"Tehran declares attack on Syria would be attack on Iran; Rebel tunnels used to smuggle weapons found" by Bassem Mroue and Ali Akbar Dareini | Associated Press, January 27, 2013
BEIRUT — Issuing Tehran’s strongest warning to date, a top Iranian official said Saturday that any attack on Syria would be deemed an attack on Iran, a sign that it will do all it can to protect embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made his comments as Syrian troops conducted offensive air raids against rebels and discovered a trio of tunnels they were using to smuggle weapons in their fight to topple Assad.
Those good tunnels; Gazan tunnels bad.
The world has been grappling over how to deal with Syria ever since an uprising against Assad’s regime erupted nearly two years ago. But so far, there has been no international intervention on the ground where more than 60,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.
Well, there certainly has been due to the foreign mercenaries rolling on in, but what's one more distortion, deception, and obfuscation in a paper full of them day after day?
Iran is Syria’s strongest ally in the Middle East, and has provided Assad’s government with military and political backing for years. In September, the top commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said the elite unit had high-level advisers in Syria. Iran also is believed to be sending weapons and money to Syria as it endures its worst crisis in decades.
If true that is international intervention, isn't it?
Related: Sunday Globe Specials: US Lost Iraq War
But we call it a win.
‘‘Syria plays a very key role in supporting or, God forbid, destabilizing the resistance front,’’ Velayati was quoted by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying. ‘‘For this same reason, [an] attack on Syria is considered [an] attack on Iran and Iran’s allies.’’
And what happens four days later? Israel attacks!
By backing the rebels trying to oust the Syrian leader, the US and Arab states in the Gulf attacked the ‘‘golden ring of resistance,’’ Valayati said, referring to the militant groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran and Syria, which are all anti-American.
Iran also is at odds with the international community over its nuclear program, although Iran insists it is using the program solely for peaceful purposes, not nuclear weapons.
A former Iranian diplomat who defected to the West in 2010 told Israel’s channel 2 TV in an interview broadcast on Friday that if Tehran acquired nuclear weapons, it would use them against Israel.
So GET READY for a FALS FLAG ATTACK, folks!!
Mohammad Reza Heydari, who has political asylum in Norway, said Venezuela was flying uranium and various components for nuclear weapons to Tehran. Venezuela backs Iran in arguing the nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes.
Un-flipping-real!
When they shovel so much bulls*** how are we supposed to take them seriously? Whatever sticks to the wall to get a war going, huh?
Since the unrest in Syria began in March 2011, opposition forces have taken control of wide swathes of territory, mostly in the north near Syria’s border with Turkey.
NATO said Saturday that the first of six Patriot missile batteries being deployed to Turkey to shoot down missiles that might come from the Syrian side of the border was now operational.
The battery, meant to protect the Turkish city of Adana, was provided by the Netherlands.
The United States, Germany, and the Netherlands are providing two batteries each of the latest version of the US-made Patriots. The other five Patriot batteries are expected to be operational in the coming days in Adana, Kahramanmaras, and Gaziantep.
See: Talking Turkey on Syria
NATO says the Patriots would be used for defensive purposes only. Syria has not fired any of its surface-to-surface missiles at Turkey during the civil war, but the Assad regime has described the NATO deployment as a provocation.
The alliance also deployed Patriot batteries to Turkey during the US-led invasion of Iraq 10 years ago. They were never used and were withdrawn a few months later.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, interviewed on Turkish television late Friday, said the Syrian opposition now controls some 70 percent of Syria. ‘‘Bashar is walking, propped up from behind,’’ said Erdogan, a close ally of Assad’s until the crisis began.
In fighting on Saturday, Syrian forces clashing with rebels said they uncovered tunnels used to smuggle weapons and move around Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, state media said.
--more--"
Related:
"Israel warns of attack on Syria" by Ian Deitch | Associated Press, January 28, 2013
JERUSALEM — Israel could launch a preemptive strike to stop Syria’s chemical weapons from reaching Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Al Qaeda-inspired groups, officials said Sunday.
I'm so glad the Russians are guarding them.
The warning came as the military moved a rocket defense system to a main northern city, and Israel’s premier warned of dangers from Syria and Iran.
Israel has long expressed concerns that President Bashar Assad of Syria, clinging to power during a 22-month civil war, could lose control over his chemical weapons.
Already has. Russians are watching them.
Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday that Israel’s top security officials held a special meeting last week to discuss Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. The fact of the meeting, held the morning after a national election, had not been made public before.
Shalom told the Army Radio station that the transfer of weapons to violent groups, particularly the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, would be a game changer.
‘‘It would be crossing a line that would demand a different approach, including even action,’’ he said. Asked whether this might mean a preemptive attack, he said: ‘‘We will have to make the decisions.’’
So WHEN is the ISRAELI-INITIATED FALSE FLAG along the Lebanese border going to occur?
In Syria on Sunday, government warplanes and artillery attacked rebel positions in the suburbs east and south of Damascus. Fighting closed the highway to Daraa and clashes continued in the strategic central province of Homs and the eastern city of Deir al-Zour.
Meetings on the crisis in Syria are planned for Monday, when the main exile opposition group and its international backers will convene in Paris and other rebel leaders will meet in Geneva.
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"Rebel fighters give ground to Syrian troops in Aleppo" by Dalal Mawad and Damien Cave | New York Times, August 09, 2012
BEIRUT — There were also new, disputed accounts regarding the identity of dozens of Iranian hostages taken prisoner in Syria over the weekend....
Iran is his biggest regional ally.
Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said Wednesday that Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, flying back from Turkey, had told Iranian reporters that some of the Iranian hostages in Syria seized last weekend were retired members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
But he went on, ‘‘Their appearance and clothes and documents show they are honest pilgrims.’’
Then they must be spies, right!
Then they must be spies, right!
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Were finally released:
"Syria releases 2,100 prisoners" by Anne Barnard and Sebnem Arsu | New York Times, January 10, 2013
"Syria releases 2,100 prisoners" by Anne Barnard and Sebnem Arsu | New York Times, January 10, 2013
BEIRUT — More than 2,100 people incarcerated by the Syrian authorities were being released Wednesday in return for 48 Iranians freed by rebels after five months in captivity, Turkish and Iranian officials said, in what appeared to be the biggest prisoner swap since the uprising against President Bashar Assad of Syria began almost two years ago.
The timing of the exchange, brokered by Turkey and Qatar, was notable, suggesting that negotiations over at least some aspects of the Syrian crisis had not been abandoned three days after Assad warned that he would not negotiate with his armed adversaries and dismissed calls for him to quit.
Word of the exchange came as allies of Assad and of his opponents announced that they would continue talking, at least to one another. Lakhdar Brahimi, the special Syria envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League, will meet in Geneva on Friday with senior diplomats from Russia, which has opposed efforts to forcibly unseat Assad, and the United States, which like Turkey supports the armed opposition and wants Assad out.
We call it regime change.
Related: Brahimi’s Bulls***
Syrian Rebels Strike Again
Just as the Russians were setting up peace talks, huh?
We call it regime change.
Related: Brahimi’s Bulls***
Syrian Rebels Strike Again
Just as the Russians were setting up peace talks, huh?
While Assad’s unbending stance seemed to make a political solution to Syria’s civil war more remote, his only major foreign allies, Russia and Iran, have their eye on maintaining regional influence in a possible post-Assad future, and an interest in ending the Syrian war with state institutions intact. They have made clear they still favor a settlement. Backers of the opposition, too, worry about chaos in Syria and the region as the fight drags on, and the prisoner exchange suggested that Turkey and Iran, at least, wanted to maintain good relations even as they find themselves on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict.
Turkey is certainly an independent actor and hard to figure out. They are with the EUSraeli empire on Syria and in Afghanistan, yet opposed our effort in Iraq, are at odds with Israel over Palestine, and want to remain chummy with Iran. I guess that's why they haven't been admitted to the EU yet, and why they are subject to terrorist attacks from PEJAK.
Turkey is certainly an independent actor and hard to figure out. They are with the EUSraeli empire on Syria and in Afghanistan, yet opposed our effort in Iraq, are at odds with Israel over Palestine, and want to remain chummy with Iran. I guess that's why they haven't been admitted to the EU yet, and why they are subject to terrorist attacks from PEJAK.
The prisoner exchange came as Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat, made his strongest suggestion yet that he would try to pressure Assad to step aside....
Some Middle East political analysts speculated that the timing of the prisoner exchange — and the lopsided ratio of roughly 44 people released by Syria for every freed Iranian hostage — reflected both Assad’s increasing dependence on Iran as well as Iran’s increased pressure on him, possibly out of fear that Syria’s instability may worsen.
“I’m wondering if this is the beginning of Iran starting to cut its losses, pulling out these folks, reducing its presence in the country,’’ said Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser on the Middle East at the Stimson Center, in Washington.
Sigh. Yeah, the rebels are winning, winning, winning, and the Iranians are throwing in the towel. I guess that's why two weeks later they would say an attack on Syria is an attack on Iran.
Sigh. Yeah, the rebels are winning, winning, winning, and the Iranians are throwing in the towel. I guess that's why two weeks later they would say an attack on Syria is an attack on Iran.
But some members of the Syrian opposition said the prisoner exchange illustrated merely that Assad showed more concern for Tehran than for his own soldiers, far more of whom are being held in captivity by rebels....
I hope they aren't being tortured.
I hope they aren't being tortured.
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"Iran, Hezbollah building militias in Syria" by Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick | Washington Post, February 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, are building a network of militias in Syria to protect their interests in the event President Bashar Assad’s government falls or retreats from Damascus, US and Middle Eastern officials say.
That doesn't look like cutting losses. So which one is it, and why am I constantly fed a stream of s*** by the "experts" in my newspaper?
The militias are fighting alongside government forces to keep Assad in power. But officials believe Iran’s long-term goal is to have operatives in place if Syria fractures into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.
Related: Sunday Globe Specials: Splitting Up Syria
A senior Obama administration official cited Iranian claims that Tehran was backing as many as 50,000 militiamen in Syria. ‘‘It’s a big operation,’’ the official said. ‘‘The immediate intention seems to be to support the Syrian regime. But it’s important for Iran to have a force in Syria that is reliable.”
And how many Al-CIA-Duh mercenaries and contractors have been sent in?
Iran’s strategy, a senior Arab official agreed, has two tracks. ‘‘One is to support Assad to the hilt, the other is to set the stage for major mischief if he collapses.’’ The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Translation: Any terror events will be blamed on Iran.
Fragmentation along religious and tribal lines is a growing concern as the civil war approaches its third year.
Rebel forces, largely from Syria’s Sunni majority, are far from united. Militant Islamists, including many from other countries and with ties to Al Qaeda, are growing in power.
Kurdish nationalists have their own militias. Minority Christians have largely sided with Assad, fearing the outcome of an Islamist victory. Syria’s 700,000 Druze, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, are increasingly leaning toward the rebels.
Each of Syria’s internal actors has external backers.
‘‘Syria is basically disintegrating as a nation,” said Paul Salem, director of the Mideast Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ‘‘It’s going to be very hard to put Syria the nation back together.’’
That may have been the intention all along.
Hezbollah arose out of the 1970s Lebanese civil war, when Iran exploited grievances of that country’s Shi’ite population, a pattern it also followed in Iraq after the US invasion.
??????
Readers, I can't think of a more blatant lie and obfuscation there. Hezbollah was created after Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon in 1982. In fact, it was created in direct relation to the Israeli occupation, for Israel was initially greeted as liberators by Shi'ites who had long been oppressed by the dominant Christian and Sunni factions.
As for Iraq: Occupation Iraq: Divide and Conquer
Yeah, who are the terrorists feeding on sectarianism again?
--more--"
Related: Iran, Hezbollah are growing threats to hit US, specialist says
My bulls*** meter just broke.
"Iran, Hezbollah building militias in Syria" by Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick | Washington Post, February 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, are building a network of militias in Syria to protect their interests in the event President Bashar Assad’s government falls or retreats from Damascus, US and Middle Eastern officials say.
That doesn't look like cutting losses. So which one is it, and why am I constantly fed a stream of s*** by the "experts" in my newspaper?
The militias are fighting alongside government forces to keep Assad in power. But officials believe Iran’s long-term goal is to have operatives in place if Syria fractures into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.
Related: Sunday Globe Specials: Splitting Up Syria
Someone sure is trying like hell.
A senior Obama administration official cited Iranian claims that Tehran was backing as many as 50,000 militiamen in Syria. ‘‘It’s a big operation,’’ the official said. ‘‘The immediate intention seems to be to support the Syrian regime. But it’s important for Iran to have a force in Syria that is reliable.”
And how many Al-CIA-Duh mercenaries and contractors have been sent in?
Iran’s strategy, a senior Arab official agreed, has two tracks. ‘‘One is to support Assad to the hilt, the other is to set the stage for major mischief if he collapses.’’ The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Translation: Any terror events will be blamed on Iran.
Fragmentation along religious and tribal lines is a growing concern as the civil war approaches its third year.
Rebel forces, largely from Syria’s Sunni majority, are far from united. Militant Islamists, including many from other countries and with ties to Al Qaeda, are growing in power.
Kurdish nationalists have their own militias. Minority Christians have largely sided with Assad, fearing the outcome of an Islamist victory. Syria’s 700,000 Druze, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, are increasingly leaning toward the rebels.
Each of Syria’s internal actors has external backers.
‘‘Syria is basically disintegrating as a nation,” said Paul Salem, director of the Mideast Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ‘‘It’s going to be very hard to put Syria the nation back together.’’
That may have been the intention all along.
Hezbollah arose out of the 1970s Lebanese civil war, when Iran exploited grievances of that country’s Shi’ite population, a pattern it also followed in Iraq after the US invasion.
??????
Readers, I can't think of a more blatant lie and obfuscation there. Hezbollah was created after Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon in 1982. In fact, it was created in direct relation to the Israeli occupation, for Israel was initially greeted as liberators by Shi'ites who had long been oppressed by the dominant Christian and Sunni factions.
As for Iraq: Occupation Iraq: Divide and Conquer
Yeah, who are the terrorists feeding on sectarianism again?
--more--"
Related: Iran, Hezbollah are growing threats to hit US, specialist says
My bulls*** meter just broke.
