West Asia News and Discussions

[ramana]

Peter Popham asks: where did it all go wrong?

Lawrence of Arabia and his deluded mentors like Wilfrid Scaven Blunt.

[JwalaMukhi]

What does it say about effect of secularism and aims of warmongering.

The global charity and aid model is controlled by few ideologies that seem to be selectively silent even on this.

The video says that Imam who allow this is spiritual head but Imam is religious leader not spiritual.

The experience of Leila and such is barbaric outright. The charity and aid models are not sufficient to deal with this and in fact hide religious facet call it by anything else won't change religious backing.

Very tragic and sad. However, it is easier to see the syrians at the receiving end of the mullahocracy will not hesitate even half second to become mullahs when they encounter other non-muslims. The whole of the islamic region has been a cess-pit for a very long time and have been exporting their dross all over the globe. In earlier times, caravans of yindoo wimmens were carted out to these islamic lands, and the treatment have been worse.

So, not providing any facade of being something other than barbaric in these dar-ul-islam regions, by other so called "light green regimes" is a good thing. These regions are incapable of reforming their religion laced fervor of mullahcracy. Whether they have secular dictators or otherwise, it is anachronistic region trapped in barbaric century, unable to even stall retrogression. In such circumstances, the other civilized regions should principally aim at quarntine such wonderful feats and antics to the region where the faithful overwhelmingly support such things. Incapacity to reform by internal mechanism, they will have to be reformed by external mechanisms.

The first step for the external mechanisms to kick in, is to have unvarnished behaviour exposed by having the most greenest fellows in control of these lands. Then it becomes easier for external intervention (remember they are in capable of redemption internally). They have had lot of time to reform and build something like decent civility in their dealings with themselves and others. That has not happened. Take over by mullahs will ensure quick and rapid course correction in these regions. Else it will be a cauldron exporting their crap all over the globe (just as it is happening currently), under the guise of "lighter shade of green" being the default state, where in reality the default state is otherwise. It will be a sustained and longer pain for the globe, if the facade continues as it is now.

[abhishek_sharma]

Once Upon a Time in the Middle East

[Philip]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 54567.html

Exclusive: Iraq still using bogus bomb detectors – and thousands pay the price
More than 4,500 people have been killed since the conviction of UK businessman, James McCormick, in April

Kim Sengupta

Thursday 03 October 2013

Bogus bomb detectors are still being used in Iraq five months after a British businessman who supplied the devices was found guilty of fraud.

More than 4,500 people are estimated to have been killed in Iraq – 979 of them in September alone – since James McCormick, a former policeman, was convicted at the Old Bailey in April. His trial heard that the devices he was selling, called ADE-651, were based on novelty golf-ball finders and had no scientific means of detecting explosives.

The Iraqi government promised after the trial that the fake detectors would be phased out. But they were still in use at checkpoints two days ago when 55 people were killed by bombs packed into cars in Baghdad. The responsibility for the attacks was claimed by an al-Qa’ida-linked group, which began its current campaign of violence around five months ago.

The sale of the devices to Iraq was alleged to have been aided by the payment of huge bribes to local officials. McCormick is said to have made a total of $75m (£46.2m) from the Iraqi government, charging $40,000 for each unit, which cost $20 to produce.

Major General Jihad al-Jabiri, the head of the Interior Ministry’s directorate for combat explosives, and two other officials were jailed for corruption over the deal and 15 others were alleged to have been involved.

After McCormick was handed a 10-year sentence, Iraq’s deputy Interior Minister Adnan Asadi announced that the detectors would be replaced. He did not stipulate how and when, but it was later confirmed by the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, that sniffer dogs would be brought in to search for explosive devices.

So far only two provinces in the south, Dhi Qar and Wasit – neither of which is on the front line of the recent violence – have invested in canine units. Around 20 dogs were bought to guard the capital’s Green Zone, but the country’s parliamentary security committee discovered they had not actually been trained to detect explosives. The “dog option” has also led to allegations of corruption. Even before the detector scandal, MPs claimed in July 2011 that there were 27 cases of financial malpractice in the purchase of dogs for security work.

James McCormick was found guilty of fraud in April (Getty) James McCormick was found guilty of fraud in April (Getty)

Some Iraqi officials complain that contradictory statements from the highest echelons of government had undermined efforts to ban the fake devices. In May this year, Mr Maliki was still insisting that some of the ADE 651s worked. He said: “The best devices in the world do not detect explosives more than 60 per cent of the time. Results we obtained indicate that these devices detect from 20 to 50 per cent. So, some of the devices were real and were detecting explosives.”

Before his conviction, General al-Jabiri had declared: “I know more about bombs than the Americans do, in fact I know more about bombs than anyone else in the world.”

Others, however, had stressed the dangers after McCormick’s sentence. Aqil al-Turaihi, inspector-general at the Interior Ministry, said: “I feel furious that this gang of Jim McCormick and the Iraqis working with him killed my people by creating false security and selling such a useless device.”

“There was corruption associated with this contract and we referred to this and submitted our report to the Minister of the Interior.”

Jawad al-Shihaili, an MP in the parliamentary integrity committee, claimed that the warnings had been ignored due to pressure from vested interests.

A bogus bomb detector, and its case, seized by police in the UK A bogus bomb detector, and its case, seized by police in the UK

Monday’s bombing, a sectarian attack aimed at the Shia community, is said to have been carried out by the al-Qa’ida-affilitated Islamic State of Iraq. Another branch of the organisation, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is now the most extreme jihadi group among the rebels fighting across the border against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

A journalist who has worked for The Independent in Iraq in the past, described his surprise at seeing the fake detectors each time he went back to Baghdad. Hassan Ali (not his full name, which has been withheld for security reasons) said from Baghdad: “Some of the junior ranks actually believe they work; more senior ones say it is better than nothing and acts as a deterrent... Some say that the first batch they got worked, the other ones that came later did not. Of course it’s all nonsense.”

One of the explosions on Monday took place in Baghdad’s Sadr City. Hakim Mohammed Jaffar, a schoolteacher, witnessed the blast. “I saw five dead bodies,” he said. “Some children had been hurt as well. There was a lot of blood, it was a very bad to see.

“I went through one checkpoint on the way in [to Sadr City] where they had the detectors just before the bombing. They look like wands and they are supposed to bend when they spot a bomb. But they are useless, everyone one knows that.”

Another of the blasts took place in the Kazhamiyah district. Hassan Abu Ridha, whose neighbour was injured, said: “My cousin is a policeman and he says they know these things do not work, but they have no orders to stop using them and they have been given nothing else. The British should have stopped them being sold in the first place, but now it is fault of our government that people are dying.”

[Garooda]

Iran_Cyber_Warfare_Commander_Shot_Dead

Iranian cyber warfare commander shot dead in suspected assassination
The head of Iran’s cyber warfare programme has been shot dead, triggering further accusations that outside powers are carrying out targeted assassinations of key figures in the country’s security apparatus.

The killing of Ahmadi coincides with a new diplomatic effort by President Hassan Rouhani. Coincident or is it really a ghar ki safai?

Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the Cyber War Headquarters, was found dead in a wooded area near the town of Karaj, north-west of the capital, Tehran. Five Iranian nuclear scientists and the head of the country’s ballistic missile programme have been killed since 2007. The regime has accused Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad, of carrying out these assassinations.

Ahmadi was last seen leaving his home for work on Saturday. He was later found with two bullets in the heart, according to Alborz, a website linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps. “I could see two bullet wounds on his body and the extent of his injuries indicated that he had been assassinated from a close range with a pistol,” an eyewitness told the website.

The commander of the local police said that two people on a motorbike (this just reminded me of delhi attack carried out on motorcycle related to Israeli Ambassador) had been involved in the assassination.

The Facebook page of the officers of the Cyber War Headquarters confirmed that Ahmadi had been one of their commander and posted messages of condolence. But Alborz users warned that the openly accessible book of condolence could harm Iran’s national security.

“Stop giving more information about him. The counter-revolutionaries will take advantage of his murder,” said one post. “It sounds like a hit job for a security officer of this importance”.

Subsequently, a statement from the Imam Hassan Mojtaba division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Ahmadi’s death was being investigated. It warned against speculating “prematurely about the identity of those responsible for the killing”.

Western officials said the information was still being assessed, but previous deaths have been serious blows to Iran’s security forces. Tighter security measures around leading commanders and nuclear scientists have instilled a culture of fear in some of the most sensitive parts of the security establishment.

The last victim of a known assassination was Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemist who worked in the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, who died when an explosive device blew up on his car in January last year.

The death of Ahmadi, a leading specialist in cyber defences, could be an extension of this campaign of subterfuge. Iran has been accused of carrying out a number of cyber attacks detected in the West. Shashank Joshi, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said this was seen as a lesser threat than the nuclear programme. “Iran’s cyber attacks on Israel and elsewhere in the region are a rising threat and a growing threat, but it hasn’t yet been seen as a major and sustained onslaught, so it would be pretty novel and significant to take this step in the field of cyber-warfare at this time,” he said.

The Revolutionary Guard has also been accused of lending its expertise to Syria’s regime, helping it to hack Western targets through a body known as the Syrian Electronic Army.

The killing of Ahmadi coincides with a new diplomatic effort by President Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s newly elected leader. He has voiced the hope that Iran’s confrontation with America and the leading Western powers over its nuclear ambitions can be settled within months.

[Garooda]

Contradicting_Report

Iran’s cyber chief killed in ‘internal dispute,’ Israel speculates. Iran denies that Mojtaba Ahmadi, reportedly gunned down outside Tehran by two men on a motorbike, was assassinated; says he died in a ‘horrific incident’ WTF ? aern't assasinations horrific upto a certain degree ?

A key Iranian cyber war operative may have been killed in an “internal dispute,” cabinet minister and former Shin Bet intelligence chief Yaakov Peri said Thursday.

Peri, the minister of science, was speaking on Israel Radio as Iran denied reports that Cyber War Headquarters commander Mojtaba Ahmadi, who was recently found dead northwest of Tehran, had been assassinated. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said he had died in a “horrific incident,” but ruled out assassination. “The main reason of the event and the motive of the attacker has not been specified,” added a Revolutionary Guards statement quoted by Reuters. On Wednesday, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported that Ahmadi had gone missing on Saturday, and that his body was discovered in a wooded area near the town of Karaj.

He had been shot twice through the heart at close range by two people on a motorbike, the UK report said, quoting Alborz, a website linked to the Revolutionary Guards. “I could see two bullet wounds on his body and the extent of his injuries indicated that he had been assassinated from a close range with a pistol,” an eyewitness was quoted as telling the Iranian website.

The timing of the killing, which came as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu battles what he says is Iran’s duplicitous outreach to the West over its rogue nuclear program, was “triggering further accusations that outside powers are carrying out targeted assassinations of key figures in the country’s security apparatus,” the Telegraph said.

“I assume Iran will accuse Israel” of killing Ahmadi, Peri said on Thursday morning. But the fact that this or that leading Iranian nuclear or cyber figure is killed, he said, did not mean that Israel was necessarily involved. “Many of these events are the consequence of internal disputes in Iran.”

He also said that while the deaths of such figures can sometimes have an impact, “there are always replacements… And such acts do not always cause a slowing or a reduction” of the dangers posed by Iran.

Curiously, in January 2012, the similarly named Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, was assassinated when a bomb was affixed to his car by two assailants on a motorbike in Tehran.

The Iranian government has accused Israel of several recent assassinations, including that of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan and four other nuclear scientists, and the head of the country’s ballistic missiles program.

The Telegraph report Wednesday said that “the Facebook page of the officers of the Cyber War Headquarters confirmed that Ahmadi had been one of their commander[s] and posted messages of condolence. But Alborz users warned that the openly accessible book of condolence could harm Iran’s national security. ‘Stop giving more information about him. The counter-revolutionaries will take advantage of his murder,’ said one post. ‘It sounds like a hit job for a security officer of this importance.’”

Subsequently, said the British newspaper report, a statement from the Revolutionary Guards “said that Ahmadi’s death was being investigated. It warned against speculating ‘prematurely about the identity of those responsible for the killing.’ Western officials said the information was still being assessed.”

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed at the UN General Assembly that Israel would stop Iran’s nuclear drive on its own if necessary. “Israel will never acquiesce to nuclear arms in the hands of a rogue regime that repeatedly promises to wipe us out,” he said. Still, he stressed, he did not dismiss the diplomatic-sanctions route. “We all want to give diplomacy with Iran a chance to succeed,” he said.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani responded unequivocally to Netanyahu’s UN speech, promising to continue what Iran insists is a peaceful nuclear program with “full power.”

“Israel is upset to see that its sword has gone blunt and Iran grows more powerful day by day,” Rouhani told reporters in Tehran, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

[TSJones]

^^^^^^ Now this is interesting. For the past year it has been speculated that the Iranians were behind cyber attacks against the US and Euro banking systems. I don't have any CT's but this has all the earmarks of a private hit not governmental.

[Garooda]

Gaand Masti...oops Grand Mufti

Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah has once again called for the destruction of all Churches on the Arabian Peninsula.

Bin Abdullah, head of the Ulema Council and the Standing Committee on Fatwas, made this statement after a presentation by the Kuwaiti parliamentarian Osama Al-Munawer of the bill that bans construction of new non-Muslim religious buildings in Kuwait.

The Mufti stated that, according to Islamic law, all churches in the region must be demolished; i.e., Islam is the only legal religion here. The words of Muhammad that “there cannot be two religions on the Arabian peninsula” the head of the Sunni always interprets in favor of Islam. Baaki subke kaan mei beedi dikhai de rahi hai kyaa?

Not long ago, owing to the consecration of a Catholic Church in United Arab Emirates, the local Christians expected the opening of negotiations concerning the construction of the first church in Saudi Arabia. At the present time, from 3 to 4 million immigrant Christians work in this Muslim country, according to various sources.

[Garooda]

Garden_Of_Tear_Gas_Canisters

[pankajs]

Fighting Between Rebels Intensifies Over a Strategic Town in Syria

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A group of powerful rebel brigades in northern Syria is struggling to defuse an armed standoff pitting insurgents against an affiliate of Al Qaeda for control of a strategic town near the Turkish border.

<snip>

ISIS seized Azaz from the local rebel group known as the Northern Storm that led the fight last year to oust government forces from the town.

A Northern Storm commander reached by telephone said that since taking over the town, ISIS had attacked his group’s bases in nearby villages and that his fighters were shooting back with heavy machine guns meant to down airplanes.

“This is all we can do until we find a way to end this,” said the commander, who goes by the name Abu Yamen.

This week, a Qaeda spokesman accused the Northern Storm of attacking first and said the rebel group had struck a deal with Senator John McCain during his brief visit to Syria this year to fight against ISIS “and hit the mujahedeen.”

Turkey’s Parliament on Thursday extended a mandate for the army to launch military operations in Syria if necessary, as the government argued that the use of chemical weapons by forces loyal to the Assad government had aggravated Turkey’s national security concerns.

Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, speaking to reporters on his way to New York last week to attend the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, called radical Islamist groups in Syria a serious security threat for his country, and warned that the continuing civil war there “could produce an Afghanistan in Eastern Mediterranean,” according to the daily newspaper Hurriyet.

[pankajs]

CIA ramping up covert training program for moderate Syrian rebels

The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said.

But the CIA program is so minuscule that it is expected to produce only a few hundred trained fighters each month even after it is enlarged, a level that officials said will do little to bolster rebel forces that are being eclipsed by radical Islamists in the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

<snip>

The CIA is “ramping up and expanding its effort,” said a U.S. official familiar with operations in Syria, because “it was clear that the opposition was losing, and not only losing tactically but on a more strategic level.”

The CIA declined to comment.

The latest setback came last month, when 11 of the largest armed factions in Syria, including some backed by the United States, announced the formation of an alliance with a goal of creating an Islamic state. The alliance is led by Jabhat al-Nusra, a group that has sworn allegiance to the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.

[pankajs]

Obama May Have Botched an Earlier Syria Peace Deal

Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s frenetic efforts, preparations for the “Geneva II” peace conference on Syria’s civil war are already foundering. The rebel movement has become increasingly radicalized against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and more fractured. A newly confident Assad, meanwhile, has somewhat relegitimized himself as a signatory to a new chemical-weapons ban negotiated by the United States and Russia under U.N. auspices, which his government is tasked with implementing over the next year. Defying global opprobrium over his use of sarin gas, Assad has also positioned himself in a series of high-profile TV interviews as a preferable alternative to Islamist rebels who want to create a fundamentalist state.

All of which should prompt a reexamination of the first Geneva conference in the summer of 2012, on which Kerry’s new push for peace is based. According to some officials involved, perhaps the greatest tragedy of Syria is that, some 80,000 lives ago, President Obama might have had within his grasp a workable plan to end the violence, one that is far less possible now. But amid the politics of the 2012 presidential election—when GOP nominee Mitt Romney regularly accused Obama of being “soft”—the administration did little to make it work and simply took a hard line against Assad, angering the special U.N. Syria envoy, Kofi Annan, and prompting the former U.N. secretary-general to quit, according to several officials involved.

<snip>

Administration officials deny this account, as do some who were involved at the State Department. Nonetheless, Frederic Hof, a U.S. ambassador who was Clinton’s special adviser for transition in Syria at the time, agrees that the negotiations could have been better handled. The harsh demand that “Assad must go” voiced by Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague was “gratuitous,” says Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Perhaps a greater effort should have been made to give Annan the time to do his due diligence.” Still, Hof says he saw no evidence that the administration was posturing for political reasons.

A current senior State Department official concedes that one of the problems with making the Annan communique work may have been Clinton’s distaste for getting involved in extended direct mediation, in dramatic contrast to her successor, who has opened up negotiations on several fronts at once—with Syria and the Russians, with Iran, and between the Palestinians and Israelis. “We’ve made more trips to the Mideast in the last nine months than she made in four years,” says this official.

While Clinton excelled at “soft” power—selling America’s message abroad—one emerging criticism of her four-year tenure at State was that she consistently avoided getting her hands dirty with direct mediation.

[habal]

Training Al-Qaeda To Be More Efficient Killers Is Now An Essential Function Of The US Government

[vinod]

Interesting...
Saudi black op team behind Damascus chem weapons attack – diplomatic sources

The August chemical weapons attack in the Syrian capital’s suburbs was done by a Saudi Arabian black operations team, Russian diplomatic sources have told a Russian news agency.

“Based on data from a number of sources a picture can be pieced together. The criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was done by a black op team that the Saudi’s sent through Jordan and which acted with support of the Liwa Al-Islam group,” a source in the diplomatic circles told Interfax.

The attack and its consequences had a huge impact on the Syrian situation, another source said.

“Syrians of various political views, including some opposition fighters, are seeking to inform diplomats and members of international organizations working in Syria what they know about the crime and the forces which inspired it,” he told the agency.

Liwa Al-Islam is an Islamist armed group operating near Damascus headed by the son of a Saudi-based Salafi cleric. The group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a secret governmental meeting in Damascus in July 2012 that killed a number of top Syrian officials, including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, his deputy Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani.

The allegations mirror a number of earlier reports, which pointed to Saudi Arabia as the mastermind behind the sarin gas attack, which almost led to US military action against Syrian government. Proponents of this scenario say intelligence services in Riyadh needed a false flag operation to provoke an American attack in Syria, which would tip the balance in favor of the armed opposition supported by Saudi Arabia.

While the majority of Western countries say they are certain that the Syrian government carries the blame for the attack, Damascus maintains that the rebel forces must be behind it. Russia shares this conviction too, calling the incident a provocation.

Back in March US President Barack Obama said the use of chemical weapons would be a ‘red line’ for the Syrian government, crossing which would prompt America’s intervention into the bloody Syrian conflict. After the August attack, which the US believes has claimed some 1,400 lives, the president was called on his words by many supporters of the Syrian opposition both at home and outside of the US.

The plan for military action was put on pause after a Russia-brokered deal with Damascus, which agreed to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons. Experts from OPCW are currently in Syria preparing for the disarmament.

[pankajs]

Saudi Arabia scrapped U.N. speech in protest over Syria and Israel

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s frustration at international inaction over Syria and the Palestinians led it to cancel its speech at the United Nations General Assembly for the first time ever this week, a diplomatic source said.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had been scheduled to deliver an address to the general assembly on Tuesday afternoon.

By the standards of the world’s top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam, which usually expresses diplomatic concerns only in private, the decision represented an unprecedented statement of discontent.

<snip>

Saudi Arabia had hoped that a chemical weapons attack on the edge of Damascus in August would lead its allies including the United States to bomb forces loyal to Assad, diplomats in the Gulf say.

When Washington instead agreed to a Russian plan to avert military strikes by dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons, Saudi Arabia said the move did not address the broader issue of civilian deaths in the war.

[pankajs]

Syria: the strategy has backfired

After the 2006 Lebanon war, Saudi Arabia took further fright at the mounting popularity of Iran and Hezbollah within its own Sunni streets. Revolutionary Islam seemed to be gaining the upper hand. And – finally, the straw that broke the camel's back for the Gulf states: the outbreak of Arab upheaval of 2011, with its evident disdain for established authority. Gulf states decided to do whatever it takes to halt Iran and the new currents of thinking (such as a rising Muslim Brotherhood). Their very survival, it seemed, hinged on it. Overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad became the explicit cornerstone of this strategy of confronting Iran.

But this Gulf containment strategy of igniting a Sunni "intifada" against Shia influence seems to have collapsed, as the Gulf monarchs absorb the significance of Barack Obama's U-turn on Syria, and the opening to Iran. What made it so traumatic was that not just Obama but the US system itself had buckled (public and Congress together). It represented rather a strategic lurch. President Assad would stay, and Iran would not be dismantled but emerge strengthened.

We have seen much sabre-rattling from Gulf leaders as a consequence. They threaten to stand steadfast to the cause – in spite of US "weakness" – determined to remake the Middle East in their authoritarian image. But this is evidently fanciful (in spite of their possibly pyrrhic victory in Egypt). What is emerging (just as it did three decades ago in Afghanistan) from their firing-up of Sunni Islam, is extremism rather than moderation – and inter-Sunni strife.

The Gulf strategy in Syria is also in tatters: its aspirations are not succeeding in the field, and – paradoxically – it seems that the imminent prospect of US military intervention in Syria created a schism within the Syrian opposition. So apprehensive were the jihadist groups that they would be the prime object of US attacks – as a prelude to the west setting up the Free Syria Army as a copy of the Sunni awakening councils in Iraq – that several days of bloody inter-factional fighting among the opposition ensued. Its perverse outcome has been a further radicalisation of Syria's jihadist groups, so that 13 of the most powerful, led by al-Nusra Front, now flatly reject the western-backed opposition group's leadership, and have committed instead to Sharia. Who now can be said to represent the opposition?

In the Gulf, anger and resentment at this turn of events is to be expected, but how far realistically can these monarchs step out of the western orbit, to which they are tied in so many ways? Ultimately this point of inflection offers the chance to undo that earlier tip towards conflict. Iran is already signalling its readiness to help Saudi Arabia make the necessary transition, as the latest appointment of Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani – well known to King Abdullah for his earlier mediation – as national security adviser clearly signals. In undoing the axis of evil and moderation, a political solution in Syria becomes possible. As one ex-diplomat notes: "The Persians and the Sunni sheikhs quarrel all the time, but also can patch up without outsiders' help." If this initiative bears fruit, Syria is likely to be a key part of this.

[vishvak]

Isn't UNSC bound to take action too if and when it turns out that kidnapping and gassing of Syrian children and men -and no more than two women- was a false flag operation.

[habal]

At govt level, they have taken perfidy & complicity of western govts for granted. But the first govts to make a move against this are the dictatorships of Egypt & Gambia.

Stuff completely unrelated to topic deleted. Stick to the thread topic - JE Menon

[Philip]

Turkey's growing arms exports,an added regional factor,esp. small arms to para-mil mercenary groups.The pic in the report shows a number of small arms on display.The sales to the US are actually re-routed back to other entities.There were several reports about the US training and supplying entities involved in anti-state warfare from Libya to Syria to understand where the arms are eventually ending up.A list of what kind of arms is being exported would clear matters further.Turkey is also strategically located on the cusp of Europe and Asia,for its arms deliveries to easily reach the battlegrounds of the M-East.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey ... sCatID=345

Turkey's defense exports surge by 43 percent

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency
The US tops the list of Turkish export destinations, followed by the EU. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL

The US tops the list of Turkish export destinations, followed by the EU. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL
Turkey’s defense exports have now exceeded $1 billion, representing a 43 percent increase from 2008 while the country has exported one-third of its production, Turkey’s Defense and Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association (SSİ) said Oct. 4.

The defense industry has gained speed in production and exports in recent years, SSI Chairman Latif Aral said. “The export volume at $600 million in 2008 has risen to 1.3 billion today. We are exporting one-third of the sector’s production,” he said, adding that they had set a goal for exports to reach $1.5 billion by 2023.

Aral said Turkey had become a country that was able to manufacture and export a large part of its defense equipment such as helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, warships, training aircraft and missile guidance systems.

The United States tops the list of Turkish export destinations, followed by the European Union, the former Soviet Union and Middle Eastern countries.

Aral also said 2013 would be an important year in terms of cooperation with small- and medium-sized enterprises. The sector is being supported by the economy and defense ministries to raise exports, he added.

October/05/2013

[habal]

The latest shipment of sex jihadists has just arrived in Syria. The question is : which one are you going to choose?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=447844398653153

Erdogan doing nothing but supporting terrorists' - Assad

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_0 ... ssad-6609/

“Syria’s chemical arsenal - to be destroyed under a United Nations resolution - were in the hands of “special forces” who were the only ones capable of using them, Syrian President Bashar Assad told opposition Turkish channel Halk TV on Friday.

“Preparing these weapons is a complex technical operation... and a special procedure is necessary to use them which requires a central order from the army chief of staff. As a result it is impossible that they were used,” he said.

A team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations has been tasked with implementing the UN resolution to destroy the banned arsenal by mid-2014.

Assad also warned Turkey that it will "pay dearly" for supporting rebels fighting to overthrow his regime.

"In the near future these terrorists will have an impact on Turkey. And Turkey will pay very dearly for its contribution," Assad said.

"All that he says about Syria and its people is a heap of lies, that is all... Erdogan is doing nothing but
supporting the terrorists," said Assad."

Syrian rebels destroy heritage

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_0 ... tage-2111/

"After destroying and looting two Christian churches, Islamist rebels holding the northern Syrian town of Ar-Raqqah have destroyed a historic mosque built to commemorate the 8th-century Arab ruler Caliph Harun al-Rashid.

Local protests against the destruction were suppressed with the use of live gunfire.

The rebels who seized the town last March are members of the radical group known as The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. They make no secret of their affiliation to Al Qaeda.

In a related development, Syria rebels have destroyed a statue of Arab poet Abu Tammam in Jassem in southern Syria."

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb9_1380926256

Mother Agnes Discusses Evidence of Chemical Attack Videos Fabrication with al-Jadeed TV



Millions of pounds given to Syrian refugee charities is 'being used to fund terrorism'
Charity watchdog said cash 'undoubtedly' ends up with extremist groups

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... orism.html

[habal]

Saudi black op team responsible for Damascus chemical attack – Russian diplomatic source

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_0 ... urce-7169/

Russia Today reports that the August 21 chemical attack was carried out by a Saudi sabotage team

http://rt.com/news/syria-sarin-saudi-provocation-736/

[JE Menon]

The Russian story has legs. Seems far more plausible than what the pro-opposition propagandists have been putting out. But, also seems very much like a case of reckless agent (Saudi Arabia) champing at the loosened reins of the principal (US). It is with such "baby steps" that a global conflagration begins... It is probably in recognition, and to extract themselves from an unsavoury situation, that the Obama admin backed off from its rather wild threats.

[habal]

Greek Nationalists fighting for Assad
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/26261

al-ciaeda's strategy outlined

"... the CIA program is so minuscule that it is expected to produce only a few hundred trained fighters each month even after it is enlarged, a level that officials said will do little to bolster rebel forces that are being eclipsed by radical Islamists in the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.The CIA’s mission, officials said, has been defined by the White House’s desire to seek a political settlement, a scenario that relies on an eventual stalemate among the warring factions rather than a clear victor. As a result, officials said, limits on the agency’s authorities enable it to provide enough support to help ensure that politically moderate, U.S.-supported militias don’t lose but not enough for them to win.The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the agency has sent additional paramilitary teams to secret bases in Jordan in recent weeks in a push to double the number of rebel fighters getting CIA instruction and weapons before being sent back to Syria.The agency has trained fewer than 1,000 rebel fighters this year, current and former U.S. officials said. By contrast, U.S. intelligence analysts estimate that more than 20,000 have been trained to fight for government-backed militias by Assad’s ally Iran and the Hezbollah militant network it sponsors...."

http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2 ... emate.html

which means they were injected some cocktail of lethal drugs even while being filmed as victims of chemical attack. The most outrageous of all human rights violations. When is a Nuremberg being held to try Obama, bandar, Kerry for massive human right abuse.
UN finds no sarin gas detected in West Ghouta environment, only in human samples:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=142_1380808817

Enjoy this: when wahabbis get ranting and raving
Graphic: Warning
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8e2_1380750359

[anmol]

Telling his listeners, “We have evidence,” Mr. Erdogan cited comments made two years ago by the Algerian-born French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who “is also Jewish,” as supposed proof of a longstanding Israeli plot to deny the Muslim Brotherhood power in Egypt, even if it won elections.

src: From http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0 ... says/?_r=1

Return to Bangladesh
by Bernard-Henri Lévy, huffingtonpost.com
October 5th 2013

It was the black hole of the second half of the 20th century. The most forgotten of its forgotten wars.

It was one act in a three-act tragedy that, from Bosnia to Kosovo, and from Libya and Syria, unfolded according to the same invariable scenario.

And it was a non-subject for scholars, a no man's land for knowledge. It was, in fact, little more than a name -- "the Bangladesh war," as exotic as it was distant -- that was in the process of being erased from the collective memory of the West.

Until the arrival of a memorable book by Princeton University professor Gary Bass. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide (Knopf) returns to this story and, while doing justice to the war's victims, also, for the first time, draws out for us its lessons.

We discover right off the bat that genocide (the war in Bangladesh was indeed an attempt at genocide) could occur so soon after Auschwitz without capturing the attention of the world at large or even, with rare exceptions such as André Malraux, any of its prominent individual consciences. That fact became overwhelmingly evident in Bangladesh.

We witness the origins of the terms of a debate that has continued, practically unaltered, for 40 years: intervention or noninterference? Humanity: singular or plural? Is there an established natural right -- is there an international law -- that can be cited against a dictator who slaughters his own people, or do rights and laws exist only within the borders of nations, and too bad about those who have the misfortune to have been born in Jessore or Dacca? Does the idea of a universal conscience and, related to it, an international community, have any meaning, or must we settle for Goebbels's sadly famous theorem that a man's home is his castle?

Bass shows us how small causes (Kissinger's liking for the Pakistani dictator, Yahya Khan, a drunken brute) can have large and horrifying effects: a terrible war that lasted nearly a year and exacted a death toll still unknown (300,000? 500,000? A million or more?), but which, as Bass shows, followed the same pattern as the ongoing war in Syria, where the escalation to extremes can be explained, at least in part, by the manner in which Vladimir Putin has poured in weapons and advisers. The Bangladesh war lasted as long as it did only because the Putin of that era, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, was stubbornly persistent in his support of someone whom he saw as an Asian reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln.

The book also shows, conversely, how lone individuals can stand in the way of the killing machine and, after a long, agonizingly long period of crying out in the wilderness, finish by being heard. In this case, that individual was not a war reporter running the blockade on pictures from the front; nor was it an intellectual forcing the world, in the manner later adopted in the United States by the late and much-lamented Christopher Hitchens, to see that which it would prefer not to see -- no, in this case, the individuals in question were a handful of "petty" diplomats, such as the American consul general in Dacca, the aptly named Archer Blood, who, after dozens of cables warning the administration of the responsibility it was incurring through its support of the bloodbath, joined 19 of his colleagues in making public a "blood telegram" that cut short his career but pricked the world's conscience and led to India's intervention.

And finally Bass shows us how a strong political will -- at the time, that of Indira Gandhi -- can, when it is harnessed to morality and law, put an end to temporizing. Except for the cast, it's the same movie that we watched 20 years later in Bosnia and 40 years later in Libya and Mali. Without succumbing to otherworldliness or to the idealization of an Indian prime minister who had her dark side (and how!), the book is also a tribute to politics in its true sense, to a politics that is not afraid to turn history away from subservience to the supposedly inexorable facts, or, better, to stage a coup against history.

Many readers will not be aware of my deep attachment to beautiful Bangladesh, whose war of liberation I covered more than 40 years ago for the newspaper Combat (founded by Albert Camus), where I met and mixed with the nation's liberator, Mujibur Rahman (father of the current, courageous prime minister), and of which I chronicled the tragic and noble birth in my very first book, Les Indes rouges.

But I do want readers to be aware of the appearance of Gary Bass' book, which I hope will be widely read (and translated into French!) because it places a spotlight on one of the most terribly neglected corners of the world. (The cities of the Ganges delta are so poor and powerless that, like Nineveh, Canopus, Heraklion and Meroë, they live under the constant threat of being swallowed up by supposedly natural catastrophes that the world now has all of the necessary technical means to prevent should it choose to do so.) And because it tells a modern story that we have seen repeated so many times: To understand the recurrent cowardice of the West, its blindness, and the sonorous vacuum that envelopes even the theory of the international community today, a return to Bangladesh is required reading.

Translated by Steven B. Kennedy

[JE Menon]

Nice little review by Levy, but he misses the point by equating Putin with Nixon here - or is being deliberately obtuse; or worse, a malicious instrument of the French state which, sadly, is supporting a rabble of blood-thirsty barbarians who fight in the name of Islam. What Assad is doing is not genocide (if it is, what is what the rebels are doing called?) and I'd like to know the equivalent of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Iran in the Bangladesh situation. And since he is praising India's role, who in the Syria situation would that be the equivalent?

[habal]

Child soldier recruited by Obama makes these revelations. Sadly for this child, though he now repents, Obama has snatched his soul forever.

Syrian Child recruited in terrorist groups: “I’ve killed 10 soldiers and 13 civilians”

http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/20 ... civilians/

[vishvak]

The Bangladesh genocide was muddled for decades now in diplomacy by the very same people who sent flotilla of warships including nuclear carrier with ready forces against Indian army action to stop genocide on one hand & on the other passing anti-India resolutions in UNSC at the same time. They chose their own friends allies and politics and now feign ignorance and uninterested commenting even when the whole world knew ongoing genocide by porkies went on for months.

[habal]

oh ohh.

BRITISH CITIZENS GETTING JIHAD TRAINING IN SYRIA ARE RETURNING HOME, SENIOR OFFICIAL WARNS
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10 ... ial-warns/

-------
Syrian rebels recruit child soldiers

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_0 ... iers-9983/

meanwhile, the use of child soldiers & being able to hire adolescents as cannon fodder has always been a wet dream and salivating prospect for the war-mongers represented by Kerry, McCain, Al-Ciaeda Riyadh, & Al-Ciaeda Virginia. The kids have very little sense of their own mortality and are ideal expendable troops. What held the turds back was they would not be able to sell it to the parents of the cannon fodder.

But, being scum, and staying true to their roots these parasites figured out a new angle. i.e. brainwash destitute children in other countries to be your war criminals without conscience. Doesn't one see this regularly with the Afghan Taliban using Children in beheading etc, to score a point that even a little nob from our side can do all this to you. All the psycho manipulation can be used and one doesn't get domestic parental resistance. But it's not that perfect since unlike the American youth brainwashed from childhood by subtle messages on television on how the turd-worlders are out to take their bread and muslims are jealous of our freedoms, and when served with their 'just desserts' in some foreign theatre, their folks make a hue and cry but unlike when "homeboys" get their just desserts, nobody in the USA or EU will care about some muslim kids used that way. The western media only presents these victims as victims of "Assad war crimes", not as the exploited assets of Neocon or US deep state agenda, it's a no holds barred way of conducting warfare where anything goes, and all sense of humanity is dead ...

[Garooda]

Awwwww..what a heartbreaker for the Pukis

Gulf states to introduce medical testing on travellers to 'detect' gay people and stop them from entering the country
Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE already outlaw homosexuality, but are toughening their controversial stance

Kuwait's director of public health says 'gays will be barred'.

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to 'detect' homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country – or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), according to a Kuwaiti government official. Kaisa testing? probe the puki piglet to see if he drools, wiggles his musharraf with a smile of joy?

GCC member countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – already deem homosexual acts unlawful.

This controversial stance is being toughened, according to Yousouf Mindkar, the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry.

Kuwait: The Gulf state is said to be developing a test that willl 'detect' gay people
He told Kuwait newspaper Al Rai: ‘Health centres conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries. However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.’

Those taking part in homosexual acts in Kuwait, if they’re under 21, can receive a jail sentence of up to 10 years.
Earlier this month Oman newspaper The Week was suspended over an article that was deemed to be sympathetic to homosexuals, according to the BBC.

It’s illegal to be gay in 78 countries, with lesbianism banned in 49. Five countries mete out the death penalty to gay people – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Mauritania.

WHERE HOMOSEXUALITY IS PUNISHED BY DEATH

Iran: Since 1979, the government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. A non-adult who engages in consensual sodomy is subject to a punishment of 74 lashes.

Saudi Arabia: Although the maximum punishment for homosexuality is execution, the government tends to use other punishments - such as fines, prison sentences, and whipping - unless it feels that homosexuals have challenged state authority by engaging in social movements.

Sudan: For homosexual men, lashes are given for the first offence, with the death penalty following the third offence. 100 lashes are given to unmarried women who engage in homosexual acts.For lesbian women, stoning and thousands of lashes are the penalty for the first offence. Today, the issue has divided some religious communities. In 2006, Abraham Mayom Athiaan, a bishop in South Sudan, led a split from the Episcopal Church of Sudan for what he regarded as a failure by the church leadership to condemn homosexuality sufficiently strongly.

Yemen: Homosexuality is still illegal in Yemen in accordance to the country's Shari'ah legal system. Punishment ranges from flogging to death.

Mauritania: The Shari'a law applies in Mauritania. The penal code states that, since 1983,any adult Muslim caught engaging in an 'unnatural act' with a member of the same sex is punishable with the death sentence by public stoning.

[Garooda]

Connecting Syria's allies and enemies - Interractive

[harbans]

[habal]

Syrian Army rolls towards Aleppo after clearing out Aleppo- Khan Al-Asar highway.

[habal]

Angry birds: Syria
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ba_1381005035

Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh's Nephew killed in Syria
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=295_1381273472
{do people see the pattern here, all those countries which were rocked by 'Arab Spring' have contributed to Syrian war effort}

Erdoğan Surrenders Border Crossing to Terrorists
The AKP government have given in to the threats of terrorist groups operating from Syria and reopened border checkpoints, allowing for further support to flow from Turkey into the war torn country.

After the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam border checkpoints on the Syrian side of the Syria-Turkey border fell into the hands of al-Qaeda affiliate terrorist forces, Turkish officials ordered the closure of the Cilvegözlü and Öncüpınar border checkpoints on the Turkish side. However, a threatening letter from the ISIS terrorists to the Turkish government has resulted in the reopening of the checkpoints, and a resumption of the flow of support to terrorist groups fighting in Syria.

The letter, sent by the radical Islamist extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), one of the main Islamist terrorist group fighting in Syria, issued a perilous threat directed at the Turkish authorities. ISIS, a group with very strong links to al-Qaeda, had been active in Iraq prior to joining the fight against the Syrian government forces.

The message carries that “The lions of ISIS are ready to spread the message of goodness in Muslim lands to the Turkish people and purify its land from infidels.” According to the message, the terrorists demanded that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan open the Syrian border gates of the country by next Monday (7 October). In the same letter, the group claim responsibility for the massive bombing in Reyhanlı, and promise more similar massacres in Turkey if their demands are not met.

http://www.dailyhy.net/erdogan-surrende ... s-510h.htm

BBC CAUGHT STAGING CHEMICAL WEAPONS PROPAGANDA ?

Former uk ambassador Craig Murry calls it a "stunning bit of fakery "

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=002_1381167347

[Multatuli]

Turkey's Erdogan: A Smart Man With Jews on the Brain

By Jeffrey Goldberg Aug 22, 2013

I'll post the full text, because some of posters may find it enlightening.

It's time to call Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan what he is: a semi-unhinged bigot.
Optimists have argued, these past few years, that Erdogan's anger at Israel was motivated by a genuine sense of grievance over the notorious 2010 flotilla incident. The flotilla, you'll recall, was a project of pro-Hamas Turkish activists that was meant to break what they termed an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel's attempt to stop the flotilla ended in the deaths of eight Turks and one Turkish-American.

The Turks demanded, among other things, that Israel apologize for its handling of the affair. Israel resisted for three years, saying that its soldiers were attacked by the Turkish activists when they boarded the ship, and that Israel had the legal right to stop the flotilla from approaching its waters. Nevertheless, the Israeli response was horribly botched, and this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaxed and cajoled by President Barack Obama, picked up the phone (with Obama sitting right there with him) and apologized to Erdogan for the unnecessary deaths. This apology was supposed to usher in a newer, quieter era in Turkish-Israeli relations.
Except that Erdogan has Jews on the brain, and once you get Jews on the brain it's hard to get them off. So the other day, in talking about the strife in Egypt, he said: "What is said about Egypt? That democracy is not the ballot box. Who is behind this? Israel is. We have the evidence in our hands."

The evidence for the assertion that Israel was behind the violent suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood? Erdogan himself offered none, but an aide later said that the prime minister was referring to an Internet video Erdogan saw in which the current Israeli justice minister, Tzipi Livni, and the famous French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, were speaking at a news conference in 2011. In the video, BHL, as he is known, expressed opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood's ruling Egypt.

And that's it. The prosecution rests. A Jewish philosopher from France (albeit one with great clothes) says on television that he doesn't like the Muslim Brotherhood, and that's sufficient proof for Erdogan.

Now, if someone were to go on television in the U.S. and assert -- based on the aforementioned single piece of "evidence" -- that the Jewish state was behind the chaos in Egypt, well, that person would soon find himself with limited opportunities to offer further commentary (even on Al Jazeera, I assume). But we're talking about the prime minister of a major American military ally and the leader of a nation of more than 70 million people.

And this isn't the first time, of course. Just recently, Erdogan blamed widespread demonstrations against his government on the "interest-rate lobby," which is up there with "rootless cosmopolitans" and "dual loyalists" as an all-purpose euphemism for Jews. (His deputy, Besir Atalay, made it plain when he blamed the protests on "the Jewish Diaspora.")

Although not very good at making friends, either in Europe or in the Middle East, Erdogan is known as a very smart man. Yet anti-Semitism is making him stupid. As Walter Russell Mead of the American Interest magazine says, those who are burdened with anti-Semitism are unable to discern cause and effect relations in complex social settings. If I were an investor in Turkey, I'd keep this mind.

You see what I did there, right? A year from now, Erdogan -- if I'm lucky -- will cite this post to explain whatever affliction is afflicting Turkey at the moment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-2 ... brain.html

[habal]

Syrian convoy of 200 tanks on way to Qunaytra @ Golan Heights



Infantrymen of First Syrian Army Corps march on after cleansing Al-Husayniyya of rebels.


Operation underway in Eastern rural Aleppo which houses about 6800-7000 Jabhat Al-Nusra merceneries. Operation centred around Al-Safeera.

[pankajs]

Libyan PM Ali Zeidan kidnapped by armed men: Media reports

DUBAI: Armed men have kidnapped Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan from a hotel in Tripoli, two Arab television channels reported on Thursday.

[pankajs]

Turkey's Spymaster Plots Own Course on Syria

[Garooda]

Food as weapon?

MIAMI — Tarek El-Sawah is in terrible shape after 11 years as a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, a fact even the U.S. military does not dispute.

During his time in captivity, the weight of the 55-year-old Egyptian has nearly doubled, reaching more than 420 pounds at one point, and his health has deteriorated as a result, both his lawyers and government officials concede. No human rights violations...just overfeed him to death or ailment with fat, cholesterol laden GMO food. Its unkil's way if all else fails.

Lawyers for El-Sawah, and the doctors they have brought down to the U.S. base in Cuba to examine him, paint a dire picture — a morbidly obese man with diabetes and a range of other serious ailments. He is short of breath, barely able to walk 10 feet, unable to stay awake in meetings and faces the possibility of not making it out of prison alive.

"We are very afraid that he is at a high risk of death, that he could die at any moment," said Marine Lt. Col. Sean Gleason, a military lawyer appointed to represent him.

Details about the condition of El-Sawah, who has admitted being an al-Qaida explosives trainer but is no longer facing charges, are emerging in a series of recently filed court motions that provide a rare glimpse into the health of an unusual prisoner, and a preview of arguments that may become more common as the Guantanamo Bay prison ages into a second decade with no prospects for closure in sight.

He's not the only one of the 164 prisoners at Guantanamo who is seriously ill. Last week, a judge ordered the release of a schizophrenic Sudanese man who spent much of the past decade medicated in the prison psych ward. His lawyers argued he was so sick, with ailments that also included diabetes, that he couldn't possibly pose a threat and therefore the U.S. no longer had the authority to hold him. The judge's ruling came after the government withdrew its opposition to his release.

There's also a Pakistani prisoner, Saifullah Paracha, with a heart condition serious enough that the government brought a surgical team and a mobile cardiac lab to the U.S. base in Cuba to treat him, at a cost of $400,000. Waste of money IMO He ultimately refused the treatment because he didn't trust military medical personnel.

In addition, two prisoners have died from natural causes — one from a heart attack, the other from cancer. And several detainees have raised medical complaints related to their participation in a long-running hunger strike, which had dropped to 17 prisoners as of Monday from a peak of 106 in July.

"There are a whole slew of people with a whole slew of serious health problems," said Cori Crider, a lawyer for the British human rights group Reprieve who has been meeting with Guantanamo prisoners for years.

U.S. officials say Guantanamo prisoners get excellent medical care, saying proudly that it's equivalent to what troops receive. There are more than 100 doctors, nurses and other professionals treating "a constellation" of illnesses, said Navy Capt. Daryl Daniels, a physician and the chief medical officer for the detention center. He says none is in critical condition at the moment.

"They are an aging population and they are starting to show some signs of being an older group of people," Daniels said.

In August, lawyers for El-Sawah filed an emergency motion with a federal court in Washington asking a judge to order the military to provide what it calls "adequate" medical care, including additional tests for possible heart disease and a device to help him breathe because of a condition they say is preventing his brain from receiving enough oxygen.

The government insists he is getting good care at Guantanamo and just needs to exercise more and eat less "While (El-Sawah) is currently in poor health, his life is not in imminent danger," lawyers for the Justice Department wrote in response.

The judge hasn't ruled, but the request is secondary anyway. What El-Sawah and his lawyers want is for the U.S. to release him, preferably back home to Egypt. They argue in part that his health is too poor for him to pose any kind of threat. "It boggles the mind that they are putting up a fight on releasing him," Gleason said.

[habal]

And *finally* the west wakes up to the continuous episodes of human rights violations by vermin who call themselves 'rebels' in Syria.

i.e. only when they have a gun named Russia pointed to their head.

Please note that children were in all probability kidnapped from this village after killing adults and then administered lethal injection in Ghouta, videotaped and uploaded on youtube later as Chemical weapons attack by Assad. All courtesy Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and his rabid monkey force.

Syrian rebels killed 190 civilians in August dawn raid - HRW
* 190 men, women and children killed in rebel offensive - HRW

* Mass graves seen by Human Rights Watch researcher

* Western-backed rebels were involved in broader campaign

By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Syrian rebels killed at least 190 civilians and took more than 200 hostage during an offensive in Latakia province in August, Human Rights Watch said on Friday, in what it calls the first evidence of crimes against humanity by opposition forces.

HRW said many of the dead had been executed by militant groups, some linked to al Qaeda, who overran army positions at dawn on Aug. 4 and then moved into 10 villages nearby where members of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect lived.

In its first government-sanctioned trip into Syria during the 2-1/2-year conflict, New York-based HRW has documented a series of sectarian mass killings by Assad's foes during a broader campaign in which Western-backed rebels took part.

In some cases, entire families were executed or gunned down as they fled, according to a report titled "You Can Still See Their Blood".

HRW identified five rebel groups instrumental to funding, organising, planning and carrying out the Latakia attacks, including the al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant groups, as well as the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham and another unit of foreign jihadi fighters.

These groups publicised their involvement through videos and statements, some of which were used to corroborate the HRW report. The operation appeared to have been largely financed by private Gulf-based donors, HRW said.

[habal]

Israelis meanwhile just being Israeli.

Israeli air force practice long-range missions, before talks on Iranian nuclear program

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_1 ... ions-4738/

"Haaretz said the drill took place with the Greek air force.

Israel says that until Iran verifiably halts what the Jewish State and its US ally say is a covert nuclear arms programme, all options remain on the table, including a military strike.

For several years, Israel and the United States carried out military manoeuvres with Turkey, but in September 2011 Ankara expelled Israel's ambassador and suspended military cooperation with the Jewish state.

Once-warm ties reached a low point after Israeli commandos raided a Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla in the Mediterranean in May 2010, killing nine Turks on board.

Relations with traditionally pro-Arab Greece have been warming in the meantime, with Israel joining it in naval and air exercises."