http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/26/officials-us-to-provide-syrian-rebels-with-direct-military-aid-armored-vehicles/
Expanding the definition, the US is poised to shift policy toward providing body armor, direct combat training and even armored personnel carriers to rebel factions, as it continues to help Saudi Arabia and other nations deliver the weaponry behind the ongoing rebellion.
The reports come amid intense fighting in the Idlib Province, and suggest that while foreign Islamist fighters were eager to flock to Syria to fight the Alawite President Assad, they don’t have any particular ties to the nation and are willing to ditch that civil war for a more promising fight.
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/27/us-backed-afghan-police-poison-massacre-17-of-their-comrades/
“The attackers poisoned the dinner food of the other officers, shot them at close range to ensure they were dead, stole their weapons and fled after setting a police vehicle on fire,”reports The New York Times.
The latest information comes from the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), which has reported that US troops once again attacked one of their hospitals earlier this month, in the Wardak Province, damaging the site and breaking equipment before eventually leaving.
Officials: US to Provide Syrian Rebels With Direct Military Aid, Armored Vehicles
Definition of 'Non-Lethal Support' Being Broadened
by Jason Ditz, February 26, 2013
The US is looking to dramatically broaden the definition of “non-lethal support” as it relates to Syria’s rebel factions, according to European officials familiar with recent private meetings with Secretary of State John Kerry.
Expanding the definition, the US is poised to shift policy toward providing body armor, direct combat training and even armored personnel carriers to rebel factions, as it continues to help Saudi Arabia and other nations deliver the weaponry behind the ongoing rebellion.
Specific details about the plan, to the extent they are ever revealed to the public at all, are likely to come during this week’s Rome conference for the various Syrian rebel factions, which Kerry has been hyping and encouraging rebel groups to attend.
The EU is set to get in on the action as well, with officials claiming a secret clause was inserted into the renewal of a ban on arms to Syria to allow virtually anything that doesn’t in and of itself kill people, including night-vision goggles and sniper scopes, to be sent as “non-lethal aid” for their “humanitarian” mission.
and......
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/26/islamist-rebels-withdrawing-en-masse-from-northern-syria/
Islamist Rebels Withdrawing En Masse from Northern Syria
Fighters 'Headed to Mali' According to Reports
by Jason Ditz, February 26, 2013
According to the rebel-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, hundreds of foreign rebels have been fleeing from the Idlib Province in Northwestern Syria through Turkey, claiming they are planning to “join jihadists in Mali.”
The reports come amid intense fighting in the Idlib Province, and suggest that while foreign Islamist fighters were eager to flock to Syria to fight the Alawite President Assad, they don’t have any particular ties to the nation and are willing to ditch that civil war for a more promising fight.
This could prove to be extremely bad news for the French troops invading Mali, as if these reports prove true they will end up facing Islamist troops that the French government was openly bankrolling, and who likely have far more fighting experience against modern military forces than the existing insurgency.
Whether this will significantly change the situation on the ground in Syria is unclear, as the overall size of the rebels there is not well understood, nor is it clear if the Syrian military will attempt to retake Idlib Province in the face of the pullout or just focus their attention elsewhere.
Afghanistan news of the day.......
US-Backed Afghan Police Poison, Massacre 17 of Their Comrades
The perpetrators were reportedly Taliban infiltrators, retaliating for "atrocities and crimes" by Afghan police
by John Glaser, February 27, 2013
Several members of the Afghan Local Police, trained and armed by the United States, drugged 17 of their fellow police officers before executing all of them, according to Afghan officials.
“The attackers poisoned the dinner food of the other officers, shot them at close range to ensure they were dead, stole their weapons and fled after setting a police vehicle on fire,”reports The New York Times.
Afghan officials said the perpetrators were members of the Taliban who had infiltrated the Afghan Local Police (ALP), waiting until after their training by the Americans to massacre their colleagues.
Indeed, the Taliban have taken responsibility for the attack, claiming it was retaliation for “atrocities and crimes” carried out by Afghan police forces against locals in the area.
“Locals in the area were tired of the atrocities and crimes of these [irregular militias] and their lives and property were not safe,” a Taliban spokesman said in a statement.
The ALP are basically armed militias, local gangs trained and supported by US Special Operations forces. These militias are the brainchild of Gen. David Petraeus who set them up to act as a bulwark against the Taliban.
But they can be just as brutal as the Taliban. “Many residents complain that the groups often operate outside the law, extort unofficial taxes from local residents and are prone to act on the basis of ethnic loyalties,” reports The New York Times.
These militias have been using US support to assert their authority and commit severe crimes against Afghan civilians. A Human Rights Watch report from last September “documents serious abuses, such as killings, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, and illegal raids” conducted by the ALP.
The fact that Obama uses taxpayer money to fund, arm, and train militias widely accused of human rights abuses is bad enough. But the policy is also sowing the seeds of further chaos and potential civil war ahead of a drawdown of US forces this year.
and.......
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/26/us-troops-attacked-afghan-hospital-before-provincial-banning/
US Troops Attacked Afghan Hospital Before Provincial Banning
Troops Stormed Clinic, Destroyed Medical Equipment
by Jason Ditz, February 26, 2013
US officials continue to feign shock at the decision to ban special forces from the Wardak Province of Afghanistan, but as details of their behavior in the province continue to emerge, the only wonder is that they managed to operate for so long without such a banning.
The latest information comes from the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA), which has reported that US troops once again attacked one of their hospitals earlier this month, in the Wardak Province, damaging the site and breaking equipment before eventually leaving.
This was the second time that clinic had been attacked by the US in recent months, and the exact same facility was the site of a two and a half day siege in October in which US troops inexplicably occupied the facility and took every patient and civilian within prisoner, before eventually releasing them all and leaving.
The US has an extremely poor history with respect to the Geneva Convention protections of remote hospitals, and had attacked a different SCA hospital in 2009, smashing the site up and ordering the doctors not to treat anybody else until they had reported their names to the NATO occupation forces.
NATO confirmed the most recent attack on the hospital, insisting it was carried out “in conjunction with Afghan forces” and that they had “compensated” the owners of the building for any damage caused.
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