The Syrian Crisis

[amoy]

Attacking Syria will definitely corner Iran

Mid-East including Israel on high alert after Obama's failed last-ditch bid for Syria deal with Iran

Monday night, Aug. 25, saw one Middle East country after another, including Israel, going on high military alert after they learned that US President Barack Obama had failed to come to an understanding with Tehran on Syria and so avert a US-led operation against Syria over its chemical attacks.

Obama had hoped this understanding would also pave the way to direct dialogue on the nuclear issue with the new Iranian president Hasan Rouhani.

 

[nrupatunga]

U.S. postpones meeting with Russia about Syria

Also as expected, oil price is raising
Brent crude tops $111 on rising tension over Syria attack

 

[nrupatunga]

Just Some Harriers and two Cargo Planes in Akrotiri air base on Cyprus
http://imageshack.us/a/img17/1809/1u2v.jpg[IMG]

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/a/img856/5647/yknz.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

Quite unusual. There was a guardian article that air base is getting packed with warplanes. Need to regularly check this. Though initially it will be missile attacks before planes do their bit. Only after ensuring that missiles take off all "possible" resistance for the planes, will the planes enter the scene. So maybe still some time is left for the warplanes to see "action".

EDIT: Also what about tartus, is there any activity there,. Maybe russians have been given some time to evacuate if not everyone, atleast the civilians from syria.

 

[hello_10]

It's not just about Syria since whole of middle east is on a brink of a full fledged war.It's already in civil war.

And the bigger danger if war spills out of the region.

Next few days are going to be important.

S-300 threat is overrated. No doubt it is a potent air defense system, but only if it can keep its radars intact.

its not just S 300, but Syria has a full military infrastructure. in its current strength, it is well capable to defend itself from its neighbors. and if the US/NATO interfere then it will again involve the rest of big powers like Russia including China too. while Iran has its own role there.......

Im sure US/NATO has little interests in Syria but they mainly want to bring the rest of the gulf region in the position to be invaded...... i dont say that US doesn't have similar power, it does have, even if US doesn't have enough money to move its military. but check the map, Middle East is only 200km away from Russia, through Georgia, while US/NATO militaries will have to travel a long distance form sea to reach that region.....

it will be similar to how russia rolled over Georgia in 2008, while rest of the US/EU kept making noise on the name of democracy but could do just nothing

 

[hello_10]

It's not just about Syria since whole of middle east is on a brink of a full fledged war.It's already in civil war.

And the bigger danger if war spills out of the region.

Next few days are going to be important.

Attacking Syria will definitely corner Iran

Mid-East including Israel on high alert after Obama's failed last-ditch bid for Syria deal with Iran

why would the Syrian government use chemical weapons if they had almost won the war? why to use chemical weapons now if they had got almost all the key bases of rebels???

while we have information that many key Al Qaeda militants were gathering that time at once. US/NATO first brought them together for a cause, and then they used chemical weapons to remove all those terrorists at once, as CIA was in a better position to do so while being with rebels/Al Qaeda itself now days.....

Gulf/Al Qaeda and US are playing cat and mouse game. no one like each others, but both are united against their opponent like Syria. but at the same time US don't hesitate to score terrorists in one go, whenever CIA gets this opportunity :thumb:

 

[W.G.Ewald]

The Saudis would certainly enjoy higher oil prices due to wider conflict in Syria.

Fox News is already talking about this outcome.

 

[asianobserve]

Fox News is already talking about this outcome.

You better start exporting oil so that you can take advantage of the spike in World prices.

 

[nrupatunga]

[Tweet]372283533429317632[/Tweet]

 

[asianobserve]

why would the Syrian government use chemical weapons if they had almost won the war?

Then it is not true that Assad is actually winning the war (Assad obviously want people to believe this, and you took his propaganda hook line and sinker). Maybe what you have there is a deadlock and Assad is desperate to tilt the balance in his favor hence the resort to chemical weapons.

 

[arnabmit]

Indian interests lie with assad and not the wahabhi nutjobs he's fighting against.

We must let our views be known in the international arena.

Haven't GoI already appeased a lot of votebank by embracing the Wahhabi line in Syria in UN?

 

[amoy]

Then it is not true that Assad is actually winning the war (Assad obviously want people to believe this, and you took his propaganda hook line and sinker). Maybe what you have there is a deadlock and Assad is desperate to tilt the balance in his favor hence the resort to chemical weapons.

if Assad isnt winning why are US France UK Turkey and GCC so anxious to directly intervene and push forward "no fly zone"? why not let rebels finish their jobs?

Sent from my 5910 using Tapatalk 2

 

[SajeevJino]

US ready to launch Syria strike, says Chuck Hagel​

American forces are "ready" to launch strikes on Syria if President Barack Obama chooses to order an attack, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says.



"We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfil and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take," Mr Hagel told the BBC.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said there is "undeniable" proof that Syria had used chemical weapons.

The UK Parliament is to be recalled on Thursday to discuss possible responses.

Britain is considering military responses to the attack.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who has cut short his holiday and returned to London, said MPs would vote on a "clear motion" on the crisis.

Mr Hagel said the US Department of Defence had provided President Obama with "all options for all contingencies".

"He has seen them, we are prepared," he told the BBC's Jon Sopel, adding: "We are ready to go."

Mr Hagel said that intelligence currently being gathered by the UN inspectors would confirm that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attacks last week.

"I think it's pretty clear that chemical weapons were used against people in Syria," he said.


BBC News - US ready to launch Syria strike, says Chuck Hagel

 

[asianobserve]

if Assad isnt winning why are US France UK Turkey and GCC so anxious to directly intervene and push forward "no fly zone"? why not let rebels finish their jobs?

Sent from my 5910 using Tapatalk 2

Maybe because chemical weapons is really a game changer in a lot of ways. And if unpunished now then it could provide a precedent, not to mention that it will seriously diminish confidence in American power in the region after Obama has so publicly drew his Red Line.

 

[Yusuf]

I doubt if they will be able to contain the attack limited to just a few precision strikes. It will expand to C&C centers which will mean right up to the highest level which is Assad himself. Syria has MiGs that can use to shoot down cruise missiles. US will have to perform SEAD/DEAD if fighters are going to be employed. Syria has MiG29s at its disposal.

Idiots looking for excuse to attack the wrong party in Syria. Al Qaeda all over Syria among rebels.

 

[SajeevJino]

Not Only the US going to Strike

USA Leads the Strike

UK Gives Couple of Submarine and Air Base in Cyprus for Allies Fighters Refuel and Re arming

Turkey Openly Support To US and will Join the Attack

France Already Decided their Contribution on this Mission

Israel gives Intelligence Sharing and May Perform some DEAD/SEAD missions along Syria

Saudi May Fund Countries who Attacks Syria

Germany Says will give Fighters If anyone Confirms The Chemical strike

Italy says will give Support If UN agrees to Strike



Opposition

Russia Says Will Strike Saudi and Destroy ABM shield in Europe

Iran says we have contract with Syria Quoting We both attack anyone If any of our Country get attacked

Syria already placed some Hundred of SCUDS with Chemical Warheads

China warns US


No Mentions

Jordan says we will not allow any Fighters in our Country who attacks Syria

Still Egypt was Silent

 

[asianobserve]

I doubt if they will be able to contain the attack limited to just a few precision strikes. It will expand to C&C centers which will mean right up to the highest level which is Assad himself. Syria has MiGs that can use to shoot down cruise missiles. US will have to perform SEAD/DEAD if fighters are going to be employed. Syria has MiG29s at its disposal.

Idiots looking for excuse to attack the wrong party in Syria. Al Qaeda all over Syria among rebels.

I think any American led strike on Syria will concentrate on Assad's C&C capabilities: headquarters, communication sites, radar sites and SAMs. It would degrade Assad's ability to direct the fight and coordinate any offensive or defensive actions. I don't think Americans would target chemical weapons stockpiles as it would be catastrophic to the people around those sites. As to Mig 29s, these could be the least problem for the Western allies since they'll be practically useless without air defense infrastructures.

 

[Neil]

Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria


Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia's gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria.
The revelations come amid high tension in the Middle East, with US, British, and French warships poised for missile strikes against Syria, and Iran threatening to retaliate. The strategic jitters pushed Brent crude prices to a five-month high of $US112 a barrel.
''We are only one incident away from a serious oil spike. The market is a lot tighter than people think,'' said Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review.
Leaked transcripts of a behind closed doors meeting between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan shed an extraordinary light on the hard-nosed Realpolitik of the two sides.
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Prince Bandar, head of Saudi intelligence, allegedly confronted the Kremlin with a mix of inducements and threats in a bid to break the deadlock over Syria.
''Let us examine how to put together a unified Russian-Saudi strategy on the subject of oil. The aim is to agree on the price of oil and production quantities that keep the price stable in global oil markets,'' he is claimed to have said at the four-hour meeting with Mr Putin.
''We understand Russia's great interest in the oil and gas in the Mediterranean from Israel to Cyprus. And we understand the importance of the Russian gas pipeline to Europe. We are not interested in competing with that. We can cooperate in this area,'' he said, purporting to speak with the full backing of the US.
The talks appear to offer an alliance between the OPEC cartel and Russia, which together produce more than 40 million barrels a day of oil, 45 per cent of global output. Such a move would alter the strategic landscape.
The details of the talks were leaked to the Russian press. A more detailed version has since appeared in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, which has Hizbollah links and is hostile to the Saudis.
As-Safir said Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia's naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia's Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord.
''I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the Games are controlled by us,'' he allegedly said.
Prince Bandar went on to say that Chechens operating in Syria were a pressure tool that could be switched on and off.
''We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role in Syria's political future.''
President Putin has long been pushing for a global gas cartel, issuing the ''Moscow Declaration'' last month to ''defend suppliers and resist unfair pressure''.
Mr Skrebowski said it is unclear what the Saudis can really offer the Russians on gas, beyond using leverage over Qatar and others to cut output of liquefied natural gas.
Saudi Arabia could help boost oil prices by restricting its own supply. This would be a shot in the arm for Russia, but it would be a dangerous strategy if it pushed prices to levels that put the global economic recovery at risk. Mr Skrebowski said trouble is brewing in supply states.
'Libya is reverting to war lordism. Nigeria is drifting into a bandit state with steady loss of output. And Iraq is going back to the sort of Sunni-Shia civil war we saw in 2006-07,'' he said.
The Putin-Bandar meeting took place three weeks ago. Mr Putin was unmoved by the Saudi offer.
''We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters,'' he said, referring to footage showing a Jihadist rebel eating the heart and liver of a Syrian soldier.
Prince Bandar said that there can be ''no escape from the military option'' if Russia declines the olive branch. Events are unfolding exactly as he foretold.


Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria

 

[Neil]

UN accuses Syrian rebels of chemical weapons use


"According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas," del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said in an interview with Swiss radio late on Sunday.
"We still have to deepen our investigation, verify and confirm (the findings) through new witness testimony, but according to what we have established so far, it is at the moment opponents of the regime who are using sarin gas," she added.

She stressed that the UN commission of inquiry on Syria, which she is a part of, had far from finished its investigation.
Turkish authorities are carrying out blood tests on Syrians who have fled the fighting at home to determine if they have been victims of chemical weapons, a medical source said Monday.

"Samples have been taken from people wounded in Syria who have been transported to Turkey," the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that the results were not yet known.

Western nations have raised concerns about the use of chemical weapons in the escalating conflict between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and rebels fighting to oust him.

Top UN rights investigator Carla del Ponte said Sunday that according to testimony, rebels have been using sarin gas.
US President Barack Obama has refused to rule out any options, but has said he did not foresee deploying US troops if Assad's regime is proved to have used chemical weapons.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a one-time Syria ally, on Sunday branded Assad a "butcher" and a "murderer" who would pay a heavy price for the killings in Syria.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed Sunday for restraint to avoid an escalation in Syria's civil war, expressing "grave concern" over Israeli air raids.
Israel launched air strikes earlier that hit three military sites near Damascus, the second such reported attack in a 48-hour period targeting the transfer of arms to Lebanon-based Hezbollah, raising fresh concerns of a regional spillover.

"The secretary-general calls on all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict," Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement.
Nesirky said the United Nations was unable to independently verify the raids, and had no details about them, but Ban "expresses grave concern over reports of air strikes in Syria by the Israeli Air Force."

"The secretary-general urges respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries in the region, and adherence to all relevant Security Council resolutions," Nesirky said.



UN accuses Syrian rebels of chemical weapons use - Telegraph

 

[Neil]

Syrian chemical weapons reports get murkier


A member of the United Nations' commission on Syria says the body has found "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas" by Syrian rebels. This is consistent with a U.S. intelligence finding announced last week, which suggested that some Syrians had been exposed to sarin, a dangerous chemical weapon, but did not say how. But it further clouds the world's already murky effort to determine whether chemical weapons are being used in Syria and by whom.

The U.N. commission member's statement has not been confirmed, including by the United Nations itself, which put out a statement clarifying that it has not found any conclusive proof of chemical weapons use. The allegation that rebels may have used chemical weapons appears to be based on interviews with witnesses and Syrian health workers, rather than on first-hand investigation.

If this assertion were proven true, it would raise a number of important questions about the Syrian conflict. If the chemical taboo is broken in Syria, does that make the regime more likely to use those weapons itself? Would rebel use of chemical weapons lead foreign powers to reduce their support for the Syrian opposition? At what point does the United States or Jordan activate its nearby troops, which are on standby to secure loose chemical weapons in a worst-case scenario?

Whether this latest report is true or not, though, the ongoing uncertainty about Syria's chemical weapons is revealing in itself. The shifting reports appear to suggest that the exposure may have been small, as a large-scale attack would have presumably drawn more attention and thus more witness accounts. It's also a reminder of how difficult it is to piece together events in a far-away war zone, particularly in Syria, where the front lines are fluid and many of the troops irregular. Keep that uncertainty in mind as the United States evaluates whether or how to respond to the possibility that President Obama's "red line" on chemical weapons may have been crossed.

Adding to the doubts, some analysts are now wondering if the attack might have actually involved chlorine, which is also a chemical weapon but can be bought over-the-counter. A Reuters story story described a possible chemical attack in the northern town of Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo, after which residents said they could smell chlorine. The Telegraph reported at the time that Syrian regime forces accused rebels of using a homemade chlorine solution in the attack.

As Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell points out, Khan al-Assal was a regime-controlled area at the time, which suggests that if anyone were to attack it, it would probably be rebels. (Hat tip to Hounshell for resurfacing these March articles.) Syria analyst Michael Weiss, also writing at the time, noticed that both Syrian state media and opposition groups independently reported the attack and blamed the other side. That's not something either side would seem likely to do if they had actually conducted the attack, particularly given the sensitivity around chemical weapons. Both appeared, in other words, equally surprised.

Perhaps adding some credibility to fears that Syrian rebels could potentially use chlorine, militants in neighboring Iraq used chlorine bombs several times in 2007. Some Syrian fighters with the Islamist rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra are believed to have ties to Iraqi extremists.

On the other hand, a senior State Department official said that the United States has no information to suggest that Syrian rebels have the intent or capability to use chemical weapons, according to CNN's Jill Dougherty. Taken together, all of this information makes it difficult to say with much certainty whether or not chemicals are being deliberately deployed in Syria (in a country with such large stockpiles, accidental exposure is a possibility), much less by whom. It may indeed turn out that either government forces or the rebels are using chemical weapons. For now, we have a number of puzzle pieces, some of them suggesting very different conclusions, but no way to fit them together into a clear picture.


Syrian chemical weapons reports get murkier

 

[Neil]

Turkish doctors say no nerve gas in Syrian victims' blood


Turkish doctors say no nerve gas in Syrian victims' blood | GlobalPost