By Ruth Brown
Ever abreast of the big issues facing a war-torn country like Syria, the US State Department has delivered a stern rebuke against President Bashar al-Assad’s Instagram account , labeling it “nothing more than a despicable PR stunt,” ABC News reports. In a press briefing, a department spokesperson told reporters: “It’s repulsive… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
The wife of a slain Syrian political analyst and ardent supporter of President Bashar al-Assad was charged in Lebanon on Wednesday with incitement to murder, a judicial source told AFP. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Ruth Brown
Syria is in the middle of a bloody civil war—not that you’d know it from President Bashar al-Assad’s new Instagram account , which features Assad and his wife shaking hands, hugging, and chatting with smiling constituents and cheering crowds, reports CNN . With 100,000 people now dead in the conflict… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
By Dave Robbins
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has provided Congress with its first detailed list of military options to stem the bloody civil war in Syria, suggesting that a campaign to tilt the balance from President Bashar al-Assad to the opposition would be a vast undertaking, costing billions of dollars, and could backfire on the United States. Read […]
The post Pentagon Lays Out Options for U.S. Military Effort in Syria – NYTimes.com appeared first on Endtime Ministries | End Of The Age | Irvin Baxter.
Source: Endtime Ministries
From the air, lines of trailers and tents stretch across the Jordanian desert. Welcome to Camp Zaatari, home to thousands of Syrian refugees and fast turning into a small city.
The camp was opened just a year ago as Jordan faced the nightmarish task of caring for and sheltering an exodus of people from Syria, traumatised by long months of war, and fleeing for their lives.
Now it houses around 115,000 dispossessed, who are resiliently determined to get back on their feet, even as the sound of artillery fire from just across the border echoes around the camp at night.
Tents are mostly being replaced by container homes made of plastic and aluminium. Each costs about $2,500 and the camp holds 16,500 of them, with hopes that soon there will be 30,000.
“Home sweet home,” camp manager Kilian Kleinschmidt of the UN refugee agency told US Secretary of State John Kerry during a visit on Thursday with no hint of irony.
He highlighted the stark fact that, with no end to the 28-month-old conflict in sight, camp residents are increasingly resigning themselves to a protracted stay and are trying to pick up the pieces of their disrupted lives.
Many come from the border province of Daraa, cradle of the March 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule that escalated into armed rebellion,
“People of Daraa are traders. They have it in their blood,” said Kleinschmidt, an aid worker who is a veteran of world hotspots from Bosnia to Rwanda to Somalia.
“It’s incredible what they will trade, they’ll trade anything,” he told journalists.
Front courtyards are being cemented to keep out the mud, some families are even putting up little fountains outside their doors — “a symbol of home,” said Kleinschmidt.
The ever resourceful refugees are even tapping into the camp’s electricity network, leaving Kleinschmidt with a monthly bill approaching $500,000.
Most of the stolen power goes to run some 3,000 shops and 580 restaurants and food stalls which now dot the few asphalted roads — earning them the nickname the “Champs Elysee”, after Paris’s most famous street.
Here refugees can sip tea, buy shoes, or haggle for an air conditioning unit for their home, many of which now bristle with satellite dishes. And 10 taxis charge high prices to ferry people around.
Some of the money is carried out with the refugees. More comes from remittances from relatives working in Gulf or the West.
Others, including the children, scavenge for work. Smuggling is a problem, and every possession is for sale. Even the container homes are rented out or sold or used in schemes not sanctioned by the UN refugee agency.
There are three hospitals, a couple of schools, a main food distribution point and others just for bread, handing out some 5,000 loaves a day. There are also five football pitches and playgrounds with slides and swings.
“It’s important to keep some 60,000 children busy,” said Kleinschmidt, lamenting however that out of 30,000 of school age, just 5,000 have resumed their lessons.
Twelve to 15 babies are born into this no-man’s land every day, and …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A Syrian military helicopter fired rockets at a pro-rebel region of eastern Lebanon in the early hours of Thursday, a security source told AFP.
“A military helicopter violated Lebanese airspace and fired four rockets at 01:30 am (2230GMT) in the Arsal area, two of which exploded, causing damage,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
The attack did not cause any injuries.
Arsal is a Sunni neighbourhood in eastern Lebanon that is broadly sympathetic to the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and has become a transit point for Syrian refugees, as well as rebels and their weapons.
The area has been targeted on multiple occasions by Syrian regime forces, including in a June 12 attack that hit the centre of Arsal.
That raid prompted a rare warning from the Lebanese army, which threatened to respond if the attacks continued.
The Syrian conflict has increasingly spilled over into Lebanon, and has raised sectarian tensions in the fragile country, which experienced a devastating 1975-1990 civil war.
Lebanon’s powerful Shiite Hezbollah movement has sent fighters to battle alongside the regime, and many Lebanese Sunnis sympathise with the Sunni-dominated Syrian opposition.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Outgoing army chief David Richards has warned that attempts to impose a no-fly zone over Syria would lead to war, in an interview published in Thursday’s Daily Telegraph.
Britain is at the forefront of international efforts to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and has promised to supply rebels with equipment to protect them against chemical weapons attacks.
But in his interview with the Telegraph, the 61-year-old general warned of the consequences of a no-fly zone.
“If you wanted to have the material impact on the Syrian regime’s calculations that some people seek, a no fly zone per-se is insufficient,” he said.
“You have to be able, as we did successfully in Libya, to hit ground targets. You have to take out their air defences.
“If you want to have the material effect that people seek you have to be able to hit ground targets and so you would be going to war if that is what you want to do,” he added.
A lack of international consensus and the splintered nature of rebel forces made it difficult to forge a military solution, he said.
Richards retires on Thursday after a military career spanning more than 40 years.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has promised lawmakers that the government would seek parliament’s consent before deciding to arm the rebels.
There has been concern that the weapons could fall into the hands of radical Islamist opposition groups.
Prime Minister David Cameron said last month, however, that the government reserved the right to intervene in Syria if it felt Britain’s national interests were under threat.
More than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Kurdish fighters have expelled jihadists from the Syrian flashpoint frontier town of Ras al-Ain and well as the nearby border crossing with Turkey, a watchdog said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a car bomb attack killed at least seven people, among them a child, southwest of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Kurdish fighters took total control of Ras al-Ain “after 24 hours of fighting. The (jihadist) groups were expelled from the whole of Ras al-Ain, including the border post” with Turkey, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Earlier, the Britain-based group had reported clashes pitting Kurds against Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and other groups.
Ras al-Ain is home to a majority Kurdish population and is of strategic importance given its location close to Turkey.
Kurdish fighters are trying to ensure neither the regime of President Bashar al-Assad nor the opposition takes control of its areas.
The clashes between Kurdish fighters and jihadists broke out after Al-Nusra Front attacked a convoy of Kurdish women fighters, Abdel Rahman said.
Nine jihadists and two Kurdish fighters have been killed since the fighting broke out, the Observatory said.
Activists in Ras al-Ain said members of the jihadist groups had taken advantage of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began last week, to try to impose their extreme version of Islam.
In the early days of the Syrian conflict, when opponents of the Assad regime were desperate for assistance from any quarter, jihadist fighters were welcomed but a spate of abuses has fuelled a major backlash.
Elsewhere, a child and six men were killed when a car bomb attack hit Kanaker, in Damascus province, said the Observatory.
In the north of the capital, troops renewed their shelling campaign on rebel parts of Barzeh, while clashes raged in the neighbourhood, the group added.
And in the central city of Homs, an army onslaught aimed at taking back rebel districts went into its 18th day, activists said.
Troops launched a new attempt to break into the rebel area of Bab Hud, which like other areas of Homs has been under tight army siege for more than a year, Homs-based activist Yazan told AFP via the Internet.
Meanwhile, “the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate day after day because of the suffocating siege”, said Yazan.
The lack of medical equipment in Homs’ flashpoint areas means “there is a growing need to evacuate dozens of wounded, who urgently need operations that cannot be performed here”, he added.
More than 100,000 people have died in Syria’s 28-month war, says the Observatory.
Wednesday’s violence comes a day after at least 112 people were killed across Syria, the group added.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Pakistani Taliban commanders Tuesday rejected suggestions they were sending fighters to Syria, saying some have gone there independently but the movement’s focus remained in Pakistan.
They said some militants, mainly Arabs and Central Asians, had gone to fight the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, but a senior Taliban leader dismissed reports of them setting up camps in Syria.
The lawless tribal areas of northwest Pakistan along the Afghan border have long been a magnet for militants from across the Muslim world eager to fight US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
But since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, foreign jihadists have flocked to Syria, where disparate rebel groups are seeking his downfall.
Some media reports in recent days have claimed scores or even hundreds of Pakistani Taliban are among them and that they have set up camps in Syria.
A senior commander who sits on the shura or ruling council of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) told AFP there was no tactical shift and no decision had been made to send forces to Syria.
“There is no reality in these reports, we have far better targets in the region, NATO troops headed by the Americans are present in Afghanistan,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“We are already in a war with Pakistani troops. We support the mujahideen’s struggle in Syria but in our opinion, we have a lot more to do here in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
The TTP is an umbrella group for numerous factions trying to bring down the Pakistani state and impose sharia law. It has ties to the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
“The great evil (America) is here in Afghanistan, troops from 30 kafir (non-believer) countries are attacking innocent people in Afghanistan, so Bashar al-Assad is not that important for us,” the TTP commander said.
“Obama is the big evil, Americans are a much bigger evil for us. The Taliban shura has never discussed sending mujahideen to Syria.”
Another mid-ranking TTP commander in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal district which is a hotbed of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity, said some fighters had gone to Syria “in a personal capacity”.
A third senior TTP cadre said those who had gone were mostly Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens.
More than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad erupted, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Analyst Rahimullah Yusufzai dismissed claims of the TTP setting up camps in Syria as “a publicity campaign” by some of the militants.
“But we cannot deny the fact that they are quite ambitious and want to send a clear message to the world that they are still very strong and have strong linkages with other local and international groups,” he said.
Ismail, an Arab fighter from Al-Qaeda, told AFP in northwest Pakistan that he planned to join the fight against Assad.
“I am going to Syria in the next few days, my family will stay here,” he said.
“Our mujahideen are going not only to Syria but also to Lebanon, Egypt and other Arab countries.”
Saifullah Khan Mahsud, the executive director of the FATA Research Centre …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
At least nine Syrians, including a child, were executed by regime forces at a checkpoint in Damascus province, a watchdog said on Tuesday.
“Nine citizens, including a child, were shot dead by regime forces near the town of Qara, in the Qalamun area of Damascus province, yesterday (Monday) evening,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The nine were “executed” at a military checkpoint in the area, the group said, citing local activists.
Video footage shot by activists and distributed by the Observatory showed bodies lain out on the white floor of a room, some of them partially covered with a piece of white plastic sheeting.
Several appeared to have been shot in the head, and others in the chest.
In Homs province in the centre, members of a pro-regime militia killed seven members of a reconciliation committee in the village of Hajar Abyad, the Observatory said.
It distributed a video showing black body bags tagged with pieces of paper bearing each man’s name.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria since an uprising erupted against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, according to the Observatory’s figures.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Iraq lacks the means to stop Iranian arms deliveries to Syria through its airspace, if there are any, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in comments published on Saturday.
“Last September we started to inspect Iranian and Syrian planes at random. We have found non-lethal materials, like equipment, medicine and food,” Zebari said in an interview published by the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
“In all honesty, those planes might be carrying other stuff, but we have neither the deterrent means, nor the air defences and fighter jets to prevent… arms shipments,” he told the pan-Arab daily.
Zebari said he had urged Western governments to take action themselves if they were convinced that Iran was smuggling weapons to its Syrian ally.
“I told the West: If you want to stop Iran’s air bridge to Syria over Iraq, go ahead.”
Zebari said Western governments were convinced such an air bridge existed and that his response was: “This does not have my consent, and I do not have the means to prevent it.”
He said the Shiite-led government in Baghdad had urged Tehran “not to use relations with (Iraq) to send arms to others.”
“We reject and condemn the shipping of arms through our airspace, and we will tell the Iranian side of that officially, but we cannot stop it,” Zebari said.
The conflict in Syria has become increasingly sectarian as it has entered its third year, with the mainly Sunni rebels receiving support from the Gulf Arab monarchies, and the Damascus regime getting backing from Shiite Iran.
Zebari, himself a Sunni Kurd, said last month that he could not deny that Iraqi Shiites were fighting in Syria alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
But he stressed that their involvement in the conflict “does not come under government policy.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
April 20 (Reuters) – An 18-year-old Chicago-area man accused of planning to join an al Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria has been arrested by the FBI, the agency said on Saturday.
Abdella Ahmad Tounisi of Aurora, Illinois, was taken into custody late on Friday as he prepared to board a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport bound for Turkey, the FBI said in a statement.
It added that Tounisi was a friend of Adel Daoud, an American accused of trying to stage a bombing outside a downtown Chicago bar last year. The agency said Tounisi had not been involved in that plot.
Tounisiappeared before a U.S. magistrate on Saturday on one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He was ordered held until his next court appearance on Tuesday, the FBI said.
A criminal complaint accused Tounisi of making online contact in March with a person he thought was a recruiter for Jabhat al-Nusrah, the militant Islamist Syrian group that the U.S. government calls a foreign terrorist organization operating as a wing of al Qaeda in Iraq.
The supposed recruiter was an FBI employee working undercover, the agency said.
Tounisi said in emails to the FBI employee that he planned to get to Syria via Turkey and was willing to die in the Syrian struggle, the complaint said.
Syria is in the grips of a civil war that began in 2011 as a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad and has killed more than 70,000 people.
On April 10, Tounisi bought an airline ticket for a flight from Chicago to Istanbul. On Thursday, the undercover FBI employee gave him a bus ticket for travel from Istanbul to Gaziantep, Turkey, near the border with Syria, the complaint said.
Tounisi’s attorney, Michael Madden, of the federal public defender program could not be reached for comment.
Tounisi faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
BEIRUT, April 9 (Reuters) – The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday accused a rebel battalion of torturing civilians and extorting money from them in Syria‘s northern city of Aleppo.
Torture, kidnapping and summary killings have become a daily aspect of Syria‘s uprising-turned-civil war.
But the Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across Syria, said it felt compelled to single out the Badr Martyrs’ Battalion, a unit of the Free Men of Syria Brigade (Ahrar Suriya), after collecting a large number of witness accounts pointing to frequent detentions and torture.
“These types of incidents are increasingly common on both sides, unfortunately. Many of these people are civilians, not fighters. Incidents like this degrade the revolution that people started,” Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory, said in a telephone interview.
Abdelrahman emailed pictures of a man who he said had been tortured by the group. The man’s legs had the skin torn open in several places. His back was covered in open lash marks.
The man told the Observatory he had sustained the injuries while being detained for three days.
Other residents told the group that the same unit of Ahrar Suriya, which operates near Aleppo’s government-held district of Ashrafiyeh, had forced refugees as well as local residents to pay protection money.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, which began as peaceful protests but has degenerated into civil war.
The United Nations says both sides have committed human rights violations, though it has documented more abuses by Assad’s forces. (Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Megan Davies and Steve Gutterman
MOSCOW, April 6 (Reuters) – Russia criticised Western moves to expand a planned United Nations probe into chemical weapons in Syria and compared it to the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Russia, which has used its clout as a veto-wielding Security Council state to blunt Western pressure on Syria, says the U.N. probe announced last month should focus on Syrian government allegations rebels used chemical arms near Aleppo.
Western countries want two additional rebel claims about the use of such arms investigated as well. The Syrian opposition says President Bashar al-Assad’s government carried out all three alleged chemical attacks.
In a pointed statement, Russia‘s Foreign Ministry on Saturday voiced anger over a letter in which it said the U.N. Secretariat told the Syrian government it intended to broaden the investigation beyond the incident in late March near Aleppo.
It said the U.N. Secretariat was seeking overly broad access for investigators to facilities and individuals in Syria and wanted to use aircraft for transportation.
“This approach brings to mind the line taken over an investigation into the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq, which was based on deliberately false data and led to well-known consequences,” it said, referring to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
“We cannot fail to draw the conclusion that under pressure from certain states, the U.N. Secretariat is taking an unconstructive and inconsistent position that in essence undermines the investigation (into the incident near Aleppo),” it said, without mentioning U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by name.
Last month, Russia accused Western nations of trying to use the investigation to push Assad from power and said the probe might be biased unless Russian and Chinese experts were part of the team of investigators.
Russia says that it does not intend to prop up Assad but that his departure from power must not be a precondition for a political solution to the …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By The Huffington Post News Editors
(Corrects third paragraph to show Meshaal’s visit to Gaza in December was his first)
* Egypt and Qatar lobbied on Meshaal’s behalf
* Once a hardliner, Meshaal increasingly seen as a moderate
GAZA, April 2 (Reuters) – Hamas re-elected Khaled Meshaal on Tuesday as the Islamist group’s leader, at a marathon overnight closed-door meeting held in Cairo, an official with the organisation said.
Once reviled as a hardliner but now seen increasingly in the Arab world and by some Westerners as a moderate, Meshaal, 56, has headed the movement that rejects Israel‘s existence and controls the Palestinian territory of Gaza, since 2004.
Born near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Meshaal steered Hamas through the upheaval unleashed by the Arab Spring uprisings. He spent decades in exile and visited Gaza for the first time ever in December.
Meshaal left Syria about a year ago after ties ruptured with President Bashar al-Assad over the bloody civil war there.
Building on relations with Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, said to be an old friend, Meshaal moved on to win a delicate truce with arch-enemy Israel in November and has also sought to heal a rift with rival Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian officials and analysts said Meshaal, dogged by Gaza critics of his ceasefire with Israel and efforts to reconcile with Abbas, had to be persuaded to continue as Hamas’s leader for another term.
“Meshaal was re-elected,” a Hamas official said, reporting in a terse statement on Tuesday on the results of a meeting that began in the Egyptian capital on Monday. The official gave no other details of the vote by which about 60 top officials of the group had reaffirmed Meshaal anew as Hamas’s political leader.
Both Egypt and powerful Gulf emirate Qatar also lobbied strongly on Meshaal’s behalf, a diplomat in the region told Reuters.
“They saw Meshaal as a moderate and …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
European Union foreign ministers are divided on whether to start shipping weapons to rebels in Syria with most insisting that the move would only make matters worse.
Britain and France, isolated in their efforts to win EU approval for boosting the Syrian opposition’s firepower, say they hope to edge European colleagues closer to their position during two days of talks at Dublin Castle that started Friday.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle says he accepts the “good reasons” behind the Anglo-French position, but that Germany remains reluctant to put more weapons into the hands of disparate forces fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power.
Several other foreign ministers back Westerwelle’s caution including Ireland, the current EU president.
By hnn
As the Syrian crisis enters its third year, an end to the violence in the country is nowhere to be seen. The world has become accustomed to rising death tolls and reports of shelling and destruction. However, another threat looms in Syria, and this time it is targeting its cultural heritage.
Palmyra, one of the oldest cities in the country, has been subjected to intermittent shelling by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
The ruins of the city, which is one of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, date back thousands of years. “Bombs and rockets come in all directions,” eyewitnesses said.
Assad forces have struck the Roman Temple of Bel – built in 43 A.C. – and damaged its northern wall, eyewitnesses said, adding portions and stones of the wall have been destroyed….
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
By The Huffington Post News Editors
ISTANBUL, March 19 (Reuters) – The opposition Syrian National Coalition chose Western-educated former businessman Ghasssan Hitto as provisional prime minister in a vote on Tuesday at a meeting in Istanbul.
Hitto, who according to a Reuters witness received 35 votes of around 50 cast by coalition members, will be in charge of forming a government to fill a power vacuum in Syria arising from a two-year-long revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Michael Roddy)
By The Huffington Post News Editors
BEIRUT, March 16 (Reuters) – A brigadier general and about 20 soldiers defected from the Syrian army in two separate incidents on Saturday, activists said, in another sign that the strength of President Bashar al-Assad’s armed forces is diminishing.
Brigadier General Mohammed Khalouf appeared dressed in a camouflage military uniform in a video on Al Arabiya news channel and said he had planned his escape with the opposition movement for some time.
“It is not possible for anyone to accept any of the ideas of this regime unless they have achieved special interests,” he said in the video.
There was no comment about the defection on Syrian state news outlets.
Defection of high-ranking military and political figures has slowed in past months.
But a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published this week estimated that Assad’s forces, thought to be more than 300,000-strong at the start of the uprising two years ago, were now at a much lower effective strength and were likely to diminish further.
The IISS said that perhaps 50,000 of the Syrian army’s elite troops could be depended on for loyalty. Most of them were likely to be from Assad’s minority Alawite sect, which has dominated the country for more than four decades.
Many deserters report that their units were held inside bases to prevent their escape.
Syria‘s civil war began as a popular street movement but has evolved into an increasingly sectarian conflict. The opposition has been mostly led by the Sunni Muslim population, with Alawites and other minorities mostly throwing their weight behind Assad.
In central Syria, around 20 soldiers fled their posts for embattled rebel territory near the ancient desert city of Palmyra, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The British-based group, which has a network of activists across Syria, said the soldiers fled to farmlands near the city, where there has been shelling and gun battles for two days. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
