Bharat Rakshak

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

MAARET AL-NUMAN, Syria — Syrian rebels blocked on Saturday army reinforcements advancing towards the town of Maaret al-Numan which has been under rebel control for nearly a week, an AFP journalist said.

In its bid to retake the town, strategically located in the northwest on the road from Turkey to the embattled city of Aleppo, the army used warplanes to bombard Maaret al-Numan, killing two civilians and destroying three homes.

Some 40 military vehicles, including 10 tanks, four-wheel-drive vehicles with mounted machineguns and buses full of troops were waiting some 10 kilometres (six miles) south of the town, rebel fighters told AFP.

The rebel Free Syrian Army seized control of Maaret al-Numan on Tuesday, pushing the army out into two military bases on its outskirts, and blocking the arrival of new reinforcements to Aleppo.

"The rebels tried again to storm the Wadi Deif army base (on Saturday)... when they were bombarded by a MiG fighter jet," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Rebels have also seized part of the road running through the town, which has slowed the army's attempt to advance.

Regime forces have been launching rockets daily from the two bases on the outskirts, focusing their fire mainly on an underground emergency field hospital.

On Saturday, army shelling injured 20 rebel fighters, the Observatory said.

Residents of villages surrounding Maaret al-Numan fled en masse because of the violence, according to the Britain-based watchdog.

Experts say the Syrian army has been worn down by an increase in the number of battlefronts and rebel attacks that have cut major supply routes and undermined the regime's military superiority.

The army relies mainly on its air supremacy to slow the progress of the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi visited Qatar in the past week to discuss the fate of 48 Iranians kidnapped by rebels in Syria, a deputy foreign minister said on Saturday, according to Iran's Fars news agency.

ramana wrote:Bi, In early 2000 I made a ppt slide deck on Arab Nationalism vs Islamist Fundamentalism for a BRF meet in NoCA. Will try ot find it and upload to slideshare.

I had gone thru the history of these two movements and found that West supports the latter and rejects the former. It was a eye opener for some of us then.

A famous Indian origin scholar in West used the thought process for his own studies. He is now a noted expert on the subject.

The new peace envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, is drawing up plans for a 3,000-strong peacekeeping force that could involve European troops in policing a future truce.

UN peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi Photo: AFP
By Colin Freeman 6:59PM BST 13 Oct 2012187 Comments
Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who took over as joint United Nations and Arab League peace envoy last month, has spent recent weeks quietly sounding out which countries would be willing to contribute soldiers.
Given the volatility of the conflict and the growing presence of Islamists on the rebel side, it is thought British and American forces would be unlikely to take part because of their past involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead, Mr Brahimi is thought to be looking at more nations that currently contribute to Unifil, the 15,000 strong mission set up to police Israel's borders with Lebanon. They alone are thought to have the infrastructure and on-the-ground knowledge that any peacekeeping operation would require.
Countries contributing to Unifil include Ireland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, one of which would be expected to play a leading role in the Syria peacekeeping force.
Yet the presence of any European on the ground in Syria - even from nations considered more "neutral" in the Arab world - would still represent a significant new Western military involvement in the Middle East. Experts fear they could be a magnet for attacks for both Islamists and regime loyalists.

Last week, following several days of cross-border shelling by the two countries' armies, Turkey intercepted a Syrian-bound passenger jet after claiming to have received reports it had Russian-made defence equipment on board.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the challenges facing Mr Brahimi's mission, Syrian human rights groups reported some of the heaviest on-the-ground fighting to date.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a rebel offensive that began in the north on Thursday had killed more than 130 soldiers in two days, and that another 250 were taken prisoner. The Syrian government, meanwhile, has been using ever more air power, hammering rebel units on the border with Lebanon.
Despite the escalating ferocity of the fighting, the British government has effectively ruled any direct military intervention in Syria for now, pointing out that unlike in Libya, there is no clear frontline, and that both sides are also backed by regional powers.

"The best way forward is engagement and diplomacy, coupled with pressure applied by sanctions," Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told The Sunday Telegraph. "Syria isn't Libya."

Mr Brahimi, 78, became envoy after the resignation in August of Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, whose initial peace plan earlier this year ended in complete failure. Since taking over, Mr Brahimi has deliberately sought to dampen expectations, warning that it might be "nearly impossible" for him to succeed.
Yet he is due to visit Syria soon to try to persuade Damascus to call a ceasefire, and diplomatic sources say his office has been exploring the peacekeeping option in a "very serious" manner.
Already he is understood to have ruled out the use of African troops, who he believes would not be adequately resourced, and troops from neighbouring Arab states, most of which are seen as supporting the rebels.
"Brahimi has asked for the lists of troop contributing countries, and has already ruled out a number of countries, which essentially leaves European troops," a source said. "He is looking at all options and not putting all his eggs in the peacekeeping basket, but all information points to him exploring the peacekeeping option in a very serious manner."
Mr Brahimi is also understood to have much more effort to cultivate opposition groups than Mr Annan did, in the hope of eventually getting them to the negotiating table.
At present, though, that seems a distant prospect. Earlier this year, rebels refused to take part in a ceasefire, saying that they did not trust the President Bashar-al Assad's regime to honour it. And since then, they become much more equal players on the battlefield, whetting their appetite to push for all-out victory rather than a truce that might elements of the Assad regime intact. Any peacekeeping force would also require a mandate from the UN Security Council, two of whose permanent members, Russian and China, have so far backed President Assad.
On Saturday, the Turkish prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, accused the council of inaction over Syria, saying it was repeating mistakes that led to massacres in the Balkans conflict in the 1990s.
"How sad that the United Nations is as helpless today as it was 20 years ago, when it watched the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people in the Balkans, Bosnia and Srebrenica," Mr Erdogan said.
In a swipe at Russian and China, he added "If we wait for one or two of the permanent members ... then the future of Syria will be in danger."
Ankara had been hopeful that it might be able to persuade Russia, which sold Syria $1 billion of arms last year, to soften its opposition to military intervention, including a no-fly zone.
But relations with Moscow have deteriorated after Turkey's forcing down last week of the passenger jet, which Russia insists was carrying only radar components. Yesterday, the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper said the components came from KBP, a state-controlled weapons manufacturer that makes radar-operated anti-aircraft artillery.
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is expected to discuss Syria with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, at a foreign ministers' dinner in Luxembourg tonight.
Elsewhere on Syria's battlefronts yesterday, government forces rained mortar fire down on the opposition-held Khalidiya neighbourhood of the city of Homs, while there was also fierce fighting near the city of Deraa, where the rebellion began 19 months ago with peaceful rallies.
Meanwhile, Syria's state news agency said Damascus was ready to accept a Russian proposal for a Syrian-Turkish joint security committee to try to stop cross-border flare-ups.

Iran could be planning to create a vast oil spill in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a top secret report obtained by Western intelligence officials. The aim of the operation is to both temporarily block the vital shipping channel and to force a suspension of Western sanctions.

Jafari's plan allegedly describes in detail how a massive environmental catastrophe could be created if, for example, the Iranians were to steer one of these supertankers onto a rock. During the 1991 Gulf War, then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had millions of barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf. The fishing industry in Gulf countries was shut down for months, and the ecological damage was felt for years to come. In 1994 and 1998, accidental oil spills threatened desalination plants in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, thereby imperiling fresh water supplies for the two countries.

According to the Pasdaran leadership, if there were a tanker disaster today, the International Compensation Fund for Oil Pollution Damage would have to step in financially. But a decontamination effort would only be possible with the technical assistance of Iranian authorities, which would require lifting the embargo, at least temporarily. Iranian oil companies, some owned by members of the Pasdaran, could even benefit from the cleanup program. Jafari's plan also foresees the Iranian people rallying around the government in such a situation, pushing Tehran's failing economic policy into the background.

The "Murky Water" sabotage plan is currently thought to be in the hands of religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He makes the final decisions.

By Suadad al-Salhy
BAGHDAD | Tue Oct 16, 2012 9:01am EDT
(Reuters) - Scores of Iraqi Shi'ite militants are fighting in Syria, often alongside President Bashar al-Assad's troops, and pledging loyalty to Iran's supreme Shi'ite religious leader, according to militia fighters and politicians in Iraq.

Iraqi Shi'ite militia involvement in Syria's conflict exposes how rapidly the crisis has spiraled into a proxy war between Assad's main ally Shi'ite Iran and the Sunni Arab Gulf states supporting mostly Sunni rebels fighting the president.

The conflict has already drawn in a stream of Sunni Islamist fighters from across the region attracted to the rebel cause, while on the other side Syrian rebels accuse Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah of supporting Assad's troops on the ground.

For Iraqi Shi'ites who follow Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the uprising in Syria threatens Shi'ite influence and Iraqis fighting there say they see a duty to help Assad because of their loyalty to the Islamic Republic's highest authority.

Among them are defectors and former fighters from anti-U.S. Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, the Iran-backed Badr group and Asaib al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah, militias who once waged a bloody war on American troops, Shi'ite militants and Iraqi politicians say.

Shi'ite politicians say militants fighting in Syria have no official sanction from their militia leadership or from Iraq's Shi'ite-led government which is caught in a delicate balancing act between its ally Tehran, and Western and Arab powers calling for Assad to go.

Some of the Iraqi militants are former Mehdi Army fighters who took refuge in Syria after 2007 when their group was crushed by Iraqi forces. Others, loyal to Khamenei as a religious authority, crossed over recently, fighters and Iraqi politicians say.

"We formed the Abu al-Fadhal al-Abbas brigade which includes 500 Iraqi, Syrian and some other nationalities," an Iraqi defector from the Mehdi Army who goes by the name of Abu Hajar told Reuters by satellite telephone from Syria.

"When the fighting erupted in our areas, we carried out some joint military operations side by side with the Syrian army to clean up areas seized by rebels," said Abu Hajar, who like others was a refugee in Syria before the conflict.

The brigade is named after Abu al-Fadhl al-Abbas, a brother of Imam Hussain Bin Ali, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Al-Abbas was killed with his brother more than 1,300 years ago, and since then has become a symbol of sacrifice for Shi'ite Islam.

Another Mehdi Army defector, Abu Mujahid, who recently returned from Syria to visit his family in the Iraqi city of Najaf said his group's mission in Syria was restricted to securing the famed Sayyida Zeinab Shi'ite shrine and its nearby Shi'ite neighborhoods.

But sometimes, he said, they carry out pre-emptive raids on Free Syrian Army rebel fighters, whenever they get information rebels will attack the shrine, offices of Shi'ite religious leaders, known as Marjaiya, and Shi'ite neighborhoods.

"Our mission is securing the shrine, the Shi'ite areas and the Marjaiya offices," Abu Mujahid said. "We have no clear battlefield, but, from time to time, we carry out raids with the army on the sites of the Free Syrian Army."

MATYRS AND TORTURE

Syrian rebels consider the Shi'ite militants a pro-Assad militia. Some have been captured and killed in combat, militants and local families in Iraq said.

In Baghdad's Ameen Shi'ite neighborhood, a large recently erected billboard shows the photograph of a bearded Mehdi Army militant who the poster proclaims became a "martyr" in February. Neighborhood families say he was killed in fighting in Syria.

A video posted on YouTube last month by Syrian rebels showed a young man named as Ahmed al-Maksosi whose face appeared to be swollen with signs of beating and torture as he confessed that he was a Mehdi Army fighter.

Iraqi Shi'ite militants said Maksosi was one of their comrades fighting with them in one of the Sayyida Zeinab neighborhoods. They said he was kidnapped and tortured by the FSA before he was killed.

Abu Mujahid, Abu Hajar and Iraqi Shi'ite politicians with knowledge of the militias said those who went to Syria were individual volunteers traveling with their own passports through regular routes.

They said there were contacts responsible for receiving and organizing volunteers, arming them and directing them to tasks, but all were facing the problem of funding, much of which they said came from some Iraqi merchants in Syria.

The Badr organization, Asaib al-Haq and Mehdi Army leaders told Reuters they had not sent fighters to Syria because they believe the upheaval was an internal affair. Sending fighters would be an intervention in the Syrian affairs.

"We have not sent any people to Syria...some people think fighting in Syria is legitimate, so maybe individuals went there without coordinating with their leaders," said a senior Badr organization leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Syria's upheaval is a political nightmare for Iraq's Shiite led government which believes a messy fall of Assad would fracture Syria along sectarian lines and yield a hostile, hardline Sunni Muslim regime that could stir up Iraq's own combustible Sunni-Shi'ite communal mix.

Iraq says it has a policy of non-interference in Syria - but stays close to Tehran's position by refusing to endorse Western and Arab League demands for the removal of Assad, whose Alawite minority faith is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

The United States, European allies, Turkey and Gulf Arab states have sided with the Syrian opposition while Iran, Russia and China have backed Assad, whose family and minority Alawite sect have dominated Syria for 42 years.

IRAN'S INFLUENCE

Shi'ite-ruled Iran has tried to counter a perceived drive by Western and U.S.-aligned Sunni Muslim nations to roll back its own power in the Middle East and fears success for the Sunni-led uprising in Syria.

Iraqi militants and politicians say there appear to be no Iranian fighters on the ground in Syria, but there were Lebanese Hezbollah experts and officers training people.

"Iran is working there by using Hezbollah, there are officers and militants from Hezbollah-Lebanon training the citizens and developing their fighting skills and abilities," Iraqi militant Abu Mujahid said.

Iran has nominated a senior Iraqi Shi'ite leader within Badr - whose political wing ISCI is closely backed by Tehran - to control militant groups and coordinate between the Syrian government and the Iraqi Shi'ite groups, a politician allied with the militia groups said.

"Syria's army troops cannot hold all the ground," said Abu Mujahid. "They come for an hour or two, daily, to liberate the seized areas from the rebels and leave the rest up to us and the Shi'ite residents of these areas."

RajeshA wrote:I guess it is time for me to make some predictions as well.

Syria is not going to calm down. Period!

For the Saudis, the main motive is to clip Iran's wings by taking down a regime that used to provide systematic support to the Iranians.

For the Americans, the main motive is to get the Saudis to connect middle-east energy through pipelines with Central Europe.

For the Israelis, the main motive is to cut off Iranian supplies to Hezbollah, and to take out a strong Arab military.

For the Turks, it is about controlling the Kurds, as well as to become the conduit of energy from Middle-East to Europe.

For the Iranians, their whole Pan-Islamic credentials are based on the Shia crescent, from Iran to Lebanon. If Syria falls, Iranian influence in West Asia evaporates.

For the Russians, it is all about some influence in the Arab street, a foot in the Eastern Mediterranean, and blocking Mideast Oil from reaching Europe.
______
What I expect is that Iranians would not settle down for a non-Alevi regime in Syria, and would continue to foment trouble in Syria long after the Assad regime falls down. If Iranians can't deliver weapons to Hezbollah, they are also not going to take a full defeat in Syria and not respond.

So there is a real chance that Hezbollah and Iran would keep the any new Sunni regime in Syria very weak, and itself susceptible to Hezbollah attacks. Iran funded insurgency would increase in Syria after the regime is brought down.

Russia would help, because as long as Syria is unstable, no pipelines would be bringing in any energy to Europe.

So just as Saudi Arabia funded AQAM, which have been fighting all over the place, from Afghanistan to Libya to Syria, Iran too would be taking a valuable lesson from this surge in Saudi influence based solely on terrorism funding.

If Iran wants to play this game, they will have to ensure that their oil finds customers. They will have to ensure that the pressure on Iran with sanctions does not break their back. In that way Indian money would be welcome.

Even if Iran accepts defeat in Syria, Iran knows that it really stands with its backs to the wall, and that it would come under more and more pressure from sanctions, AQAM terrorism in Iraq, Western supported groups like Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK), Jondollah in Iranian Baluchestan, Azeris, etc., so Iran would need to push back. And the place where it would hurt the Saudis most is in Al-Ahsa province. Trouble in Al-Ahsa Province would ensure that the price of Oil remains high and Iran can make more money.

Y. Kanan wrote:
What cowards the Russians have become. Definitely a lesson in this for India - the less we rely on Russia the better.

Newly released video footage shows a Syrian military helicopter exploding, apparently after being struck by hostile fire. Other pictures from inside the country appear to show Syrian rebels carrying SA-7 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles.
If the Free Syrian Army is operating these weapons, this would mark a step change in their military capabilities. Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, hinted as much, saying the insurgents now deployed “weapons that are forcing the planes to fly extremely high”. As a result, the air strikes were “less accurate," he told journalists in Paris.
The SA-7, a heat-seeking missile from the Soviet era, can destroy a plane flying at up to 14,000ft. Mr Assad’s air force has hitherto been able to strike with impunity. Air raids on rebel-held territory have become daily events, with the regime using MI-24 helicopter gunships along with MiG and Sukhoi jet fighters. Many civilians have been among the casualties.
When the Mujahideen in Afghanistan acquired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles in the 1980s, this proved a turning point in their war against the Soviet Union.

Russia is gaining influence in the Middle East and now it is an important player in the region that should be considered, Efraim Halevy, former director of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, and former head of Israel's National Security Council has said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Halevy noted that after the USSR’s collapse, Moscow’s position was of minor importance for the region’s members. The fall down of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the events in Lybia came as successive defeats on Russia, he said, referring to the country's role in the region.

The former chief of Mossad shared his opinion that Russia’s come-back is clearly displayed through its support of Syrian President’s Assad’s regime, aimed at “keeping the situation under control” and “not letting Assad’s overthrow”.

“Russia is coming back to the region through Iraq and other countries,” said Halevy in regard to the recent agreement between Russia and Iraq for armament supply for over $4bl.

“Russia is showing its character now,” he said.

Halevy also noted that the Middle East is now the place where interests of two major powers, the US and Russia, come together. This factor could not be ignored, he said.

A huge car bomb has killed at least eight people and injured 78 in Beirut, Lebanese state media report. The explosion occurred in Sassine Square, a busy part of the mainly Christian district of Ashrafiya in the centre of the capital. Ambulances have been seen rushing to square. Witnesses say the blast was heard several kilometres away.

The intended target is unclear. Tensions in Lebanon have been rising as a result of the conflict in Syria. Friday's attack is the first major car bomb attack in Beirut for four years. It occurred about 200m (650ft) from the headquarters of the Kataeb, better known as the Phalange, a Maronite Christian group.

The general secretariat of the Western-backed 14 March coalition of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is also based there.

shyamd wrote:Top intelligence official Wissam al-Hassan killed in deadly #Beirut blast