The Syrian Crisis

[rock127]

Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

A commander of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) said Syrian rebels had started to attack Lebanon's Hezbollah Feb. 21, less than a day after the FSA chief of staff issued a 48-hour ultimatum warning the militant group to stop shelling territory held by the insurgents.

"We have bombed the territories of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The Free Syrian Army will continue bombing these positions," Col. Hisam al-Avvak of the Group of Free Officers, which operates under the umbrella of the FSA, told Anatolia news agency. Al-Avvak also threatened that the FSA would target Hezbollah strongholds in the south of Beirut unless Hezbollah stops its joint operations with the Syrian army forces.

Gen. Selim Idriss, the FSA chief of staff, said on Feb. 20 that Hezbollah had long been taking part in hostilities in Syria, but had gone too far by shelling villages near Qusayr in Homs province from the Bekaa valley in Lebanon.The commander said the rebels were giving Hezbollah a 48-hour deadline to stop the attacks and "as soon as the ultimatum ends, we will start responding to the sources of fire." Rebels in the Qusayr area would be backed by FSA fighters "equipped with long-range weapons from other areas," he said.

The FSA had also asked the Lebanese president and premier to intervene, Idriss said, but the office of Prime Minister Najib Mikati denied any contact with the Syrian rebels.Hezbollah has repeatedly denied sending fighters into Syria. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, acknowledged in October 2012 that party members had fought Syrian rebels but said they were acting as individuals and not under the group's direction.

Hezbollah has been supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad ever since the uprising began in March 2011, even though the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain. The group says it is backing the Syrian regime because of its support for the anti-Israel resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine and because it is willing to implement political reforms.

A Lebanese analyst ( whose name was withheld for security reasons) told Yalibnan: " As a Lebanese Shiite myself , I strongly feel that Hezbollah has become an Embarrassment. Hezbollah was my Hero until the Israelis pulled out from Lebanon in 2000 but ever since then it has been downhill for Hezbollah. I pride myself of being a Lebanese Shiite, but I think Hezbollah's agenda has ceased to be a Lebanese resistance since 2000. Hezbollah is now a proxy of the Wilayat al Faqih ( the basis of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran) which for us as Lebanese Shiites is a step back. Hezbollah is now doing Iran's dirty work. Look what Hezbollah has allegedly done in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Thailand, Singapore, Kenya, Azerbaijan, India, Georgia , Argentina, Egypt, Bahrain and Iraq. How does this benefit me as a Lebanese Shiite? Hezbollah's behavior is having a negative impact on all of us as Shiites . We feel this , by the way we are treated wherever we travel."

He added: As far as the Syrian regime is concerned the writings are on the wall. This regime is bound to fall . Where will this leave us as Shiites if Hezbollah continues to support a failing regime. Unfortunately most people think that if you are a Shiite you are automatically a Hezbollah member, which of course is not the case. Time for Hezbollah to wake up and think Lebanon. This will be better for Hezbollah, better for the Shiites and better for all the Lebanese ".

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Re: Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

Syria has had its hand on the throat of Lebanon through Hezbollah for a long time..

 

[The Messiah]

Re: Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

Another proof rebels are puppets of the west.

 

[pmaitra]

Re: Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

What has Hezbollah done in India?

 

[IBSA]

Re: Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

^^
He shall be refering to the attack against Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi, year last.

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

It's going to get more ugly from here in Syria. Serves Israel well though if the Hezbollah is diverted to fight in Syria. Gives them some breathing space. But this does not augur well for the Mid East. A clear Shia Sunni divide here and the west is playing a dangerous game which will come back to bite it in the not so distant future. These guys are crazy.

 

[IBSA]

Re: Syria Rebels attacks Hezbollah's positions in Lebanon

Well, if these shootings and mutual provocation continues, the Syria conflict risks to spread abroad Lebanon and become a regional war.

I don't know if this strategy will work at all. Maybe.

Expanding the conflict scenario, FSA would be forced to divide its strenght to fight same time the Syrian Army on one side, and Hezbollah in other side. With the enemy's strenght divided, it can be easier to Syrian Army crush down the rebels.

 

[SajeevJino]

Syria says it's ready for talks with armed rebels​

Syria is ready to hold talks with the armed opposition trying to topple President Bashar Assad, the country's foreign minister said Monday, in the government's most advanced offer yet to try to resolve the 2-year-old civil war through negotiations.



Walid al-Moallem did not say whether rebel fighters would first have to lay down their arms before negotiations could begin, a key sticking point in the past. Still, the proposal marked the first time that a high-ranking Syrian official has stated publicly that the government would meet with opposition fighters.

"We're ready for a dialogue with anyone who's willing for it," al-Moallem said in Moscow ahead of talks with his Russian counterpart, "even with those who carry arms. We are confident that reforms will come about not with the help of bloodshed but through dialogue."

One rebel commander welcomed the idea of talks, but only on the condition that Assad and those who are responsible for the bloodshed are put on trial.

Syria's 23-month-old conflict, which has killed more than 70,000 people and destroyed many of the country's cities, has repeatedly confounded international efforts to bring the parties together to end the bloodshed. Russia, a close ally of Assad and his regime's chief international advocate, offered last Wednesday, in concert with the Arab League, to broker talks between the rebels and the government.

The proposal — which the Kremlin would be unlikely to float publicly without first securing word from Damascus that it would indeed take part — suggested the regime could be warming to the idea of a settlement as it struggles to hold territory and win back ground it has lost to the rebels.

Syria's rebels have scored several tactical victories in recent weeks, capturing the nation's largest hydroelectric dam and overtaking airbases in the northeast. In Damascus, they have advanced from their strongholds in the suburbs into neighborhoods in the northeast and southern rim of the capital, while peppering the center of the city with mortar rounds for days.

On Thursday, a huge bomb blast near the ruling Baath party headquarters in Damascus killed at least 53 people, according to state media.

While the momentum may be subtly shifting in the rebels' direction, the regime's grip on Damascus remains firm, and Assad's fall is far from imminent — or certain.

Ahead of the meeting with al-Moallem, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated his call for Syria to negotiate with the opposition, saying that "the situation in Syria is at a crossroads now." He also warned that further fighting could lead to "the breakup of the Syrian state."

Past government offers for talks with the opposition have included a host of conditions, such as demanding that the rebels first lay down their arms. Those proposals have been swiftly rejected by both activists outside the country and rebels on the ground.

The prospect of negotiating with the armed opposition is made all the more difficult by the fractured status of those fighting to topple the regime. There are dozens of armed brigades and groups across the country and no unified command.

The head of one group, Free Syrian Army chief Gen. Salim Idriss, said he is "ready to take part in dialogue within specific frameworks," but then rattled off conditions that the regime has rejected in the past.

"There needs to be a clear decision on the resignation of the head of the criminal gang, Bashar Assad, and for those who participated in the killing of the Syrian people to be put on trial," Idriss told pan-Arab Al-Arabiya TV.

He said the government must agree to stop all kinds of violence and to hand over power, saying that "as rebels, this is our bottom line."

Both sides in the conflict in recent weeks have floated offers and counter-offers to hold talks to resolve the crisis.

In a speech in January, Assad offered to lead a national dialogue to end the bloodshed, but said he would not talk with the armed opposition and vowed to keep on fighting. The opposition rejected the proposal.

This month, the leader of the Syrian National Coalition, the umbrella group for opposition parties, said he would be open to discussions with the regime that could pave the way for Assad's departure, but that the government must first release tens of thousands of detainees. The government refused, and even members within the Coalition balked at the idea of talks.

Speaking to reporters Monday in Cairo, SNC chief Mouaz al-Khatib accused the regime of procrastinating and said it had derailed his dialogue offer by not responding to the Coalition's conditions.

"We are always open to initiatives that stop the killing and destruction but the regime rejected the simplest of humanitarian conditions. We have asked that the regime start by releasing women prisoners and there was no response," he said. "This regime must understand that the Syrian people do not want it anymore."

Countries in the region have watched the Syrian conflict with trepidation, fearful that the bloodshed could drag in neighboring states.

Turkey, which has taken in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and has exchanged fire across the border with government troops, is among those most concerned about the fallout.

Speaking to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused Damascus of using "every instrument to turn the legitimate struggle of the Syrian people into a sectarian war which would engulf the entire region in flames."

"The longer this regime is allowed to wage its campaign of violence, the harder it will be to prevent such a dreadful eventuality," he added.

Meanwhile, the fighting inside Syria rages on.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group reported heavy clashes Monday outside a police academy in Khan al-Asal just outside Aleppo.

Rebels backed by captured tanks launched a fresh offensive on the facility on Sunday. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said at least 13 rebels and five regime troops were killed in the fighting.

In another part of Aleppo, rebels downed a military helicopter near the Mennegh airport, where there have been fierce clashes for months.

A video posted online by activists shows a missile being fired, a trail of white smoke and then the aircraft going up in flames. Voices in the background shout "God is great" as a man raises both hands in the air in celebration.



Syria says it's ready for talks with armed rebels

 

[SajeevJino]

Shit my last hope for New world order Establish is Trashed by no backbone Syrian Assad ..Hmm oh yeah somebody right there over East Asia North koreans Please Launch your Preemptive War over south and break the Element of Surprise through USA

 

[pmaitra]

press tv is propaganda trash
and you are a brazilian islamist terorist suporting trash
go back to pakistan defence or some jihadi frum were you belong

He is not an Islamist Terrorist Supporting trash.

 

[Armand2REP]

Shit my last hope for New world order Establish is Trashed by no backbone Syrian Assad ..Hmm oh yeah somebody right there over East Asia North koreans Please Launch your Preemptive War over south and break the Element of Surprise through USA

Relax, Assad the Butcher would just as soon kill everyone before making a real truce.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

An opinion piece from the New York Daily News. "Naive aspirations" applies to Arab Spring as well, I believe.

Obama fiddled,-Syria burned- - NY Daily News

...Obama is a man without a foreign policy.

He had naive aspirations — a world to be changed by the transformative power of a good speech — but no clear path to achieve anything. Nasr describes his dismay when the surge in Afghanistan was announced in tandem with a pullout date. In his head, Secretary of State John Kerry, the new implementer of Obama's contradictory policy, must now hear a reprise of the question he once asked about his own war: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?"

Nasr's regional specialty was Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the thrust of what he says supports the view that Obama shied from intervening in Syria out of domestic political considerations. A President who was campaigning as the peace candidate could not risk anything bold in Syria. The country fell into the margin of error. "It is not going too far to say that American foreign policy has become completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations," Nasr writes.

Boldness is what the situation in Syria demanded. A civil war that could have been contained has, instead, become a sprawling, regionwide bar fight. Arms could have been shipped to the insurgents; a no-fly zone could have been imposed.

Much could have been done. Instead, Obama merely called for Bashar Assad to go and, for some reason he, like Eric Cantor or somebody, remains immovable.

The stakes here are enormous. Lebanon teeters, swamped with refugees. Jordan, too, is overwhelmed. The Kurds in Syria's north may, as they have in nearby Iraq, establish an autonomous zone — and Turkey will not be pleased. The jihadists are on the move, hungry for Syria's vast store of chemical weapons. Israel watches, nervously. What if Hezbollah gets its hands on chemical weapons? An Obama administration, afraid of blowback, may well have allowed the Middle East to blow apart.

The battle for Damascus is now engaged. The war next month enters its third year, a humanitarian crisis that has been permitted to fester under the rubric of foreign policy realism.

But another realism is now apparent: Inaction has bred the manufacture of orphans — a carnage, a reprimand to inaction. Life imitates art. Damascus is where it came apart in [the film] "Lawrence of Arabia." Damascus is where it is coming apart in reality.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Syria 1940 | Aleppo, Homs, Damascus: Photos of Syria in 1940 | LIFE.com

The ongoing chaos and violence that have come to define the Syrian civil war — a war that has now raged for close to two years, with no signs of abating — not only forced the names of ancient cities (Aleppo, Homs) back into today's headlines, but reminded anyone who might have forgotten that Syria has long been a key crossroads and a major player not merely in the Middle east, but on the global stage.

 

[SajeevJino]

Fortress Damascus now center of Syrian war..A key City in Ancient History ​

Damascus, the world's oldest continually inhabited city, is now a key battleground in Syria's civil war, which enters its third year in March.

Rebel forces are intensifying their assault on the ancient capital, where the beleaguered minority regime of President Bashar Assad has concentrated its elite and most loyal troops.

The other flash point is in the north around Aleppo, another ancient city that used to be Syria's commercial heart, with rebel forces steadily making gains in heavy fighting.

But the war, which the United Nations estimates has killed 70,000 people since the uprising against Assad began March 15, 2011, is likely to be won or lost in Damascus. And there's probably hard fighting still ahead.

Government forces hold the center of Damascus and a ring of strong points that have blocked major rebel efforts to break into the inner city where the regime's military and intelligence power centers are located.

Fighting has raged for months and the rebels, mainly the ferocious jihadist groups and the secular Free Syria Army, are able to sometimes penetrate this ring of steel and concrete with devastating effect.

On Feb. 21, a huge car bomb exploded outside the headquarters of the ruling Baath Party, a prominent symbol of the regime on Thawra Street in the downtown district of Maazra.

The state news agency reported 53 people killed and more than 200 wounded. The United Kingdom's Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, put the death toll at 61.

Including other bombings in the city that day, the Observatory said the fatality toll was 85.

One of the wounded was Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a longtime Syrian puppet and a relic of the Palestinian wars of the 1970s and '80s.

The Russian Embassy was damaged in the Thawra Street blast, which occurred as rebel forces made a determined effort to push into the city center.

These forces, largely from Syria's Sunni majority, have been held by regime's superior firepower and control of the air.

The army's elite units are manned by minority Alawites, an obscure offshoot of Shiite Islam which dominates the regime.

As pillars of thick black smoke billowed over the city, army headquarters came under mortar fire. Other mortar rounds exploded near Assad's presidential palace.

Some parts of the old city have been badly hit by the destructive chaos. World heritage sites, including the fabled Umayyad Mosque, built after the Arab conquest of the city in A.D. 634, have been damaged, just as much of the historic vaulted souk, or market, in Aleppo were burned down.

Damascus has seen it all before over the millennia -- and survived.

Carbon dating indicates it has probably been inhabited since 6300 B.C.

It's always been fought over. In 1260 B.C, it became a battlefield between the Hittites from the north and the Egyptians from the south, who emerged victorious. By the eighth century B.C. Damascus was the cultural and economic center of the Near East, and remained so for more than 1,000 years.

It's been conquered many times, by Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., finally by Australian cavalry, as well as Britain's legendary Col. T.E. Lawrence on Oct. 1, 1918, when the Ottoman Empire finally crumbled.

The current conflict seems to have "evolved into a war of attrition," says Middle East analyst Victor Kotsev.

"Despite significant rebel advances in the last few weeks and months -- including the capture of a major air force base in Aleppo and the largest dam in the country -- the conflict has stalemated and right now it looks as if President Assad may be able to cling to power for longer than most Western officials and media outlets acknowledge.

"Still, in the end, he's likely doomed, but not so much because he stands to collapse rapidly in the manner in which Moammar Gadhafi did in 2011.

"Instead, as experts note, regime troops can't easily be replaced, as compared to rebels, who are drawing on a larger pool of willing fighters, from Syria and abroad," Kotsev noted.

So things may be getting pretty bad for Assad. The regime was recently reported to have been forced to recruit women to fill the ranks of the beleaguered army.

Fortress Damascus now center of Syrian war | Big News Network

 

[nrupatunga]

US, allies planning direct aid to Syrian rebels

In a policy shift, the United States on Thursday will announce plans to channel aid directly to selected groups of the Syrian opposition rather than through non-governmental agencies.
The aid plan, being forged with European allies, will still not include weapons, despite the calls of a growing number of American senators — but the definition of "non-lethal" aid will be more broadly defined.

the administration was planning to start sending non-lethal equipment like body armor and armed vehicles to Assad's foes. Also Among the items likely to be included in the direct aid to rebels are meals and medical kits.

For its part, the Syrian opposition is planning to demand "qualitative military support" at talks with major powers in Rome this week, a leading figure in movement to oust Assad told Reuters on Wednesday.

But Iraq's prime minister warned that a victory for the rebels in Syria would create new problems, by creating a haven for extremists and worsening sectarian tensions in the Middle East.

 

[nrupatunga]

Kerry announced $60 million in new aid to help the Syrian Opposition Coalition deliver basic goods and services, including security, sanitation, and education, to areas that the rebels control.

The Syrian opposition are privately disappointed that they would not be receiving weapons. The U.S. remains concerned that weapons could fall into the wrong hands, but Britain and France are expected to provide military equipment.

Step by step rebels are being propped up. Can rebels atleast now show something on gound???

 

[geoBR]

He is not an Islamist Terrorist Supporting trash.

@pmaitra Thank you very much :thumb:

 

[pack leader]

He is not an Islamist Terrorist Supporting trash.

then he is brainwashed by them
to understand israel you have to visit once and then all is clear

 

[Armand2REP]

Step by step rebels are being propped up. Can rebels atleast now show something on gound???

Since 14 Jan... rebels have captured Raqqa and moved the LoC around Aleppo. They control more population centers than Assad does. His territory keeps getting smaller and smaller while his army gets weaker and weaker. It is a war of attrition the rebels are winning. They have no manpower shortages but Assad has to recruit women.

 

[SajeevJino]

Iraqi army helped Syrian government retake border checkpoint​

The Iraqi army has reportedly shelled Free Syrian Army positions inside Syria near the border with Iraq. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Iraq was helping Syrian government forces regain control of a border checkpoint seized by the insurgency.

Syrian troops have recaptured the Al-Ya'robiya checkpoint on the border with Iraq on Friday night. According to witness reports on Twitter, Iraq's armed forces moved in to help with the operation and shelled the border post, which was held by the rebels.

An Al-Arabiya correspondent also confirmed that targets inside Syria had been shelled while Iraqi snipers took positions near the crossing. Massive reinforcements have also been deployed in Baghdad near the Syrian border, the correspondent said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that a border checkpoint on Syria's northeast border with Iraq had been overrun by rebel fighters from the Al-Nusra Front on Thursday but were recaptured by government troops after less than 24 hours.

Earlier on Friday, the conflict once again spilled into neighboring Iraq after a Scud missile fired from Syria landed near a village in Iraq's Nineveh province, causing no significant damage. Last time rockets fired from Syrian territory hit Iraq, in September 2012, they killed a 5-year-old girl.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned on Wednesday that a Syrian rebel victory could spark sectarian violence in his own country and the whole region.

"Neither the opposition nor the regime can finish each other off," he said in an interview with the Associated Press. "If the opposition is victorious, there will be a civil war in Lebanon, divisions in Jordan and a sectarian war in Iraq."


Iraqi army helped Syrian government retake border checkpoint - reports — RT News