Bharat Rakshak

nachiket wrote:Miskeen: Racism in Saud-Family "Occupied Arabia" Against Pakistanis, Indians, Bengladeshis, and Sri Lankans: Pakistan ThinkTank

Saudis, and Arabs for that matter, have an obsessive love for money, matched in our part of the world by the Pathan or the Sikh somewhat, if not fully.

Alex Thomson, chief correspondent for Channel 4 News said the incident happened on Monday in the Syrian town of Qusair, about half an hour's drive from the battered city of Homs.

Thomson said he, his driver, a translator, and two other journalists were trying to return to government lines when their rebel escort led them down what he described as a dead-end in the middle of a "free-fire zone".

"Suddenly four men in a black car beckon us to follow. We move out behind," he recalls.

"We are led another route. Led in fact, straight into a free-fire zone. Told by the Free Syrian Army to follow a road that was blocked off in the middle of no-man's-land.

"At that point there was the crack of a bullet and one of the slower three-point turns I've experienced. We screamed off into the nearest side-street for cover.
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"Another dead-end.

"There was no option but to drive back out onto the sniping ground and floor it back to the road we'd been led in on."

Thomson claimed that they were not led into no-man's-land by mistake.

"I'm quite clear the rebels deliberately set us up to be shot by the Syrian army," he wrote in a blog post on Channel 4's website

He said that their deaths at the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's forces would have drawn sympathy to the rebel cause. "Dead journos are bad for Damascus," he said.

Thomson said he and his colleagues eventually managed to get back to the government side. He has since left Syria.

His account was not possible to verify amid the chaos gripping Syria, but he insisted that there was no other explanation for what happened.

"They said: 'Go left.' Road was totally blocked 50 yards ahead. They had to have known."

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists calls Syria "the most dangerous place for journalists in the world," saying that it has recorded the deaths of nine local and international reporters there since November.

The Hashemite regime in Jordan has kept Israel's eastern border secure for over four decades, and has proven itself a comfortable partner with Israel on the Palestinian issue.

Nonetheless, the Hashemite regime is not necessarily immune to the Arab Spring. If it were to be deposed, who might succeed the regime, and can Israel be prepared for the outcome? The regime in Jordan is not perfect. It has refused to integrate its Palestinian majority, telling them they are merely refugees who should return to Palestine, and it is also is an autocratic regime that strips the majority of its citizens of their civil rights.

Nevertheless, Jordan has proven one virtue: It has kept Israel's longest borders safe and virtually worry-free for over four decades. Furthermore, it has been integrating a high-level cooperation on intelligence, counter-terrorism efforts and crime prevention with both the US and Israel.

Therefore, it is safe to say that the best arrangement Israel can ever possibly find along its borders is the current one, where the Hashemite family rules Jordan.

Nonetheless, the Arab Spring has proven that the strongest of dictators can fall to peaceful protests, and Jordan may not necessarily by an exception.

While the protests in Jordan have been quieter than those in other Arab countries, nonetheless they are regular and the protesters are constantly upping the ante, to the point where there have been open calls for toppling the king.

Should the king of Jordan be toppled, Israel will face limited options as to his successor. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is dominated by Beduin Jordanians, not Palestinians, and yes, the Palestinian voting record in parliamentary elections shows they have been voting Brotherhood members out of office, to the point of electing none of them in 2010. Nevertheless, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized, well-financed and regionally-connected political organization in Jordan.

Common sense, then, indicates they will dominate the elections or at least have the strongest part in the new Jordanian government, just as was the case in Egypt, Tunisia and possibly soon Libya.

The Obama administration's attitude toward the Brotherhood isn't helpful, either. In fact, cables exposed by WikiLeaks show the US Embassy in Amman has been in touch with the Muslim Brotherhood.

BUT THERE is another strong contender: the PLO. The PLO is well integrated in Jordan; and is more accepted than the Muslim Brotherhood, especially are refugee camps. The PLO has the resources to dominate the public vote of a future democratic Jordan, but will that be good for Israel? The organization, which already dominated the Palestinian Authority, has been a thorn in Israel's side for almost two decades now, dragging it into painful negotiations that usually end up with Israel being asked to give more land for nothing in return.

Should the PLO take control of Jordan it will be in a much stronger position to hurt Israel politically and militarily. It is true that the PA under chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been able to bring terrorism under control in its territories, but on the political level Abbas and the PA have been harassing Israel ceaselessly.

Examples include Abbas's unilateral bid for UN Security Council recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign state, a breach of the Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Another scenario is that the Beduin take control of the country. This is a possibility today as the anti-regime/proreform protests have been driven by them, and they make up the regime's army and security agencies, which protect the king.

The Beduin have a history of tribal unrest and in-fighting, and furthermore they have been heavily radicalized. For example terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a Jordanian Beduin. Such a situation would create havoc and tribal unrest in Jordan, and the Beduin are likely to be hostile to both the Palestinians in Jordan and to Israel.

THERE IS, though, a more positive opposition to the king. There are moderate opposition movements in Jordan, mostly dominated by Palestinians as well as moderate "native" Jordanians, that are quite active in the peaceful protests and political arena.

In fact, the major Jordanian opposition movement, the March 24 movement, and the Tafilah Movement (in the south) are at disagreement with the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, the secular movements in Jordan lack funding and receive little media coverage, as major Arab media such as Al Jazeera seem to focus only on the Islamist opposition. Therefore, they are less likely to dominate any future democratic elections in Jordan if the king falls.

So what is to be done? Should the world simply sit back and wait to see if a situation identical to Egypt or Tunisia unfolds in Jordan? Firstly, it would be very wise of Israel not to meddle in the current Jordanian affair, as it might end up being blamed by Arabs, Jordanian and Palestinians alike over whatever the outcome might be.

Israel should consider a careful "just in case" Plan B for Jordan that will secure the arrival of non-hostile forces to rule Jordan in case the king falls. Such a Plan B must be thought of like an extra gas tank - you only use when you run out of gas.

Israel and pro-Israel forces across the world must think up ways to mitigate the damage should the Hashemite regime fall, and possibly find workable back-up plans to support the secular Palestinians' and moderate Jordanians' bid for power.

Such a plan should be carefully examined and prepared, then quietly executed if a need for it arises, and never before that.

By Richard Spencer, Peter Foster
11 Jun 2012

US State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland voiced "deep alarm" for the fate of Haffa, scene of some of the fiercest fighting yet seen in the conflict, amid reports that government tanks and heavy artillery had surrounded the town.

Kofi Annan, author of the now collapsed United Nations-sponsored peace deal, had earlier told how helicopters had strafed rebel positions in Haffa following days of heavy fighting there.

"The United States joins joint special envoy Kofi Annan in expressing deep alarm by reports from inside Syria that the regime may be organiSing another massacre," Miss Nuland said.

"We remind Syrian commanders of one of the lessons from Bosnia: The international community can and does learn what units were responsible for crimes against humanity and you will be held responsible for your actions."

Syria has already experienced two major massacres recently, with 55 people killed last week in al-Qubeir and at least 108, about half of them children, killed in Houla on May 25.

In Haffa, more than 20 soldiers were reported to have been killed by rebels on a single day last week, and 58 altogether in recent days. Video posted online showed the shrouded bodies of ten children aged up to 13 who were killed in a bombardment on Saturday. The footage showed their mothers weeping over them.

Opposition activists in the town of Rastan, which has successfully resisted a government siege for a month, also came under close fire from three gunships yesterday, followed by a heavy bombardment from artillery shells.

Meanwhile the city Homs, at the heart of the rebellion against the Assad regime, was bombarded by concentrated artillery fire as government forces moved to crush the increasingly confident resistance movement.

Last night, Mr Annan warned that a "large number" of innocent civilians were now trapped by the violence and that he was "gravely concerned" by the "escalation of fighting" between the two sides.

"There are indications that a large number of civilians are trapped in these towns," his spokesman, Ahmed Fawzi, said. "The special envoy demands that the parties take all steps to ensure that civilians are not harmed, and further demands that entry of the UN Military Observers be allowed to the town of Haffa immediately."

In a House of Commons statement on the crisis yesterday, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, accused the Syrian regime of carrying out "savage" and "grotesque" crimes against its people. He said the behaviour of the Assad regime was "morally reprehensible" and that the Syrian people had endured "fifteen months of fear and suffering".

The Foreign Secretary told MPs that 87,000 people had fled to neighbouring countries, 15,000 had been killed and thousands of political prisoners imprisoned during the uprising.

"Each day reports emerge of savage crimes," he said. "The Syrian military are surrounding and bombarding towns with heavy weaponry, and then unleashing militia groups to terrorise and murder civilians in their homes. These deliberate military tactics are horrifyingly reminiscent of the Balkans in the 1990s."

Mr Hague said that Britain was training activists who were monitoring and recording atrocities, including that in Houla last month in which 108 men, women and children were killed.

He also said there was evidence that groups linked to Al-Qaeda had committed acts of violence to "exacerbate the situation".

"We will not rule out any other option which could at any stage stop the bloodshed," he added.

The level of violence in Syria has now returned to that seen before the announcement of a ceasefire in April. Yesterday (Mon), the Syrian Network for Human Rights reported 58 deaths across the country, the majority in Idlib province in the north where the rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan has been under regime attack for several days.

The town of Rastan, which has not figured prominently in news reporting, has just managed to hold out against government forces. Yesterday however, an activist, Walid Mohammed Abeid, told The Daily Telegraph that its situation was now desperate. "All our houses are destroyed by the bombing, from the air and heavy guns and cannon," he said. "We ask everyone outside to look in their hearts and help us, please, please, please. We are being killed every day."

A spokesman said that in Qusair, between Homs and the Lebanese border, government snipers had shot dead a priest, named as Atallah Ibrahim Bitar.

Fr Atallah had donned his clerical robes while taking food to people hiding from a week-long regime bombardment of the town, much of which is in rebel hands, thinking that he would be protected.

Qusair has a significant Christian minority, and the town's rebel council was swift to deny a report by a Vatican news agency that Christians had been ordered to leave by Islamist elements in the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Most of the town, of both religions, had already fled the fighting in any case, it said in a statement.

In another scene strongly indicative of an outright civil war, rebels captured a battery of missiles near the city of Hama and claimed to have briefly targeted them on the presidential palace in Damascus. They were then forced to flee by an intense counter-attack.

When a group of Libyan fighters passed through Kafer Zaita a few days ago en route to Damascus, they were peppered with questions by rebels eager to find ways to fight the better-equipped army forces. One of the Libyans suggested soaking blankets in diesel fuel and leaving them in the streets: "When a tank rolls over it, set it on fire, with an RPG" (rocket-propelled grenade) "or a Molotov cocktail. It won't destroy the tank, but it gets so hot that the soldiers have to get out." The Syrians listened in rapt attention.

Theo_Fidel wrote:Assad is doomed. If I'm correct this has to be the Misrata crowd. This is the group that annihilated the 2,500 man strong Khamis brigade and essentially ended the Libyan battle at that point though Gaddafi did not know it yet. IIRC just under 20 soldiers escaped. If they are now in Syria Assad does not stand a chance. The key should have been to prevent the Libyan crowd from getting in under any circumstance.

A series of bomb attacks across Iraq have left at least 73 people dead and over 200 injured, say Iraqi police. Multiple explosions in Baghdad targeted a Shia Muslim procession in the latest escalation of sectarian violence in the country.

Most of the 16 separate explosions that rocked the country targeted Shia pilgrims in five cities, but two hit offices of political parties linked to Iraq's Kurdish minority in the tense north.

The first bomb struck a procession at around 5am local time in the town of Taji, north of Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding two others, say the reports compiled by police and health officials in the targeted areas.

In Baghdad itself four more morning bombings targeted a Shia Muslim festival, causing 25 deaths and over 70 casualties. Pilgrims had gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Shia Imam Moussa al-Kadhim.

Twin bomb blasts hit near a restaurant in the southern city of Hilla, killing 21 people and injuring 53, say local police.

Other explosions rocked more towns around Baghdad and in the north of the country, with one of blasts apparently targeting the headquarters of Kurdish President Massoud Barzani.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has released a statement saying security would be stepped up across Baghdad as more violence is expected.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. But the bombings seem to be the work of Sunni insurgents who often hit Shia targets trying to reignite the intercommunal violence that killed tens of thousands of people in 2006-2007.

Recently attacks against Shia Muslims have intensified.

The latest spate of violence erupted on Sunday when a mortar attack on a religious shrine killed four people in the capital.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the US of supplying weapons to Syria's opposition forces, a day after Washington said Moscow was sending to "attack helicopters" to aid Damascus.

Lavrov told a news conference during a brief visit to Iran on Wednesday that Russia was supplying "anti-air defence systems" to Damascus in a deal that "in no way violates international laws".

"That contrasts with what the United States is doing with the opposition, which is providing arms to the Syrian opposition which are being used against the Syrian government," he said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that she had information Russia was sending to Syria "attack helicopters... which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically".

It was the first time Moscow has directly pointed the finger at Washington. Previously, it had said unidentified "foreign powers" were arming Syria's opposition.

By JAY SOLOMON And NOUR MALAS

WASHINGTON—U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to senior U.S. officials.

As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training.

U.S. officials also are considering sharing intelligence with the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, to allow the rebels to evade pro-Assad forces, which are believed to be getting intelligence, arms and communications support from Russia and Iran, the officials said. Iran it denies it is involved in Syria; Russia says the arms it sells Syria aren't used in the crackdown.

Details of the deepening U.S. involvement comes as many international and local observers say Syria's deadly 15-month conflict has reached new lows. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that "the situation is spiraling toward civil war."

The CIA's heightened role is seen by some as a sign of growing U.S. seriousness about the military effort against the Assad government. U.S. officials also think that added pressure could force the regime to agree to a cease-fire.

The U.S. in many ways is acting in Syria through proxies, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, say U.S. and Arab officials. Saudi Arabia is particularly fixated on overthrowing Mr. Assad, said Arab officials, viewing it as a way to settle scores with an arch foe and weaken its chief regional rival Iran.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing the funds for arms, Arab officials and Syrian opposition leaders say. The Obama administration hasn't agreed to arm the FSA, the U.S. officials stressed. Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday denied charges by Syria and others that the U.S. has armed the rebels.

The U.S.'s stepped-up links with the FSA are also part of an effort to gain a better understanding of the rebels' capabilities and of the identities and allegiances of fighters spread in disparate groups across the country, the U.S. officials said. The U.S. officials remain wary of some rebels' suspected ties to hard-line Islamists, including elements of al Qaeda. They acknowledge the FSA doesn't represent all parts of the insurgency against the Assad regime.

But the administration hopes that their growing contacts will result in a more-organized fighting force that will shed more-troublesome associations.

"Some of [this communication] is dedicated to figuring out who these people are by talking to them," said a U.S. official briefed on Syria. "We're not going to give out weapons and comms to people who can't figure out how their chain of command works."

The U.S. operatives are drawing on their experience in Libya, and are conveying the message that the FSA needs to professionalize its ranks and better organize itself to receive further assistance, the official said.

"Recognizing that the phenomenon is not going to go away, we want it to have a command and control structure, and be responsive to civilian leadership at the local level," said a Western official who has worked with the Syrian opposition.

The U.S. has had diplomatic contacts with Syrian dissidents for more than six months. The CIA and State Department began stepping up contacts with the FSA around March, according to U.S. officials and Syrian opposition groups, due in part to the rising concerns about the presence of extremist groups, especially after twin bombings in Damascus that month.

In April, Mrs. Clinton said publicly that the State Department would begin providing communications equipment to the Syrian National Council, the umbrella group that brings together Syria's main political opposition. Privately, American officials have acknowledged that much of this gear will end up with the FSA.

The State Department and CIA declined to comment.

U.S. defense officials and Syria analysts believe the FSA has grown into an increasingly sophisticated fighting force in recent months, after getting routed in the central Syrian city of Homs in February.

The flow of ammunition has increased to the FSA through Syria's northern border with Turkey, they said. And the FSA's internal command structure appears more organized and able to communicate to a sprawling mix of insurgent groups operating across the country.

The rebels have obtained increasingly lethal roadside bombs in recent months, as well as anti-tank rockets, say rebels and U.S. officials.

This week, Syrian rebels began to say publicly they are able to intercept government military communications. Rebel commanders also say new, secure communications between their ranks have allowed them to organize larger defections.

On Sunday, rebels said they had briefly overtaken an air-defense base that held advanced surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft vehicles. The FSA's operation to target the al-Ghanto missile base north of Homs is outlined in a series of videos posted on YouTube said to have been shot by rebels.

In the videos, commanders describe the orchestrated defection of soldiers and officers at the base, as well the swift regime attack that followed. It appeared to leave the area around the base on fire and destroy the arsenal of weapons and ammunition, said rebel officers involved in the alleged operation.

In one video, an officer says the missile base was completely destroyed in bombing by government helicopters after rebels there seized some weapons and ammunition. It isn't clear what weaponry they may have made away with, but the reported incident illustrates a growing boldness among rebel fighters in attempting larger-scale operations.

"In the past two months, the rebels have shown renewed vigor.…They are pressing the regime on a lot of areas," said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The FSA is stretching the regime's capabilities."

U.S. and Arab officials believe Mr. Assad is increasingly losing control of the Syrian countryside, even though he maintains power in cities like Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia. On Wednesday, the government said it regained control of Haffa, a rebellious city perched atop the mountainous Latakia coast, a government stronghold.

The president is also seen losing his ability to control supply routes connecting his forces to northern Syria and the coast.

"There's a stalemate in which the government controls key major cities. But once you get off the main highway, the rebels basically own it," said Joseph Holliday, an analyst at Washington's Institute for the Study of War.

The political resurgence of the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and only opposition group with experience in fighting the Assad regime, has also raised concerns in Washington that the loosely connected Syrian militias will pursue a bloody, chaotic and ultimately unsuccessful insurgency like the one the Brotherhood led in the 1980s.

To reassert influence, Syria's Brotherhood, a large faction in the opposition Syrian National Council, has bypassed its parent coalition and created its own military bureau to funnel funds and arms to fighters in Homs and parts of Hama.

Some of these fighters, desperate for support, say they are halfheartedly pledging political allegiance to the Brotherhood—a short-term promise they say they intend to later betray. Already, rebel fighters say rival militias have fought each other—and other unidentified fighters—in hourslong battles in Homs and Idlib.

In recent weeks, rebel fighters have responded to international calls to better centralize command of the fight. They have created nine military councils at the level of Syria's provinces led by appointed army defectors—rather than civilian fighters—that command smaller brigades. It is too soon to tell how such efforts will play out, with over 100 fighting groups spread across the country.

The growing instability in Syria is feeding a growing debate inside the Obama administration and allied governments about the potential need to intervene to stop the bloodletting inside Syria.

Washington is against taking military action in Syria without a formal mandate from the United Nations Security Council, something Russia and China have so far opposed. There is increasing talk of establishing buffer zones on Syria's borders with Turkey and Jordan to protect civilians from Mr. Assad's forces. Allies also have discussed providing greater security for U.N. monitors operating inside Syria.

These discussions come as senior American, Israeli and Arab officials have said in recent weeks that they are growing increasingly worried that Syria is degenerating into a failed state and that violence inside the country could spill into Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

In a worst-case scenario, these officials said, the country could split into zones: with Mr. Assad and his closest allies—Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—maintaining control of Syria's northwest. Sunni extremists and Islamist fundamentalist groups, such as al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, could control other regions, while Kurdish groups would maintain their own areas.

Further feeding fears is the potential for Syria's large stockpile of chemical weapons to fall into the hands of Hezbollah or al Qaeda, as Mr. Assad's forces are no longer are able to secure arms depots. Such a threat, combined with the spreading violence, is causing some U.S. and allied officials to conclude that an intervention into Syria is inevitable at some juncture.

"Syria has the potential to be totally fragmented," said a senior Israeli official. "It has the potential to be the new model of Iraq. It will project into the whole region."

By MARK LANDLER and NEIL MacFARQUHAR

WASHINGTON — With evidence that powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters, the bloody uprising in Syria has thrust the Obama administration into an increasingly difficult position as the conflict shows signs of mutating into a full-fledged civil war.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Tuesday that the United States believed that Russia was shipping attack helicopters to Syria that President Bashar al-Assad could use to escalate his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. Her comments reflected rising frustration with Russia, which has continued to supply weapons to its major Middle Eastern ally despite an international outcry over the government’s brutal crackdown.

“We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria,” Mrs. Clinton said at an appearance with President Shimon Peres of Israel. “They have, from time to time, said that we shouldn’t worry; everything they’re shipping is unrelated to their actions internally. That’s patently untrue.”

Russia insists that it provides Damascus only with weapons that can be used in self-defense.

As fighting intensified across Syria, there were reports that government forces were using helicopters to fire on a rebel-held enclave in the northwestern part of the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, reported that more than 60 people had been killed in the fighting, one-third of them government soldiers, while the United Nations released a report saying that Syrians as young as 8 had been deployed by government soldiers and pro-government militia members as human shields.

The fierce government assaults from the air are partly a response to improved tactics and weaponry among the opposition forces, which have recently received more powerful antitank missiles from Turkey, with the financial support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to members of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, and other activists.

The United States, these activists said, was consulted about these weapons transfers. Officials in Washington said the United States did not take part in arms shipments to the rebels, though they recognized that Syria’s neighbors would do so, and that it was important to ensure that weapons did not end up in the hands of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

The increased ferocity of the attacks and the more lethal weapons on both sides threatened to overwhelm diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, continued to pressure Damascus to halt the violence and to respect a cease-fire. But Mrs. Clinton said that if Mr. Assad did not stop the violence by mid-July, the United Nations would have little choice but to end its observer mission in the country.

Mrs. Clinton, State Department officials said, continues to push for a “managed transition,” under which Mr. Assad would step aside. Russia’s role is viewed as critical, however, and Mrs. Clinton’s claims about helicopter shipments are certain to increase tensions with Moscow less than a week before President Obama is scheduled to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin at a summit meeting in Mexico.

Administration officials declined to give details about the helicopters, saying the information was classified. But Pentagon sources suggested that Mrs. Clinton, in her remarks at a Brookings Institution event, was referring to a Russian-made attack helicopter that Syria already owns but has not yet deployed to crack down on opposition forces. While these helicopters, known as Mi-24s, are flown by Syrian pilots, Russia supplies spare parts and provides maintenance for them.

A Pentagon spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, said the precise status of the helicopters was not as important as the violence being directed against opponents of the Syrian government. “The focus really needs to be more on what the Assad regime is doing to its own people than the cabinets and the closets to which they turn to pull stuff out.” Captain Kirby said. “It’s really about what they’re doing with what they’ve got in their hand.”

The use of helicopters is contributing to a growing sense that, as Hervé Ladsous, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations, put it, the fighting could be characterized as a civil war.

“The government of Syria lost some large chunks of territories and several cities to the opposition and wants to retake control of these areas,” Mr. Ladsous said at the United Nations. “So now we have confirmed reports not only of the use of tanks and artillery, but also attack helicopters.”

Opposition leaders are wary of the term civil war because it suggests that the conflict is somehow an even match.

“Civil war will not come suddenly in one day or two or five, but you have to look how things are gradually changing on the ground,” said Samir Nachar, a member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council. “Can you say to people, ‘Don’t defend yourselves?’ It is impossible.”

Council members on Tuesday were also wary of reading too much into Mrs. Clinton’s claim, suggesting that it was an open secret for months that the Russians were supplying weapons to Syria. There have been repeated reports of Russian armament ships docking in Syria, although Moscow has always denied that they were carrying the arms used to suppress the protests.

Speaking in Istanbul, council members also described efforts to supply the opposition with arms, specifically antitank weaponry delivered by Turkish Army vehicles to the Syrian border, where it was then transferred to smugglers who took it into Syria.

Turkey has repeatedly denied that it is giving anything other than humanitarian aid to the opposition, mostly at refugee camps near the border. It has recently made those camps harder to visit: permission was not granted to two reporters in the vicinity for five days last week. Turkey did not act alone, but with financial support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia and after consultation with the United States, said these officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the subject’s diplomatic delicacy.

The more powerful weapons have been delivered as far south as the suburbs of Damascus, but not into Damascus itself, they said. The presence of the antitank missiles seems to have made government forces hesitant to move their tanks around urban centers, according to sources in the Syrian National Council.

But they have done nothing to stem the violence. On Tuesday, a team of United Nations cease-fire monitors retreated before reaching Al Heffa in the northwest, when hostile crowds struck their vehicles with stones and metal rods, said a spokeswoman, Sausan Ghosheh.

“The shelling has been continuous,” said Houran al-Hafawi, a member of the local coordination committee of Al Heffa. “The Syrian Army is throwing missiles and rockets from helicopter and rocket launchers from the eastern and western entrances.”

For the Pentagon, the debate over Russia’s rearming of Syria took an odd twist on Tuesday when Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, complained that the United States military was buying attack helicopters for Afghan security forces from the same Russian weapons company supplying the Assad government.

George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, defended the purchases of the Mi-17 helicopters from the Russian company, Rosoboronexport, as important to helping Afghanistan create a credible self-defense force, and said the issue was separate from the concern over arms shipments to Syria that were used by the government to kill civilians.

“It’s about equipping the Afghan air force with what they need to ensure that they have the capabilities from an air standpoint to defend themselves,” Mr. Little said.

Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Neil MacFarquhar from Beirut, Lebanon. Reporting was contributed by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt from Washington, Ellen Barry from Moscow, and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.

Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's highest court declared the parliament invalid Thursday, and the country's interim military rulers promptly declared full legislative authority, triggering a new level of chaos and confusion in the country's leadership.

The Supreme Constitutional Court found that all articles making up the law that regulated parliamentary elections are invalid, said Showee Elsayed, a constitutional lawyer.

The ruling means that parliament must be dissolved, state TV reported.

Parliament had been in session for just over four months. It was dominated by Islamists, a group long viewed with suspicion by the military.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in control of the country since Mubarak's ouster, announced that it now has full legislative power and will announce a 100-person assembly that will write the country's new constitution by Friday.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist party, said SCAF leaders were taking matters into their own hands "against any true democracy they spoke of."

"Egypt just witnessed the smoothest military coup," said Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, in a tweet after the high court's decisions Thursday. "We'd be outraged if we weren't so exhausted."

Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, said the court rulings were the "worst possible outcome" for Egypt and that the transition to civilian rule was "effectively over."

"Egypt is entering into a very dangerous stage and I think a lot of people were caught by surprise," he said.

Syrian Christians are being used as human shields by the rebels in clashes with Assad’s Army. This is the accusation of Patriarch Gregory III Laham, the highest Catholic authority of Damascus, the Patriarch of Antioch, all of the East, Alexandria and Melkite Jerusalem. The Patriarch tells about nighttime kidnappings of the faithful of his diocese, with ransom payments of up to 200 thousand U.S. dollars, homes confiscated or blown up, and continuous incursions of armed Sunni Muslims in Catholic neighborhoods. During an interview with Ilsussidiario.net, Gregory III reveals the details of his last audience with Pope Benedict XVI, during which they spoke about the Syrian crisis. On the subject of the Houla massacre, he emphasizes: "That the government would do that is against logic. The artillery of the Army was outside the village, while the executions were perpetrated by someone inside".

A number of warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are prepared to go to Syria, the Russian General Staff told Itar-Tass on Friday.

“The Mediterranean Sea is a zone of the Black Sea Fleet responsibility. Hence, warships may go there in the case it is necessary to protect the Russian logistics base in Tartous, Syria,” it said.

“Several warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, including large landing ships with marines aboard, are fully prepared to go on the voyage,” he said.

The Cesar Kunikov large landing ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which is returning from Italian Messina to base, passed the Bosporus Strait on Friday. It will return to Sevastopol on Saturday, the staff said.

It strongly denied U.S. media reports claiming that a Black Sea Fleet warship had already headed for Tartous. “All the ships are staying in Sevastopol but the Cesar Kunikov large landing ship. Either the U.S. intelligence service works poorly or they have a poor knowledge of geography,” the source said.

The U.S. media said that Russia had sent a small group of servicemen to Syria for protecting the Tartous base. NBC said with the reference to a U.S. official that the servicemen were going to Tartous aboard a warship. The State Department spokesperson said she could not confirm the NBC report.

A group of Russian warships led by the Admiral Kuznetsov heavy aircraft carrying cruiser visited Tartous in January. The group visited the port for replenishing reserves and giving maintenance to ship systems.

Tartous is the only Russian naval base outside of the former Soviet territory – this is the logistics center serving Russian ships on missions in the Mediterranean Sea. The base opened in 1971 under an agreement with the Syrian government.

Syrian rebels have held meetings with senior US government officials in Washington as pressure mounts on the US to authorise a shipment of heavy weapons, including surface-to-air missiles to combat the Assad regime, the Daily Telegraph has learned.
US holds high-level talks with Syrian rebels seeking weapons in Washington
A Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon during clashes with Syrian troops near Idlib Photo: AP

By Peter Foster, and Ruth Sherlock in Washington

6:30PM BST 15 Jun 2012

A senior Free Syrian Army representative met in the past week at the US State Department with the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford and Frederick Hoff, special coordinator for the Middle East, sources have confirmed.

The rebel emissaries, armed with an iPad showing detailed plans on Google Earth identifying rebel positions and regime targets, have also met with senior members of the National Security Council, which advises President Obama on national security policy.

FSA representatives in Washington have compiled a "targeted list" of heavy weaponry, including anti-tank missiles and heavy machine guns that they plan to present to US government officials in the coming two weeks.

The consultations come ahead of next week's G20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico where British and US officials are expected to make a last-ditch attempt to get the Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene in the Syria crisis.

Privately, western diplomats admit they now harbour scant hopes of forcing a change of heart on Russia, which has steadfastly refused to bow to US and British pressure to do more to arrest Syria's slide into sectarian civil war.

While there remains little appetite for direct western military intervention, the Daily Telegraph has learned that advanced contingency plans are already in place to supply heavy weapons to the rebels, including sophisticated anti-tank weapons and surface to-air-missiles.

The move towards what was described as a "Libya lite" intervention in Syria is expected to gather force following the anticipated failure of the Annan peace plan and the meeting of the Syria Contact Group scheduled for June 30 in Geneva.

Senior Middle Eastern diplomatic sources said that Libyan-supplied weapons, paid for by Saudi Arabia and Qatari government funds and private donations, had already been stockpiled in anticipation of the "inevitable" intervention needed to end the Assad regime.

"The intervention will happen. It is not a question of 'if', but 'when'. The Libyans are willing to provide the anti-tank weapons, others are prepared to pay for it," the source said

He added, however, that Turkey would "not open the floodgates" of acting as a conduit for the arms without Nato and US-backing that would guarantee them support in the event of a Syrian backlash, possibly mobilising Syrian Kurdish groups against Turkey.

Middle Eastern diplomatic sources said that the Obama administration was fully aware of the preparations being made to arm Syrian opposition groups.

The US has also agreed to be part of a group of countries that coordinates assistance to the rebels, the sources said, but was still deliberating over the time frame for escalation.

The Obama administration, which campaigned on a promise to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been reluctant to give the greenlight to military intervention in Syria as they seek a second term from a war-weary electorate.

However proponents of arming the rebels are now arguing forcefully that US inaction leaves Mr Obama vulnerable to accusations from the Republican camp that he is 'leading from behind' at the cost of thousands of innocent Syrian lives – a charge that would stick if there was another massacre.

Those in Washington who are lobbying on behalf of the rebel Free Syrian Army are aware of the limited political impetus for intervention in an election year, and that any deal would most likely need to be struck before influential congressmen return to their districts for summer recess in July.

Reports that heavy anti-tank weapons had been smuggled into Syria this week were denied by FSA sources that said that the rebels were still armed only with RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades.

However the Daily Telegraph understands that the contacts between rebels groups and senior US government officials have now reached the "getting to know you stage" as the administration faces the growing likelihood it will have to sanction some kind of indirect intervention.

The US defence establishment is concerned that sophisticated weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants, or accelerate the cycle of sectarian revenge-killings, rather than bring about the swift demise of the Assad regime.

The FSA has long been seen as the name given to a collection of disparate militias. The movement has established a better command and control structure on the ground in recent months, setting up opposition military councils in ten Syrian cities and towns, including in the capital.

shyamd wrote:Crown PRINCE NAYEF HAS DIED. Saudi TV confirms. Likely successor is Defence minister prince salman - close with India. Nayef was very pro Pakistan.

shyamd wrote:^^ Russia will be forced to accept the will of the syrian people.

- Nudge to Delhi to toe line on Tehran
SUJAN DUTTA
An Indian Air Force plane with an Israeli Phalcon Airborne Warning And Control System mounted on it is one of the latest inductions into the Indian military

Jerusalem, May 23: Bombing Iran is better than an Iran with the Bomb, Israel is telling India, and has sent notice that time is running out despite sanctions and diplomacy.

“We do not speak about weeks (for decisive action) but we don’t speak of years as well,” Israel foreign ministry officials involved in talks with India told The Telegraph during a series of briefings requested by this newspaper.

An Israeli delegation is scheduled to visit New Delhi in June to gauge its views and push India to accept its assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Israel is also urging India to shut down a joint venture in which the public sector Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) holds 49 per cent of the shares. The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) owns 51 per cent in Irano Hind Shipping Company.

The joint venture operates six vessels from India that carry crude and bulk cargo.

Israel’s public insistence that India toe its line on Iran makes officials in South Block squirm. India depends on Iran for oil — though earlier this month minister of state for energy R.P.N. Singh said India was cutting imports from Iran by as much as 11 per cent. India has been Iran’s largest customer of oil.

New Delhi is also worried by the aggressive language over Iran because of the sensitivities of Muslims, particularly Shias.

Tehran will have enriched enough nuclear fuel to develop an atom bomb by the end of the year, the Israeli officials said, quoting from their own studies, reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Energy Commission (IEC).

Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz in Esfahan province and Fordow near the spiritual centre of Qom had enough centrifuges and enriched uranium to make it military-nuclear capable, Israel has assessed. Natanz is an older facility, while the complex at Fordow in the mountains is assessed to be inside underground bunkers.

Despite the Israel government’s aggressive language, there are voices within that caution against such posturing. Last week, the outgoing chief of the Israeli Air Force, Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, told The Jerusalem Post newspaper in an interview that public discourse on a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was “exaggerated and damaging”.

But yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “leading nations of the world must show force and clarity, and not weakness” in dealing with Iran.

Netanyahu referred to the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, who said: “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel.”

Earlier this month, Netanyahu (Likud party) brought the Opposition Kadima party into his coalition, giving Israel arguably its most powerful government ever. Ironically, Israel’s government is at its most powerful when all its Arab neighbours — chiefly Egypt and Syria — are dealing with their “Spring” well into two summers.

Caught in the sabre-rattling and the rhetoric, Indian diplomats are hoping that the best-case scenario will be a compromise between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council and the IAEA, which concluded talks in Baghdad earlier this week.

But Israel is convinced that India is navigating into a position that will at least allow it to look the other way if not see eye-to-eye in the event of missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“All options are on the table and the mixture of pressures includes a credible military threat but we see the windows of opportunity for diplomacy closing,” one Israeli official said, referring to a phrase used by US President Barack Obama.

The Israeli officials interpreted India’s pullout from the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) payment mechanism for trade with Iran and the decision to cut imports (announced during US energy envoy Carlos Pascual’s visit last week) as certain signs of New Delhi turning around.

India’s decision to cut oil imports from Iran also coincides with growing military imports from Israel. The one-way Israel-India military trade estimated at more than $10 billion is twice that of bilateral civilian trade.

Israeli officials warn that because Iran has a $9 million trade surplus with India, it could try to buy favour by ploughing some of that amount into investments in India. They are upset that India is also not seeking environmental insurance for ships transporting Iranian oil to it. Iran finds it increasingly difficult to get environmental insurance for its carriers because of sanctions by the European Union.

“I would not want to see India as a transhipment point,” an Israeli official who monitors the sanctions on Iran said. “I do not want to see Iran Air cargo jets offloading borderline technologies in India and put both the Indian government and the Indian private sector at risk. I would urge India to know its customers well,” he said.

“Toppling the (political) system of Iraq, not me, is their objective,” Maliki said in an interview with Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen satellite channel which was founded by journalists who left the al-Jazeera news channel.

The Iraqi premier noted that both Arab states are trying to topple his government through financing opposition groups, holding anti-government meetings and inducing that a “tribal system” is governing the country.

Maliki noted that major political posts in the country have been equally distributed between all Iraqi ethnic and religious groups under the constitution.

"Look at your nations and see whether your people have the rights and privileges that Iraqi people have," Maliki asked the Qatari and Saudi authorities.

Both regimes in Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been charged by Baghdad over and over of supporting armed terrorists that target politicians and Shia pilgrims. This has been going on since the US invasion of the country back in 2003.

Austin wrote:I think the threat of bombing Iran over the period stretching many years has been so repetitive that it has almost gone boring.

It like the typical Saas Bahu serial which stretches for years with no end in sight.

Israel should simply bomb Iran and then declare about it.

Acharya wrote: Objective will be to create a region in which all areas from Levant, Israel to Af Pak will be accessible to western troops. Any nation opposing the western troops will be split or will go regime change.

RamaY wrote:Similarly the current orgasms over renewable energies and so on will still remain a dream even in 2040-50s.

Syria: fears for Homs as pro-Assad force surrounds city
A vast pro-government force was said to have surrounded Homs as the opposition warned that the withdrawal of UN observers from Syria's streets had paved the way for a massacre in the city.
By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent7:45PM BST 17 Jun 2012
The Syrian opposition called for the immediate deployment of armed international peacekeepers as residents said that rebel-held districts of Homs had been subjected the most sustained bombardment of the 15-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

"The army is systematically gutting neighbourhood by neighbourhood with artillery," said Mohammed al-Homsi, an activist from the city. "Since the observers stopped working yesterday we have seen a clear escalation."
The shelling appeared to be a prelude for a major assault on Homs, the most defiant of all Syria's cities and the scene of repeated clashes that have claimed thousands of lives.
Activists claimed that as many as 30,000 soldiers and members of the feared pro-regime militia, the Shabiha, had surrounded the city and were waiting to move in once the artillery barrage had softened resistance.
"Around 85 per cent of Homs is now under shelling or bombardment with mortar rounds and heavy machine guns," Abu Imad, one opposition campaigner, told the Reuters press agency.

"Dozens of wounded are without treatment because all the hospitals have fallen under the control of Shabiha. The dead are the lucky ones."
Homs witnessed one of the bloodiest battles of the uprising earlier this year when government forces drove rebels out of its Baba Amr district shortly before the deployment in April of 300 unarmed UN observers under a ceasefire plan brokered by Kofi Annan, the international envoy to Syria.
The presence of the monitors tempered the violence at first, but a series of civilian massacres blamed on the Shabiha has led to a major escalation the fighting which they have seemed powerless to stop.
After a growing number of incidents in which the monitors have themselves come under fire, the United Nations announced it was suspending the observer mission, dealing the most severe blow yet to international efforts to prevent Syria from descending into civil war.
Maj Gen Robert Mood, the head of the mission, blamed both sides for the suspension decision.
The decision will give renewed impetus to Western efforts to advance a new initiative that calls for an immediate political transition in Syria based on Mr Assad ceding power – a proposal strongly opposed by Russia.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said that the suspension of the observer mission "call[ed] into serious question the viability of the UN mission."
With 84 deaths reported across the country over the weekend, the opposition Syrian National Council criticised the suspension of the observer mission and demanded that the UN send a fully-fledged peacekeeping force in its stead.
Although most civilians have fled opposition districts of Homs, more than 1,000 families remain there, making immediate intervention imperative to save their lives, opposition groups said.

Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is a vicious dictatorship, willing to use the most ruthless and bloody tactics to retain power. The heart cannot but want to see his whole gang deposed and forced to answer for their murders – which is why it is so deeply, miserably depressing that the head must counsel caution. In this case, Moscow’s reluctance to sanction international intervention may prove wiser than the West’s moral outrage.

There have been some especially foolish claims that Moscow’s position reflects President Vladimir Putin’s personal affinity for Assad, but there is little evidence of any enthusiasm for him. Indeed, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explicitly noted that Russia “will only be happy” if “the Syrians agree between each other” that Assad must go.

To be sure, there is both selfinterest and pique in Moscow’s position. It has a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus and Damascus remains a steady buyer of Russian weapons. Perhaps more important is that Moscow feels duped over Libya. Having agreed to support a relatively limited UN resolution on protecting civilians, it saw the West and its Arab allies using that to launch a wider campaign to unseat Gaddafi.

Libya also highlights the more positive basis for Russian intransigence. In Gaddafi’s place is an unstable and uncertain government with little control over a myriad of tribal militias. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, Egypt and Tunisia, regime change has tended to breed instability, Islamic extremism and conflict.

There is no clear and legitimate alternative political force in Syria and the identity, ideology and intent of the rebel Free Syrian Army is unclear. Meanwhile, the Syrian military and security elite still appear relatively disciplined and united. Toppling Assad and his Alawite allies will not be easy – even with Western airpower.

Moscow’s concern is that intervention could accelerate and exacerbate a slide into civil war, creating a new cauldron of chaos right on Israel’s doorstep. Al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri sees Syria as a great opportunity, and is encouraging his fighters to infiltrate the country.

The United States has accused Russia of escalating the war by selling Assad helicopter gunships. These are actually old Syrian helicopters being returned after maintenance. Besides, the rebels are being armed by the Gulf States (including Bahrain – which killed almost 100 people cracking down on its own “Arab Spring”).

Caricaturing Moscow’s position, while supporting the rebels, does nothing to encourage the Kremlin to be more flexible. Russia is not so much a friend of Assad’s as worried about the “known unknown” that would follow his ouster. The Kremlin might well favor gradual reform, but there seems little scope for that now.

The irony is that Russia, with its network of advisers and technical personnel in the Syrian military and security apparatus, is well placed to create a reform coalition, and even encourage Assad to step into safe retirement if he won’t reform.

But fomenting civil war against Assad is not necessarily in the best interests of the Syrian people. It forces the elite to rally together, and raises the prospect of anarchy and sectarian and jihadist violence in its stead, something Moscow ironically seems to understand better than Washington.