http://www.infowars.com/did-israel-attack-syria-again/
2. The Libyan black market.
3. The Balkan black market, chiefly Serbia and Montenegro.
Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad cautioned Europe it would pay the price for delivering arms to rebel forces in Syria. In an interview to in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said: “If the Europeans deliver weapons, the backyard of Europe will become terrorist…”
Tuesday, the Group of Eight had its work cut out to formulate a Syrian item in its final communiqué that would be acceptable to all seven plus the Russian president. However, in Syria itself, all the signs portend the lengthening of the conflict: Russia is expected to respond to Western arms supplies to the rebels by ramping up its own military assistance to the Assad regime.
The word from Moscow Tuesday was that if the West does try to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, Russian flights will continue, in defiance of any such restrictions.
http://www.larsschall.com/2013/06/14/syria-questions-of-life-and-death-remain-unanswered/
( Nice to see investigative reporting hasn't completely died or been sold out - somewhere , by some journalists.... )
The lovely lakeside venue for the two-day gathering of US, Russian, Canadian, French, German, Italian, British and Japanese leaders was worlds away from the Syrian killing fields, where 93,000 people have died, according to conservative estimates. But the Russian president will make sure that the voices of his allies, Bashar Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, are heard loud and clear in the conference hall, until they are acknowledged the victors of the vicious Syrian war. If world leaders hold back, the Syrian and Hizballah armies will continue their march on Aleppo, Syria’s biggest town, for their next bloodbath.
Additional details of the attack were scant, but a rebel familiar with the strike said that the car was packed with “six tons of explosives.” It is unclear if it was detonated remotely or by a suicide driver.
This unbeatable preponderance makes the fall of Aleppo and Assad’s victory a foregone conclusion
Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, speaking in Washington over the weekend, argued that the Syrian army’s successes did not add up to a strategic victory. The Russian leader will present the opposite case to which his fellows in the Group of Eight have no answer. They will therefore hammer at the only point on which they agree, the quest for a political solution of the Syrian crisis by means of an international conference, i.e., getting Geneva-2 off the ground.
Putin and Obama will therefore need to put their heads together on accepted ground rules for this event.
1. Geneva-2 will not be convened by the US or Russia, as first agreed, but by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This would force Washington to stay within the bounds of UN resolutions and not act as did the US and NATO in Libya to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi outside their Security Council mandate.
The Russian president is determined to thwart any attempt by Obama to take advantage of Hassan Rouani’s election as president of Iran to supersede the battlefield successes of Russia, Iran and Hizballah in Syria. Ayatollah Khamenei will go along with him on this.
Sunday night, Washington was evidently exploring new diplomatic ground with Tehran when Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff commented that Hassan Rouhani’s election as president of Iran was a potentially hopeful sign. “If he is interested in, as he has said in his campaign events, mending his relations… with the rest of the world – there’s the opportunity to do that.”
But then, he said: “But doing so would require Iran to come clean on its illicit nuclear program.”
This was the Obama administration’s answer to Putin’s comment Tuesday, June 11 when he said: “I have no doubt that Iran is adhering to international commitments on nuclear non-proliferation, but regional and international concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program should not be ignored,” said the Russian leader.
4. Putin has gone back on his earlier consent to a single, united delegation representing the Syrian opposition at the projected international conference. He now maintains that the rebel front is hopelessly divided and the delegation should truly represent the real situation.
This too will be a Russian attempt to frustrate Western plans for a united opposition camp to speak with one voice opposite the Assad regime, by accentuating the rifts dividing the rival Syrian opposition factions and militias.
As matters look now, Assad’s drive to recapture all of Aleppo will continue after the G8 leaders have gone home. Putin, Khamenei, Assad and Nasrallah will continue their hideous victory march and the US, West and Israel will continue to hold back from intervention that could reverse the tide.
http://www.debka.com/article/23054/First-European-NATO-heavy-arms-for-Syrian-rebels-Russian-reprisal-expected
NATO and a number of European governments, most significantly the UK, have started airlifting heavy weapons to the Syrian rebels poised in Aleppo to fend off a major Syrian army offensive, according to DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources. They disclose that the first shipments were landed Monday night, June 17, and early Tuesday in Turkey and Jordan. They contained anti-air and tank missiles as well as recoilless 120 mm cannons mounted on jeeps. From there, they were transferred to rebel forces in southern Syria and Aleppo in the northwest.
Our sources report that the first weapons reached rebel-held positions in Aleppo early Tuesday. More than 2,000 Hizballah troops are standing by to enter the decisive contest between Assad’s army and the opposition for control of Syria’s second most important city.
The hardware for the rebels is coming in from three sources:
1. NATO stores in Europe, which have been filling up in the past year with arms evacuated from Afghanistan. These weapons have been in operational use and are not new.
2. The Libyan black market.
3. The Balkan black market, chiefly Serbia and Montenegro.
Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad cautioned Europe it would pay the price for delivering arms to rebel forces in Syria. In an interview to in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said: “If the Europeans deliver weapons, the backyard of Europe will become terrorist…”
The volume of the new arms airlift to the Syrian rebels may be estimated by the number of airfreight flights from Libya to Turkey: 27 aircraft landings were counted in the last few days, according to our intelligence sources.
This major Western policy reversal on the arming of the Syrian opposition – combined with the Obama administration’s decision last week to provide the rebels with military aid - was graphically registered in the glum miens of Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at their meeting Monday on the first day of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. Beyond exchanging bare courtesies, neither concealed the deep rift between them on Syria – even in the presence of reporters and TV cameras.
Tuesday, the Group of Eight had its work cut out to formulate a Syrian item in its final communiqué that would be acceptable to all seven plus the Russian president. However, in Syria itself, all the signs portend the lengthening of the conflict: Russia is expected to respond to Western arms supplies to the rebels by ramping up its own military assistance to the Assad regime.
The word from Moscow Tuesday was that if the West does try to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, Russian flights will continue, in defiance of any such restrictions.
Did Israel Attack Syria Again?
Strike on advanced weapons shipment threatens huge escalation of conflict
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 17, 2013
Infowars.com
June 17, 2013
The IDF is refusing to comment on reports that Israel attacked the Al-Miza military airbase near Damascus last night, which if true could lead to a Syrian response and a massive escalation of the 27 month conflict.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
A Syrian television station sympathetic to anti-Assad rebels reported that Israel was responsible for the strike on a facility west of Damascus, which targeted advanced weapons and radar systems.
“Eyewitnesses said that the explosions were large and that neither the Assad regime nor the rebels had the capability to create explosions of such a magnitude,” reports the Jerusalem Post.
“My house overlooks the airport. At a certain point we saw armored vehicles enter the airport,” an opposition source told YNet News. “They were probably equipped with mobile radar systems. Then we heard the sound of a missile striking the vehicles. It was the same sound we heard in Mount Qasioun (site of the alleged airstrike in May).”
“The explosion was like a volcano. The flames reached the sky. The sound was the same one that was heard in Qasioun,” added another eyewitness.
Other reports claimed that the attack was a result of a car bomb carried out by rebels, an explanation embraced by the Assad government.
Israel’s policy after it carried out previous attacks on Syria is to neither confirm or deny involvement.
If Israel’s complicity in the attack is confirmed, it could prompt a Syrian response that would serve to pour fuel on the fire of a conflict already rocked by news last week that the United States will formally seek to arm opposition rebels despite their close ties with Al-Qaeda.
Following attacks on several facilities in Syria last month, President Bashar Al-Assad vowed to “respond in kind” to any future acts of Israeli aggression, after criticism that his reaction had been muted.
Days prior to this threat, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon warned that the Israeli military was prepared to strike shipments of advanced Russian weapons sent to Damascus, commenting, “If God forbid they do reach Syria, we will know what to do.”
Analysts have warned that an escalation of the conflict could ignite World War 3.
Israel has offered tacit support to opposition militants despite their jihadist creed, setting up field hospitals to aid injured rebels while also sending military vehicles into Syria to pick up wounded fighters before patching them up and sending them back into battle.
A huge Israeli air strike on the Jamraya military facility on May 5 was coordinated with opposition rebels, according to Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence sources.
With the Syrian Army scoring key battlefield victories in recent weeks, Israel and the United States’ efforts to destabilize the Assad regime are expected to accelerate.
Last week, the Obama administration announced that it would seek to arm the Syrian rebels after claiming President Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons, crossing a so-called “red line”.
In pledging to increase military support for Syrian rebels while also preparing a no fly zone, the Obama administration is openly aiding terrorists who have sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
By launching attacks that weaken and distract Damascus from its focus on defeating western-backed insurgents, Israel is aiding the very same rebels who have burned Israeli flags in public and vowed to crush the Zionist regime once they are finished toppling Assad.
http://www.larsschall.com/2013/06/14/syria-questions-of-life-and-death-remain-unanswered/
( Nice to see investigative reporting hasn't completely died or been sold out - somewhere , by some journalists.... )
Syria: Questions of Life and Death Remain Unanswered
Juni 14th, 2013 No Comments
In recent weeks I continued to try to get some answers related to an attack on the Syrian-Turkish border that led to the deployment of Patriot missile systems to Turkey. Here’s the report of my odyssey involving the US Pentagon, the General Staff of the Turkish Army, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Belgium.
By Lars Schall
Posted originally on 14 June 2013 at War is a Crime here.
At the end of the article “False flag conspiracy of Assad opponents?,“ which I’ve published together with Middle East expert Prof Guenter Meyer from the University of Mainz on May 11, 2013 about alleged false-flag activities undertaken by the opponents of the Syrian government (see here), I mentioned an e-mail request that I sent to the Headquarter of NATO in Brussels. I had a very specific problem with respect to a report in the semi-official Austrian military magazine, which suggested that the mortar grenade attack that has been conducted on the Syrien-Turkish border in October 2012 was a staged event. Literary, the journal wrote in its Issue No. 1/2013, January 18, 2013:
“Turkey: The mortar grenade from Syria, that killed five Turks, came clearly from NATO stocks. It seems as if NATO member Turkey supported the Syrian rebels with arms. However, these supplies would have needed to be coordinated with other NATO countries.“
NATO HQ had told me with regards to this report that “(f)orensic and investigative questions relating to the 3 October incident are for the Turkish authorities to address. NATO as an organisation never conducted an investigation into this incident.“ On April 17 and May 7, I sent therefore a request to the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces both in Turkish and English in order to ask for a comment on this story in “Der Soldat.” However, in both cases I received no response whatsoever. Thus, I wrote NATO HQ about my problem by stating, “I think you are in a position in which it would be very easy and simple to give me a helping hand, so that I could get finally an official and clarifying response from Ankara.” NATO official Matthias Eichenlaub wrote back that he would “contact my Turkish colleagues (…) to see whether they can recommend an email address.” A few days later he wrote again: “Dear Mr Schall. I have been advised by my Turkish colleagues that you can send your query to the following address: basin@tsk.tr. I hope this helps.”
On the same day I wrote my request to the e-mail address above. Yet, until today I received once more no response from basin@tsk.tr.
In the meantime, I also wrote to the United States Department of Defense / Pentagon – namely to Jenny Davis, who is a Special Assistant at the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Department of Defense, and to Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesperson, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. On May 15 I send them this media request:
Dear Ms. Davis, dear Mr. Whitman,
my name is Lars Schall, I am a freelance journalist from Germany. I copy this e-mail to Pepe Escobar, geopolitical analyst for Asia Times Online.
The Austrian military journal “Der Soldat”, Issue No. 1/2013, January 18, 2013 reported that the mortar grenade that was fired from Syrian territory at the end of 2012 and killed five Turkish citizens came clearly from NATO stocks. Due to the fact that not least this incident lead to the deployment of Patriot air defense systems from Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, the report in the semi-official journal is of particular importance to me. The legal basis for the German participation in the deployment to Turkey was Article 51 of the UN Charter – the right to individual and collective self-defense -, as well as the decision of the NATO Council in accordance with Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty – to be able to excercise this right in the event of an attack from the Syrian side.
As a German journalist, I am interested to learn the following as a matter of public interest:
How does the Pentagon comment on this report in “Der Soldat“?
“Der Soldat”, Issue No. 1/2013, January 18, 2013:
“Turkey: The mortar grenade from Syria, that killed five Turks, came clearly from NATO stocks. It seems as if NATO member Turkey supported the Syrian rebels with arms. However, these supplies would have needed to be coordinated with other NATO countries.“
“Der Soldat”, Ausgabe Nr. 1/2013, 18. Januar 2013:
“Türkei: Jene Werfergranate aus Syrien, die fünf Türken tötete, stammt eindeutig aus NATO-Beständen. Es scheint so, als hätte das NATO-Mitglied Türkei die syrischen Aufständischen mit Waffenlieferungen unterstützt. Allerdings müssten diese Lieferungen mit anderen NATO-Staaten abgestimmt sein.“
Kind regards,
Lars Schall.
On May 16, I received an e-mail message written by Eileen M. Lainez, a Department of Defense Spokeswoman at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. On behalf of the US Department of Defense she informed me about the following:
Mr. Schall,
I would refer you to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) — I’ve cc’d the PAO for your convenience.
Best,
Eileen M. Lainez.
I was now connected at SHAPE with Martin Downie, Colonel of the US Army. I wrote back:
Dear Eileen,
thank you very much!
Dear Col. Downie,
I copy this e-mail to Pepe Escobar of Asia Times Online.
Related to the request below, it might it interesting for you what we were told by ret. US Lt. Gen. Mark P. Hertling of the 7th US Army.
On April 24, I sent this e-mail to the Press Office of the U.S. Army Europe (http://www.eur.army.mil/
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
could you forward the following message to the retired Lieutenant General of the US Army Europe / 7th US Army (USAREUR ) Mark P. Hertling, please?
Thank you!
Dear Lieutenant General Hertling,
my name is Lars Schall, I am a freelance journalist for Asia Times Online. I copy this e-mail to Pepe Escobar, geopolitical analyst for Asia Times Online.
We are working on a story related to the mortar grenade incident on the Syrian-Turkish border in October 2012. Please take a look below.
A media request was sent by us to the general staff of the Turkish armed forces.
The comment by the press office of the Ministry of Defense of Austria was – to be honest with you – not worth the time to write it. The staff of “Der Soldat” didn’t respond to our questions so far.
Our questions for you, Sir: it came to our attention that you’ve stated on October 27, 2012 about the mortar grenade incident:
Origin of Syrian shells into Turkey unclear, US general says
It is not clear who is shooting shells from Syria into Turkey, the commander of the U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling has said, private television channel NTV yesterday.
“We are not sure if these shells are from the Syrian army, from rebels who want to get Turkey involved in the issue or from the PKK [Kurdish Workers’ Party],” he said.
Neither NATO nor U.S. troops want to get involved in the increasingly complex Syrian issue, Hertling said, adding that they were presently only sharing intelligence with Turkey and observing the ongoing events in Syria.
A shell from Syria killed five Turkish civilians in the border town of Akçakale in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa on Oct. 3.
Can you tell Mr. Escobar and me about your insights regarding the mortar grenade incident? And what do you think about the short report in “Der Soldat”?
Kind regards,
Lars Schall.
Ultimately, we received this following message on April 30:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Dear Lars,
Our General Officer engagements office reached out to LTG (ret.) Hertling and he said he did not wish to be interviewed for this article. Regardless, he wanted to clarify his comments made during a press conference after a conference of European Armies. In speaking about artillery impacting in Turkey fired from within Syria, General Hertling was relaying parts of a discussion he had with those in the Turkish military regarding the confusion existing on their border given the complex mix of combatants in Syria. He was not making an official assessment. Hopefully that clarifies LTG Hertling’s involvement with this topic.
Thanks for your interest and best of luck with your story.
Very Respectfully,
Lt. Col. Peggy Kageleiry
Press Desk – Operations, Intelligence, and Logistics Team
Media Relations Division
HQDA Office of the Chief of Public Affairs
In general, I would like to recommend to take a look at the last two thirds of this article related to the alleged NATO mortar grenade:
Weapons from NATO (Turkey) stocks in Akçakale: A puzzle?
Lars Schall.
Col. Downie wrote then on May 16:
Lars and Pepe,
Thank you for your question. We will get back with you both on this very shortly.
COL Marty Downie
SHAPE PAO
Yet, days went by without Col. Downie coming back with us on this very shortly. Finally, on May 24 I wrote to him, Ms. Lainez, Mr. Eichenlaub, and the two e-mail addresses at the Turkish Armed Forces:
Dear Col. Downie,
while I wait for your / SHAPE’s comment, I am asking myself if you could be so kind to do me a favour. Here’s the background: on April 17 and May 7, I sent a media request related to that mortar grenade incident on the Syrian-Turkish border in October 2012 to the Turkish Armed Forces / the Turkish general staff (gnkur@tsk.tr). However, I received no response. So I’ve asked Matthias Eichenlaub at the Press Office of NATO HQ if he could find someone at the Turkish Army to take care of my questions. He did so and gave me another e-mail address (basin@tsk.tr) that was recommended to him by some Turkish colleagues. I sent my original request (plus the statement made by ret. Lt. Gen. Mark P. Hertling) once again to Ankara. Yet, there was again the same result: no response. Therefore, do you know someone at the Turkish Army who would bother to give some answers? Or, do you know a phone number at the Turkish Army that I could use? Call me naive, but I think it would be in NATO’s own interest to get some clarification with regards to that topic. I would really like to know the evidence on which Turkey and NATO based their actions after October 2012 (the deployment of Patriot systems to the Turkish-Syrian border). The information from NATO HQ related to this was more or less: We trust that our honourable Turkish ally is telling the truth without having investigated the matter ourselves – or without having asked for an independent (!) investigation. Furthermore, I notice that the allegations from the Turkish side related to the poison gas attack has completely disappeared from the headlines of the world’s major media. In that regard I would also like to forward some questions to your Turkish colleagues.
Thank you for your attention!
Best regards,
Lars Schall.
A few hours later, Col. Downie found the time to tell me then the following:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Lars,
It is my understanding that HQ Brussels has responded to your questions on 3 separate occasions. SHAPE does not have anything further to add to those comprehensive responses, which both answered your questions and provided you contact information for the Turkish authorities who could respond to your Turkey-specific questions.
Col. Martin Downie, USA-A
Chief, Public Affairs
Supreme HQ Allied Powers Europe
and Allied Command Operations
So I wrote back to him (and the previously mentioned individuals):
Dear Col. Downie,
it is my understanding that it wasn’t my idea to ask SHAPE anything at all. I wanted to get a comment from the U.S. Department of Defense, and DoD spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez thought it was appropriate to connect me with SHAPE. I have no idea why she did so – she didn’t told me.
Anyway, thanks for coming back on this “very shortly”!
Best,
Lars Schall.
Now that I found myself in a cul de sac, I wrote also again to Ms. Lainez at the Pentagon seperately:
Dear Eileen,
back to the beginning:
How does the Pentagon / United States Department of Defense comment on this report in “Der Soldat”?
Best,
Lars Schall.
Response? There was none.
On May 28 I sent this e-mail to:
CC: martin.downie.mil@mail.mil, eileen.lainez@osd.mil, eichenlaub.matthias@hq.nato.
Dear Ms. Davis, dear Mr. Whitman,
As you can see below, your colleague Ms. Lainez connected Mr. Escobar and me with SHAPE in Belgium (we have no clue why she did so). However, SHAPE didn’t add anything to the information that we’ve received from NATO HQ. Moreover, Ms. Lainez doesn’t seem capable to give a comment on the matter herself. Therefore, I perform a full circle now by asking you once again:
How do you comment for the Pentagon on the story in “Der Soldat”? If the story was true, where would the justification for the deployment of Patriot systems to the Syrian-Turkish border? The Turkish Armed Forces do not communicate with us related to the story other than solely with “the sound of silence”. That doesn’t really look credible to me.
Mr. Escobar and I would appreciate a timely response from you; Ms. Lainez and Col. Downie of SHAPE have already wasted enough of our time.
Kind regards,
Lars Schall.
The response to it? There was none until today.
With respect to the Turkish side of the equation, I wanted to give it one more try by writing to the Embassy of the Turkish Republic in Berlin on May 30. I told them about my rather one-sided communication with the Turkish Army and asked, if it was possible to forward my copied request to the office of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The response of the Turkish Embassy? Well, if you guess that there was none, you’re absolutely right.
However, I did put the both e-mail addresses of the Turkish Army in the carbon copy field – and all of a sudden I received this message:
Sayın Lars Schall,
30 Mayıs 2013 tarihli elektronik postanız alınmıştır.
Konuyla ilgili olarak 0312 4250813 belgegeçer numarasından talebinizi iletebilirsiniz.
Saygılarımızla
Genelkurmay Başkanlığı
Translation: a) the General Staff of the Turkish Army told me that they received my e-mail, and b) they asked me to send them a fax. That’s what I did on June 1 (see thisPDF).
Then again days went by without any response. On June 12 I wrote again to the Turkish Embassy in Berlin and to the Turkish Army:
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen at the Embassy of the Turkish Republic in Berlin,
is it possible that you respond in any way to my e-mail below from May 30? I’ve tried a few minutes ago to get connected with you via this phone number:
Yet, no one picked up the phone at the other end of the line. The same happened when I tried to call the office of the Turkish consul general in Berlin.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen at the Turkish Armed Forces,
related to the e-mail below, I received on May 30 this message from you (viagnkur@tsk.tr):
Sayın lars schall,
30 Mayıs 2013 tarihli elektronik postanız alınmıştır.
Konuyla ilgili olarak 0312 4250813 belgegeçer numarasından talebinizi iletebilirsiniz.
Saygılarımızla
Genelkurmay Başkanlığı
On June 1, I sent you the fax that you’ve requested. However, so far I did not received your answers. Could you be so kind to tell me how long you want to let Mr. Escobar and me wait for them?
Kind regards,
Lars Schall.
Was there any response to it until today coming my way? No.
So all in all the Pentagon / DoD and the Turkish Army / Turkish Republic aren’t really in the position, it seems, to comment on a rather simple, yet slightly inconvenient matter.
And that is that, I’m afraid.
Related posts:
- Poison gas attack in Syria by insurgents? Share Who can benefit from the use of chemical weapons in Syria? One of Europe’s most outstanding experts on the Middle East,...
- False flag conspiracy of Assad opponents? Share Do the “rebels” in Syria and the Turkish government try to enforce a NATO intervention in Syria with lies? This question...
- Austrian Central Bank Declines to Answer Gold Questions ShareYou may have heard the Austrian Central Bank admitting that their gold is partly leased. I’ve tried to get some answers from...
http://www.debka.com/article/23052/Putin-will-address-G8-summit-as-head-of-winning-Syrian-war-camp-
Russian President Vladimir Putin set the tone for the discussion on Syria at the G8 summit which opened in Northern Ireland Monday, June 17, when he rounded harshly on British Prime Minister David Cameron in London Sunday for supporting rebels who “kill their enemies and eat their organs.” Hitting back at this week’s decision by US President Barack Obama – whom he will meet privately at the summit - to give the rebels “military support” – Putin asked: “Are these the people you want to supply weapons?”
The lovely lakeside venue for the two-day gathering of US, Russian, Canadian, French, German, Italian, British and Japanese leaders was worlds away from the Syrian killing fields, where 93,000 people have died, according to conservative estimates. But the Russian president will make sure that the voices of his allies, Bashar Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, are heard loud and clear in the conference hall, until they are acknowledged the victors of the vicious Syrian war. If world leaders hold back, the Syrian and Hizballah armies will continue their march on Aleppo, Syria’s biggest town, for their next bloodbath.
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/06/17/rebel-car-bomb-kills-60-syrian-soldiers/
Rebel Car Bomb Kills 60 Syrian Soldiers
Rebels Claim 'Six Tons' of Explosives in Aleppo Strike
by Jason Ditz, June 17, 2013
Al-Qaeda backed rebels have launched a car bombing attack against a military complex near the Aleppo international airport today, killing at least 60 Syrian soldiersand wounding an undisclosed number of others.
Additional details of the attack were scant, but a rebel familiar with the strike said that the car was packed with “six tons of explosives.” It is unclear if it was detonated remotely or by a suicide driver.
Aleppo is Syria’s largest city, and has been in a state of stalemate between Assad forces and Islamist rebels since August of last year. The city is being tapped as the next big clash in the government’s counter-offensive, aimed at reclaiming rebel-held territory.
Another car bomb was reported near the military airport in the capital city of Damascus today. This attack also killed 10 soldiers, but so far there has been no specific claim of credit for the strike.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/06/2013617205126483102.html
Obama and Putin discuss Syria conflict |
Meeting on G8 summit's sidelines in Northern Ireland, US and Russian leaders acknowledge their "different perspectives".
Last Modified: 17 Jun 2013 23:06
     |
| Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Barack Obama have discussed the Syrian conflict in a meeting on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. The leaders of Russia and the US openly back rival sides in the country's two-year civil war with Russia under criticism from G8 leaders for backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "Our positions do not fully coincide, but we are united by the common intention to end the violence and to stop the number of victims increasing in Syria," Putin said. "We agreed to push the process of peace talks and encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiation table, organise the talks in Geneva."  Both leaders looked tense and uncomfortable as they addressed reporters after about two hours of talks, with Putin staring mostly at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally at the Russian leader. The G8 summit of leading industrial nations kicked off in Northern Ireland with Western leaders raising pressure on Russia over its support for Syria's regime. Earlier David Cameron, UK prime minister, welcomed the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US on Monday, and said there was "a big difference" between the positions of Russia and the West on Syria. Western leaders have criticised Putin for supporting Assad in his battle to crush a two-year-old uprising, setting the stage for what could be a difficult meeting of world leaders over Monday and Tuesday. Russia said it would not permit no-fly zones to be imposed over Syria. Earlier in London, Putin insisted that Russia had abided by international law when supplying weapons to Assad's regime and demanded that Western countries contemplating arming the opposition do the same. "We are not breaching any rules and norms and we call on all our partners to act in the same fashion," Putin said. He referred to a video released last month purportedly showing a rebel Syrian fighter eating the heart of a dead soldier. He asked if the West really wanted to support rebels "who not only kill their enemies but open up their bodies and eat their internal organs in front of the public and the cameras". |
The light arms President Obama proposes to release for the Syrian rebels don’t give them the smallest fighting chance against the fighter-bomber jets, heavy tanks, and unlimited ordnance supplied Bashar Assad’s army by Russia and the missiles and troops coming in from Hizballah and Iran.
This unbeatable preponderance makes the fall of Aleppo and Assad’s victory a foregone conclusion
Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, speaking in Washington over the weekend, argued that the Syrian army’s successes did not add up to a strategic victory. The Russian leader will present the opposite case to which his fellows in the Group of Eight have no answer. They will therefore hammer at the only point on which they agree, the quest for a political solution of the Syrian crisis by means of an international conference, i.e., getting Geneva-2 off the ground.
Putin and Obama will therefore need to put their heads together on accepted ground rules for this event.
Although on the face of it, nothing could be more reasonable, DEBKAfile’s Russian and Middle East sources report it is a tall order indeed, given the list of at least four pre-conditions Putin plans to put before the US President on the strength of his partners’ war successes:
1. Geneva-2 will not be convened by the US or Russia, as first agreed, but by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This would force Washington to stay within the bounds of UN resolutions and not act as did the US and NATO in Libya to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi outside their Security Council mandate.
2. Bashar Assad must remain in power as the legitimate ruler of Syria. Russia’s sale of arms to the Syrian government in Damascus was therefore legal.
3. Iran must be given a seat at Geneva-2.
The Russian president is determined to thwart any attempt by Obama to take advantage of Hassan Rouani’s election as president of Iran to supersede the battlefield successes of Russia, Iran and Hizballah in Syria. Ayatollah Khamenei will go along with him on this.
Sunday night, Washington was evidently exploring new diplomatic ground with Tehran when Denis McDonough, White House chief of staff commented that Hassan Rouhani’s election as president of Iran was a potentially hopeful sign. “If he is interested in, as he has said in his campaign events, mending his relations… with the rest of the world – there’s the opportunity to do that.”
But then, he said: “But doing so would require Iran to come clean on its illicit nuclear program.”
This was the Obama administration’s answer to Putin’s comment Tuesday, June 11 when he said: “I have no doubt that Iran is adhering to international commitments on nuclear non-proliferation, but regional and international concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program should not be ignored,” said the Russian leader.
4. Putin has gone back on his earlier consent to a single, united delegation representing the Syrian opposition at the projected international conference. He now maintains that the rebel front is hopelessly divided and the delegation should truly represent the real situation.
This too will be a Russian attempt to frustrate Western plans for a united opposition camp to speak with one voice opposite the Assad regime, by accentuating the rifts dividing the rival Syrian opposition factions and militias.
As matters look now, Assad’s drive to recapture all of Aleppo will continue after the G8 leaders have gone home. Putin, Khamenei, Assad and Nasrallah will continue their hideous victory march and the US, West and Israel will continue to hold back from intervention that could reverse the tide.
Saudi Arabia reportedly 'equipped rebel fighters'
Last modified: 17 Jun 2013 18:53
A Gulf source has told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had equipped fighters for the first time with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, their most urgent request.
Rebels said Riyadh had also sent them anti-tank missiles.
The alleged weapons deal was disclosed as rebel fighters confront government troops and hundreds of militants from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia seeking to retake the northern city of Aleppo, where heavy fighting resumed on Monday.
[Reuters]
Assad says Europe will "pay the price" if it arms rebels
Last modified: 17 Jun 2013 17:34
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad warned on Monday that European powers would "pay the price" if they sent weapons to rebel forces seeking to topple him.
"If the Europeans deliver weapons, then Europe's backyard will become terrorist, and Europe will pay the price for it," he was quoted as saying by German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Assad also denied US, British and French claims his forces had used chemical weapons.
The conflict in Syria was set to dominate a G8 summit starting in Northern Ireland on Monday.
http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/syria/car-bomb-struck-near-syrian-northern-city-aleppo-killing-least-60-regime-troops
Car bomb struck near Syrian northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 60 regime troops, activists told Al Jazeera
Last modified: 17 Jun 2013 15:15
A car bomb has struck near the Syrian northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 60 members of President Bashar al-Assad's troops, activists told Al Jazeera.
Monday's blast, carried out by a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaeda, hit near a military complex in the town of al-Douwairina near Aleppo's international airport, Mohammad al-Hadi, an activist in the city, said.
The blast was one of the largest attacks targetting regime forces. Activists on social media posted the following video that purports to show the moment of the explosion.
No comments:
Post a Comment