http://www.debka.com/article/23285/The-Syrian-helicopter-flight-over-Turkey-fabricated-first-Assad-obstacle-to-chemical-weapons-handover-
The Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons – OPCW – is a small outfit which lacks the manpower and funds for this Herculean task; America alone is competent to perform it. It goes without saying that the Obama administration is not in the business of deploying thousands of US military personnel on the ground – even if Moscow and Damascus were amenable.
Washington might conceivably agree to train international personnel in the dismantling of chemical weapons. But that too would take a year or more. Special Syrian rebel units under US-Jordanian command have been taught how to handle chemical weapons in Jordan, but Assad is hardly likely to let them set foot in the country.
2. The second obstacle was concocted by the Assad regime Monday, by sending an M-17 gunship, capable of striking ground targets into Turkish air space. The Turkish Air Force downed the intruder over the southern Malatya region after it failed to heed several warnings, although the helicopter could have been forced to land in Turkey or chased back across the border.
The Turks therefore fell into the trap laid at their feet by Assad. The incident sent border tensions into a violent tailspin, and provided Damascus and Moscow with the pretext for backing out of the chemical weapons deal under the oversight of an international organization, so long as OPCW was headed by a Turkish official, who is moreover, a close friend of Turkey's anti-Assad Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
It is therefore hard to see the point of Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s remarks that the US-Russian deal for Syria “proved that a credible threat of force could bring about diplomatic solutions for disarming dangerous rogue regimes of weapons of mass destruction.”
The Geneva accord merely laid the ground for a Western PR campaign under the tutelage of John Kerry to demonstrate a false breakthrough for ending the barbaric Syrian war. However, on the ground, nothing has changed; the war continues with unparalleled savagery and the threats to its neighbors from Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah are still in force.
Obama waives law prohibiting arming terrorists........ what could go wrong ?
http://rt.com/usa/obama-terrorist-arms-supply-966/
While almost no one in the civil war is blameless, UN investigators say that the foreign Islamist fighters that have flocked to al-Qaeda’s banner are “committing the worst crimes,” and that the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a secular faction, is at least trying to have its fighters follow international law.
The AINA report cites a leaked memo from the Interior Ministry as saying the 1,239 inmates were all sentenced to “execution by sword” for various crimes, and were given full pardons, as well as stipends for their families.
They put the overall rebel fighters at 100,000 strong, but that is made up of some 1,000 different factions. Al-Qaeda directly commands the loyalty of around 10,000 of those fighters.
Syrian Prime Minister Waal al-Khalqi knew what he was talking about when he said Monday, Sept. 16 that the Assad regime had plenty more assets up its sleeve for harming Israel and achieving strategic balance - even after surrendering its chemical weapons to international control. The Russian ships already on their way to Syria loaded with munitions for Bashar Assad’s army demonstrate the justice of his words.
Indeed the Syrian ruler would not have agreed to let go of his chemical arsenal without being certain of two major hindrances and two big rewards:
1. Syria’s chemical arsenal cannot be destroyed in its entirety - only a very small part thereof. Like most of the rhetoric surrounding the issue, the pledge the OPCW chairman Ahmet Uzumcu of Turkey gave the UN Secretary - that “the organization will move swiftly to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile” – is more hot air than substance.
The Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons – OPCW – is a small outfit which lacks the manpower and funds for this Herculean task; America alone is competent to perform it. It goes without saying that the Obama administration is not in the business of deploying thousands of US military personnel on the ground – even if Moscow and Damascus were amenable.
Washington might conceivably agree to train international personnel in the dismantling of chemical weapons. But that too would take a year or more. Special Syrian rebel units under US-Jordanian command have been taught how to handle chemical weapons in Jordan, but Assad is hardly likely to let them set foot in the country.
2. The second obstacle was concocted by the Assad regime Monday, by sending an M-17 gunship, capable of striking ground targets into Turkish air space. The Turkish Air Force downed the intruder over the southern Malatya region after it failed to heed several warnings, although the helicopter could have been forced to land in Turkey or chased back across the border.
The Turks therefore fell into the trap laid at their feet by Assad. The incident sent border tensions into a violent tailspin, and provided Damascus and Moscow with the pretext for backing out of the chemical weapons deal under the oversight of an international organization, so long as OPCW was headed by a Turkish official, who is moreover, a close friend of Turkey's anti-Assad Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
2. Before consenting to dismantling his poison gas arsenal, Assad obtained Moscow’s promise in advance, according to DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, to send his army without delay large consignments of advanced weapons systems.
Those shipments are presented as compensating the Syrian government for the loss of its chemical option against the Syrian rebels. In fact, Assad comes out of the US-Russian deal not only fortified militarily, but holding a long-life guarantee. Part of his chemical stockpile will remain available to his armed forces and at the same time, they hit the jackpot for top-line items in the Russian armory.
3. This long-life guarantee was also cemented by the accord US Secretary of State John Kerry signed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva Saturday, Sept. 14. The monitoring and destruction of his chemical stockpiles will certainly be protracted. As long as the process drags on, Assad is assured of staying in power, as the only party capable of bringing it to fruition, however slim that prospect is. Without him, the US-Russian accord is dead and buried.
The report published by the UN chemical experts Monday offered nothing new that was not unknown about his regime’s culpability of the Aug. 21, attack. It did not bother Assad one whit.
It is therefore hard to see the point of Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s remarks that the US-Russian deal for Syria “proved that a credible threat of force could bring about diplomatic solutions for disarming dangerous rogue regimes of weapons of mass destruction.”
The Geneva accord merely laid the ground for a Western PR campaign under the tutelage of John Kerry to demonstrate a false breakthrough for ending the barbaric Syrian war. However, on the ground, nothing has changed; the war continues with unparalleled savagery and the threats to its neighbors from Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah are still in force.
Obama waives law prohibiting arming terrorists........ what could go wrong ?
http://rt.com/usa/obama-terrorist-arms-supply-966/
The Obama administration waived provisions of a federal law which ban the supply of weapons and money to terrorists. The move is opening doors to supplying Syrian opposition with protection from chemical weapons.
The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) allows the US president to waive provisions in Sections 40 and 40A, which forbid providing munitions, credit and licenses to countries supporting acts of terrorism. But those prohibitions can be waived "if the President determines that the transaction is essential to the national security interests of the United States."
President Barrack Obama ordered such a waiver for supplying chemical weapons-related assistance to "select vetted members" of Syrian opposition forces, the administration announced on Monday.
The announcement came after a UN report, which confirmed that sarin gas was indeed used in Syria on August 21, but didn’t point to either the Syrian army or the rebel forces as the culprits.
US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said she was convinced that details of the report “make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack.”
But Power’s counterpart from Russia Vitaly Churkin said the report has no “airtight proof or conclusions”pointing to the Assad government and that it allows “everyone to draw their own conclusions, hopefully professional and not affected by political pressure.”
The US plan to provide chemical weapons-related assistance to Syrian opposition was in the works before the August attack a senior administration official said as cited by NBC News. Under the AEC rules, it will take at least 15 days before any of the materials can be officially shipped to Syria.
The Syrian opposition groups are increasingly dominated by radical Islamists, many of them foreign fighters who, the UN says, are involved in numerous crimes committed in Syria. According to estimates of defense consultancy IHS Jane's, more than a half of the forces fighting to topple President Bashar Assad government are jihadists. The US explicitly listed Al-Nusra Front, a powerful Al-Qaeda-linked part of the Syrian opposition, as a terrorist organization.
Still, US politicians believe national intelligence community can ensure that the military assistance goes to the right hands.
"Our intelligence agencies, I think, have a very good handle on who to support and who not to support,"Senator Bob Corker said on CBS on Sunday. "And there's going to be mistakes. We understand some people are going to get arms that should not be getting arms. But we still should be doing everything we can to support the free Syrian opposition."
The US, France and UK announced their intention to provide more help to the Syrian opposition after a Monday meeting of foreign ministers in Paris. US Secretary of State said the US pursuits a political solution of the Syrian crisis, which would deliver a future Syria without Bashar Assad.
The US in the past provided non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition, like vehicles, night goggles and body armor. CIA also reportedly helped countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar to smuggle weapons to the rebels.
Damascus denied any responsibility for the August sarin attack. But it agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile after a call from Russia. The move put on hold US plan to use military force against Syria in retaliation for the alleged use of chemical weapons.
http://rt.com/news/syria-un-resolution-lavrov-968/
The resolution that the UN Security Council is to adopt in support of the plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons won’t refer to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, regulating the use of military force on behalf of the council, Sergey Lavrov says.
The foreign minister explained Russia’s position on the future document after meeting his French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Moscow.
The resolution, Lavrov stressed, is meant only to affirm the support of the UNSC to the roadmap for destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile, which will be penned by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
It will also outline measures which fall outside of the OPCW authority, particularly providing security for the organization’s inspectors, who would oversee the process on the ground in Syria. But the resolution would not include any references to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which grants the Security Council a right to use military force to restore peace, Lavrov stressed.
“The resolution of the Security Council, which will approve the decision of the OPCW executive council, will not be over Chapter 7. We said it distinctly in Geneva and the document that we agreed on says no single word about it,” Lavrov said.
Russia has brokered a deal under which the Syrian government agreed to scrap its chemical weapons arsenal to defuse tension that sparked after a sarin gas attack on August 21. The agreement, prepared by Russia and the US, put on hold American plans to use military force against Syria over the attack, which Washington blames on Damascus.
Earlier US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russia is committed to imposing Chapter 7 measures in case of Syria’s non-compliance with its obligation to destroy its chemical weapons. Lavrov explained that the Security Council would be closely monitoring OPCW’s mission in Syria and will take action, if it finds concrete proof that some party is actively undermining the process.
The UNSC would act on such occurrences, which may be Syria drawing away from the deal, some other party hampering the destruction or possibly somebody using chemical weapons again, Lavrov said. But such actions will be considered on a separate basis.
“The Security Council would certainly review [any of such reports] to establish the truth as soon as possible, to ensure that those reports are not provocations – and we had plenty of those in the past two years and all of them were aimed at provoking a foreign intervention. If the proof is convincing, the Security Council certainly must take measures against violators,” the minister said.
As for the future resolution on dismantling Syria’s chemical arsenal, it would be a litmus test for the UNSC, Lavrov said.
“We may grab on to Chapter 7 every time somebody claims that the regime or the opposition used chemical weapons and encourage playing on emotions, which is unacceptable when taking serious decisions. Or we may rely on professionals, who must evaluate thoroughly, impartially and objectively every piece of such information and report to the Security Council,” he said.
Russia asks West not to encourage belligerent opposition
The Russian and French ministers said they agreed that the goal of the international community now is to gather an international conference in Geneva, which would find a political solution of the crisis and establish a transitional government in Syria.
Lavrov said Moscow is prepared to set a date for such a conference anytime, because the Assad government had agreed to it and presented its delegation. It is the opposition which is dragging its feet and refuses to participate, he stressed.
“The [opposition] National Coalition vocally opposed the Russian-American plan to destroy Syrian chemical weapons… because they were expecting that the problem would be solved through a military intervention. And they were disappointed after the intervention failed to materialize and the issue went to the strictly diplomatically-legal framework,” Lavrov pointed out.
He asked the Western backers of the Syrian opposition, who have leverage on them, to use it and force those forces to participate in the peace conference. He also added that some statements from Russia’s partners regarding personalities in the Syrian government do not help with that goal.
“The more often and louder statements from some capitals, including Washington, European and Middle-Eastern countries come saying that Assad is a criminal and that he has no place on Earth other than at The Hague Tribunal, the more defiant becomes this coalition, which claims the right to represent the entire Syrian people,” he explained.
Kerry insisted that Syria’s future has no place for Bashar Assad on Monday, following his meeting with Fabius and British Foreign Secretary William Hague. He added that Washington expects Assad’s stepping down to be part of a future political resolution agreed on in Geneva. Russia insists that it is up to Syrians to decide the terms of the transition.
Report of contention
Lavrov and Fabian met a day after the UN released a report on the incident, which confirmed that chemical weapons were indeed used on that day in Syria. The inspectors behind the report were not authorized to name a suspected culprit in the attack, and the evidence they presented is now subject to conflicting interpretations.
Several countries, including the US and France, believe the evidence is unquestionably identifies the government of Bashar Assad as the party that carried out the attack. The French minister reiterated Paris’ position in Moscow, adding that French intelligence data points to that conclusion.
Russia insists that the evidence is not conclusive and says the report should be considered along with other information, including accounts from local witnesses and media reports, which indicate that the attack had been carried out by the rebels.
“We asked questions at the Security Council meeting we had after hearing the report findings. The report doesn’t explain whether the munitions used in the attack was produced at a factory or was home-made. It doesn’t answer our other questions. So the document needs careful study in conjunction with other evidence currently available online and in the media,” Lavrov said.
He added Moscow has good reasons to treat the incident as a rebel provocation aimed at drawing the US military into the Syrian conflict.
Syrian Rebel War Crimes Fueling Faction Split
Foreign Rebels Predominantly Responsible
by Jason Ditz, September 16, 2013
Discussions of the war crimes committed by the many assorted factions in Syria’s ongoing civil war inevitably lead to ugly arguments about which of the many war criminals is worst. The issue is also underscoring the divide between rebel factions.
While almost no one in the civil war is blameless, UN investigators say that the foreign Islamist fighters that have flocked to al-Qaeda’s banner are “committing the worst crimes,” and that the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a secular faction, is at least trying to have its fighters follow international law.
The investigators expressed concern that the stark differences in strategy among the factions would make it hard to get the rebels together for the planned Geneva 2 peace conference, though none of the factions have even agreed to participate, so that’s in many ways academic.
Instead of rebel unity, the more immediate prospect is more war-within-a-war situations erupting, with the FSA and al-Qaeda seemingly headed into open conflict, and al-Qaeda already fighting Kurdish factions.
Report: Saudis Sent 1,200 Death-Row Inmates to Syria to Join Rebels
Offered Detainees Freedom, Stipends for Families
by Jason Ditz, September 16, 2013
According to reports from the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), a Syriac Christian-run media outlet, the Saudi Arabian government sent over 1,200 death-row inmates to Syria to join the ongoing civil war on the side of the rebellion.
The AINA report cites a leaked memo from the Interior Ministry as saying the 1,239 inmates were all sentenced to “execution by sword” for various crimes, and were given full pardons, as well as stipends for their families.
An unnamed Iraqi MP confirmed knowledge of the program, and said that Saudi Arabia had been forced to end the policy after Russia threatened to bring the issue to the attention of the United Nations.
The quiet deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia was that the influx of inmates would end and Russia would keep the matter from becoming public knowledge. Now that the information is out there, it will be interesting to see how Russia and Saudi Arabia react.
Jane’s Report: About Half of Syria Rebels Are Jihadists
Secularists Are Miniscule Part of Overall Rebellion
by Jason Ditz, September 15, 2013
A new report from defense analysts IHS Jane’s provided some of the first recent estimates of the size of Syria’s rebellion, and more importantly the groups that make it up.
They put the overall rebel fighters at 100,000 strong, but that is made up of some 1,000 different factions. Al-Qaeda directly commands the loyalty of around 10,000 of those fighters.
Another 30,000 to 35,000 of the rebels are “jihadists” from pro-al-Qaeda factions that aren’t explicitly run by the group, and still 30,000 more represent various Islamist factions of a somewhat more moderate character. What’s left is the secularist component, a pretty small minority in the grand scheme of things, made doubly so by the fact that the al-Qaeda run forces like Jabhat al-Nusra have been dramatically more formidable in fighting.
Jihadists have been the most active portion of the rebellion, attacking ethnic Kurds and religious minorities nationwide, including three more Alawite villages sacked today in Homs Province.
It is in this environment that the Syrian National Coalition’s new prime minister, Ahmad Tumeh, will be taking the helm. A moderate Islamist himself, Tumeh is calling for a confrontation of al-Qaeda and the other more jihadist factions in the rebellion. That may make the US happy, but its a fight that the SNC’s own faction seems unlikely to be able to win.
It’s also a fight al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri seems resigned to, warning his factions and those allied with them not to associate with the secularists or form serious alliances with them. In the past this was less a concern, but with the “rebellion” tearing itself apart at the seams, it seems the various factions will be committing more and more of their forces to fighting each other, rather than the Assad government.
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