I wonder why?
/grin
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I wonder why?
/grin
Russia boosts fleet off Syria
- by: Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes
- From: The Wall Street Journal
- May 18, 2013 12:00AM
http://resources3.news.com.au/images...rack-obama.jpg
US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walk to the Rose Garden at the White House for a media conference yesterday. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
RUSSIA has sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a build-up that US and European officials see as a new, aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria's bloody civil war.
Russia's expanded presence in the eastern Mediterranean, which began attracting US officials' notice three months ago, is one of its largest sustained naval deployments since the Cold War. While Western officials say they don't fear an impending conflict with Russia's aged fleet, the presence adds a new potential source of dangerous miscalculation in an increasingly combustible region.
"It is a show of force. It's muscle flexing," a senior US defence official said.
"It is about demonstrating their commitment to their interests."
The build-up is seen as Moscow's way of trying to strengthen its hand in any talks over Syria's future and buttress its influence in the Middle East. It also provides options for evacuating tens of thousands of Russians still in Syria.
Russian navy and foreign ministry officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Moscow and Washington have worked publicly in recent days to assemble an international conference involving Damascus. But expectations are low that the meeting could lead to a political transition, with tension high across the region, and with the US and Russia backing opposing camps.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signalled this week that he will proceed with the sale of an advanced air-defence system to Syria, according to US intelligence reports, over Israeli and US objections.
Hezbollah and its chief sponsor, Iran, also have rallied around President Bashar al-Assad, sharing Russia's interest in keeping the regime in place. Recent Israeli airstrikes inside Syria have targeted missiles believed to be from Tehran and bound for Hezbollah.
US officials said yesterday that another round of Israeli airstrikes could target a new transfer of advanced missiles in the near future. Israeli and Western intelligence services believe the missiles could be transferred to Hezbollah within days. Russia has strongly protested previous Israeli strikes in Syria.
Western defence officials say Russia appears to be trying to project power to deter a Libya-style intervention in Syria. The port of Tartus is Russia's only remaining military outpost outside the former Soviet Union.
Consisting of a pair of piers staffed by about 50 people, according to Russian data, the base provides a toehold in the region that has grown in strategic and symbolic importance for Moscow.
"It's not really a base," said Andrei Frolov, an analyst at CAST, a Moscow military think tank. "It's more like a service station."
US officials believe Russia has plans to expand the base, which it negotiated with Assad.
Mr Obama yesterday held out some hope that the coming conference with Russia would help achieve a consensus.
"There's no magic formula for dealing with an extraordinarily violent and difficult situation like Syria's," Mr Obama said at a news conference in Washington with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"I do think that the prospect of talks in Geneva involving the Russians may yield results."
Moscow's diplomacy notwithstanding, US officials believe that in addition to the naval deployments, Russia is moving more quickly than previously thought to deliver S-300 surface-to-air defence systems to Syria.
US officials say the S-300 system, which is capable of shooting down guided missiles and could make it more risky for any warplanes to enter Syrian airspace, could leave Russia for the port of Tartus by the end of the month.
Russian officials first announced the navy was deploying ships to the eastern Mediterranean near Syria starting late last year. In January, the Russian navy used these and other ships to conduct what it billed as some of the largest exercises in recent years in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Before the start of the Syrian civil war, Russian ships stopped at the port only irregularly. But in the past three months, 10 to 15 ships have been near the Syrian port at all times.
Muddled Israeli-US policies on Assad set stage for Golan offensive against Israel
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis May 18, 2013, 2:30 PM (IDT)
http://www.debka.com/dynmedia/photos...ews17.5.13.jpg
Fox News: Israeli commandos returning from Syria
Four days after a “senior Israeli official” warned Assad through The New York Times of Wednesday, May 15 that he risks forfeiting power if he retaliates for Israeli attacks on weapons supplies to terrorists, “Israeli officials” were telling the London Times of Saturday, May 18 something quite different: “An intact, but weakened, Assad regime would be preferable,” they said. “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if… extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there.”
The night before this report, Fox News aired footage appearing to show Israeli commandos inside Syria racing back on foot to Israeli territory.
Without going into whether the two sets of “Israeli officials” were one and the same, their utterances are clearly making Israel’s policy-makers and defense leaders look muddled and uncertain – or, worse, unable to think clearly – about how to cope with the menace building up on the Syrian Golan. This could take the form of a Syrian war of attrition and/or a Hizballah offensive against Upper and Western Galilee.
At all events, the Syrian civil conflict appears poised ready to spill over to one or more of its neighbors, starting with Israel as a result of six factors:
1. President Barack Obama’s inability to make up his mind on whether the US should intervene militarily in Syria – even in a limited way, such as the imposition of no-fly zones or finding a way to supply non-Islamist Syrian rebel groups with sorely needed weapons.
2. The US president’s refusal to recognize that chemical weapons have already been used in Syria. His reaction to the file put before him in the White House Friday, May 17, by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan - with evidence from physicians treating wounded Syrians - remained dismissive. “The US has seen evidence of chemical weapons being used in Syria,” he said, adding however, “it is important to get more specific details about alleged chemical attacks.”
This comment was interpreted as the US president’s acceptance of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian war so long as it was on a limited scale. Obama, like Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has therefore waved away another red line for military intervention in the Syria conflict, by closing his eyes to the evidence.
Former Israeli defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was more realistic last week when he brusquely brushed aside a radio interviewer’s query by saying: Of course, Assad has used chemical weapons and isn't it obvious that he has already transferred to Hizballah both chemical substances and other advanced weapons?
3. Following again in American footsteps, Israel failed to prevent Russia sending advanced S-300 anti-air and Yakhont anti-ship missiles to the Assad regime – both improved versions which were outfitted with sophisticated radar to improve their range and precision.
When Netanyahu was challenged with failing in this mission in his May 14 trip to buttonhole Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, he said only that he would “travel wherever is needed and talk to whoever is needed to keep Israel safe and secure.”
This was the closest he came to admitting that he had fallen down on his efforts for keeping advanced Russian weaponry out of Syrian hands.
4. Strategic errors, which may turn out to be irreversible, because they emanated from faulty assessments shared by Israel and the Obama administration of the strengths on the Syrian battlefield. To this day, the US, Israel and Turkey cling to the belief that Assad’s days are numbered and refuse to recognize the steady advances made by the Syrian army in its counter-offensive for dislodging the rebels from land they captured in more than two years of combat.
5. This misreading of the Syrian ruler’s survivability is part and parcel of the omission by Obama, Netanyahu and Erdogan to appreciate and counter two major strategic changes overtaking the region:
a) They stood aside as Moscow, Tehran and Hizballah deepened their military commitments to Assad’s fight for survival – starting with the arrival of Russian military personnel in Syria to man the sophisticated missiles supplied by Moscow until Syrian crews were instructed in their use.
They didn’t raise a finger to interfere with the almost daily Russian and Iranian air lifts to Syrian air bases of complete brigades of elite Hizballah fighters and thousands of Iranian Bassij militiamen who now control key war sectors.
Washington Jerusalem and even Jordan sat on their hands when 3,000 Iraqi members of the Asai’b al-Haq (League of the Righteous) and Kataib Hizballah poured across the border into Syria to support Assad’s war on the Syrian rebellion.
b) Because they kept their distance from all these strategic game-changers in and around Syria, the US and Israel lost their chance to break up the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah alliance. This objective the Obama administration once offered as his priority and the pretext for avoiding military action against a nuclear Iran.
What Washington achieved by its hands-off stance on Syria was the very opposite: Instead of weakening the triple alliance, Obama has allowed it to be bolstered by Russian and Iraqi increments.
It is no wonder, therefore, that Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah are behaving like winners and gearing up for the next stage of the Syrian war, which, if Tehran and Hizballah have their way, will evolve into a war of attrition against Israel waged from the Syrian Golan.
The opening shot was fired Wednesday, May 15 by a Palestinian terrorist front under Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah tutelage, which shelled an Israeli military observation post on Mt. Hermon. This attack drew no direct Israeli response - par for the course.
6. A war of attrition against Israel from the Golan would not be a new experience either for Damascus or Moscow. In 1974, from March to May, Syrian forces, refusing to accept the defeat of their 1973 offensive against Israel, launched a harsh war of attrition from the same enclave, on the advice of their Soviet patron. In what became know as “the little war,” Syrian forces kept Israeli Golan under heavy shelling barrages and tried repeatedly to capture Mt Hermon.
The big secret of that short-lived conflict was the deployment by the Soviet Union of two Cuban armored brigades on the Golan front against Israel, airlifted in from Angola. All the same, Damascus was forced to accept a ceasefire on Golan which was observed from that day on until the present.
This time, the big difference is that Moscow can leave the heavy-lifting for a limited war on Israel to Tehran and Hizballah.
Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah in one of his fiery speeches expressed eagerness to make the Golan his new front for war on Israel. And Friday, May 17, it was reported in Tehran that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had entrusted Al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani with the task of sending troops to the Golan to embark on hostilities against Israel.
Once they begin, it will be hard to stop the violence from spreading to Israel’s borders with Lebanon, from Syria into Turkey and from Jordan into Syria and Iraq.
Syrian-Hizballah’s capture of Qusayr opens direct weapons route to Lebanon
DEBKAfile Special Report May 19, 2013, 10:08 PM (IDT)
Shortly after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged Sunday, May 19, to maintain Israeli operations in Syria against the passage of advanced Iranian weapons to the Lebanese Hizballah, Syrian troops and their Hizballah comrades stormed Al-Qasayr, the northwestern town which commands the high road from Syrian Homs to Lebanon’s Hermel Mountains.
This was a major victory: Iranian arms for Hizballah can now go through from Syria to destination unobstructed.
In more than two years of battling the Assad regime, this was one of the rebels’ most devastating losses after three weeks of bitter fighting and the last of a whole row of recent setbacks.
Bashar Assad in contrast has gained huge advantages from his al Qusayr victory, as debkafile’s military sources report:
1. It cuts off the Syrian rebels’ main supply and communications route via Lebanon through which their Arab backers Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE to send them fighters, arms and funds.
2. Rebel positions in the nearby town of Homs become increasingly vulnerable, as the Syrian army regains control of the main highway links between Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.
3. After the rebels were pushed out of Al-Qasayr, Turkey remains their only accessible source of supplies.
However, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has made a sudden U-turn. He had promised publicly to lobby for no-fly zones in his meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House Friday, May 17, to shield rebel forces in different parts of the country from Syrian air strikes. Instead, Edrogan threw his support between the international conference sponsored by Washington and Moscow for resolving the Syrian conflict.
This told the rebels that the supportive Turkish channel was closing down.
It is obvious to them that the conference can only succeed if Washington comes over to the Russian-Iranian-Hizballah side and agrees to the perpetuation of the Assad party’s role in any future government.
As yet, neither of the contestants has agreed to attend the conference for which no date has been set. However, Turkish backing and arms supplies through its territory are expected to shrink progressively to squeeze the rebels into accepting a formula which would be tantamount to bowing to the defeat of their uprising.
4. For Israel, the fall of al Qusayr means that while rebel supply routes are shut down, supply routes open up for the free movement of Iranian weapons from Syria straight to HIzballah strongholds in Lebanon. This would be Hizballah’s reward for its military aid to Assad’s army.
If Prime Minister Netanyahu was serious about his promise Sunday to cut off Hizballah’s weapon routes from Syria, he has three primary options to choose from – none of them easy, to say the least.
a) Military intervention in al Qusayr before the Syrian army and Hizballah clinch their takeover of this strategic byway town. This would catapult Israel into full-blown war with Syria and Hizballah and is therefore a non-starter.
b) Bombardment of the convoys carrying arms from Syria to Lebanon.
This won’t do much good. Having learned its lesson from the three Israeli air strikes against arms convoys and depots this year, Syria has now transferred the hardware disassembled into component parts and passed them out among smuggling rings ato move them under cover of dark into Lebanon.
c) Attacks on the destination of those weapons – Hizballah depots in the Hermel – after their delivery. This would almost certainly trigger Hizballah war action against Israel.
Israel has warned Russia about supplying missiles to Syria.
Israel "reserves the right to strike" Russian supply chain.
Quote:
Israel has warned Russia about supplying missiles to Syria.
Israel "reserves the right to strike" Russian supply chain.
And this will lead to the World War Three.
Russia will fight.
Israel can attack these shipments of S-300 and destroy it but if russian soldiers die in this attack - what I strongly believe will happen - then a big war will be on.
As Samuel L. Jackson would say:
Attachment 1110
Israel isn't too keen on making "surgical strikes" either. More like "take out that thing and everything and everyone within a 100 meter radius!"
lol
Russia faults U.S. over 'odious' Syria rights resolution
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Paris, May 27, 2013. REUTERS/Jim Young
By Steve Gutterman
MOSCOW | Wed May 29, 2013 8:38am EDT
(Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced as "odious" a U.S.-backed draft resolution condemning the Syrian government before a debate at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday and said it would undermine peace efforts.
Lavrov said U.S. support for the draft resolution, which would condemn "widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights" by Syrian authorities and affiliated militias, ran counter to U.S.-Russian efforts to convene a peace conference.
"The U.S. delegation (at the council in Geneva) is very actively promoting this extremely unwholesome initiative," Lavrov told a news conference after talks with Latin American counterparts in Moscow.
He said the draft was "unilateral and odious" and likened it to a U.N. General Assembly resolution adopted earlier this month that he said was aimed at creating obstacles to U.S.-Russian efforts to foster a peaceful solution.
Lavrov said it was unacceptable to support the conference, which he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are trying to organize, while at the same time "taking steps that are in essence aimed at undermining this proposal".
Lavrov reiterated Russian insistence that Iran be invited to the conference, an idea opposed by France, and said opponents of President Bashar al-Assad should be persuaded to enter negotiations "without preconditions" such as his exit.
Russia has been Assad's most powerful protector during the conflict that has killed more than 80,000 people, opposing U.N. sanctions and, along with China, blocking three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions it said were one-sided.
Iran is the main regional ally of Assad.
Speaking in Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said any decision to include Iran in the Geneva talks would be "extremely dangerous" as it would harm prospects of reaching a deal with Tehran on its disputed nuclear program.
"We fear that if they are part of the Syrian conference they will try to drag things on to such an extent that they will blackmail us saying that the Syrian crisis can only be resolved on condition that they have the nuclear bomb," Fabius told France Inter radio. Iran denies seeking nuclear bomb capability.
Fabius said that with Iran having sent instructors and officers to Syria and encouraged Hezbollah to fight anti-Assad rebels, it would be a mistake to "ask people to attend a conference whose objective is to prevent a positive solution".
Russia joined the United States and other powers last June in calling for the creation of a transitional governing body in Syria and says it is not trying to prop Assad up but that his departure cannot be imposed as a precondition for talks.
Lavrov also said the European Union's decision on Thursday to let an arms embargo on Syria lapse, allowing members to supply rebels on their own initiative, "at a minimum creates serious hurdles" to plans for the peace conference.
Russia says the weapons it supplies Assad's government are meant for defense against external attacks. Moscow has declared it will not yield to pressure to scrap a contract to deliver S-300 ground-to-air missile systems to Syria.
Israeli defense chief indicates if Russia ships advanced missiles to Syria, they could be hit
By Associated Press, Published: May 28
JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense chief said Tuesday a Russian plan to supply sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Syria was a “threat” and signaled that Israel is prepared to use force to stop the delivery.
The warning by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon ratcheted up tensions with Moscow over the planned sale of S-300 air-defense missiles to Syria. Earlier in the day, a top Russian official said his government remained committed to the deal.
Israel has been lobbying Moscow to halt the sale, fearing the missiles would upset the balance of power in the region and could slip into the hands of hostile groups, including the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian regime.
Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria in recent months that are believed to have destroyed weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah.
Israel has not confirmed carrying out the attacks.
The delivery of the Russian missiles to Syria could limit the Israeli air force’s ability to act. It is not clear whether Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace in these attacks.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Russia to discuss the Syrian situation with President Vladimir Putin. The sides have said little about the talks, but the S-300s were believed to have been on the agenda.
“Clearly this move is a threat to us,” Yaalon told reporters Tuesday when asked about the planned Russian sale.
“At this stage I can’t say there is an escalation. The shipments have not been sent on their way yet. And I hope that they will not be sent,” he said. But “if God forbid they do reach Syria, we will know what to do.”
Since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011, Israel repeatedly has voiced concerns that Syria’s sophisticated arsenal, including chemical weapons, could either be transferred to Hezbollah, a bitter enemy of Israel, or fall into the hands of rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The rebels include al-Qaida-affiliated groups that Israel believes could turn their attention toward Israel if they topple Assad.
Syria already possesses Russian-made air defenses, and Israel is believed to have used long-distance bombs fired from Israeli or Lebanese airspace. The S-300s would expand Syria’s capabilities, allowing it to counter airstrikes launched from foreign airspace as well.
In Moscow, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, wouldn’t say whether Russia has shipped any of the S-300s, which have a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles) and the capability to track and strike multiple targets simultaneously. But he insisted that Moscow isn’t going to abandon the deal despite strong Western and Israeli criticism.
“We understand the concerns and signals sent to us from different capitals. We realize that many of our partners are concerned about the issue,” Ryabkov said. “We have no reason to revise our stance.”
He said the missiles could be a deterrent against foreign intervention in Syria and would not be used against Syrian rebels, who do not have an air force.
“We believe that such steps to a large extent help restrain some ‘hotheads’ considering a scenario to give an international dimension to this conflict,” he said.
Russia has been the key ally of the Syrian regime, protecting it from United Nations sanctions and providing it with weapons despite the civil war there that has claimed over 70,000 lives.
In any case, an open confrontation between Israel and Russia would seem to be months away. Russian military analysts say it would take at least one year for Syrian crews to learn how to operate the S-300s, and the training will involve a live drill with real ammunition at a Russian shooting range. There has been no evidence that any such training has begun.
If Russia were to deliver the missiles to Syria, Israeli and Western intelligence would likely detect the shipment, and Israel would have ample time to strike before the system is deployed.
Ryabkov’s statement came a day after European Union’s decision to lift an arms embargo against Syrian rebels. He criticized the EU decision, saying it would help fuel the conflict.
Israel’s defense chief spoke at an annual civil defense drill to prepare for missile attacks on Israel. This year’s exercise comes at a time of heightened concerns that Israel could be dragged into the Syrian civil war.
A number of mortar shells from the fighting in Syria have landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. While Israel believes most of the fire has been errant, it has accused Syria of firing intentionally at Israeli targets on several occasions, and last week the sides briefly exchanged fire.
Israel’s civil defense chief, Home Front Minister Gilad Erdan, said this week’s drill was not specifically connected to the tensions with Syria.
“But of course we must take into consideration that something like that might happen in the near future because of what we see in Syria, and because we know that chemical weapons exist in Syria and might fall to the hands of radical Muslim terror groups,” he said.
___
Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Israeli forebodings over widening Russian-Hizballah-Iraqi intervention in Syria
DEBKAfile Special Report May 29, 2013, 1:23 PM (IDT)
Forebodings were voiced Wednesday, May 29, by senior Israeli military officers in the face of the widening military intervention in the Syria civil war by Russia, Iran, Hizballah and latterly Iraq too. They have made Syria’s civil war the platform for a Russian contest against the West and a ladder up which Iran and its proxy Hizballah are climbing to top Middle East regional power spot.
Russia, Iran and Hizballah are winning the contest by default against an unresisting US-led West and a hesitant Israel.
A senior IDF officer acknowledged on Wednesday, May 29, that Israel’s government and military leaders are at a loss on how to proceed. They have yet to recover from the calamitous miscalculation that Bashar Assad’s days were numbered to which they clung stubbornly for almost eighteen months.
Even today, some spokesmen refer to a “disintegrating Syria,” thereby losing sight of the major strategic and military changes overtaking the country that are entirely to Israel’s detriment as well as eroding its options against a nuclear Iran.
At a time that the US and Israel should be using their heaviest military guns to slow Iran’s race for a nuclear bomb, Tehran with Moscow's backing has brought its military assets up close to Israel’s borders in Syria and Lebanon and openly threatens to use them.
Unlike Syria and Iran, Israel can’t count on military intervention against an aggressor by supportive big powers. According to debkafile's Washington sources, no part of the Obama administration, including its military and intelligence arms, favors military action in Syria.
Even the direct evidence of chemical warfare already afoot in Syria is unavailing.
In Addis Ababa, US Secretary of State John Kerry repeated the administration’s mantra Wednesday by denying “concrete evidence” of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The Secretary and the rest of NATO were deaf to the vivid testimony brought to Le Monde Wednesday by two reporters, who risked their necks by spending two months concealed in the Jobar district of Damascus. They discovered Russia or Iran had developed a chemical weapon that does not explode. The release of its poisonous gases sounds like popping the top off a can of soda and has "no odor, no smoke, not even a whistle to indicate the release of a toxic gas."
So what does happen?
The Le Monde reporters provided a graphic first-hand description.
"The men cough violently. Their eyes burn, their pupils shrink, their vision blurs. Soon they experience difficulty breathing, sometimes in the extreme; they begin to vomit or lose consciousness. The fighters worst affected need to be evacuated before they suffocate."
Wednesday morning, the Israeli Home Front rehearsed an attack on a Jerusalem suburb by a chemical-tipped missile.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who watched, said the exercise is designed to protect Israeli civilians “from the threats pilling up around us.” Israel’s home front is the best protected in the world but also the most threatened, he said: “We must make sure that defense is in place before an attack.
Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon voiced his certainty that the Syrian President would not use chemical weapons against Israel or treat Israelis the way he treats his own people. There is no indication that anyone in the region intends to challenge us any time soon with unconventional weapons, said the defense minister.
debkafile’s military sources find Ya’alon’s comment delusory. They don’t see why Assad would treat Israelis differently from his own people – especially since the IDF has presented him with no real deterrent. After all, none of Israel's three air strikes in January and May stopped the flow of Hizballah fighters into Syria. And meanwhile, Syrian and Hizballah leaders are declaring loud and clear that a war front against Israel is already operating from the Syrian Golan and Lebanon.
The question is who in Israel is listening. And what is being done to make sure that Assad will be prevented from using chemical weapons against Israeli military and civilian targets at a time of his convenience.
The spate of events in the last 48 hours is troubling - to say the least.
Monday, US Senator John McCain was reported to have paid a secret visit to Syria. What did this "visit" consist of? debkafile reports: The senator entered Syria from Turkey through the Kilis corridor which is the main supply route for the rebels in Aleppo, one of the few still under their control. McCain penetrated some 300 meters into Syria, had his picture taken, and left.
A US publication reported Wednesday that President Barack Obama had ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans to establish no-fly zones over Syria against Syrian warplanes. The Pentagon thereupon issued a denial: “There are no new American operational plans,” said the spokesman.
Moscow’s response was ready in place even before the report was published.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the S-300 anti-air missiles that Russia was supplying the Assad regime were a "stabilizing factor" that could dissuade "some hotheads" from entering the conflict.
In the grades Moscow handed out for foreign interventionists: The US and Israel and their leaders were "hotheads" while Moscow, the calm, rational stabilizer.
In that capacity, debkafile's military and intelligence sources reveal that a huge Russian cargo plane landed in Latakia airport Wednesday with 60 tons of "humanitarian aid for Syria."
The nature of this cargo was not disclosed, but the last thing it must have been was “humanitarian” given the massive military aid Moscow is extending Assad’s army.
Moscow also knocked on the head the timorous decision by European Union foreign ministers Tuesday to lift the arms embargo for Syrian rebels, which they carefully combined with a decision not to send them weapons.
In sum, the US is not doing anything to help the rebels, Europe is not sending arms, the rebels’ Persian Gulf patrons have bowed to pressure from Washington and slashed their weapons aid, while Israel declares it wants no part of the Syrian civil war – even after it assumed the calamitous proportions of a world power contest with Israel’s arch foes gaining the upper hand.
So who is feeding the flames of the Syrian conflict with a generous supply of military hardware? Who but Russia, the self-styled "stabilizing factor”
The Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Commander Gen. Salem Idris made a desperate show of bravado Wednesday, by threatening to strike Hizballah strongholds in Lebanon if Hassan Nasrallah does not pull his brigades out of Syria within 24 hours.
Hizballah knows perfectly well that Gen. Salem is starved of weapons, just he knows that the US, Europe or Israel will not interfere with the stream of fighting strength he is pumping into Syria.
At worst, a few rockets will hit Hizballah centers in Beirut and the Beqaa Valley. Early Tuesday morning, the rebels tried to ambush Hizballah forces near the eastern town of Arsal. Their operation went badly wrong and mistakenly killed three Lebanese soldiers manning an army checkpoint.
The senior Israeli officer interviewed by debkafile put all these forebodings into words when he said: "A military and strategic catastrophe for the West and Israel is in full flight in Syria, and no one in Washington or Jerusalem is lifting a finger. Israel’s government and military heads never imagined that the Syrian war would take this turn. But we had better wake up at this eleventh hour - before it is too late.”
U.S.-backed Syrian rebels reportedly massacre Christian village
- Government
- May 27, 2013
- By: Ryan Keller
http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/def...?itok=Zs3AHm2f
An FSA soldier in Aleppo
Credits:
Wikimedia Commons
Members of the Free Syrian Army reportedly attacked the Christian-dominated al-Duvair village in Reef on the outskirts of Homs on Monday, where they massacred its citizens, including women and children, before the Syrian Army interfered.
This reported attack comes shortly after intense fighting in the city of al-Qusseir over the weekend, in which Bashar Al-Assad's forces inflicted heavy casualties on the rebels.
Assad's forces launched an offensive in April in an effort to cut off supply lines to the rebels by taking the city and its surrounding areas from the rebel groups that had been entrenched there since last year. Two weeks ago, the Syrian forces reached the center of the city
While the sources describing Monday's massacre are supportive of Assad, it's possible that it occurred since the rebel groups fighting the Assad regime are composed mainly of members of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliated groups and have committed war crimes and atrocities in the past.
Jabhat al-Nusra, the branch of al-Qaeda that fought and killed American and allied troops in Iraq, have positioned themselves in Syria and control the rebel movement.
The U.S. and other Western governments that are backing the FSA have acknowledged the presence of jihadists but insist that they're only a small part of the rebel movement. However, al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups have been at the front of the rebel movement since day one of the Syrian war that began two years ago. According to German intelligence, 95 percent of the rebels aren't even Syrian.
“Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of,” the New York Times reported last month.
In April, Abou Mohamad al-Joulani, the head of al-Nusra, pledged allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahri, the head of al-Qaeda.
Members of the FSA have admitted that their plan is to institute sharia law, and the rebels now have a brigade named the Osama bin Laden Brigade.
Despite the evidence of al-Qaeda connections, the U.S. government continues to support the FSA.
Last week, Sens. Robert Menendez, D.-N.J., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., drafted a bill that, if passed, would directly arm the Syrian rebels with lethal weaponry. The U.S. government has so far only provided non-lethal supplies and humanitarian aid.
On Monday, Sen. John McCain made a surprise visit to Syria where he met with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the FSA. McCain has also called for arming the rebels as well as direct U.S. military intervention in the war.
When all this started.... and the Assad government started killing kids I said "Stop him".
Now... I'm not too sure any more. Maybe we ought to just let all those fools kill each other and then stomp on whomever is left?
29 May 2013 Last updated at 09:09 ET
Mideast press concerned at lifting of EU Syria arms embargo
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image..._018089120.jpg
Continue reading the main story Syria conflict
Commentators in the Middle East see little advantage in the European Union decision to lift its arms embargo on the Syrian opposition.
Some Arab writers regard the decision as a sign that the West's real aim is to oust President Bashar al-Assad, not seek a political solution.
Other writers worry that the conflict is escalating into sectarian violence, and that Syria has become a "playground in a multi-polar struggle".
"Drums of war" Abdallah Iskandar in Saudi-owned Al-Hayat
The situation in Syria is heading towards more confrontation and sectarian division… "External" efforts are still under way to find a diplomatic and international solution to the Syrian crisis, but this is accompanied by protecting self-interest.
Editorial in nationalist Al-Quds Al-Arabi
Hopes of holding a second Geneva conference to reach a political solution on the deteriorating crisis in Syria have evaporated. The drums of war have started beating once again, and louder than usual in these past few months.
Mazin Hammad in Qatar's Al-Watan
The important EU decision to lift the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition paves the way for a huge escalation in the war in Syria... Hopes are pinned on the success of the second Geneva conference in easing the deadlock, otherwise the whole region will drown in a wider and more destructive conflict.
Rafik Khoury in Lebanon's centrist Al-Anwar
There is a huge difference between negotiating a peaceful solution, as the regime in Syria and its allies demand, and negotiating the transfer of power as the opposition and its allies insist on... The problem lies not only in the difficulty each side faces in reaching its goal, but also in the fact that the war, for the major players, has not yet fulfilled its mission.
Urayb al-Rantawi in Jordan's Al-Dustur
The ferocious battle fought by Paris and London to lift the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition, while the whole world awaits Geneva II and the political solution... casts doubt on the credibility of French and British talk about Geneva II, the political solution and ending the bloodshed.
Editorial in Saudi Al-Watan
The EU, or in other words the Western camp, seems to be threatening Russia, China and Iran with the possibility of sending arms to Syria... Syria has become a mere playground in a multi-polar struggle.
"Failure for the West" Editorial in Syria's official Al-Baath
The EU decision to lift the arms embargo jeopardises Europe's security and exposes it to the risk of reprisal terrorist attacks, just like those that have begun in some of its capitals... France, Britain and their US master cannot accept Syria's military victory, because this lets Syria set the rules of the political solution at the Geneva II conference.
Qasem Ghafuri in Iranian hardline Qods
Lifting the arms embargo on the Syrian groups is a great shame and a failure for the West. The Western countries have always claimed that they want to save the Syrian people. With their human rights claims they have tried to line up public opinion with them. Arming terrorist groups is another documentary proof for their false claims.
General Hanan Gefen in Israeli centrist Maariv
It seems that the war in Syria is drifting towards an event that encompasses the whole Levant, and is changing the order of the last 100 years. The political framework of nation states the Western powers imposed in the Sykes-Picot agreements is facing the test of survival.
"Russians smell weakness" Alex Fishman in Israeli mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot
The central element that influences the survival of President Assad is Russia... The rash, blunt and uncompromising Russian policy in the Syrian affair mirrors the futility and weakness of European and American policy in this matter... The Russians smell weakness.
Amos Harel in Israeli liberal Haaretz
Despite the series of dramatic declarations this week, it seems that the latest developments in the crisis in Syria herald a continuation of the civil war, more than its imminent end... Russia responded immediately to the EU announcement ending the embargo on supplying weapons to the rebels in Syria, after almost two years of agonising, by stressing its commitment to the arms deal with the Assad regime, which includes modern S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems.
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Envoy Says Russia Will Send Defense Missiles to Syria
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Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, addresses the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) conference at United Nations headquarters, May 2010 file photo..
VOA News
May 27, 2013
A top Russian diplomat says Moscow will provide Syria advanced air missiles to deter any foreign intervention in the country.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Tuesday Moscow will send sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles as part of a contract signed several years ago.
Russia criticized the European Union's decision Monday to amend its arms embargo on Syria and allow weapons to be sent to the main opposition Syrian National Coalition, while keeping sanctions against the Syrian government.
Russia said the EU move will hurt efforts to hold a peace conference aimed at ending the country's violence.
Speaking after the EU announced its decision, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there are no immediate plans to actually send weapons to the fighters trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
"This is a strong signal to the Assad regime, that it needs to engage on the political process and, as I have always said and as I have said to our parliament last week, we would only take the step of sending arms in company with other nations in carefully controlled circumstances and in compliance with international law," he said. "But this decision [Monday] gives us the flexibility in the future to respond to a worsening situation or to a refusal of the Assad regime to negotiate."
- http://gdb.voanews.com/B1546D8B-F7C4...hdynamic_s.jpg Men check a damaged vehicle as a Free Syrian Army fighter, carrying his weapon, walks by in the besieged area of Homs, Syria, May 27, 2013.
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Britain and France have been the main advocates of arming the Syrian rebels, while Austria and Sweden have led a small group resisting the move for fear it could worsen Syria's civil war.
The EU Foreign Affairs Council said it will revisit its position on actual arms shipments before August 1. Any decision will come after consultations with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and after considering the state of a proposed Syrian peace conference.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt expressed optimism about a political solution, and cautioned that now is not the time to send arms to Syria.
"I think it is very important that we have a very solid support for the political process," he said. "Because we now have the first possibility for a very long time, as a matter of fact since the last summer, for a political process and I think it is extremely important not to do anything to rock the boat. To start delivering weapons now would rock the boat. No one is intending to do that."
Syrian Opposition Undecided About Peace Conference
The EU recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and strongly encouraged the group Monday to take part in the peace talks.
The coalition has not made a formal decision about taking part as it struggles to overcome internal divisions. The Syrian government has agreed "in principle" to participate.
http://gdb.voanews.com/446E1886-9AD7...x0_cy0_cw0.jpgUS Secretary of State John Kerry, right, meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, May 27, 2013, in Paris
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Monday in Paris to discuss the proposed conference, and remained hopeful despite the challenges they face in pulling together the multi-national effort.
"It's not an easy task," Lavrov said. "It's a very tall order, but I hope that when the United States and the Russian Federation take this kind of initiative, the chances for success are there. We will do everything in our power to use those chances, and to make them realized."
Russia reiterated Monday its support for including Iran in the peace conference. Both Russia and Iran are Syrian allies. The United States has long criticized Iranian support for Mr. Assad, accusing Tehran of exacerbating the Syrian conflict rather than being part of the solution.
McCain Visits Syria
In another development Monday, influential U.S. Senator John McCain made an unannounced trip into Syria to meet with opposition fighters.
Syrian National Coalition spokesman Anas Abdah welcomed McCain's visit, explaining the importance of the senator's long-standing calls for greater U.S. assistance for the rebels.
"We think this is extremely significant because the senator has always supported the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people and the Syrian revolution since its beginning," he said. "He has also fought very hard within his country, in the U.S., for his government to take an active role in supporting the Syrian revolution and also in arming the Free Syrian Army."
Rebel commanders who met with McCain urged the United States to provide them with weapons and ammunition, enforce a no-fly zone against Mr. Assad's air force, and launch strikes against pro-Assad Lebanese Hezbollah militants in Syria and Lebanon.
The U.S.-based Syrian Emergency Task Force, which supports the Syrian opposition, said it organized McCain's trip, and published several photos showing the senator inside Syria.
The group's executive director, Mouaz Moustafa, said in an interview with CNN that McCain and rebel commanders also discussed ways to "marginalize" extremists who have emerged in Syria, and that the Free Syrian Army assured McCain that any weapons it receives will not fall into the wrong hands.
Free Syrian Army commander General Idris told the U.S. news site The Daily Beast, which first reported the visit, that McCain met with rebels on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border. He said the rebels had come from all over Syria to see the prominent U.S. lawmaker.
McCain is one of the leading voices in the U.S. Congress calling for increasing U.S. aid to the rebels. His brief visit to Syria makes him one of the most senior U.S. officials to enter the country since the anti-Assad rebellion evolved into a civil war after peaceful protests in March 2011.
The Obama administration has provided non-lethal equipment and humanitarian supplies to the rebels. But it has been reluctant to intervene further, fearing U.S.-supplied weapons could end up in the hands of anti-American Islamist rebels.
Russian Warplanes Go on 24-Hour Duty in Snap Alert Drill
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MiG-31 Foxhound
MOSCOW, May 28 (RIA Novosti) – MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors are going on round-the-clock duty in northern Russia as part of a snap combat readiness check of the nation's aerospace defense capabilities, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The fighters, “in conjunction with A-50 airborne warning and control system aircraft, are performing continuous missions to protect the airspace, including from cruise missile strikes,” the ministry said in a statement. The aircraft are to be refueled while still in the air.
The three-day exercise, in which the fighters will fend off aerospace attacks, is part of a series of random checks of the Russian armed forces that began in February. It involves Air Force units from the Western Military District, General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov said during a teleconference, adding that the upcoming maneuver had been ordered by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
A total of 8,700 personnel, 185 warplanes and 240 armored vehicles are participating in the checks, overseen by Col. Gen. Vladimir Zarudnitsky. The checks include missile launches at the Ashuluk test range in Astrakhan, Zarudnitsky said.
In late February, a raft of random tests of military preparedness revealed a number of systemic shortcomings, in particular in the Central and Southern Military Districts, the Airborne Assault Forces and military air-transportation units.
http://en.rian.ru/images/18081/51/180815198.jpg© RIA Novosti.
Russian MiG-31 Fighter Jet
Alert-duty officers in some units were slow to respond to orders via automated combat command and control systems, especially in the airborne forces and at the 201st Military Base in Tajikistan. Other problems included poor accuracy in firing, especially by tanks and infantry fighting vehicle crews.
The checks, which the Defense Ministry said are being carried out for the first time in the past 20 years, will now be conducted on a regular basis.
This build up is getting... "Cold Warish" to me.
The UN Human Rights Council is in an emergency session about Syria right now. They are calling for a 100% cease fire.
I don't see anything out of the Security Council though.
Let's Be Clear: Establishing a 'No-Fly Zone' Is an Act of War
The term is a euphemism that obscures the gravity of what its advocates are suggesting -- a U.S. air attack on Syria.
Conor Friedersdorf
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Kudos to Josh Rogin for breaking the news that "the White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria." But wouldn't it be a more powerful story without the euphemism?
Relying on the term "no-fly-zone" is typical in journalism. But that is a mistake. It obscures the gravity of the news.
Here's how an alternative version of the story might look: "The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for bombing multiple targets inside Syria, constantly surveilling Syrian airspace alongside U.S. allies, and shooting down Syrian war planes and helicopters that try to fly around, perhaps for months."
The term "no-fly-zone" isn't analytically useless. It's just that folks using it as shorthand should make sure everyone reading understands that, as Daniel Larison put it right up in a headline, "Imposing a No-Fly-Zone in Syria Requires Starting a New War." That becomes clearer some paragraphs later in Rogin's article, when he discussed Senator John McCain's advocacy for a "no-fly-zone." "McCain said a realistic plan for a no-fly zone would include hundreds of planes, and would be most effective if it included destroying Syrian airplanes on runways, bombing those runways, and moving U.S. Patriot missile batteries in Turkey close to the border so they could protect airspace inside northern Syria," he wrote.
The article also quotes Robert Zarate, policy director at the hawkish Foreign Policy Initiative. His euphemisms of choice: "No doubt, the United States and its like-minded allies and partners are fully capable, without the use of ground troops, of obviating the Assad regime's degraded, fixed, and mobile air defenses and suppressing the regime's use of airpower."
Does anyone think he'd describe Syrian planes bombing a U.S. aircraft carrier as "obviating" our naval assets? The question before us is whether America should wage war in Syria by bombing its weapons, maintaining a presence in its airspace, and shooting at its pilots if they take off. On hearing the phrase "no-fly-zone," how many Americans would realize all that is involved?
I trust "start a war against Syria" would poll poorly.
That's why advocates of that course hide the consequences of what they propose behind a euphemism. If only there were a deliberative body that the Constitution charged with declaring war, so that it would be impossible to start any wars of choice without the voice of the people being heard.