The Syrian Crisis

[Daredevil]

Syria's ambassador to the UAE defects, joins his defected wife in Qatar: sources

 

[Daredevil]

Turkey closes borders with Syria


he Turkish government is closing all its checkpoints on the Syrian border, customs and trade minister Hayati Yazici said on Wednesday.

"All checkpoints along the Syrian border are closed starting today," the minister was cited by the local NTV television as saying.

Turkey acted in line with a new package of sanctions against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad imposed by Ankara, the TV channel said.

Syrian insurgents have launched frequent attacks in the last few days at its border points, including near the Iraqi border.

Turkey has 13 checkpoints on its 900-km border with Syria.

The sanctions will cover truck traffic, but not the inflow of refugees from Syria, around 45,000 of whom have already fled to Turkey from the ongoing civil war, NTV said.

Turkey plans to establish three new refugee camps on the Syrian border, reports said.

 

[Daredevil]

Syria's Turkish border units 'head for Aleppo'

25 July 2012 Last updated at 10:51 GMT

The BBC's Ian Pannell says these rebels rounded up men they believe to be supporters of President Assad

Thousands of Syrian soldiers are being moved from the border with Turkey to join fierce fighting in the city of Aleppo, activists have claimed.

Rebels said their fighters had attacked columns of troops as they abandoned their posts in Jabal al-Zawiya area.

Aleppo, the country's second city, has seen fierce clashes all week, with the government deploying fighter jets and helicopters to beat back the rebels.

Government forces have largely repelled a rebel assault on Damascus.

Until recently, the two main cities had been relatively free of the violence that has wracked other parts of the country.

But a sustained assault by rebels earlier this month on the capital saw a dramatic upsurge in violence there.

Although government forces appear to have largely retaken control of Damascus, activists still say military helicopters are still attacking some parts of the city.

The focus of the fighting appears to have moved hundreds of miles north to Aleppo, a northern city regarded as the country's commercial hub.

The BBC's Ian Pannell, near Aleppo, says on Tuesday fighter jets strafed parts of the city, and civilians and rebel fighters had been killed in fighting.

It was thought to be the first time that fighter planes had been deployed in such a way since anti-regime protests began in March 2011.

Activists said fighting continued throughout the city overnight.

In other developments

Russia's foreign ministry says it has received "firm assurances" that regime's chemical weapons stockpile is "fully safeguarded"

Opposition activists say Syria's envoy to Cyprus, Lamia Hariri, has defected to the opposition; the fate of her husband, who is ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, remains unclear

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lambasts the US for failing to condemn the killings of top regime figures last week, saying the US position "is directly justifying terrorism"

Early on Wednesday opposition activists said large numbers of troops began withdrawing from the Turkish border.

An activist called Abdelrahman Bakran told Reuters news agency that rebels had attacked the rear of a column of troops along the main road to Aleppo.

Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told AFP news agency the troops were being redeployed to protect Aleppo because it was more strategically important.

Foreign journalists work under intense restrictions in Syria so reports by both sides are hard to verify.

Aleppo is just 60km (40 miles) from the Turkish border.

In recent weeks, the rebels have taken control of several posts along the 900km frontier, which has been plagued by attacks on lorries and fighting between rebels and government forces.

Turkey announced on Wednesday that it was shutting the remaining posts to lorries because of "security concerns".

Turkish officials said refugees would still be allowed through the border.

Analysts say the measure is an economic sanction, and that the embargo will hurt the regime, which relies on cross-border trade.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

America and its Allies Must Prepare to Secure Syria’s WMD’s | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com

The US has the capability to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles and production in Syria, having destroyed its own chemical weapons which remained for many years after WWI and WWII. The latter amounted to several times the amount know to be in Syria.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

The Unresolved Mystery of Syria's 'Iraqi' Chemical Weapons - NYTimes.com

 

[pmaitra]

Al Qaeda Taking Deadly New Role in Syria Conflict

New York Times

CAIRO — It is the sort of image that has become a staple of the Syrian revolution, a video of masked men calling themselves the Free Syrian Army and brandishing AK-47s — with one unsettling difference. In the background hang two flags of Al Qaeda, white Arabic writing on a black field.
[HR][/HR]
While leaders of the Syrian political and military opposition continue to deny any role for the extremists, Al Qaeda has helped to change the nature of the conflict, injecting the weapon it perfected in Iraq — suicide bombings — into the battle against President Bashar al-Assad with growing frequency.

The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda. An important border crossing with Turkey that fell into Syrian rebels' hands last week, Bab al-Hawa, has quickly become a jihadist congregating point.
[HR][/HR]
Shortly before Mr. Clapper's testimony, Ayman al-Zawahri, the apparent leader of Al Qaeda since the killing of Osama bin Laden, released an audio recording in which he praised the Syrian revolutionaries lavishly, calling them "the lions of the Levant," a theme that has since been taken up repeatedly in public pronouncements by the group.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/w...-way-into-syrias-conflict.html?pagewanted=all

 

[pmaitra]

Official: Israel to act if Syria arsenal breached

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's foreign minister warned on Wednesday his country will act immediately if it discovers Islamic militants are raiding Syria's chemical or biological weapons stocks, while Israelis rushed to stock up on gas masks as the bellicose rhetoric swells.

Source: Official: Israel to act if Syria arsenal breached - Houston Chronicle

 

[pmaitra]

Syria bolsters troops in battle for Aleppo

Thousands of soldiers reportedly sent to commercial hub in bid to reclaim areas taken by rebels in six days of clashes.

Full article and video: Syria bolsters troops in battle for Aleppo - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

 

[pmaitra]

US position on Syria directly endorses terrorism - Lavrov

Washington's reaction to blasts in Damascus is a downright justification of terrorism, slams Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. US State Department announced that terror acts in Syria are not surprising in light of the Assad regime's actions.

"This is direct endorsement of terrorism. How are we supposed to understand that?" Sergey Lavrov shared his astonishment at a press conference in Moscow. "This is a sinister position, I cannot find words to express our attitude towards that."

Lavrov also expressed his surprise that the UN Security Council refused to condemn acts of terror in Syria. The US permanent representative to the UN Susan Rice has stated that terror acts in Damascus contribute to speeding up the adoption of a resolution on Syria according to the Chapter 7 of the UN Statute, which implies harsh sanctions, including resorting to force.

"In other words this means 'We are going to support such acts of terrorism until the UNSC does what we want'," Lavrov commented on the US representative's actions.

Source: US position on Syria directly endorses terrorism - Lavrov — RT

 

[Armand2REP]

Battle for Aleppo

 

[The Messiah]

Al Qaeda Taking Deadly New Role in Syria Conflict

New York Times

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/w...-way-into-syrias-conflict.html?pagewanted=all

One Qaeda operative, a 56-year-old known as Abu Thuha who lives in the Hawija district near Kirkuk in Iraq, spoke to an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times on Tuesday. "We have experience now fighting the Americans, and more experience now with the Syrian revolution," he said. "Our big hope is to form a Syrian-Iraqi Islamic state for all Muslims, and then announce our war against Iran and Israel, and free Palestine."

They will free palestine by declaring war on iran aswell

 

[trackwhack]

America and its Allies Must Prepare to Secure Syria's WMD's | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com

The US has the capability to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles and production in Syria, having destroyed its own chemical weapons which remained for many years after WWI and WWII. The latter amounted to several times the amount know to be in Syria.

Oh wait a minute, I thought .... Oh well never mind

 

[Armand2REP]

They said Al Queda would take control of Libya... see no evidence of that either.

 

[pmaitra]

They said Al Queda would take control of Libya... see no evidence of that either.

We are talking about Syria here, and there is enough evidence of Al Qaida being part of FSA terrorists. Even New York Times admits that.

 

[Armand2REP]

Maybe a couple hundred in the whole country... are they supposed to take over a village?

 

[pmaitra]

Maybe a couple hundred in the whole country... are they supposed to take over a village?

Maybe, maybe not.

Do you know what white Arabic script on black background means?

Go back a few pages on this thread.

 

[pmaitra]

Damascus has returned to some kind of normalcy after the FSA were routed.

This has come at a cost - the martyrdom of Syrian government soldiers.

See more at Russia Today: Syria Tweets: 'War & Peace' snap-shots from conflict zone — RT

 

[pmaitra]

Turkish Al-Qaida in Syria

The video is titled "Turkish Mujahideen who are Conducting Jihad in Syria." A speaker in Turkish exclaims, "O Muslims, o believers, where are you? Let's fight together to save Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan...." The video then shows images of jihadi training camps in Syria, which they say include Turkish fighters, while a Turkish song, "Headed to Damascus," plays in the background.

The video closes with the declaration (spoken in Arabic with Turkish subtitles): "We are soldiers of the Omar Farouq Brigade in Syria... and we raise our voice against Assad's barbaric army. We will live free on these lands! .... God help us!"

The Omar Farouq brigade is one of many Jihadist groups including several Al Qaeda affiliates currently fighting the Syrian government.

Anybody who understands Turkish can confirm what is being said.

 

[pmaitra]

In the face of the same broken record that we have been hearing from the West, this video offers a refreshing perspective into the Syrian Conflict. Being an Iranian source, one should expect it to counter Western rhetoric with some of its own.

 

[pmaitra]

Al-Qaida along with FSA terrorists:

Read article: http://ojihad.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/syrian-insurgents-announce-martyrdom-brigade/