http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/mar/03/hague-assads-accusations-delusional-video

The UK foreign secretary reacts to an interview in which President Bashar al-Assad claims the UK is hindering peace in Syria as 'one of the most delusional interviews that any national leader has given in modern times'. William Hague says he has been told Assad believes the Syrian civil war is an international conspiracy against him, rather than the 'actual rebellion and revolt of his own people'

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/03/2013335225921338.html

Assad accuses Britain of escalating conflict

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says Britain is acting in a "naive, confused and unrealistic manner" in rare interview.

Last Modified: 03 Mar 2013 12:01

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Bashar al-Assad says the UK and other nations supporting rebel groups are providing 'lethal aid' [The Sunday Times]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused Britain of acting in a "naive, confused and unrealistic manner" and warned other nations to stop interfering in his country's affairs, in a rare interview with The Sunday Times newspaper.

In the interview published on Saturday evening, his first with a western newspaper in more than a year, Assad said he was also unhappy with the UN for overestimating the death toll in the conflict at 70,000 in a bid to justify outside intervention.

"This (British) government is acting in a naive, confused and unrealistic manner," he said of prime minister David Cameron's conservative leadership, for trying to end an EU arms embargo so that the rebels could be supplied with weapons.
"We do not expect an arsonist to be a firefighter," he said, dismissing a suggestion that Britain could help to resolve the conflict.
"If they want to play a role they have to change this, they have to act in a more reasonable and responsible way."
The two countries have not had contact for a long time, he said.
Offering a message to "anyone who is talking about the Syrian people," he said, "only Syrian people can tell the president to stay or leave, come or go, no one else."
'Normal lifestyle'
Lebanese-British reporter Hala Jaber, who also interviewed Assad in 2011, spoke this time to the president in Damascus.
She said he drove himself to the location, "a relatively modest building", and was told "that despite regular explosions, Assad insists on maintaining a normal lifestyle including — to his security chief’s dismay — driving to the office in the morning."

Jaber said Assad, who was softly spoken throughout the sit-down interview, adopted a conciliatory tone when discussing future negotiations.
"We are ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms," he declared. "We are not going to deal with terrorists who are determined to carry weapons, to terrorise people, to kill civilians, to attack public places or private enterprise and to destroy the country."

Timely interview
The interview was timed to coincide with Kerry’s first foreign tour as secretary of state.
Kerry met Syrian rebels in Rome last Thursday and announced that $60m of "non-lethal" US aid would go directly to them for the first time.
"The intelligence, communication and financial assistance being provided is very lethal," Assad countered, pointing out that "non-lethal" technology had been used to deadly effect in the 9/11 attacks.
William Hague, UK foreign secretary, is expected to announce a package of British assistance this week.
"The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria, knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria," Assad said. "We all know that we are now fighting al-Qaeda, or Jabhat al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and other groups of people indoctrinated with extreme ideologies.
"This is beyond hypocritical," he added, echoing Hague’s comment about him.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/rebels-in-syria-suffer-losses-on-two-fronts

NEW YORK // The Syrian army claimed yesterday to have recaptured a vital motorway leading to Aleppo as Washington's latest offer of support for the opposition has led to questions over its commitment to supporting the rebels.

The loss of the motorway, which links the city of Hama with Aleppo's international airport, would be a major blow for the rebels and could alter the balance in the months-long battle for Syria's largest city.

Troops carried out special operations in towns and villages along the road, restoring stability there and at the airport, the Syrian Army's general command said in a statement on the Syrian state-run Sana news agency.

The setback for the rebels came after John Kerry, the US secretary of state, announced on Thursday that Washington would for the first time provide direct, non-lethal aid such as food and medical supplies to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as well as increase by US$60 million (Dh220m) its efforts to help the western-backed political bloc provide services in rebel-held areas.

Far from being the game-changer he had promised, Mr Kerry's announcement shows that the US still has no coherent strategy for breaking the war's bloody stalemate, which may alienate its rebel allies, Syria observers said.

"What the US has done might make the situation worse," said Marina Ottaway, a senior Middle East scholar at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center think tank. "He promised not to let the rebels dangle in the wind, but in reality he offered very little and the US is certainly going to pay the price for that."

The FSA and its political wing, the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), could write off the US as a source of support, she added and "the US will have no influence in the end".

In Tehran yesterday, Syrian and Iranian foreign ministers said Washington's decision to provide aid to rebels will only prolong the fighting. The remarks by Syria's Walid Al Moallem and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, were the first official statements from the two nations following Thursday's announcement.

The diplomats also emphasised that whether Syrian president Bashar Al Assad stays or goes will be decided in elections scheduled for next year.

Non-lethal aid is not going to provide the additional pressure that might convince Mr Al Assad to step aside to let others negotiate for him, nor will it satisfy the opposition, said Murhaf Jouejati, a professor of Middle Eastern affairs at the National Defense University in Washington and an adviser to the SOC. "It maintains the things the way they were but with a bit more assistance to show that the administration has done slightly more - and this alienates parts of the opposition."

The US administration has so far refused to directly provide arms and other military support to the rebels, with officials citing fears of weapons falling into hands of jihadists.

A decade of war in the Middle East and Afghanistan has also taught military planners and politicians that America's ability to shape outcomes in other countries' wars is questionable.

Washington deeply fears being drawn into a protracted conflict that could engulf the region if Mr Al Assad falls and there is fighting between rebel factions to fill the power vacuum.

The US has so far hoped to avert this by pushing for negotiations that lead to a political transition, and has been content to increase pressure in peripheral ways, such as strengthening the SOC's ability to provide services and governance in rebel-held towns in a bid to become an alternative to the Assad regime.

Page 2 of 2

Until now, "the SOC has not been particularly effective or relevant to most Syrians, so building these councils at this time may be a way to bolster its ability to interact and sell itself to the people", said Leila Hilal, the director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation think tank in Washington. "But in terms of a strategy for transitioning the country out of violent civil war of attrition, I don't think it is that."

The daily realities of a war in which an estimated 70,000 have been killed and millions displaced may make this strategy divisive among Syrians whose allegiances are being sought by a range of rebel groups, and who hear US promises but see few real results.

"The only thing Syrians care about in terms of whether or not they are going to judge the US as being helpful or not, is whether or not the killing stops, which remains to be seen," Ms Hilal said.

They will likely be forced to keep waiting for a breakthrough in the political impasse that is set to prevail as Russia and Iran continue to support the Assad regime.

What could begin to force the Assad regime to change its calculations is the news, reported last week in the New York Times newspaper, that Saudi Arabia was increasing the flow of more powerful weapons to rebels in the south of Damascus, opening a new front and a potential point of pressure. "That would be a more significant development than Kerry standing up and saying that we're providing money for sanitation services," Ms Hilal said.

The US is likely involved in these efforts, at least indirectly, but does not want to take credit because it fears that if acknowledged, it would create a slippery slope to long-term commitment, Ms Hilal added.

Barack Obama, the US president, also has more pressing foreign policy priorities in the region, saying recently that when he evaluates his options in Syria he has to consider the ongoing withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

"The answer has to do with the Russians," said Daniel Serwer, a former State Department official now teaching at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies in Washington.

"Obama is concerned that if we go too far in arming the opposition, the Russians will retaliate against us in the Northern Distribution Network, which they essentially control and which is vital to the withdrawal from Afghanistan," he said.

Whether the new direct relationship between the FSA and the US leads to a more trusting relationship that eventually eases Washington's fears about providing the arms necessary to topple Mr Al Assad is an open question, the analysts said, but it is one that the slow pace of debate and limited actions may ultimately render moot.

"The one fact in all of this," said Mr Jouejati, "is that the radical Islamists are being strengthened by the absence of a concerted international effort to make Assad cease and desist."

Syrian Clashes Bring Conflict to Iraq Doorstep

Hezbollah, Syria Opposition Clashes Intensify, Raise Fears in Lebanon

Assad 'Will Take Part' in 2014 Syria Poll, Says Iran FM

Wounded Syria Soldiers Treated in Iraq: Spokesman

http://rt.com/news/syria-iraq-border-checkpoint-706/

Iraqi army helped Syrian government retake border checkpoint - reports

Published time: March 02, 2013 01:19

Iraq, Iraq-Syria Border (AFP Photo / Str)

Syrian no-man’s land bordering Israel and Jordan is up for grabs

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 2, 2013, 5:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Syria

Israel

no-man's land

Ehud Barak

Chuck Hagel

Moscow

Israeli military drill on the Golan

The four Syrian mortar shells exploding on the Israeli side of the Golan Saturday, March 2, flashed a signal to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that the moment is at hand to step in and decide how to dispose of the expanse of southern Syrian bordering on northern Israel. This urgency sent Defense Minister Ehud Barak flying to Washington Friday March 1, to meet new US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel next Tuesday.

At the top of their agenda for discussion this time will not be Iran but, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, the disappearance, except for scattered military units, of Bashar Assad’s ruling presence and army from the Syrian areas abutting on Israel and Jordan. The collapse of Assad’s defense lines on these two borders generates a new strategic situation of major import.

Most Israelis, including their media, are too deeply engrossed in the ins and outs of Netanyahu’s struggle to form a coalition government to notice that a no man’s land has opened up on the Syrian Golan, the Horon province (where the Syrian uprising first erupted two years ago), and the Yarmuk River dividing Syria from Jordan.

At the same time, the Assad army is all but gone from there and the Syrian rebels are constrained from moving into the abandoned territory by three considerations:

1. They are short of the manpower for seizing and holding it;

2. Their commanders have evidently not caught onto the brilliant international, strategic opportunity waiting to drop in their laps;

3. The Druze community in their mountain fortresses overlooking the territory is poised to prevent any outsider takeover.

Israel is confronted with a choice between leaving the long-menacing areas overlooking the Sea of Galilee and its north-eastern regions to an unknown fate - or asserting control itself.

At this point, Israel’s armed forces still have three options:

a) Directly capturing dominant points in those no-man’s land areas as guarantees of a say in who eventually dominates them.

b) Military support for a Druze land grab.

c) Military collaboration with Jordan to control the fate of the abandoned lands abutting both their borders.

There is still time to pre-empt developments that would be detrimental to Israel’s security: One such development would be a deal being reached on how to dispose of the abandoned territory between the Assad government and Syrian opposition in the talks opening in Moscow Tuesday, March 5.

This deal would open the door for ensconcing on the Israeli border Muslim extremists, such as the pro-Al Qaeda factions fighting with the Syrian rebels.

Barak’s mission to Washington is to align Israel-US positions on these and other urgent topics with the new US defense secretary. DEBKAfile’s Washington sources are skeptical about his chances of success in view of the Obama administration’s decision to pass the resolution of the Syrian question to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This leaves the initiative up to Netanyahu. He has shown exceptional skill of late in ducking clear decisions on such matters. However, indecisiveness at this moment could cost Israel dear in the future.

and.....

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whos-turning-syrias-civil-war-into-a-jihad/

Who’s Turning Syria’s Civil War Into a Jihad?

The West, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia all have their own angles in the conflict—but Salafism and anarchy may be the big winners.

By PHILIP GIRALDI • February 28, 2013

Freedom House / Flickr

The tale of what is going on in Syria reads something like this: an insurgency active since March 2011 has been funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and allowed to operate out of Turkey with the sometimes active, but more often passive, connivance of a number of Western powers, including Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. The intention was to overthrow the admittedly dictatorial Bashar al-Assad quickly and replace him with a more representative government composed largely of Syrians-in-exile drawn from the expat communities in Europe and the United States. The largely ad hoc political organization that was the counterpart to the Free Syrian Army ultimately evolved into the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Syrian National Coalition) in November 2012, somewhat reminiscent of Ahmad Chalabi and the ill-starred Iraqi National Congress. As in the lead-up to regime change in Iraq, the exiles successfully exploited anti-Syrian sentiment among leading politicians in Washington and Europe while skillfully manipulating the media narrative to suggest that the al-Assad regime was engaging in widespread atrocities and threatening to destabilize its neighbors, most notably Lebanon. As in the case of Iraq, Syria’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was introduced into the indictment of al-Assad and cited as a regional threat.

If there was a model for what was planned for Syria it must have been the invasion of Iraq in 2003 or possibly the United Nations-endorsed armed intervention in Libya in 2010, both of which intended to replace dictatorial regimes with Western-style governments that would at least provide a simulacrum of accountable popular rule. But the planners must have anticipated a better outcome. Both Libya and Iraq have become more destabilized than they were under their autocrats, a fact that appears to have escaped everyone’s notice. It did not take long for the wheels to fall off the bus in Syria as well. As in Iraq, the Syrian exiles had no real constituency within their homeland, which meant that the already somewhat organized resistance to al-Assad, consisting of the well-established Muslim Brotherhood and associated groups, came to the fore. Al-Assad, who somewhat credibly has described the rebels as terrorists supported by foreign governments, did not throw in the towel and leave. The Turkish people, meanwhile, began to turn sour on a war which seemed endless, was creating a huge refugee and security problem as Kurdish terrorists mixed in with the refugees, and was increasingly taking on the shape of a new jihad as foreign volunteers began to assume responsibility for most of the fighting.

The proposed alternative government of the Syrian National Coalition was quicklyrecognized by Washington and the Europeans, primarily because it promised some kind of democratic and pluralistic future for Syria and control over the disparate and sometimes radical elements in the Free Syrian Army. The supporters of the rebellion in the West were willing to hold their collective noses and endorse the enterprise even though it was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists rather than by Western-educated liberals and other secularists. But the painstakingly arrived at distribution of power provided no real solution as the Coalition had no authority over most of the actual rebel combatants and little ability to enforce standards on the cadres who were fighting the Syrian Army in Aleppo and Damascus. Emphasizing its political divisions and also its essential powerlessness, on January 21, 2013 the Coalition wasunable to agree on who might be part of a transitional government to run the areas controlled by the insurgents, largely because the Muslim Brotherhood was unwilling to cede authority to other groups. Since that time it has failed to agree on possible conditions for initiating peace negotiations with the al-Assad government.

There will be plenty of finger-pointing in Washington and in the European chanceries over what went wrong, but one issue that will probably not be confronted directly is the competing objectives of the various supporters of the insurgents, which should have been visible right from the beginning. The U.S. and the Europeans clearly envisioned some kind of humanitarian intervention which would lead to a new, more representative government, but that was not the goal of Turkey, which sought a pliable replacement regime that would clamp down on the activities of groups like the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), Ankara’s primary geopolitical security concern.

Perhaps even more important, people in Washington should have also been asking why Saudi Arabia and Qatar wanted to overthrow al-Assad and what kind of government they had in mind to replace him. Saudi Arabia’s rival as regional hegemon, Iran, is viewed in Riyadh as ascendant due to the rise to power of a friendly Shia regime in Iraq as a result of the American invasion and regime change. This has permitted the development of a geographically contiguous Arab bloc closely tied to Tehran and its regional interests, running through Iraq, across Syria, and connecting with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. To break up that de facto coalition, the Saudis, who see Syria as the weak link in the chain, have sought to replace Assad’s Alawite-led government with a Sunni regime. But there is also a second agenda. Because the ruling minority Alawites are considered to be heretics similar to Shi’ites, a change in religious orientation would be necessary, with the Saudis serving as protectors of the Sunni majority. The Riyadh-backed Sunni regime would of course be expected to conform with the particularly Saudi view of proper religious deportment—the extremely conservative Wahhabism that prevails in the Kingdom, which is closer to the views of the more radical insurgents while hostile to the secularists. It would also make the country’s significant numbers of Christians, Alawites, Shi’ites, and Kurds potential victims of the arrangement.

All of which means that the Saudis and their allies Qatar believe in change in Syria, but on their own terms, and they actually oppose enabling a populist or democratic evolution. In fact, Riyadh has been actively engaged regionally in doing what it can to contain the unrest resulting from the Arab Spring so that the populism does not become untidy and spill over into Saudi Arabia itself. This has meant that from the beginning Saudi and Qatari objectives in Syria have differed from the goals of either Turkey or the Western powers, which should have been seen as a recipe for disaster.

And it gets even more complicated. In spite of their tendency to support religious groups rather than secular ones, Saudi Arabia and its ally Qatar view the Muslim Brotherhood’s “political Islam” as one of the divisive elements that has destabilized countries like Egypt, unleashing forces that could ultimately threaten the Saudis and Qataris themselves. As a result, working through their surrogates in Lebanon and in Turkey as well as in Jordan, they have systematically and deliberately starved most of the Free Syrian Army of money and weapons, instead diverting their assistance to the militant Jabhat al-Nusra, a Salafist group alleged to have links to al-Qaeda. Al-Nusra is generally regarded as the most effective insurgent group when it comes to fighting, but it advocates a strict Sunni religious state as part of a worldwide Caliphate under Sharia law when the fighting is concluded. It has also become a magnet for the foreign jihadis who have been drawn into the rebellion, an issue that has raised concerns in Washington because of the likelihood that any successor regime to al-Assad could easily be dominated by a well-armed and disciplined Salafist minority.

Ironically, the Saudis are acutely aware that aid to groups like al-Nusra could easily blowback and feed a new wave of jihadi-led violence—with al-Nusra playing a similar role to that of al-Qaeda after it cut its teeth in Afghanistan—but they are unfortunately locked into their own rhetoric regarding what is necessary to take down al-Assad and break the coalition of Arab states aligned with Iran. What it means for the other players in the tragedy is that Syria is de facto in a bloody civil war that is approaching stalemate, while the United States and Europeans have no good options and the Turks are increasingly playing damage control. If there is a solution to the conflict it is not readily discernible, and it is now doubtful whether some kind of resolution by force could be imposed even if Washington and the Europeans were inclined to do so, which they are not.

Syria is in danger of ceasing to exist as a nation-state. Its collapse could inspire a new global jihad and provoke violence throughout the Middle East, while its chemical weapons could easily fall into dangerous hands. Well-armed bands of the most radical of the insurgents taking the lead in the conflict without any political direction or control cannot be what anyone envisioned two years ago, but that is what has emerged, with the United States again looking on like a helpless giant.

and......

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/03/01/eu-likely-to-begin-arming-syrian-rebels-by-summer/

EU Likely to Begin Arming Syrian Rebels by Summer

'Breakthrough' on Policy to Scrap EU Arms Embargo

by Jason Ditz, March 01, 2013

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The European Union’s arms embargo, which has prevented member nations from directly arming Syrian rebels, could be set to fall in the coming months, according to a Syrian rebel spokesman in Britain, who claimed a “breakthrough” in talks.

The latest round of EU talks on the matter, which saw Britain pushing hard for an abandonment of the embargo outright, saw a relaxation of the wording. In essence, nations can now send virtually anything but guns as “non-lethal aid.”

The next round of Friends of Syria talks, expected by early summer, are expected to scrap the embargo outright, with Britain and several other nations expected to start funneling arms directly into Syria.

That won’t sit well with Russia, which already complained about the US announcement of a $60 million package of aid that didn’t include weapons or ammunition. Russian officials have expressed concern that the aid and promises of more to come are discouraging the rebels from negotiating a settlement, and is keeping the war going.

and.....

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/03/01/syrian-rebels-angry-over-us-aid-only-thing-we-want-is-weapons/

Syrian Rebels Angry Over US Aid: ‘Only Thing We Want Is Weapons’

Non-Lethal Aid Doesn't Conquer Countries, Gen. Idris Insists

by Jason Ditz, March 01, 2013

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General Salim Idris, the Chief of Staff of the Syrian rebels’ Supreme Military Council, reacted with anger toward the US announcement of additional aid for his forces, insisting that the promise of food rations and medical supplies were meaningless.

“We don’t want food and drink and we don’t want bandages.When we’re wounded, we want to die. The only thing we want is weapons,” Gen. Idris insisted in a telephone interview, adding that the “whole world” knows he needs missiles, not food.

Gen. Idris also denied receiving any of the weapons that the GCC have been openly sending to rebel factions, claiming that the FSA only has weapons looted from the Syrian military and is dealing with a “severe shortage” of ammunition.

Rebels have been complaining about arms shortages from virtually the beginning of the war, and while various nations continue to smuggle arms in, they keep insisting they never get them. Despite a shortage of ammunition that has supposedly lasted a solid year, the Syrian rebels appear to have no trouble launching offensives.

and......

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/28/184493/rebel-cooperation-in-syrian-town.html

KFAR NBOUDA, Syria — Sophisticated new weapons now in the hands of rebels in north-central Syria underscore how difficult it will be, once more lethal aid begins to arrive, to keep those weapons from Islamist extremists who’ve become key to rebel military advances throughout the country.

Rebels who belong to the Victory Brigade – a group whose alliance with the Hama provincial military council makes it acceptable to U.S. officials who are deciding where aid should go – were giddy as they showed off their new weapons this week. They included Russian-made RPG-27s – shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades capable of piercing the armor on the Syrian military’s most advanced tanks – and RG6 grenade launchers, another Russian-designed weapon, this one capable of spewing projectiles that explode on contact.

But the brigade doesn’t fight alone, and a video that another rebel group, the Islamist Ahrar al Sham, posted to YouTube this month showed fighters using the same kinds of weapons in an assault that was coordinated with the Victory Brigade.

“Of course they share their weapons with us,” said Ali Ankir, a spokesman for Ahrar al Sham. “We fight together.”

Indeed, Victory closely coordinated its offensive in December to seize the town of Kfar Nbouda from forces loyal to President Bashar Assad not just with Sham, but also with fighters from the Nusra Front, which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization aligned with al Qaida in Iraq. Nusra and Sham share the goal of establishing an Islamist state in a post-Assad Syria, and unlike Victory they don’t recognize the authority of the Hama military council.

Victory rebels were cagey about how they’d gotten the new weapons. “We have our ways,” said Ahmed Darwish, a brigade leader. The timing of the weapons’ arrival suggests they were part of a recently publicized shipment brokered by Saudi Arabia from Croatia. The RG6 rounds the rebels displayed this week were manufactured in Serbia.

The new weapons are a far cry from the light weapons the rebels in this part of Syria possessed when the largely peaceful uprising against the Assad regime became violent in the spring and summer of 2011. But as the rebels’ backers step up military and other aid, the battle for this city reveals the difficulty of controlling which of the myriad rebel groups take possession of that aid.

The provincial military council with which Darwish’s group is allied, along with similar councils formed in each of Syria’s 14 provinces, nominally answers to Salim Idriss, a defected general who’s the commander of the Supreme Military Command, which is based in Bab al Hawa, just inside Syria’s northern border with Turkey. It’s the group that Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday would begin receiving food and nonlethal aid directly from the United States.

But the military command isn’t the only source of Victory’s weapons, Darwish said. The group also procures weapons on the black market, and, Darwish said, has private backers in Qatar who’ve also supplied weapons and money. One commander from the group is in Libya attempting to secure funding for weapons from backers there.

The U.S. government has expressed concern that backers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were empowering rebel groups who call for the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria, as opposed to those who envision elections after Assad is deposed.

But it’s difficult here to see a difference between the groups. For example, Victory and Sham maintained a joint operations center during recent fighting. On a recent day, the local commanders of Sham, Victory and a third rebel faction, the Farouq Brigade, were spotted together in the same car; Farouq also doesn’t recognize the authority of the Hama military council.

On repeated visits to Kfar Nbouda, this reporter has seen the groups share weapons and expertise. Last June, one bomb maker was providing munitions to various fighting groups, and a video that Sham posted to YouTube on Feb. 17 by clearly shows fighters using RPG-27s and RG6 grenade launchers, the same type of weapon Darwish bragged about receiving in recent weeks.

They’re not housed together but it’s not odd to see fighters from each organization visiting one another’s quarters.

Asked whether Sham also had the sophisticated weapons that Darwish was showing off this week, Ankir, Sham’s spokesman, said, “Yes, we do, and we have others.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/28/184493/rebel-cooperation-in-syrian-town.html#storylink=cpy

Catharsis Ours

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Syria - following the bouncing islamic led jihad campaign.....