Well Franklin, maybe someone will pull a rabbit out of the hat to stop the push for war. But frankly I doubt it. From where I sit I'd wager that Syria as we have known it may soon be no more. And perhaps some other countries in the region also."

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com


Adele (Not the first time we've gone to war on false pretenses - WMDs in Iraq, et cetera)

[Adele Edisen]

Sarin Gas Use Doubted
Experts Don't See Evidence

By Matthew Schofield

While the use of such a weapons is always possible, they've yet to see the telltale
signs of a sarin gas attack, despite months of scrutiny.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e35294.htm [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001bMnXgDU2-...NZvcb6vk=]


Sarin Gas Use Doubted
Experts Don't See Evidence

By Matthew Schofield
McClatchy Washington Bureau

June 15, 2013 "Information Clearing House - ----- WASHINGTON Chemical weapons experts voiced skepticism Friday about U.S. claims that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad had used the nerve agent sarin against rebels on at least four occasions this spring, saying that while the use of such a weapons is always possible, they've yet to see the telltale signs of a sarin gas attack, despite months of scrutiny.

"It's not unlike Sherlock Holmes and the dog that didn't bark," said Jean Pascal Zanders, a leading expert on chemical weapons who until recently was a senior research fellow at the European Union's Institute for Security Studies. "It's not just that we can't prove a sarin attack; it's that we're not seeing what we would expect to see from a sarin attack."

Foremost among those missing items, Zanders said, are cellphone photos and videos of the attacks or the immediate aftermath.

"In a world where even the secret execution of Saddam Hussein was taped by someone, it doesn't make sense that we don't see videos, that we don't see photos, showing bodies of the dead, and the reddened faces and the bluish extremities of the affected," he said.

Other experts said that while they were willing to give the U.S. intelligence community the benefit of the doubt, the Obama administration has yet to offer details of what evidence it has and how it obtained it.

White House foreign policy adviser Benjamin Rhodes gave dates and places for the alleged attacks March 19 in the Aleppo suburb of

Khan al-Assal; April 13 in the Aleppo neighborhood of Shaykh Maqsud; May 14 in Qasr Abu Samrah in Homs province, and May 23 in Adra, east of Damascus. But he provided no details of the fighting that was taking place or the number of dead.

"Ultimately, without more information, we are left with the need to trust the integrity of the U.S. intelligence community in arriving at its 'high confidence' judgment," Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said in an email. While he said that "my guess is they have it right," he also noted that the White House statement was "carefully and prudentially worded" and acknowledged the lack of a "continuous chain of custody for the physiological samples from those exposed to sarin."

"It does not eliminate all doubt in my mind," he said.

Philip Coyle, a senior scientist at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, said that without hard, public evidence, it's difficult for experts to assess the validity of the administration's statement. He added that from what is known, what happened doesn't look like a series of sarin attacks to him.

"Without blood samples, it's hard to know," he said. "But I admit I hope there isn't a blood sample, because I'm still hopeful that sarin has not been used."

Even a proponent of the United States providing military assistance to the rebels raised doubts about the possible motive for announcing the chemical weapons conclusion.

In a passionate argument for U.S. involvement in Syria, Anthony Cordesman, a security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, wrote Friday that "the 'discovery' that Syria used chemical weapons might be a political ploy." The phrase was in an article that described strong strategic and humanitarian reasons for involvement in the crisis, particularly the recent involvement of the Lebanese group Hezbollah on the side of Assad.

Chemical weapons have been a focus of discussion in Syria ever since the day in August 2012 when President Barack Obama announced that the use of such weapons was a "red line" that would trigger possible U.S. military involvement. Since then, rebels have reported the likely use of chemical agents on dozens of occasions with varying degrees of credibility.

Only one detailed independent report of a chemical attack has surfaced in that time, however a lengthy report in the French newspaper Le Monde last month that triggered both French and British letters to the United Nations.

Zanders, however, said that much about that report bears questioning. Photos and a video accompanying the report showed rebel fighters preparing for chemical attacks by wearing gas masks. Sarin is absorbed through the skin, and even small amounts can kill within minutes.

He also expressed skepticism about the article's description of the lengthy route victims of chemical attacks had to travel to get to treatment, winding through holes in buildings, down streets under heavy fire, before arriving at remote buildings hiding hospitals.

Zanders, who also has headed the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and was director of the Geneva-based BioWeapons Prevention Project, noted that had sarin been the chemical agent in use, the victims would have been dead long before they reached doctors for treatment.

Zanders also said he's skeptical of sarin use because there have been no reports of medical personnel or rescuers dying from contact with victims. Residue from sarin gas would be expected to linger on victims and would infect those helping, who often are shown in rebel video wearing no more protection than paper masks.

Le Monde reported that one doctor treated a victim with atropine, which is appropriate for sarin poisoning. But that doctor said he gave his patient 15 shots of atropine in quick succession, which Zanders said could have killed him almost as surely as sarin.

©2013 McClatchy Washington Bureau

Adele

[Jan Klimkowski]

PM Cameron gets more than he bargained for as President Putin states in a live press conference:

"The blood is on the hands of both parties. There is always a question as to who is to blame for that. One should hardly back those who kill their enemies and eat their organs," he said, referring to an incident when a rebel fighter was filmed taking a bite out of an organ he had cut out of the body of a dead Syrian soldier.

Invoking organ eating jihadists, when they're the West's democracy-loving freedom fighters, just isn't cricket, old boy...

Putin backs Assad and warns west against arming Syrian rebels

Russian president says backing 'those who kill their enemies and eat their organs' flouts Europe's humanitarian values


Press Association
The Guardian, Sunday 16 June 2013 19.22 BST

David Cameron, left, with Russia's President Vladimir Putin after they held talks in Downing Street on differences over the Syrian crisis. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, issued a blunt warning to the west tonight not to arm Syrian rebels who "eat the organs" of their enemies.

Following talks in Downing Street with David Cameron, he said the brutal behaviour of the rebels was inconsistent with the "humanitarian and cultural values" of Europe. While he strongly defended the supply of arms by Moscow to the "legitimate" government of the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, he stressed that he wanted to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

He believed the G8 summit, starting on Monday in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland, was "one of the most appropriate means" to seek an end to the conflict.

At a joint news conference, Cameron acknowledged there were big differences between them on who was to blame for the conflict but insisted they could be overcome.

Putin, who has made no secret of his opposition to US president Barack Obama's plans to send arms to the rebels, was unsparing when he was asked about previous comments by Cameron that those who armed the regime had "the blood of the children of Syria" on their hands.

"The blood is on the hands of both parties. There is always a question as to who is to blame for that. One should hardly back those who kill their enemies and eat their organs," he said, referring to an incident when a rebel fighter was filmed taking a bite out of an organ he had cut out of the body of a dead Syrian soldier.

"It is hardly in relation to the humanitarian and cultural values Europe has been professing for centuries."

Putin has also reacted sceptically to evidence produced by Britain, France and the US that the regime has used chemical weapons crossing Obama's "red line" for intervention.

Cameron has welcomed Obama's announcement, although he has yet to decide whether to follow the president's lead on supplying arms to the rebels.

However, he said Britain would continue to offer non-lethal support to what he called the genuine opposition, saying it was vital to bolster the democratic elements against the extremists.

"Yes, there are elements of the Syrian opposition that are deeply unsavoury, that are very dangerous, very extremist and I want nothing to do with them. I'd like them driven out of Syria they're linked to al-Qaida," he said in an interview with Sky News's Murnaghan programme.

"But there are elements of the Syrian opposition who want to see a free democratic, pluralistic Syria that respects the rights of minorities including Christians, and we should be working with them we are working with them.

"If we don't work with those elements of the Syrian opposition, then we can't be surprised if the only elements of the Syrian opposition that are getting, that are actually making any progress in Syria, are the ones that we don't approve of.

"After all, they are trying to defend their communities against appalling attacks, including, let's be clear, chemical weapon attacks. President Assad is now guilty of the most appalling crimes against his people 90,000 people dead and some of them through the use of appalling chemical weapons."

Even if Cameron were to decide that Britain should start supplying arms, he may find his path blocked in the face of strong opposition in parliament across all three main parties.

The prime minister again reaffirmed the commitment wrung out of him by Tory rebels that he would give MPs a vote if he decided Britain should arm the Syrian opposition.

"I think parliament should have a say about these things. I can't really go further than that," he said.

Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasurer, indicated the Liberal Democrats were likely to be wary about arming the rebels.

"Speaking personally and as a Liberal Democrat, the test I would apply is, is any proposed action actually going to make a difference? I don't think the case is proven yet," he told Channel 4 News.

"We are going to debate that in the government over the coming weeks and we will see what conclusion we reach."