I just spent about a week catching up on the slop and exposing the ceaseless contradictions and lies and it never stops.
"Syrian rebels release kidnapped UN peacekeepers; Seizure of troops increased fears about security" by Anne Barnard and Hania Mourtada | New York Times, March 10, 2013
ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syrian rebels said they had released 21 UN peacekeepers to Jordanian forces on Saturday in an apparent end to a standoff that raised new tensions in the region and new questions about the fighters just as the United States and other Western nations were grappling over whether to arm them.
Already arming them, but who wants to let truth and facts get in the way of the narrative? Enjoy!
The release was confirmed by Mokhtar Lamani, who heads the Damascus office of Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League mediator, according to news service reports.
A commander of the Martyrs of Yarmouk rebel brigade, which detained the soldiers, disavowed earlier rebel assertions that the UN soldiers were being held hostage to force the Syrian government to stop shelling the area and said they had been held for their safety.
‘‘They are safe now; we have delivered them across the border, praise be to God,’’ said the commander, who gave only his nickname, Colonel Abu Mahmoud, for security reasons....
And because he doesn't need his non-official cover blown.
The seizure of the troops on Wednesday increased fears that the Syrian conflict was causing instability in the sensitive border area. The peacekeepers, who are Filipino, are part of a four-nation force that patrols the disputed Golan area between Israel and Syria.
The taking of the peacekeepers had become a political football.
This is so reeking of a false flag psy op it's sickening.
The rebel leadership accused the Syrian government of trying to kill the peacekeepers with artillery attacks and blame the rebels for their deaths. The Syrian government, meanwhile, pointed to the seizure as evidence that the rebels pose an international threat along the Golan Heights border.
And rank-and-file rebels and activists accused the international community of mobilizing more effectively and enthusiastically to rescue the soldiers than to help the millions of Syrians suffering under assaults by government troops fighting to keep President Bashar Assad in power.
After UN officials called for a cease-fire around the village of Jamlah, where the Filipino troops were being held in several basements, the administrator of the Facebook page for the Martyrs of Yarmouk wrote, ‘‘Do you mean you want a cease-fire just for a few hours and then they can burn the entire area and its residents? Dear God.’’
The terrorists have a Facebook page, 'eh? Now I know they are an intelligence operation all the way.
The seizure of the troops — coming amid intensified international talks about increasing assistance to the rebels — highlighted the difficulty that commanders face in persuading would-be donors that they can control the widely dispersed and decentralized groups of fighters under their nominal command.
The stakes for the handoff were high: the rebel commanders could point to a successful transfer of the UN soldiers as proof that rebel units, even if they make mistakes, can respond to orders responsibly.
If the soldiers came to harm, it could have further undermined the willingness of nations to send peacekeepers to the Golan, where Israel has said it will not hesitate to intervene if it feels threatened.
And now you see what is literally at the bottom of it all.
--more--"
Related:
"Armed Syrian rebels seize UN peacekeepers" by Rick Gladstoneand Alan Cowell | New York Times, March 07, 2013
Syria’s civil war entangled the UN peacekeeping operation in the disputed Golan Heights between Syria and Israel for the first time Wednesday, when 30 armed insurgent fighters seized a group of 20 armed peacekeepers investigating a damaged observation post and threatened to treat them as enemy prisoners if Syrian forces remained in the area.
That doesn't look like its for their own protection, but.... sigh.
As the war has worsened, the Golan region has been periodically disrupted by armed clashes and occasional artillery or mortar bombardments that have become a source of concern to Israel.
And well, they will just have to take action, 'eh? This war-promoting garbage becomes so transparent once you know it's there it's ludicrous.
But UN officials said that members of the Golan peacekeeping mission, officially known as the UN Disengagement Observer Force, had never before been seized by any of the combatants in the conflict.
Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the Departments of Peacekeeping and Field Support at the United Nations, which oversees the Golan operation, said the peacekeepers were detained near an observation post that had been evacuated this past weekend after what she called ‘‘heavy combat in proximity’’ near the village of Al Jamlah, in the southern part of the operation’s region of control. She said that the mission was ‘‘dispatching a team to assess the situation and attempt a resolution’’ and that the Syrian authorities had been asked to help.
Guerrero said she had no further information on the insurgents involved or the nationalities of the detainees.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain with a network of contacts inside Syria, said they were Filipino.
A video uploaded on YouTube by a group that identified itself as the Martyrs of Yarmouk claimed responsibility and said the peacekeepers would be held until Syrian government forces had withdrawn from the area around Al Jamlah.
The video does not show any of the captives, but UN vehicles are visible.
And who could ever doubt anything on JouTube that is confirmed by the AmeriKan media?
The threat to the peacekeepers underscored the widening risks that the Syria conflict is destabilizing its borders.
On Monday, more than 40 Syrian soldiers who had sought temporary safety in Iraq were killed in an ambush as the Iraqi military was transporting them back to the Syrian border.
Related: Today's Syrian Story is Sickening
Sad Post About Syria
At the UN, Eduardo del Buey, a spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, suggested that officials had long feared the possibility of harm to peacekeepers.
Not worried as much about those Syrian soldiers, is he?
--more--"
"Abduction illustrates UN vulnerability in Syria" by Karin Laub | Associated Press, March 08, 2013
BEIRUT — New video Thursday of UN peacekeepers held captive by Syrian rebels illustrates the sudden vulnerability of a UN force that had patrolled a cease-fire line between Israel and Syria without incident for nearly four decades.
Yes, so sudden. Recognize your war-pushing code words, folks.
The abduction of the Filipino troops — soft targets in Syria’s civil war — also sent a worrisome signal to Israel about the lawlessness it fears along the shared frontier if Syrian President Bashar Assad is ousted.
Well, Israel will just have to seize and steal more land with a buffer zone to occupy, 'eh? Any rivers or water sources nearby?
Opposition fighters seized the 21 peacekeepers Wednesday near the Syrian village of Jamlah just a mile from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a plateau Israel captured from Syria in 1967.
Just a mile from Israel, huh? This is starting to smell like a Mossad operation.
Negotiations were underway Thursday for the release of the men, who said in videos posted online that they were being treated well.
However, a rebel spokesman seemed to suggest the hostages were also serving as human shields. If the UN troops are released and leave the area, the regime could kill ‘‘as many as 1,000 people,’’ said the spokesman, who spoke via Skype and did not give his name for fear of reprisals.
Leave? Why would they? Been there 40 years and nothing has ever happened -- until now, cui bono.
The peacekeepers’ abduction highlights the growing risks to UN staff in Syria’s escalating conflict....
There is no sign of a breakthrough for either side, though rebels have scored some recent gains on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena.
Yeah, whatever. I spent a week show what a shit throwaway line of propaganda that was, but here it is again like a turd that won't flush.
UN diplomats and officials said Thursday that the capture of the 21 peacekeepers will almost certainly lead to a reexamination of security for the UN monitors and their patrols in the field.
The UN mission, known as UNDOF, was set up in 1974, seven years after Israel first captured the Golan and a year after it managed to push back Syrian troops trying to recapture the territory in another regional war.
For nearly four decades, the UN monitors helped enforce a stable truce between Israel and Syria, making it one of the most successful UN missions in the world, said Timor Goksel, a former senior UN official in the region.
Amazing how the U.N. can be so effective there, yet so inept and incompetent when it comes to Africa or the Balkans.
The force has an office in Damascus and staffs observation posts along the armistice line. The peacekeepers shuttle between Damascus and the outposts to deliver supplies and rotate crews.
Goksel, who works for the Al-Monitor news website, said the observers are ‘‘soft targets’’ in Syria’s increasingly brutal civil war. Up to now they were ‘‘never challenged by anybody in Syria,’’ he added.
The monitors’ success may have been linked to a decision by Assad and his father and predecessor Hafez Assad to comply with the armistice deal, including limits on military hardware allowed near the cease-fire line.
An Israeli official said that if UNDOF were to halt operations, it would be a ‘‘bad thing for peace.’’ He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the diplomatically sensitive issue with the media.
Israel has said it’s trying to keep out of the Syria conflict but is watching the disintegration of the country with growing concern.
Bullshit. They are helping to destabilize, and it's all part of the plan.
--more--"
Also see:
"The United Nations said arrangements were made for the release of 21 UN peacekeepers, all Filipinos, who were seized and held by rebels on Wednesday. The parties involved in the arrangements would presumably include both the rebels holding the peacekeepers and government forces reported to be shelling the area."
And the next day was the last I saw of it. Down the old memory hole goes another psy-op. No big fuss from the UN, EUSrael, or Facebook.
