Rebel Yell.....
( Are there really any moderate rebels ? Apparently not when Christians are concerned ! )
Video: Maaloula was religious cleansing, not a military target
POSTED AT 2:31 PM ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
Rebels overran the ancient Christian village of Maaloula in Syria on the fourth of September, and held it for eleven days until the Syrian army could retake it. It always made for a curious target in a broad civil war. Maaloula had no particular strategic value; it’s 56 kilometers north of Damascus in rugged mountain territory, enough of a backwater that it’s one of the few places where Aramaic is still spoken along with Arabic. It’s off the highway between Damascus and Homs, and away from the railroad that links the two Syrian cities. Why bother with Maaloula at all?
Lee Stranahan has been in Beirut for the past several days interviewing survivors of the Maaloula fight, and reports that religious cleansing was the motive all along — with forced conversions and an effort to empty Maaloula of its Christian population:
Christians in Maaloula report in interviews that their neighbors took part in the religious cleansing:
The Maaloula survivors, speaking out for the first time, said that the Free Syria Army troops were as one with the al-Nusra warriors. They described in heartbreakng detail how Maaloula’s townspeople were terrorized and some killed for being Christian.The attack began with a suicide bomber attacking the local checkpoint. One survivor said that armed Muslims were inside her house almost immediately, and held a machine gun to her husband’s head. The Islamists bragged about smashing a statue of Mary and taunted the family for their Christianity. The survivor broke down in tears describing her fear that her daughter would be raped by the men and that the family would be killed.When the Maaloula witnesses was told that U.S Sec. of State John Kerry had referred to the FSA forces as ‘moderate’ in Senate testimony, she closed her eyes, shook her head both and forth and said “No no no no no.”She said that she didn’t trust the press after seeing their reporting on the situation in Maaloula, which deemphasized the Islamist elements of the attack.
The Syrian army took control of Maaloula on September 15th, but that’s not necessarily a great improvement. The refugees aren’t really pro-Assad, but just anti-jihadist, and one had an interesting take on the trade-offs that had to be made with the Assad regime and how well they worked out:
Lee also filed this report about the tensions between Syrian refugees and the Lebanese, and gives a better accounting of the cultural dynamics in play:
Lee is posting a number of his reports today on his YouTube channel, so be sure to check them out. If you want to help Lee continue his reporting, follow this link to Lee’s contributor page.
and....
Al-Qaeda-linked militants give fellow FSA ultimatum in Syria
Press TV
Sept. 27, 2013
Sept. 27, 2013
Al-Qaeda-linked militants operating inside Syria have reportedly given the terrorist Free Syrian Army 48 hours to disarm, as rift among the extremist groups in the country continues to widen.
According to reports, al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have set a two-day deadline for the Free Syrian Army to surrender amid escalating infighting among the militants in Syria.
The ultimatum was enforced at 8:00 p.m. local time (2300 GMT) on Thursday.
The ultimatum is the latest manifestation of inner conflict among extremist militant groups in Syria since the outbreak of turmoil in March 2011.
Opposition activists say clashes between Takfiri militants have increased in recent months.
The UN says more than 100,000 people have been killed and a total of 7.8 million of others displaced due to the crisis in Syria.
According to extracts from British defense consultancy IHS Jane’s published in the Daily Telegraph, some 100,000 militants are operating in Syria.
The militants have split into some 1,000 brands since the Syria crisis began, said the study, which is based on intelligence estimates and interviews with militants.
Around 10,000 of the militants, with many being foreign nationals, are fighting for groups affiliated with al-Qaeda such as the al-Nusra Front and the rest fight for different militant groups.
and...
Syrian Rebel Factions Disavowing US-Backed Coalition En Masse
Coalition Leader: They're Stealing Revolution
by Jason Ditz, September 27, 2013
A Wednesday statement disavowing the rebel Syrian National Coalition (SNC) as a failed attempt at an umbrella group and calling for a new organization of rebels seems to be taking hold, with more than 30 rebel factions now officially on board in disavowing the faction.
The statement was backed by a number of al-Qaeda groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, but seems to be gaining currency across the rebellion, as more and more groups look at the pro-US SNC as an ineffectual group with little clout on the ground.
That’s the long-standing knock on the SNC, whose leadership claims to be a “government-in-exile” but seems to spend most of its time shuffling its own self-proclaimed cabinet back and forth.
Ahmad Jabra, the latest SNC leader, angrily condemned the statement, saying that the rebels who don’t support him are plotting to “steal our revolution,” going on to claim that the Assad government was behind the factions that don’t endorse the SNC.
and...
40 Killed as Rebel Car Bomb Hits Mosque in Neutral Syria Town
Town Had Agreement With Moderate Rebels to Stay Out of War
by Jason Ditz, September 27, 2013
At least 40 people were killed today in a car bombing against a Sunni mosque in the town of Rankous, on the outskirts of Damascus. The timing, just as worshipers were leaving Friday prayers, aimed at maximizing the death toll.
So far no group has claimed credit for the attack, though state media attributed it to a “dispute between terrorist groups.” Rankous is not a rebel-held town, however, and has tried desperately to stay out of the war.
Rather, Rankous is said to have a long-standing deal with moderate rebel factions to leave them alone and not use their territory for transit of fighters or weapons.
While it is merely speculation to assign blame at this point, several Islamist factions, most notably the al-Qaeda-run ones, have been fighting the moderates pretty heavily lately, and may feel that such moves would undermine the town’s confidence in dealing with the moderates to remain neutral in a war that increasingly is drawing in anybody and everybody.
Al Qaeda twits ?
Al Qaeda Opens First Official Twitter Account
Move seen as bid to halt division among jihadists over Syrian rebel split
AP
BY:
An official al Qaeda website that is restricted to members of the terrorist group opened its first Twitter account this week in what U.S. officials say is an effort to resolve a major split over Syria’s Islamist rebels.
The Shamukh al-Islam website, used as an official clearing house for al Qaeda members to communicate and issue propaganda statements, started its first Twitter account on Tuesday.
The first posts on the account focused on divisions between two al Qaeda rebel groups in Syria, al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The account, @shomokhalislam, issued 29 tweets, followed one account, and attracted 1,532 followers as of Friday afternoon. U.S. officials said among its followers are several high-profile digital jihadists.
Counterterrorism analysts view the new account as another indicator that terrorist groups are stepping up their use of social media over traditional Internet sites.
The official al Qaeda account also highlights the view among Islamists that Twitter is fast becoming an essential tool for online jihad, or holy war.
“We’ve seen terrorist groups make increasingly effective use of social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook, in recent years,” said Patrick Poole, a counterterrorism expert. “Not only is this important for propaganda purposes but also recruitment.”
The new account also is expected to be a major intelligence target for foreign governments tracking al Qaeda through its online devotees. Unlike the closed website, Shamukh’s Twitter postings and members are public.
Shamukh al Islam postings that were made public on other jihadist websites have been important indicators of al Qaeda activity. The site is considered one of two official media outlets for al Qaeda central, the Islamist terror group now led by Ayman al Zawahiri.
The emergence of the new Twitter account comes as jihadists are facing a major split, both online and on the ground, over divisions between al Nusra and ISIL, according to officials.
The Arabic-language account initial tweets included statements that decried the split between the Syrian rebel groups and promised a neutral stance – an indication of significant divisions within al Qaeda.
Counterterrorism analysts said in the past the web forum appeared reluctant to embrace Twitter but now accepts that micro-blogging is a key element for jihadism.
The split in al Qaeda could be good news for western security services that have been battling the terror group since the 1990s.
It is hoped the divisions will render the group less effective and limit its ability to conduct deadly attacks and bombings.
However, the main benefit will be to foster ideological divisions. Al Qaeda is seeking to overthrow non-Islamist governments and replace them with those that impose strict Sharia law. The use of violence—bombings, shootings, assassination, and other attacks—is a hallmark of the group.
The split over Syria first emerged in April when the leaders of the Iraqi al Qaeda group, Islamic State of Iraq, announced its merger with al Nusra Front in Syria.
That prompted al Zawahiri to issue a statement a month later denying the merger and announcing the appointment of a mediator to try and bridge relations.
ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi then issued an audio message that rejected al Zawahiri’s decree and stated that the merger would continue.
The split opened yet another front in the civil war in Syria. The battle lines now include Syrian government forces against three opposition rebel factions, al Nusra, ISIL, and the more secular but still Islamist Free Syrian Army.
A translated tweet from the new account included a reference to an earlier statement from Shamukh that stated: “Obviously extremely serious challenges and state of dissension at this very sensitive juncture.”
Other messages noted divisions among “brothers” into three camps: those who are staying silent on the Syria division; those that favor al Nusra; and those supporting ISIL.
The rival al Nusra and ISIL members in the past asked online administrators to remove postings from each other’s faction.
To address the problem, the administrator for the Twitter account said both it and the web site would remain neutral. Members also were warned that voicing hostility toward either al Nusra or ISIL would lead to account suspension.
It is not known why Twitter has not suspended the Shamukh account, as it did to the Somali al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabaab during the recent attack in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Twitter account also sought to promote unity between the warring factions and to provide jihadists with trusted statements and information.
Shamukh al Islam is one of two official al Qaeda web sites that are closed to non-members. The second is Al Fida. Another unofficial al Qaeda-related website is Ansar al-Mujahidin, which has been shut down since July. It was among the first al Qaeda sites to open a Twitter account last year.
Poole, the counterterrorism expert, said the recent Al Shabaab terrorist attack in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, involved the use of Twitter as part of an overall attack strategy. The group used Twitter to provide live updates and the four-day attack progressed in what Poole said was a relatively advanced psychological warfare operation.
“We’ve also seen divisions within these groups played out in social media, the most obvious example being the criticism on Twitter and YouTube directed at Al Shabaab leaders by former member American jihadi Omar Hammami, who had helped them develop their social media presence,” he said.
Al Shabaab then used Twitter to admonish Hammami and challenge his views, Poole said. Hammami’s online criticism was viewed as so serious a threat that he was pursued and reportedly killed in a gun battle with Al Shabaab within the past few weeks.
Aaron Y. Zelin, a counterterrorism analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, stated in a report published earlier this year that while jihadist are attracted to Twitter and Facebook, most favor approved online forums.
During two recent apparent cyber attacks on the Shamukh website, many jihadists opened Twitter accounts and Facebook pages to communicate, he said.
“Both of these forum takedowns—in March and April, as well as in December and January—exposed the limits of al Qaeda’s official online media procedures, which are headed by its distribution network al Fajr Media,” Zelin stated.
“Al-Fajr is responsible for coordinating between al-Qaeda Central (AQC), its affiliates’ media outlets (As-Sahab Media for AQC, al-Malahim for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Furqan for al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and al-Andalus for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)), and the forum administrators.”
While the websites were blacked out, likely the result of an intelligence service cyber strike, al Fajr was unable to send official content to al Qaeda affiliates.
“If the dissemination of official releases is no longer to be done centrally, it has the potential to make the forums obsolete and usher in a new era whereby jihadi activists primarily rely on social media platforms to interact with one another,” Zelin said.
Facebook use by terrorists also appears to be increasing, he said.
Chemical weapon news....
« Breaking News »
DEBKAfile September 29, 2013, 10:38 PM (GMT+02:00)
Some OPCW inspectors, due to arrive in Damascus Monday, say that after checking the chemical weapons sites and munitions against the Syrian government’s list, they will oversee the rapid destruction of the means of production, which can be done with sledgehammers, buzz saws and bulldozers. Metal rocket tubes can be stuffed with cement and bulldozers or tanks run over them. Destroying the chemical material will take longer and is more complicated, especially in the middle of a war.
DEBKAfile: Assad is not likely to give the international CW inspectors access to his rocket stores.
UN Security Council Endorses Syria Disarmament Deal
Resolution Won' Include West-Sought War Authorization
by Jason Ditz, September 27, 2013
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously endorsed the resolution supporting the idea of Syria’s chemical weapons disarmament, two weeks after Syria already ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) promising to do so.
The lateness of the UN resolution is a function of repeated Western attempts, mostly pushed by France, to add an explicit authorization for military action into the resolution.
Russia held out, however, and finally got its way, with the final resolution largely the same as the one they had proposed in the first place, and mostly amounting to an endorsement of what Syria and the OPCW have already planned to do.
The resolution does include threats of “consequences” for Syria if it backs out of the deal, but this is not seriously expected to happen, and makes clear that what those consequences would be would have to be hashed out in another resolution, likely a Russian effort to prevent NATO from using vague terms to launch a war if the process hits any speed bumps along the way.
Syria Chemical Disarmament Starts Tuesday, Expected to Move Quickly
Most of Syria's Stockpile 'Unweaponized' Already
by Jason Ditz, September 27, 2013
The UN Security Council’s resolution on chemical weapons disarmament in Syria is increasingly irrelevant, as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has already got its plan in place, and is set to start with disarmament Tuesday.
At this point that will just mean OPCW inspectors arriving to examine the stockpile, but there is an extremely ambitious timetable, aiming to have the project completed within a matter of months.
It might even be possible, according to leaked assessments from US and Russian officials, which say that most of Syria’s stockpile is just “unweaponized” vats of precursors that could only theoretically be used to make weapons, and that they can easily be rendered inert.
The estimates from the US say that the arsenal amounts to only about 300 tons of actual blister agents and a huge amount of precursors, and other than the fact that the process is taking place in the middle of a civil war, it could be a pretty straightforward disarmament.
UN Inspectors Probe More Syria Chemical Attack Allegations
Three Are After the August 21 Incident
by Jason Ditz, September 27, 2013
UN inspectors that arrived back in Syria this week are investigating allegations of other, much smaller chemical weapons usage around Damascus, including three incidents that took place in the days after the August 21 incident.
The UN gave no details on what was claimed to have happened in any of the incidents, and said that they hope to have the investigation wrapped up by Monday, with the report expected in late October.
The previous UN report on the August 21 incident confirmed that an attack took place, but completely ducked the question of which side was responsible for it, leaving everyone to claim it as vindication for their own pet theories.
That precedent suggests that the future reports won’t necessarily be particularly enlightening, though it will be worthwhile to see how many of the claimed attacks turn out to be real.
More than one way for the US to provide arms to the Syrian rebels - and if this happened last summer , why has this just come out now ? How the hell could jihadists steal 23 fricking Humvees froma Special Forces base in the first place and has the Commander of that base been sent before a military tribunal yet ? How could all of the night vision and laser targeting gear gear get stolen and not a peep is heard ?
Millions in advanced U.S. weaponry “stolen” by Libyan jihadis
Libyan militants allied with terrorist groups stole millions of dollars in high-grade American military equipment, including armored Humvees and advanced night-vision goggles, during raids on a U.S. special forces base outside of Tripoli last summer.
Fox News reports that anonymous sources in the State Department and military confirmed the theft, which is far worse than the few guns first assumed stolen earlier this month. In addition to hundreds of M4 automatic rifles and Glock pistols, nearly every set of available night-vision goggles and laser-targeting devices were snatched during two night-time raids on the compound in July and August.
Even more ominously, 23 Ground Mobility Vehicles, heavily armored Humvees with GPS navigation systems and weapons mounts for grenade launchers, are also missing.
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