Syria news of note - as Syria campaign extends into Iraq...... Jihad Central = Syria...... Arab nations contribute to Jihad Central by arming islamic fighters.....

http://www.infowars.com/shadowy-syrian-opposition-group-kidnaps-united-nations-peacekeepers/

Shadowy Syrian Opposition Group Kidnaps United Nations Peacekeepers

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 7, 2013

In a move that may give Israel a pretext to cross a United Nations buffer zone in Syria, a shadowy Syrian rebel group armed with weapons provided by Saudi Arabia and Qatar has kidnapped 21 Filipino United Nation peacekeepers.

The peacekeepers are part of a force monitoring a cease-fire between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, an area of Syria occupied by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. Israel and Syria are technically still at war. Israel removed Syrians from the Golan and began moving in Israel settlers in the 1970s. In 1980, the Israeli people voted to annex the Golan Heights.

“The UN observers were on a regular supply mission and were stopped near Observation Post 58, which had sustained damage and was evacuated this past weekend following heavy combat in close proximity, at Al Jamlah,” the United Nations said in a statement released at its headquarters in New York.

The group, identifying itself as the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigades, said in a video (above) posted to Youtube, it will hold the United Nations soldiers until the Syrian government removes troops from the area.

On Thursday, the group fought battles with the Syrian army in the southern province of Daraa near the Golan Heights, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He said the fighting was occurring near the Syrian village of Jamlah where the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigades Wednesday kidnapped the 21 U.N. peacekeepers from the Philippines.

“We demand a full retreat of all of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad’s forces from Jamlah and the Daraa province,” the rebel spokesman states in the video, according to a translation provided by the Israeli websites Israel Hayom and Yedioth Internet. “The Syrian military has been bombing the village relentlessly and those that are helping them are the U.N… If no withdrawal is made within 24 hours we will treat them as prisoners,”

“The Yarmouk Brigades, like many rebel fighting units, contain radical jihadists or members otherwise hostile to the non-Muslim states and those supportive of the Assad regime,” writes Daniel Nisman, who is an intelligence manager at a geopolitical risk consulting firm in Tel Aviv, Israel. “In the past, these groups have staged kidnappings or targeted foreign interests believed to be affiliated with the Assad regime, primarily from Iran, Lebanon, and Russia.”

The United Nations, however, has had a contentious relationship with the al-Assad regime.

According to the French news service AFP, Israel has expressed concern over the presence of the Martyrs of Yarmouk Brigades and other Syrian government opposition groups dominated by al-Qaeda in the area.

“This kidnapping is likely to convince countries which participate in this force to bring their troops home, which would undoubtedly create a dangerous vacuum in no man’s land on the Golan,” an anonymous Israeli official told AFP. “Since its creation, this force has fulfilled its mission which was to keep the peace.”

According to the Yedioth news website, the Israel Defense Force has “expressed concerns in the past year relating to the extremely dangerous nature of the Hauran area, some 3 kilometers from IDF posts. Rebels in the area are affiliated with Global Jihad and al-Qaeda who might be planning an infiltration into Israel.”

Israeli officials also said they are concerned the United Nations may abandon its mission in the Golan.“We certainly hope that the UN will keep its commitment to help keep the ceasefire in the Golan Heights. It’s been a cornerstone of regional peace since 1974,” an Israeli government official told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

It remains to be seen if Israel will use the latest development in the Golan Heights to push beyond theUnited Nations Disengagement Observer Force buffer zone established in 1971. Israel has repeatedlyviolated United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 intended to resolve the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict by entering the nation’s airspace and breaking sound barriers over villages in southern Lebanon. In addition, during the war, Israel attacked United Nations outposts in Lebanon on numerous occasions. In August of that year, the IDF shelled a United Nations Truce Supervision Organization patrol base in Khiyam, killing four peacekeepers.

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/03/06/chechen-fighters-flock-to-syria-to-join-jihad/

Chechen Fighters Flock to Syria to Join ‘Jihad’

Leaders Eye Islamist State Within Syria as Goal of War

by Jason Ditz, March 06, 2013

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Foreign fighters have been a significant and growing part of the Syrian rebellion for quite some time. Combatants have entered the country mainly from Northern Africa, notably Libya where fighters from their own rebellion have hoped to “export” the revolution.

But the latest reports are that significant amounts of rebel fighters have been flocking to Syria from Chechnya, with one group calling itself the Brigade of Migrants being led by a Chechen and composed of fighters from Russia’s North Caucasus.

There have been off and on reports of handfuls of Chechen fighters coming into Syria, but today’s reports suggest this has grown from a few isolated fighters here and there into a bonafide movement of Chechen militants who fought the Russian occupation moving into Syria to fight against a Russian ally.

It is not principally Russia’s role in Syria that is motivating the fighters, however. Rather their leaders are exhorting them that an “Islamist state is within reach” and that, alongside the other Islamist factions that increasingly run the rebellion, Syria can be transformed into a fundamentalist Sunni state.

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/03/06/arab-league-authorizes-arms-to-syrian-rebels/

Arab League Authorizes Arms to Syrian Rebels

Invites Rebel Leadership to Join League

by Jason Ditz, March 06, 2013

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Intense debate at the Arab League today ended with a resolution, pushed by Qatar primarily, to authorize member nations to provide arms to Syrian rebels for the purpose of regime change. The resolution also invited the rebels to take the Syrian government’s former seat at the League.

The resolution was pushed by members of the Saudi-led GCC, while Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria opposed it and refused to endorsed the final statement. Iraq and Lebanon have both seen spillover from the Syrian war in recent weeks, while Algeria is likely afraid of the precedent of backing rebels giving their own long history of unrest.

The “authorization” to arm rebels is likely little more than a formality, as Qatar and others have been openly doing so for months, funneling large amounts of weaponry across the Turkish border with US help.

In other news, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced his own nation will engage in “active efforts” to back Syria’s rebels after the EU relaxed an arms embargo on the nation. This will include providing the rebels with armored vehicles and body armor.

http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2013/03/06/syrian-jets-and-rebels-strike-in-iraq-13-killed-across-country/

Syrian Jets and Rebels Strike in Iraq, 13 Killed Across Country

by Margaret Griffis, March 06, 2013

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The war in Syria continues to be a threat to Iraq’s western flank. Violence today included attacks from both the Syrian Air Force and Syrian rebels. Overall, at least 13 Iraqis were killed and eight more were wounded.

A source at a Sinjar hospital reported the delivery of six bodies belonging to Iraqi soldiers killed by the rebel group the Syrian Free Army at a border crossing nearRabia. On Monday, fighting near this border crossing drove a number of Syrian soldiers into Iraq for medical care or safety. The group was ambushed and slaughtered while on Iraqi soil.

One civilian was wounded when Syrian jets crossed the border and bombed an area near the Yaarabia crossing. Hundreds of families had to flee as the jets chased opposition fighters.

In Ramadi, gunmen killed four people, including two civilians, and wounded three policemen.

A roadside bomb killed a policeman and wounded two others in Baghdad.

An al-Qaeda leader was killed and two security personnel were wounded in Khalis, during a clash that erupted while security forces were trying to arrest the man.

A sticky bomb killed a security employee in northern Anbar province.

and.......






http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/capture-bombardment-armored.html

Syrian Rebels capture UN Troops, face Raqqah bombings, are pledged UK Armored Trucks

Posted on 03/07/2013 by Juan

The Syrian civil war heated up on several fronts on Wednesday.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague on Wednesday painted a horrific picture of the situation in Syria and went on to pledge armored vehicles and body armor for the Syrian rebels, as a ‘humanitarian’ measure. Russian media accuse the US, Western Europe and Jordan of setting up training camps for the Syrian rebels in Jordan. It is also rumored that Saudi Arabia is funding the Jordanian bases. It is likely that the Jordanian facilities, and Hague’s pledge of the most significant Western equipment provision yet seen, are attempts to create a southern front at Deraa, which would be anti-fundamentalist (in contrast to the main recent action in the north, where Qatar-backed fundamentalists have made the impressive gains). An excerpt from Hague’s speech:

A million Syrians have by now been made refugees by the fighting, about 1/20th of the country (equivalent to 15 million Americans suddenly left homeless). I think most people don’t realize what a refugee is. It is a role, not an identity. It is one that any of us can abruptly be forced into. Refugees had homes, they just had to flee them. They had wealth and property, they have suddenly lost it. They are homeless, and dependent on the kindness of strangers (mostly strangers are not that kind). The Syrians actually displaced from their homes are a small proportion of those who have been hurt by the fighting in some way.

Jordan’s airlines announced earlier this week that they would no longer fly to Beirut over Syrian territory, which set off speculation on the Arabic web that a decision has been made to give the rebels shoulder-held missile launchers capable of taking down aircraft (this is just speculation; and, it should be noted that they seem already to have some, which might be what Royal Jordanian Airlines is reacting against).

Meanwhile, the Arab League is moving to replace Syria’s seat in the 22-member organization with representatives of the Syrian opposition.

A group of rebels took 20 United Nations peace-keeping troops in the Golan Heights captive on Wednesday, accusing the UN of backing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. (The UN Security Council has in fact neglected to condemn al-Assad’s vast violence against his own people, which has risen to the level of crimes against humanity. This failure of the UNSC, however, derives from the Russian and Chinese veto rather than from a UN preference for al-Assad in general). To have such an even occur in the Golan must alarm the Israeli leaderhip; Israel has occupied Syria’s Golan Heights since 1967.

The group circulated a video in which they demanded a withdrawal of Syrian military forces from their area and threatened to do something to the hostages in 24 hours if the regime refused.

In Raqqah, a provincial capital in the north, rebels faced heavy bombing raids by Syrian fighter jets as they continued to battle to wipe out the few pockets of resistance in the city to their conquest. There was heavy fighting on the ground against the hold-out Baathist troops. The rebels also captured the provincial governor and the provincial head of the Baath Party; these are the highest-ranking officials to fall into their hands. In another northern city, Hasakah, there were three large explosions of bombs targeting important Baathist buildings.

CNN reports on the situation in Raqqah. That the rebels (mostly in this case the fundamentalist Jabhat al-Nusra) now control almost all of Raqqah gives them one of the larger provinces of the Syrian north. Syria has 14 provinces, and the rebels now have a strong position in many parts of about half of them, mostly those in the north.