A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Danny Jarman]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/13/...-intl-law/

Russia warns UK against sending weapons to militants in Syria

"Arming the opposition is in breach of international law," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his British counterpart William Hague in London on Wednesday.

The conference was also attended by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his British counterpart Philip Hammond.

"International law does not allow, does not permit supplies of arms to non-governmental actors and in our point of view it is a violation of international law," Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister reiterated that it is only up to Syrians to decide the future of their nation.

He also rejected any chance of Moscow pressuring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad into stepping down.

Lavrov made the remarks one day after British Prime Minister David Cameron said London would mull ignoring a European Union arms embargo on Syria in order to pave the way for sending weapons to the militants fighting against the government.

On March 8, the Russian diplomat said Moscow is opposed to any preconditions to halt the ongoing turmoil in Syria since his country's top priority is to save lives.

Lavrov said those who say Assad must disappear before the start of any talks have a different priority than the lives of the Syrian people.

On March 11, a member of Syria's opposition bloc, known as the National Coalition, held talks with Lavrov in Moscow in an effort to persuade Russia to back calls for Assad's resignation.

Many people, including large numbers of security personnel, have lost their lives in the foreign-backed unrest that erupted in Syria in March 2011.

The problem is that international law is so hard to implement against the ruling powers, they can act with near impunity.

[Magda Hassan]

All the witnesses that I saw interviewed in the hospitals all said the chemical weapons came from the 'rebels' and not the government.

FIRST ON CNN: US intel not seeing signs chemical weapons were used in Syria

By Barbara Starr
Initial U.S. intelligence suggests Syria did not use chemical weapons in a strike earlier this week, CNN has been told by U.S. officials.
The officials emphasized this is a preliminary conclusion and the investigation continues.
U.S. analysts are "leaning hard away" from the notion that Syria used chemical weapons against its own people, a military official directly familiar with the preliminary analysis tells CNN.
There are "multiple indicators" for this emerging conclusion, a second official said.
That official told CNN, "there are strong indications now that chemical weapons were not used by the regime in recent days."
The official would not specify what those indications are, but said it points to the emerging U.S. conclusion that "weaponized chemical agents" were not used.
Analysis of a video of hospitalized Syrians suggests that it does not appear people are suffering from a chemical weapons attack or being treated as though they were in such an attack, according to the military official.
"The actions in the video don't match up to a chemical weapons response," the first official said.
Though the official noted that Syrian hospitals may have a shortage of the supplies that would be expected to be used in such an attack.
Analysts believe its possible the people in the video were deliberately exposed to, or in some fashion hit with "'caustic"' agent such as chlorine. But that would not be the same as using a chemical weapons, as defined by international treaties, such as a nerve or blister agent that cause hideous suffering and often death.
There is also no NATO or U.S. radar or satellite intelligence indicating the launch of a SCUD missile at the time of the attack, according to the military official
"The fact that it's not a weapon doesn't mean it's not some creative use of a caustic agent," the first official said.
Officials say this is an emerging conclusion and there still may be more intelligence that will come to light.
They are specifically noting, however, that the regime may have deliberately exposed people to large quantities of chemicals such chlorine that could cause symptoms and illness, but that is technically different that the weapons that President Barack Obama has called a "red line'" if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were to use them in a mass casualty attack.
CNN's Richard Roth, Chelsea Carter, Amir Ahmed, Joe Sterling, Hamdi Alkhshali and Barbara Starr contrib
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/21...-in-syria/

[Jan Klimkowski]

All the witnesses that I saw interviewed in the hospitals all said the chemical weapons came from the 'rebels' and not the government.

Yup, but that "narrative" is forbidden.

The official line must remain that: the west's "freedom fighters" and "young democrats" do not use chemical weapons.

[Adele Edisen]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...dium=email


Obama Unleashes Dogs of War in Syria

By Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR

March 26, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - The smoke screen given to the United States President Barack Obama's visit to Israel has lifted. But then, no one really bought the thesis that it was a mere kiss-and-make-up visit aimed at improving Obama's personal chemistry with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that prompted the US president to jet down to the Middle East in a rare overseas trip.

The expose came dramatically at the fag end of the visit just as Obama was about to get into the presidential jet at Tel Aviv airport on Friday. Right on the tarmac, from a makeshift trailer, he dialed up Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and after a brief exchange of pleasantries, he handed the phone to Netanyahu who thereupon went on to do what he had adamantly refused to do for the past two years render a formal apology to Turkey over the killing of nine of its nationals in 2010 who were travelling in a flotilla on a humanitarian mission to help the beleaguered Palestinians in the Gaza enclave.

The Gaza incident had ripped apart Turkish-Israeli relations and things deteriorated sharply when Tel Aviv point blank refused to render an apology and pay compensation, as Ankara demanded. This is probably the first time in its entire diplomatic history that Israel, which pays much attention to its «macho» image, went down on its knees to render a national apology to a foreign country for sins committed. But then, the breakdown in ties with Israel left Israel stranded and helpless in the region, reduced to the role of a mere spectator at a historic juncture when the region is going through an upheaval.

The alliance with Turkey is vital to Israel to safeguard its core interests. In his statement welcoming the Turkish-Israeli reconciliation, US secretary of state pointedly said that the development "will help Israel meet the many challenges it faces in the region" and a full normalization between the two counties will enable them to "work together to advance their common interests".

The telephone conversation at Tel Aviv airport didn't happen all of a sudden. In a background story, senior Turkish editor Murat Yetkin who is a well-informed commentator in Ankara disclosed that according to "high-ranking sources", Washington had approached Ankara a few weeks ago with the demarche that Obama wished to work on a rapprochement between Erdogan and Netanyahu and hoped to utilize his Israeli visit as a mediatory mission. Yetkin wrote:

As Ankara said they could accept the good offices of the U.S. to have an agreement with Israel, based on an apology, the diplomacy started. Before the start of Obama's visit on March 20, diplomatic drafts about the terms of a possible agreement started to go back and forth between Ankara and Jerusalem under the auspices of U.S. diplomacy.

Tell tale signs

The big question is why has Turkish-Israeli normalization become so terribly important for Obama who has his hands full with so many problem areas and, equally, for Erdogan and Netanyahu as well? The answer is to be found in the testimony given by the head of US European Command and NATO's top military commander Adm. James Stavridis before the US Senate Armed Services Committee last Monday on the eve of Obama's departure from Washington for Israel.

Stavridis advised the US lawmakers that a more aggressive posture by the US and its allies could help break the stalemate in Syria. As he put it, "My personal opinion is that would be helpful in breaking the deadlock and bringing down the [Syrian] regime." The influential US senator John McCain pointedly queried Stavridis about the possible role of NATO in an intervention in Syria. Stavridis replied that the NATO is preparing for a range of contingencies. "We [NATO] are looking at a wide range of operations and we are prepared if called upon to be engaged we were in Libya," he said.

Stavridis went on to explain that the NATO Patriot missiles now deployed in Turkey ostensibly for the sake of defending Turkish airspace has the capability also to attack Syrian air force in that country's air space and that any such a NATO operation would be a "powerful disincentive" for the Syrian regime.

Equally significant is that the NATO warships of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 [SNMGI], which arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean in late February, visited the Turkish naval base of Aksaz (where Turkey's Southern Task Group maintains special units such as «underwater attack») recently, en route to joining last week the US Strike Group consisting of the Aircraft Carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and escorts. The SNMGI forms part of the NATO Response Force, which is permanently activated and is held at high readiness in order to respond to security challenges.

Thus, the picture that emerges alongside other tell tale signs lately is that a western military intervention in Syria could be in the making. A major consideration could be the timing. Iran is preparing for a crucial presidential election in June and will be heavily preoccupied with its domestic politics for the coming several months thereafter.

Obama is moving carefully factoring in that any commitment of US troops on the ground in Syria is out of the question. The US public opinion will militate against another war. But the US and NATO (and Israel) can give valuable air cover and can launch devastating missile attacks on the Syrian government's command centres.

The western powers would focus on eliminating President Bashar al-Assad rather than display shock and awe and physically occupy the country, as George W. Bush unwisely did in the Iraq war. However, after degrading the regime comprehensively, if ground forces need to be deployed inside Syria, Turkey can always undertake such a mission. In fact, Turkey is uniquely placed undertake that mission, being a Muslim country belonging to NATO.

However, the crucial operational aspect will be that in order for the US-NATO-Turkish operation to be optimal, Israel also needs to be brought in. A close cooperation between Turkey and Israel at the operational level can be expected to swiftly pulverize the Syrian regime from the north and south simultaneously. Hence the diligence with which Obama moved to heal the Turkish-Israeli rift.

Turkey of course has strong motivations historical, political, military and economic to invade Syria with which it has ancient scores to settle. The Baa'thist regime in Damascus never accepted Turkish hegemony in the Levant and a strong and assertive Syria has been a thorn in the Turkish flesh. Besides, there are simmering territorial claims.

For Israel too, the comprehensive destruction of Syria as a major military power in the Middle East means that all three major Arab powers which could offer defiance to Israel in the past and have been the repositories of "Arabism" at one time or another Iraq, Egypt and Syria have been dispatched to the Stone Age.

But the revival of Turkish-Israeli strategic axis has other major implications as well for regional security. From Erdogan's point of view, he has thoroughly milked the last ounce, politically speaking, by his grandstanding against Israel and Zionism to bolster his image in the «Arab Street» as a true Muslim leader who never lacked courage to stand up for the Arab cause.

He probably senses that Netanyahu's «apology» will boost his standing even further as a Muslim leader who made Israel blink in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. But, having said that, as an astute politician, Erdogan also would size up that henceforth the law of diminishing returns is at work and he might as well now think of seeking some help from Israel.

The point is, Erdogan is currently pushing for a negotiated deal with the Kurdish militants belonging to the PKK. Last week, it appeared that his efforts may have met with some success. The PKK leader who is incarcerated in Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan, has called for the vacation of the Kurdish militia from Turkish soil, which brings an end to the heavy bloodletting in Turkey's eastern provinces for the past year and more.

No more pretensions

A curious detail that cannot be lost sight of is that Ocalan always kept contacts with the US operatives, while Israeli intelligence always kept a strong presence in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Quite obviously, there could be a back-to-back arrangement on the PKK problem between Washington, Ankara and Tel Aviv, which would work well for all three protagonists.

It could buy peace for Turkish armed forces from the Kurdish fighters and in turn enable them to concentrate on the forthcoming Syrian operation. Turkey has traditionally depended on Israel to provide it with actionable intelligence on the Kurdish militant groups.

At a broader level, Turkish-Israeli reconciliation will help NATO's future role in the Middle East. The US hopes to introduce NATO on a long-term basis as the peacekeeper in the Levant massive energy reserves have been discovered in the Levant Basin in recent years and a prerequisite for this would be close coordination with Israel.

The NATO's efforts in the past four to five years to bring Israel into full play in Eastern Mediterranean as a virtual member country of the alliance were proceeding well until they hit the bump of the Turkish-Israeli rift in 2010. During the past two years, Turkey has doggedly blocked NATO's plans to integrate Israel into its partnership program. Ankara even prevented the NATO from extending invitation to Israel to attend the alliance's sixtieth anniversary summit in Chicago in 2010.

Suffice to say, in terms of the overall strategic balance in the Middle East, NATO's projection as a global organization capable of acting as a net provider of security for the region with or without UN mandate will be optimal only with Israel's participation.

Equally, Turkish-Israeli collaboration at the security and military level has profound implications for the Iran question. Turkey sees Iran as a rival in the Middle East while Israel regards Iran as an existential threat. Both Turkey and Israel estimate that Iran's surge as regional power poses challenge to their own long-term regional ambitions. Thus, there is a Turkish-Israeli congruence of interests at work with regard to containing Iran in the region.

The Turkish-Israeli axis can be expected to play a crucial role in the coming months if the US ever decides to attack Iran.

In sum, Obama's mediatory mission to Israel and his stunning success in healing the Turkish-Israeli rift resets the compass of Middle Eastern politics. In a way, American regional policies are returning to their pristine moorings of perpetuating the western hegemony in the Middle East in the 21st century, no matter how.

In the process, the Palestinian problem has been relegated to the backburner; Obama didn't even bother to hide that he feels no particular sense of urgency about the Middle East peace process. The resuscitation of the Turkish-Israeli strategic axis gives the unmistakable signal that the Obama administration is shifting gear for an outright intervention in Syria to force «regime change». Thereupon, the strong likelihood is that Iran will come in the US-Israeli-Turkish crosshairs...

Turbulent times indeed lie ahead for the Middle East and Obama's Israel visit will be looked upon in retrospect as a defining moment in his presidency when he cast aside conclusively and openly even his residual pretensions of being a pacifist. Indeed, he can be sure of a rare consensus in the Congress applauding his mission to Israel, which could have interesting fallouts for his domestic agenda as well. Netanyahu can help ensure that. (Bold Emphasis Mine - AE)

Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR, Former career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. Devoted much of his 3-decade long career to the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran desks in the Ministry of External Affairs and in assignments on the territory of the former Soviet Union. After leaving the diplomatic service, took to writing and contribute to The Asia Times, The Hindu and Deccan Herald. Lives in New Delhi.

Adele

[Magda Hassan]

IDF Builds Field Hospital for Syrians in Golan Heights

The IDF has built a military field hospital in the Golan Heights, according to international media reports.
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By Chana Ya'ar First Publish: 3/28/2013, 5:55 PM




Golan Heights
Israel news photo: Flash 90

The IDF has built a military field hospital in the Golan Heights, according to international media reports.
At least 11 Syrian fighters have been treated in Israel over the past month for wounds sustained in battle from the savage civil war taking place between opposition forces and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
Of those, eight were sent back to Syria, but three have remained in Israel for further treatment due to the complexity of their injuries, AFP reported Thursday.
Two Syrian fighters in their 30s were evacuated to Ziv Hospital in Tzfat on Wednesday, but later transferred to a medical center in Nahariya due to the severity of their wounds.
One of the two later died of his wounds.
Several others who were lightly wounded were treated at the border by IDF paramedics, and then released. All were residents of the Syrian-controlled area of the Golan Heights.
According to the IDF Spokesperson, the injured men were met at the border by soldiers from the Golani Brigade, who maintained heavy security around the Syrians in order to maintain their anonymity and thus ensure their safe return.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/N...VT_LTcriSo

[Magda Hassan]

Ooops! Bet this goes quiet and he is released later.

'Phoenix jihadist's' dad claims son worked in Syria for CIA

Get short URL
Published time: March 29, 2013 18:51
Edited time: March 29, 2013 19:26

As US Army veteran Eric Harroun awaits trial in Virginia for allegedly fighting alongside al-Qaeda supporters, the man's father claims he was working for the CIA and was reporting back to the agency from Syria.
Harroun, a 30-year-old American from Phoenix, Arizona, has been charged by the US government for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely a rocket propelled grenade launcher) to conduct an attack against the Syrian government. The US Army veteran dubbed by media 'Phoenix jihadist' appeared in numerous videos alongside members of the al-Nusra Front, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization in December, but which has also been fighting alongside the Syrian opposition to take down the Assad regime. To date, 29 US-backed Syrian opposition groups have linked with al-Nusra, and have signed a petition calling for the support of the Islamist group that the White House believes is a branch of al-Qaeda.

According to FBI documents, Harroun traveled to Turkey last November and joined the fight led by the Free Syrian Army shortly thereafter. His father, Darryl Harroun, on Thursday told reporters that he doesn't understand why the US government arrested his son, who he says was working for the Central Intelligence Agency.
He referred to his son as a patriotic' American who would never get involved with al-Qaeda, and claims he was gathering information for the US government.
"I know he was doing some work for the CIA over there," the man's father said. "I know for a fact that he was passing information onto the CIA."
After seeing the documents regarding his son's charges, Harroun told a CBS News reporter that it is all inaccurate and misleading and that the truth will eventually come out, since his son was simply gathering intelligence.
"About 99 percent of that stuff that you read on there is a bunch of bull," he said. "I don't think there's any truth in any of this he's very patriotic"
The CIA is known to have contributed to the opposition fighters' initiatives in Syria. Last week, the New York Times published an article describing how the agency has allegedly been helping foreign governments contribute to the Free Syrian Army. Unnamed US officials told the paper that the CIA has been secretly airlifting arms and other military equipment to Arab governments and Turkey, who provided them to the country's opposition fighters.
With the agency's alleged involvement in the conflict, some believe it is very possible for the CIA to also have sent their own agents into Syria. Paul Joseph Watson suggests on InfoWars that Harroun's arrest may have something to do with the lack of communication and rivalry between the FBI and the CIA.
The FBI affidavit makes no mention of Harroun having any sort of connection to the CIA, but includes transcripts of interviews in which the man describes being treated like a prisoner in the al-Nusra camp and eventually being accepted by the members. Soon thereafter, he was helping them conduct several attacks on the Syrian regime. He also recalled being questioned about why the US government designated the group as a terrorist organization.

But the FBI is worried that while he may have gone into Syria with good intentions, he may also have become radicalized. A main component of the affidavit focuses on a Facebook status Harroun allegedly posted, in which he states that "the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist."
But the man did not seem to try to hide any of his acitivities in Syria. He frequently uploaded pictures of himself in the conflict zone and made opinionated statements regarding the Assad regime. He allowed journalists to interview him over Skype and labeled himself as a "freedom fighter", working on behalf of the opposition movement that the US supports.
His alleged CIA involvement has so far only been mentioned by the man's father, but could play a major part in the case as Harroun awaits trial. He faces a maximum of life imprisonment.

http://rt.com/usa/cia-harroun-us-syrian-064/

[Magda Hassan]

Exposed: Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is EU-Funded Fraud

NYT admits fraudulent Syrian human rights group is UK-based "one-man band" funded by EU and one other "European country."

By By Tony Cartalucci

April 12, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -"LD" - In reality, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has long ago been exposed as an absurd propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England's countryside. According to a December 2011 Reuters article titled, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called "Syrian opposition" and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad:

After three short spells in prison in Syria for pro-democracy activism, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term.

"I came to Britain the day Hafez al-Assad died, and I'll return when Bashar al-Assad goes," Abdulrahman said, referring to Bashar's father and predecessor Hafez, also an autocrat.

One could not fathom a more unreliable, compromised, biased source of information, yet for the past two years, his "Observatory" has served as the sole source of information for the endless torrent of propaganda emanating from the Western media. Perhaps worst of all, is that the United Nations uses this compromised, absurdly overt source of propaganda as the basis for its various reports - at least, that is what the New York Times now claims in their recent article, "A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War's Casualty Count."

The NYT piece admits:

Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.

Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city [Coventry, England].

The New York Times also for the first time reveals that Abdul Rahman's operation is indeed funded by the European Union and a "European country" he refuses to identify:

Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.

Photo: From Reuters: "Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in central London November 21, 2011. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor" Abdelrahman is not the "head" of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, run out of his UK-based house as a one-man operation.

And while Abdul Rahman refuses to identify that "European country," it is beyond doubt that it is the United Kingdom itself - as Abdul Rahman has direct access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, who he has been documented meeting in person on multiple occasions at the Foreign and Commonwealth Officein London. The NYT in fact reveals that it was the British government that first relocated Abdul Rahman to Coventry, England after he fled Syria over a decade ago because of his anti-government activities:

When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace.

Abdul Rahman is not a "human rights activist." He is a paid propagandist. He is no different than the troupe of unsavory, willful liars and traitors provided refuge in Washington and London during the Iraq war and the West's more recent debauchery in Libya, for the sole purpose of supplying Western governments with a constant din of propaganda and intentionally falsified intelligence reports designed specifically to justify the West's hegemonic designs.

Abdul Rahman's contemporaries include the notorious Iraqi defector Rafid al-Janabi, codename "Curveball," who now gloats publicly that he invented accusations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the West's casus belli for a 10 year war that ultimately cost over a million lives, including thousands of Western troops, and has left Iraq still to this day in shambles. There's also the lesser known Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir of Libya, who formed the foundation of the pro-West human rights racket in Benghazi and now openly brags in retrospect that tales of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's atrocities against the Libyan people were likewise invented to give NATO its sought-after impetus to intervene militarily.

Unlike in Iraq and Libya, the West has failed categorically to sell military intervention in Syria, and even its covert war has begun to unravel as the public becomes increasingly aware that the so-called "pro-democracy rebels" the West has been arming for years are in fact sectarian extremists fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda. The charade that is the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" is also unraveling. It is unlikely that the New York Times' limited hangout will convince readers that Rami Abdul Rahman is anything other than another "Curveball" helping the corporate-financier elite of Wall Street and London sell another unnecessary war to the public.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...dium=email

A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War's Casualty Count

Andrew Testa for The New York Times
"I am a simple citizen from a simple family who has managed to accomplish something huge using simple means," said Rami Abdul Rahman, founder of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: April 9, 2013

COVENTRY, England Military analysts in Washington follow its body counts of Syrian and rebel soldiers to gauge the course of the war. The United Nations and human rights organizations scour its descriptions of civilian killings for evidence in possible war crimes trials. Major news organizations, including this one, cite its casualty figures.




Yet, despite its central role in the savage civil war, the grandly named Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is virtually a one-man band. Its founder, Rami Abdul Rahman, 42, who fled Syria 13 years ago, operates out of a semidetached red-brick house on an ordinary residential street in this drab industrial city.
Using the simplest, cheapest Internet technology available, Mr. Abdul Rahman spends virtually every waking minute tracking the war in Syria, disseminating bursts of information about the fighting and the death toll. What began as sporadic, rudimentary e-mails about protests early in the uprising has swelled into a torrent of statistics and details.
All sides in the conflict accuse him of bias, and even he acknowledges that the truth can be elusive on Syria's tangled and bitter battlefields. That, he says, is what prompts him to keep a tight leash on his operation.
"I need to control everything myself," said Mr. Abdul Rahman, a bald, bearish, affable man. "I am a simple citizen from a simple family who has managed to accomplish something huge using simple means all because I really believe in what I am doing."
He does not work alone. Four men inside Syria help to report and collate information from more than 230 activists on the ground, a network rooted in Mr. Abdul Rahman's youth, when he organized clandestine political protests. But he signs off on every important update. A fifth man translates the Arabic updates into English for the organization's Facebook page.
Mr. Abdul Rahman rarely sleeps. He gets up around 5:30 a.m., calling Syria to awaken his team. First, they tally the previous day's casualty reports and release a bulletin. Then he alternates between taking news media calls 10 on a slow day, 15 an hour for breaking news and contacting activists.
He transmits his last e-mail around 9 p.m. and continues monitoring news reports and YouTube videos until at least 1 a.m. But urgent news developments frequently disrupt that schedule.
Recently, for example, rumors of the assassination of Col. Riad al-As'aad, a founder of the rebel Free Syrian Army, erupted about 11 p.m. Mr. Abdul Rahman stayed up contacting activists near the eastern city of Deir al-Zour until 5 a.m. before confirming that the colonel was very much alive, but had lost a leg in a car bombing.
In March, when rebel forces near the Golan Heights kidnapped 21 United Nations peacekeepers from the Philippines, his phones rang incessantly. "I wanted to shatter my mobile," said Mr. Abdul Rahman, who often has a cellphone on each ear.
He said his ultimate goal was to hold accountable those responsible for Syria's destruction. Focusing on human rights will eventually bring the country a better, democratic future, he said.
"We have to document what is going on in Syria," he said, because each side is trying to "brainwash" the people to accept its version of events. "The country is headed toward destruction and division," he added. "We have to try to preserve what hasn't been destroyed."
Mr. Abdul Rahman, who founded the observatory in 2006 to highlight the plight of activists arrested inside Syria, faces constant scrutiny over his numbers.
He has been called a tool of the Qatari government, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Central Intelligence Agency and Rifaat al-Assad, the exiled uncle of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, among others. The Syrian government and even some rebels have accused him of treachery.
"Rami's objectivity is killing us," said Manhal Bareesh, an activist from Saraqib who knew him before the war. But he and other activists in Syria credit him with working hard to document all the cases, and not hesitating to document potential war crimes.
Alexander Lukashevich, the spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, once described him to the state-owned RIA-Novosti news agency as a man with "no training in journalism nor law, nor even a complete secondary education."
(In fact, he graduated from high school and studied marketing at a technical school.)
Mr. Abdul Rahman's toll for the Syrian conflict just passed 62,550, somewhat below the United Nations' figure of more than 70,000. March was the deadliest month yet, with 6,005 deaths, he said, more than the combined total of the uprising's first nine months.
"I think our numbers are close to reality, but nobody knows the entire reality," he said. "I make sure nothing is published before crosschecking with reliable sources to ensure that it is confirmed."
The ultimate toll, he said, may be twice what has been documented, given Syria's size, the number of skirmishes and communications problems.
Activists in every province belong to a Skype contact group that Mr. Abdul Rahman and his aides tap into in an effort to confirm independently the details of significant events. He depends on local doctors and tries to get witnesses. On the telephone, for instance, speaking in his rapid-fire style, he asked one activist to visit a field hospital to count the dead from an attack.
With government soldiers, he consults contacts in small villages, using connections from his youth on the coast among Alawites, the minority sect of Mr. Assad, which constitutes the backbone of the army.
Mr. Abdul Rahman has been faulted for not opening his list up for public access online, but the world of nongovernmental organizations gives him mostly high marks. "Generally, the information on the killings of civilians is very good, definitely one of the best, including the details on the conditions in which people were supposedly killed," said Neil Sammonds, a Mideast researcher for Amnesty International.
The intense workload has taxed Mr. Abdul Rahman's family life. His only child, Amani, 6, springs from bed without so much as a "good morning," said his wife, Etab Rekhamea. "She asks: What is the news from Syria? What is the news about the Nusra Front?' "
Mr. Abdul Rahman spends so much time locked upstairs in his tiny study that Amani figured out how to Skype him from the living room. Once when he agreed to a picnic, he showed up carrying his two cellphones and his laptop. "He has taken a second wife," his wife said with a groan.
Mr. Abdul Rahman grew up in Baniyas, on the Syrian coast, but would not speak for the record about his family still there, lest that bring further unwanted government attention.
His exposure to politics started at age 7, he said, after his family's landlord hit his sisters for sitting on the building's roof. Neighbors who saw the altercation refused to testify because the landlord was an Alawite with a brother in military security.
Mr. Abdul Rahman owned a clothing store but secretly wrote pamphlets denouncing unfair privileges granted to a few while most Syrians had to line up for basic goods. Born Osama Suleiman, he adopted a pseudonym during those years of activism and has used it publicly ever since.
When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace. He says his main regret is having to drive 30 minutes to Birmingham for a decent Arab restaurant.
Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.
The war has dragged on far longer and has been far more destructive than he ever anticipated, and for the moment, he said, his statistics are as much a tactic as a resource.
"The truth will make people aware," Mr. Abdul Rahman said. "Hearing the number of people killed every day will make them ask the government, Where are you taking us?' "

Hala Droubi contributed reporting.

West's Syrian Narrative Based on "Guy in British Apartment"

Opposition propagandist in England apartment is, and has been, the sole source cited by the Western press.
by Tony Cartalucci

June 4, 2012 - The "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" has been cited by the Western media for over a year in nearly every report, regardless of which news agency, be it AFP, AP, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, BBC, or any of the largest Western newspapers. One would believe this to be a giant sprawling organization with hundreds of members working hard on the ground, documenting evidence in Syria with photographs and video, while coordinating with foreign press to transparently and objectively "observe" the "human rights" conditions in Syria, as well as demonstrate their methodologies. Surely that is the impression the Western media attempts to relay to its readers.

However, astoundingly, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is none of these things. Instead, it is merely a single man, sitting behind a computer in a British apartment, who alleges he receives "phone calls" with information always incriminating the Syrian government, and ever glorifying the "Free Syrian Army." In fact, Reuters even admitted this in their article, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," and even concedes that this man, "Rami Abdulrahman," is openly part of the Syrian opposition who seeks the end of the Syrian government. Abdulrahman admits that he had left Syria over 10 years ago, has lived in Britain ever since, and will not return until "al-Assad goes."

Of course, beyond this single article, Reuters and its fellow news agencies are sure to never again remind readers of these facts.

The opportunity for impropriety seems almost inevitable for a man who openly reviles a government long targeted for "regime change" by the very country he currently resides in, and who's method of reportage involves dubious phone-calls impossible for anyone to verify. When Abdulrahman isn't receiving mystery phone calls from fellow opposition members in Syria (like "Syrian Danny") or passing on his less-than-reputable information to the Western press, he is slinking in and out of the British Foreign Office to meet directly with Foreign Secretary William Hague - who also openly seeks the removal of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.



Photo: From Reuters: "Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, leaves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after meeting Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in central London November 21, 2011. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor" Abdelrahman is not the "head" of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, he is the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, run out of his British apartment as a one-man operation.

....

Clearly for real journalists, Abdulrahman is a useless, utterly compromised source of information who has every reason to twist reality to suit his admittedly politically-motivated agenda of overthrowing the Syrian government. However, for a propagandist, he is a goldmine. That is why despite the overt conflict of interests, the lack of credibility, the obvious disadvantage of being nearly 3,000 miles away from the alleged subject of his "observations," or the fact that a single man is ludicrously calling himself a "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in the first place, the Western media still eagerly laps up his constant torrent of disinformation.


And when the Western press cites such a dubious, compromised character, it means that the actual evidence inevitably trickling out of Syria contradicts entirely the West's desired narrative, so profoundly in fact, that they must contrive the summation of their "evidence" from whole cloth with "tailors" like Abdelrahman. And while the general public should indeed be angry over being deceived on such a vast scale, they should be utterly outraged that the establishment thinks they are so stupid - they'd believe any evidence coming from an opposition activist, disingenuously masquerading as a reputable organization, telling us all what is happening in Syria via "phone-calls" received in his plush apartment in England. http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/201...uy-in.html

[David Guyatt]

More of the usual, eh.

We can't really award marks for originality can we.

[Jan Klimkowski]

More of the usual, eh.

We can't really award marks for originality can we.

Yup. Write it large:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is none of these things. Instead, it is merely a single man, sitting behind a computer in a British apartment, who alleges he receives "phone calls" with information always incriminating the Syrian government, and ever glorifying the "Free Syrian Army." In fact, Reuters even admitted this in their article, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," and even concedes that this man, "Rami Abdulrahman," is openly part of the Syrian opposition who seeks the end of the Syrian government. Abdulrahman admits that he had left Syria over 10 years ago, has lived in Britain ever since, and will not return until "al-Assad goes."


-----------------------


Meanwhile, lest we forget the real history in the smoke of spin and propaganda, here's the "Saddam bayoneted my baby" scam, run by the Bush I regime's propagandists during the Kuwaiti prelude to the first Iraq War.

More on George HW Bush and his PR machine's own Gleiwitz incident:

December 28, 2002

"What We Say, Goes!"
How Bush Sr. Sold the Bombing of Iraq
by MITCHEL COHEN

"The U.S. has a new credibility. What we say goes."

President George Bush, NBC Nightly News, Feb. 2, 1991

In October, 1990, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only as Nayirah, appeared in Washington before the House of Representatives' Human Rights Caucus. She testified that Iraqi soldiers who had invaded Kuwait on August 2nd tore hundreds of babies from hospital incubators and killed them.

Television flashed her testimony around the world. It electrified opposition to Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, who was now portrayed by U.S. president George Bush not only as "the Butcher of Baghdad" but -- so much for old friends -- "a tyrant worse than Hitler."

Bush quoted Nayirah at every opportunity. Six times in one month he referred to "312 premature babies at Kuwait City's maternity hospital who died after Iraqi soldiers stole their incubators and left the infants on the floor,"(1) and of "babies pulled from incubators and scattered like firewood across the floor." Bush used Nayirah's testimony to lambaste Senate Democrats still supporting "only" sanctions against Iraq -- the blockade of trade which alone would cause hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to die of hunger and disease -- but who waffled on endorsing the policy Bush wanted to implement: outright bombardment. Republicans and pro-war Democrats used Nayirah's tale to hammer their fellow politicians into line behind Bush's war in the Persian Gulf.(2)

Nayirah, though, was no impartial eyewitness, a fact carefully concealed by her handlers. She was the daughter of one Saud Nasir Al-Sabah, Kuwait's ambassador to the United States. A few key Congressional leaders and reporters knew who Nayirah was, but none of them thought of sharing that minor detail with Congress, let alone the American people.

Everything Nayirah said, as it turned out, was a lie. There were, in actuality, only a handful of incubators in all of Kuwait, certainly not the "hundreds" she claimed. According to Dr. Mohammed Matar, director of Kuwait's primary care system, and his wife, Dr. Fayeza Youssef, who ran the obstetrics unit at the maternity hospital, there were few if any babies in the incubators at the time of the Iraqi invasion. Nayirah's charges, they said, were totally false. "I think it was just something for propaganda," Dr. Matar said. In an ABC-TV News account after the war, John Martin reported that although "patients, including premature babies, did die," this occurred "when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors stopped working or fled the country" -- a far cry from Bush's original assertion that hundreds of babies were murdered by Iraqi troops.(3) Subsequent investigations, including one by Amnesty International, found no evidence for the incubator claims.

It is likely that Nayirah was not even in Kuwait, let alone at the hospital, at that time; the Kuwaiti aristocracy and their families had fled the country weeks before the anticipated invasion. Some defended their country at the gaming tables in Monte Carlo, where at least one member of the ruling family was reported to have gambled away more than $10 million as his fellow rulers called for economic and military assistance from abroad.

As invasions go, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was relatively -- I stress the word "relatively" -- bloodless. Despite the heart-rending testimonies TV viewers in the U.S. were subjected to night after night, fewer than 200 Kuwaitis were killed. Compare that to such "peaceful" ventures as the U.S. invasion of Panama the year before, which killed an estimated 7,500 Panamanians; or, a year after the Gulf war, the 10,000 Somalis killed by <U.S./U.N>. troops in what was portrayed as a "peace mission" to bring food aid to the allegedly starving region.(4)

How did Nayirah first come to the attention of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which put her before the world's cameras? It was arranged by Hill & Knowlton, a public relations firm hired to rally the U.S. populace behind Bush's policy of going to war. And it worked!

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S.

"When Hill & Knowlton masterminded the Kuwaiti campaign to sell the Gulf War to the American public, the owners of this highly effective propaganda machine were residing in another country" -- the United Kingdom -- writes Sharon Beder and Richard Gosden in PR Watch. "Should this give pause for thought? Does it demonstrate a certain potential for the future exercise of global political power -- the power to manipulate democratic political processes through managing public opinion," which Hill and Knowlton demonstrated 10 years ago?(5)

All of this is concealed in a new HBO "behind-the-scenes true story" of the Gulf War, which is being released at this crucial political moment. As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting writes, "HBO's version of history never makes clear that the incubator story was fraudulent, and in fact had been managed by an American PR firm, not Iraq. Curiously, however, the truth seems to have been clear to Robert Wiener, the former CNN producer who co-wrote 'Live from Baghdad.'As he explained to CNN's Wolf Blitzer (11/21/02), 'that story turned out to be false because those accusations were made by the daughter of the Kuwaiti minister of information and were never proven.' Unfortunately, HBO viewers won't know that when they see the film."(6)

In 1998, Hill and Knowlton found a new client -- President Clinton -- who hired them to advise him and to polish his image. The last time they were involved, by the time their lies were exposed TV newscasters were waxing ecstatic over the rockets' red glare, computerized "smart-bombs" bursting in air, and 250,000 people were dead.

Mitchel Cohen is the co-editor of Green Politix, the national newspaper of the Greens/Green Party USA. He can be reached at: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com



NOTES

1. Doug Ireland, Village Voice, March 26, 1991.

2. The use of the Big Lie to manipulate public opinion and neutralize opposition to a particular war was not invented by Bush. See, for instance, James Laxer, "Iraq: US has match, seeks kindle: American leaders have often falsified reasons to attack other countries," (ActionGreens, Mar. 31, 2001). Laxer is a Political Science Professor at York University, Toronto.

3. ABC World News Tonight, 3/15/91.

4. In actuality, people in only certain areas of Somalia were starving -- those that had been subjected to IMF structural adjustment programs. See, Mitchel Cohen, "Somalia & the Cynical Manipulation of Hunger," Red Balloon Collective, 1994.

5. Sharon Beder and Richard Gosden, "PR Watch," Volume 8, No. 2, 2nd Quarter 2001. The PR firm has since been working at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry to ban over-the-counter vitamin and nutritional supplement sales in Europe.

6. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, "HBO Recycling Gulf War Hoax?" December 4, 2002.

Mitchel Cohen is the co-editor of Green Politix, the national newspaper of the Greens/Green Party USA. He can be reached at: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen1228.html

[Magda Hassan]

US Aid Falls into Al Qaeda's Hands in Syria by Design, Not Chance

April 16, 2013 (IOGSD-Tony Cartalucci) - Huge amounts of US-provided flour smuggled into northern Syria have formed the foundation of Al Qaeda's public relations strategy, the Washington Post and London Telegraph reveal. Together with huge amounts of US-provided weapons, the aid is fueling Al Qaeda's continued operations and atrocities inside Syria.

Recently it was revealed that the US, UK, and France, through Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and other regional allies, have been funneling cash and thousands of tons of weapons into Syria - the vast majority of which have ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.

The New York Times in their article titled, "Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid," admits that:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria's opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

While the West attempts to claim these weapons are being sent to "moderates," the US State Department itself admits that Al Qaeda is operating in every major city in Syria, carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks, and is by far the mosthighly organized, most prominent militant front in the conflict. If the West via Saudi Arabia and Qatar is sending thousands of tons of weapons to "moderates," who is sending more weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra?
The obvious answer is there are no moderates, and the West has been intentionally arming Al Qaeda from the beginning. In fact, this is a documented conspiracy first revealed as early as 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker article titled, ""The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" which stated specifically:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Now, further evidence that the summation of US aid has fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda in Syria, comes to us from Washington Post propagandist Liz Sly who reported in her article, "U.S. feeds Syrians, but secretly," that:

In the heart of rebel-held territory in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, a small group of intrepid Westerners is undertaking a mission of great stealth. Living anonymously in a small rural community, they travel daily in unmarked cars, braving airstrikes, shelling and the threat of kidnapping to deliver food and other aid to needy Syrians all of it paid for by the U.S. government.

Sly then claims that most Syrians credit Al Qaeda's al-Nusra with providing the aid:

"America has done nothing for us. Nothing at all," said Mohammed Fouad Waisi, 50, spitting out the words for emphasis in his small Aleppo grocery store, which adjoins a bakery where he buys bread every day. The bakery is fully supplied with flour paid for by the United States. But Waisi credited Jabhat al-Nusra a rebel group the United States has designated a terrorist organization because of its ties to al-Qaeda with providing flour to the region, though he admitted he wasn't sure where it comes from.

And while Sly attempts to spin the story as merely misdirected anger and ignorance on the part of Syrians receiving the aid, it is well documented that bakeries in terrorist-held territory are in fact manned by Al Qaeda militants. In fact, while Sly maintains that "security concerns" are owed for America's opaque aid distribution operation, it appears more likely the US is attempting to insidiously obfuscate its use of humanitarian aid to help its militant proxies win "hearts and minds" amid a humanitarian catastrophe the West itself engineered and perpetuated intentionally.

The London Telegraph revealed in their February 2013 article, "Syria: how jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra is taking over Syria's revolution," that taking over bakeries was a key strategy used by Al Qaeda's al-Nusra front to "win over" the population:

Then, in the past weeks, Jabhat al-Nusra which is outside the FSA pushed other rebel groups out of the stores and established a system to distribute bread throughout rebel areas.

In a small office attached to a bakery in the Miesseh district of Aleppo, Abu Yayha studied a map pinned on the wall. Numbers were scrawled in pencil against streets.

"We counted the population of every street to assess the need for the area," explained Mr Yahya. "We provide 23,593 bags of bread every two days for this area. This is just in one district. We are calculating the population in other districts and doing the same there.

"In shops the cost is now 125 Syrian pounds (£1.12) for one pack. Here we sell it at 50 Syrian pounds (45p) for two bags. We distribute some for free for those who cannot pay."

The bakery works constantly. Inside, barrows filled with dough were heaved onto a conveyor belt that chopped it into round and flat segments, before pushing the dough into a giant oven. Workers packed the steaming flatbread in bags.

"I am from Jabhat al Nusra. All the managers of all the bakeries are," said Abu Fattah, the manager. "This makes sure that nobody steals."

In essence, Al Qaeda is taking over neighborhoods upon a mountain of US-provided flour, in bakeries overrun and held at the barrels of US-provided guns. Humanitarian aid is being used as a political weapon to carve out territory for the West's heavily armed proxies and extort cooperation from the subjugated people who find themselves inside Al Qaeda-occupied territory.
http://iogsd.blogspot.mx/2013/04/us-aid-...ds-in.html