WAR 07/30 to 06/05 ****THE****WINDS****OF****WAR****

Hummm....

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http://www.eurasiareview.com/030820...repares-iraq-style-attacks-inside-syria-oped/

NATO’s Secret Kurdish War: Turkey Prepares Iraq-Style Attacks Inside Syria – OpEd
By: Rick Rozoff
August 3, 2012


Recent reports detail a Turkish military buildup on the Turkish-Syrian border with various accounts mentioning the deployment of troops, tanks, armored personnel carriers and missile batteries two kilometers from Syrian territory, with 25 tanks from the Mardin 70th Mechanized Brigade engaged in exercises along the border.

The Turkish rationale for the military escalation is that forces of the Democratic Union Party, an ethnic Kurdish group that Ankara accuses of being affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, have assumed control of the Syrian cities of Efrin (Afrin), Kobane and Amude (Amuda) near southeastern Turkey.
Syria - Turkey Relations

Syria – Turkey Relations

The secular, left-wing Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has been struggling for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since 1978 and is labelled a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union.

The Turkish government has been waging a counterinsurgency war against the PKK for 28 years in Turkey, and over the past decade in northern Iraq, with the active support of the Pentagon and NATO. In fact, the campaign against Kurdish opposition groups is another, unacknowledged, American and NATO war, one to be added to a growing list that includes Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and now Syria.

In recent years, for example, NATO and the Pentagon’s European Command and Central Command have become increasingly involved in supporting Turkish military attacks against the PKK and other Kurdish groups in Turkey and Iraq. (Turkey is in European Command’s area of responsibility; Iraq is in Central Command’s.)

In September of 2005 the joint top commander of U.S. European Command and NATO at the time, Marine General James Jones (later the Barack Obama administration’s first national security advisor), met with members of the Turkish general staff and signed a memorandum of understanding for a NATO counterterrorism center in Turkey.

His comments at the time included these:

“We discussed specific Turkish concerns, obviously, with regard to the PKK.

“Turkey is ideally suited to host the Center of Excellence-Defense Against Terrorism. Turkey has the second largest armed forces in NATO, is strategically located, and has over 30 years [of] experience combating terrorism.”

The NATO Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism had been inaugurated in Turkey on June 28, 2005.

In July of 2006 the Turkish head of state, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called on NATO to openly join the anti-PKK counterinsurgency war, stating:

“NATO, which joined in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, should also do the same here.

“It would be good to make tripartite efforts (Turkey, NATO and the US) and to get some results.”

The following month his request was partially realized when the U.S. appointed former top NATO and European Command commander Joseph Ralston as Special Envoy for Countering the Kurdistan Workers Party, which position he still holds.

Operational and logistical support rendered the Turkish armed forces in their decades-long war against the PKK and affiliated groups has not been limited to Turkey itself.

Ankara has been conducting regular large-scale incursions and deadly air strikes in Iraq as well. As the latter nation was occupied by the military forces of the U.S., Britain and the Multi-National Force – Iraq (which consisted overwhelmingly of NATO members, candidates and partners) from 2003 until the end of last year, Turkish attacks inside the country could only have been launched with the knowledge – and the authorization and cooperation – of the U.S. and NATO.

Turkey’s military campaign in northern Iraq, a gross violation of the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, is an accurate model – and predictor – of what it could perpetrate in neighboring Syria.

To gain an appreciation of the scope of what such an operation could entail, in April of 2006 Turkey deployed 40,000 troops near the Iraqi border, joining as many as 250,000 soldiers already deployed in southeast Turkey.

Ankara has since then conducted ongoing air, artillery and ground attacks inside Iraq.

After a year-long hiatus, Turkey resumed air strikes inside the Arab nation last September following a PKK attack that killed nine Turkish soldiers the month before. By the 21st of the month the Turkish general staff announced that government F-16 fighter jets had destroyed 152 targets in the Qandil Mountains inside Iraq.

State Department spokeswoman (and former ambassador to NATO) Victoria Nuland said of the offensive:

“Hope springs eternal. You know where we are on the PKK. We believe that Turkey has a right to defend itself, that the PKK is a terrorist organization, and we continue to urge and try to facilitate good dialogue between Turkey and Iraq.”

That is, the Iraqi government must accept armed attacks within its territory by America’s NATO ally.

Last October 15,000 elite Turkish forces gathered on the border with Iraq to launch ground operations against Kurdish targets. On the 24th Turkish tanks and armored vehicles, backed by air strikes, crossed into northern Iraq.

The following month the Obama administration promised Prime Minister Erdogan to redeploy U.S. Predator drones from Iraq to Turkey for the anti-Kurdish campaign. At the time Radio Free Europe reported that “The drones are seen by Ankara as a decisive weapon in its battle against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish rebel group.”

In fact, a Turkish newspaper revealed that the U.S. had deployed four Predator drones at the Incirlik Air Base in late October, the same base where the Pentagon has an estimated 90 B61 nuclear bombs.

Turkey has also requested that the U.S. sell it more advanced Reaper drones, to replace Israeli Herons, for use against the PKK.

Radio Free Europe also stated that “Obama is rewarding Turkey for its support in the region, in particular its decision to participate in NATO’s antimissile system, which Washington says is aimed at countering threats from rogue states including Iran.”

At the same time the Pentagon confirmed that it had notified Congress of the proposed sale of three AH-1 SuperCobra attack helicopters to Turkey, with a Defense Department press release stating they “will improve Turkey’s capability for self-defense, modernization, regional security, and interoperability with U.S. and other NATO members.”

Last December U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara and Gul, speaking for both countries, affirmed, “Our fight against [the] PKK will continue in a strong way.”

Two weeks later Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was in Turkey to solicit its assistance in policing Iraq after the departure of American ground troops, and in reference to Russian and Iranian objections to Turkey’s hosting of a NATO interceptor missile radar system, he said, “whether they like it or not, other countries are going to have to accept that.” He also pledged continued, indeed intensified, U.S. involvement in the war against the PKK, saying:

“We provide some technology and assistance in the fight against the PKK. We try to improve in that capacity and continue to explore other steps.”

The Predators operating out of the Incirlik Air Base are maintained by an American ground control unit and operated from the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

At the end of the December a Turkish air strike killed 35 civilians, the oldest of whom was 20, in a Kurdish village near the border with Iraq, the largest amount of Kurdish civilians killed by Turkish forces in one day in Ankara’s 28-year counterinsurgency campaign. The victims had been identified – hence targeted – by a drone.

The Turkish military has continued drone-aided air strikes in Iraq this year.

It is patently obvious that Turkey is on the verge of repeating its Iraq policy in Syria. Unlike Iraq, though, air strikes and incursions by troops and armored vehicles in Syria will meet with a different response than they have in Iraq. That is, they will meet with a response.

As did the Turkish F-4 fighter jet that flew over Syrian territory and was shot down in June, leading to Turkey seeking NATO assistance under Article 4 provisions.

The first Turkish warplane that drops a bomb or fires a missile on Syrian territory will provoke a reaction far more severe than the violation of Syrian airspace in June.

With the “humanitarian intervention” and “weapons of mass destruction” ploys not having succeeded in provoking a war between Turkey – and through Turkey NATO – and Syria, exploiting the Kurdish “terrorist” subterfuge may be the next, perhaps at last successful, attempt to do so.

About the author:

Rick Rozoff

Rick Rozoff is a journalist and blogger and many of his articles may be found at the Stop NATO blog.

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2012/08/03/230102.html

Last Updated: Fri Aug 03, 2012 07:56 am (KSA) 04:56 am (GMT)
There is no such thing called north Syria

By Abdul Rahman al-Rashed
Friday, 03 August 2012


There is no such thing called north Syria, said Ahmed Uglo, the Turkish foreign affairs minister. He continued: “There is only a 900 km borderline adjacent to Turkey starting from Qamashli to Latakia.”

The ‘North Syria scarecrow’ reminded me of the time when Assad hated Yasser Arafat and refused to receive him despite all mediation. The two were involved in war of words when Assad described Palestine as west of Syria to emphasize his power on Arafat. Arafat responded by saying that it is Syria that is north of Palestine.

Damascus always went beyond its controversial statements against Arafat to help anti-Arafat groups such as Hamas and Al-Jihad al-Islami in a bid to threaten Arafat.

The Turks now feel the threat of Assad’s upcoming plan to tear Syria apart and create regional chaos. They said they are observing activities by Kurdistan Workers’ Party who have built militant bases in the north of Syria.

They have now realized their mistake by giving Assad such a long time until he managed to prepare his legacy; a divided Syria and an unstable region. This is why Turkey has moved its forces toward the borders and it is likely to enter into a war, eventually. Among all the countries, Turkey alone realized its mistakes in handling the Syrian revolution. When they failed to convince Assad to contain the protests, they were left with two options: Support Assad to suppress the protests or help protesters to overthrow the regime.

Staying neutral was the worst choice. Despite the fact that they clearly expressed their compassion with the Syrian people, the Turks avoided any involvement in the Syrian crisis except giving help to the refugees. They later granted the opposition a center of command in Istanbul and opened ways for rebels to communicate with outside.

The long time given to Assad allowed him to plan against his neighbors. He used organizations to scare his opponents. The Syrian regime is expert in the game of terrorist groups since the seventies. This regime used to build camps for groups of all kinds, Palestinian, Shiite, Turk Kurdish, Iraqi Kurdish and Iraqis. It used Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party against Turkey, Abu Nedhal’s group against Yasser Arafat and Jordan, and used Ahmed Jebreel, leader of Jabha Shabiya to kill Palestinians. The regime hosted “Dawa” Party and used it against Saddam Hussain. It turned “Amal” and “Hezbollah” against each other and against the Palestinians.

The regime also resurrected the Syrian National Party, recruited Sunnis in it and used them in Lebanon against other Sunnis.

There was a time when the Syrian regime used Yemeni separatist groups in Sanaa. This very regime allied with Al-Qaeda to use them in Iraq. The Syrian regime employed Fath Al-Islam in Naher Al-Bared in Lebanon. The list is very long and terrifying. I don’t know any regime in Middle East that employs politics and terrorist groups like the Syrian regime.

This regime used to terrify all his neighbors except Turkey, which once taught Hafez Assad, the father then, a lesson. When Assad saw Turkey’s tanks coming toward his borders, he messaged the then US President Bill Clinton, complaining about the Turk’s attempts to invade his country.

Clinton replied that he understood the Turks’ anger. Assad then retreated and Abdullah Öcalan ended up in a Turkish prison. The Turks left the Syrian regime struggling with the revolution knowing it will lose eventually. It was a right decision except that Assad was able to export his problem to others including Turkey. This is why Assad continued fighting. He wanted longer time to destroy Syria and divide the opposition. He tried to use Syrian Kurds to separate and called Turkish Kurds to take over parts of the northern areas next to Turkey.

This regime worked hard on involving the Christians, Alawites and Druze in the Sunnis blood. This regime played well the sectarian conflicts in Lebanon during the past four decades. Now it wants to turn Syria into another Lebanon. The Turks’ mistake was that it did not put extra weight with the opposition to immediately overthrow the regime. They are the only party that can play a role and had Assad been removed last year, many problems would have been avoided.


(The writer is the General Manager of Al Arabiya. The article was published in the Saudi-based Arab News on Aug. 3, 2012)

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http://news.sky.com/story/968320/syria-aleppo-set-for-violent-showdown

8:05am UK, Friday 03 August 2012
Syria: Aleppo Set For Violent Showdown
The UN's peacekeeping chief predicts spiralling violence in Syria's largest city as rebels use tanks for the first time.

Video: Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay talks to Sky from northern Aleppo
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Syria

Syrian rebels shell a military airbase using a captured government tank. Sky's Alex Rossi is near Syria's border with Turkey.

Video: Rebels Use Captured Tank Against Syria Forces
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The "main battle" for the Syrian city of Aleppo is imminent, a senior UN official has said, hours after Kofi Annan quit trying to end the conflict.

Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has warned of intensified fighting in the civil war after rebels obtained tanks and other heavy weapons.

"The spiral of violence is still increasing," he said.

"The focus two weeks ago was on Damascus, the focus is now on Aleppo where there has been a considerable build-up of military means and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start."

Aleppo has been under siege from President Bashar al Assad's forces since July 20, using jets and artillery to target positions within the northern city, and military observers have predicted a prolonged battle for the commercial hub.

The warning came as rebel forces, who hold several areas of the country's largest city, used tanks for the first time to attack a military airport to the northwest of the city, according to a commander.

Mr Ladsous said unarmed military observers near Aleppo had seen the heavy weapons in the hands of the opposition.

"We have not yet seen the opposition in the action of using those heavy weapons against government forces. But we know that they have tanks, that they have armoured personnel carriers etcetera. That's a fact."
Syria Rebels on a pick-up truck in Aleppo

Fighting has also continued to claim lives elsewhere in the country.

In Hama, Syrian forces killed at least 50 people, including 21 members of three families on Thursday, according to local activists and residents.

"During the clashes the army entered the neighbourhood of Arbaeen and conducted raids, during which they killed members of three families," resident Abu Ammar told reporters.

Further south in the capital Damascus, 20 people were killed when security forces fired three mortar rounds at a Palestinian camp.

Witnesses say the mortars struck a busy street as people were preparing a Ramadan meal to break their fast.

And south of Damascus, a raid by Syrian forces killed another 43 people, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Regime forces entered the Jdaidet Artuz district on Wednesday and arrested around 100 young people who were taken to a school and tortured," the opposition group said in a statement.

"On Thursday morning after the operation the bodies of 43 people were recovered. Some of them had been summarily executed."
Syrian man mourns his relatives in Jdaidet Artuz district A Syrian man mourns his relatives in the Jdaidet Artuz district

Meanwhile, China has expressed regret over Mr Annan's decision to stand down.

The UN-Arab League envoy to Syria tendered his resignation after complaining that his April peace plan had not received the support it needed from major powers.

He also hit out at "continuous finger-pointing and name-calling" at the UN Security Council which he said had prevented co-ordinated action to end the bloodshed.

His resignation sparked a new round of recriminations among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, with Washington blaming Beijing and Moscow's vetoing of three separate resolutions on the Syrian conflict.

"China expresses regret at Annan's resignation. We understand the difficulty of Annan's mediation work, and respect his decision," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement.

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http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/2052931.html

Jordan pulls troops to border with Syria

3 August 2012, 10:21 (GMT+05:00)
Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug.3 /Trend A.Taghiyeva/

Jordan began to pull troops to the border with Syria last night, Al Arabiya said on Friday.

Several tanks and military vehicles were sent to the city of Al-Rams, located on the border of Syria.

There were several armed clashes between government troops of Syria and Jordan on the border of the countries.

Since the beginning of the revolt in Syria, Jordan has granted asylum to 140 thousand Syrian refugees.

Anti-government protests have continued in Syria for more than a year.

They turned into an armed struggle between the opposition and units of the power structures of the country. According to UN, the total number of victims of the conflict in Syria has exceeded 12,000 people. About 230,000 people became refugees.

Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az

See Also:

Another 825 Syrians fleed to Turkey
Iranian spokesman: Some countries did not like Annan's efforts to stop arms sales to Syria
China regrets Annan's resignation, calls for political solution
Turkish army launches military exercises on border with Syria
Another 390 Syrians fleed to Turkey
UN warns 3 million Syrians need food and farm aid
Free Syrian Army controls part of city of Latakia
Minister: Money from salaries will not go to Palestinians in Syria

Iran prepares for 60 percent uranium enrichment​

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 3, 2012, 10:07 AM (GMT+02:00)

The months of negotiations with the six world powers were happily used by Iran for great strides toward bringing its nuclear weapon program to fruition. Tehran’s back-channel dialogue with Washington leading up to the negotiations served the same purpose. Since diplomacy ran aground, war has become inevitable and preparations for cutting short Iran’s rapid progress have accelerated.
Former Israeli Mossad director Ephraim Halevi commented to the New York Times Thursday, Aug. 2, that if he was an Iranian he would be very worried in the next 12 months.
Developments in Iran and the region at large are generating the current eve-of-war climate in the Middle East:

1. While Saeed Jalili communed at leisure with Catherine Ashton in world capitals, uranium enrichment levels in Iran crept past 20 percent in expanded quantities. The six powers are understandably reluctant to admit that in the time bought by negotiations, Iran was able to refine uranium up to 30-percent grade or even a higher and go into advanced preparations for 65 percent grade enrichment. Now the Iranians are well on the way to an 80-90 percent weapons grade.
The talk in Tehran about the need for nuclear-powered ships and submarines offered a fictitious pretext for crossing that threshold. Iran is not about to build those vessels or engines for lack of technology, materials and infrastructure. But nuclear-powered ships’ engines require the same highly-enriched uranium (90 percent) as bombs.

2. Iran has launched a crash mega-fortification program for sheathing in steel and concrete nuclear facilities whose transfer to underground “immune zones” for escaping bombardment would be too costly, cumbersome and time consuming.
If the US and Israel leaves Iran alone to complete this project, they will have forfeited the opportunity of pre-empting Iran’s nuclear program – only inflicting partial and temporary damage at best.
3. President Barack Obama is under very heavy pressure from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil states to waste no more time and destroy that program without further shilly-shallying.
4. Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi tried to achieve that objective indirectly by massively backing the Syrian revolt against Tehran’s best friend Bashar Assad in the hope that his fall would stop the Iranians in their tracks. They never came close: Assad is still fighting tenaciously and his army is in intact after 17 months.

5. Instead of capitulating to the odds against the Syrian ruler, Tehran increased its military stake in Assad’s battles.
debkafile’s military sources say that without Iran’s lavish and timely air and ground supply corridors, the Syrian army would have long since run out of arms for defending the Assad regime against revolt.
The Gulf governments are therefore forced to accept that their plans to weaken Iran by toppling Assad have backfired in more ways than one.
6. Turkey and Iraq, each for its own reasons, are letting Iranian arms pass through their territories to Damascus, a move which is counter-productive to Gulf interests on the Middle East keyboard. Ankara, in particular, hosts rebel command centers and training camps with one hand, while, with the other, lets arms shipments through to Assad’s army for destroying those same rebels the moment the cross into Syria.
7. UN, American and European sanctions have failed to drive Tehran into giving up its nuclear program, as even the White House admitted Wednesday, Aug. 1, or slowed down its development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

8. US and Israeli intelligence experts agree that Iran will be able to produce dirty bomb within three months, ready to hand out to the terrorist networks run by the Revolutionary Guards external clandestine arm, the Al Quds Brigades. They are designed for use in time of war against Israelis abroad and Americans in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Israel fears the radioactive bombs will find their way to Tehran’s surrogates, the Lebanese Hizballah or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

9. Those experts also agree that the Tehran-sponsored terrorist campaign against Israel has already begun. Launched by Hizballah or the Al Quds Brigades, it is expected to gain impetus. The July 18 attack in the Bulgarian town of Burgas, in which five Israelis and a Bulgarian were killed, is seen as the precursor of more attacks whose dimensions will expand in a way that forces Israel to retaliate.


http://www.debka.com/article/22237/Iran-prepares-for-60-percent-uranium-enrichment

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Reports: Russian warships headed to Syrian port

Russia: UN's Syria resolution is 'path to civil war'

The Associated Press
Published Friday, Aug. 3, 2012 9:01AM EDT
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/reports-russian-warships-headed-to-syrian-port-1.902556​

MOSCOW -- Three major Russian news agencies are reporting that Russia is sending three warships carrying some 360 marines total to the Syrian port of Tartus.

The Friday reports, which quote an unnamed military official, could not be independently verified, and Russia's Navy refused to comment on them.

Russia has steadfastly supported Syria's government during its 17-month crackdown on an opposition movement.

The ships are reported to be in the Mediterranean Sea and are expected to arrive at the port within days to deliver food and supplies to a Russian naval base there.

The Russian official says the vessels would shortly return to a Russian port on the Black Sea, according to Interfax and the state-run RIA Novosti and Itar-TASS news agencies.

It wasn't clear if the marines would stay in Syria.
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Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/reports-russian-warships-headed-to-syrian-port-1.902556#ixzz22UR2Ajvh




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1:50pm, Fri 3 Aug 2012

Russia denies plans to send naval ships to Syrian port

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-08-03/russia-denies-plans-to-send-naval-ships-to-syrian-port/​

Russia's Defence Ministry has denied that it plans to send naval vessels to the Syrian port of Tartus, the state-owned RIA news agency said.

It dismissed reports, attributed by Russian news agencies to a source in the general staff, that Moscow was sending three large landing ships with marines aboard.






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Syria rebels 'strengthen hold' on Aleppo

Free Syrian Army claims control of roughly half of country's
largest city amid fears of major battle with regime forces.

Last Modified: 03 Aug 2012 11:16
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/08/20128353645664375.html​

Syria's main armed opposition group has said it has taken control of more than "50 per cent" of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub that has been under siege by regime forces for weeks.

Despite Free Syrian Army (FSA) claims of a strengthening hold on the city, government forces continued on Friday to shell rebel-held areas and bomb them with advanced fighter jets, destroying many residential buildings.

The FSA claims to have consolidated most of its control in the city's east, while also maintaining a grip on central neighbourhoods including Salaheddin and Bab al-Hadid.

When a government security source was questioned about the lack of a ground offensive by the army in Aleppo, he said: "The regime is testing the rebels' defences in order to uncover their hiding places before annihilating them in a major surgical operation."

Meanwhile, a top UN official said on Thursday that the "main battle" for Aleppo is about to start.

Herve Ladsous, UN peacekeeping chief, said after briefing the UN Security Council on the Syrian conflict that UN observers had not yet seen opposition rebels using the tanks and other heavy weapons that they now have.

"The spiral of violence is still increasing," Ladsous told reporters.

"The focus two weeks ago was on Damascus. The focus is now on Aleppo where there has been a considerable build-up of military means and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start," he added.

Tanks captured​

Syrian rebels used tanks for the first time to attack a military airport northwest of Aleppo on Thursday, a rebel commander said. Abdel Aziz Salameh told the AFP news agency that his forces had captured four tanks from government forces.

Ladsous said unarmed military observers who had been near Aleppo have seen the heavy weapons.

"We have not yet seen the opposition in the action of using those heavy weapons against government forces. But we know that they have tanks, that they have armored personnel carriers et cetera - that's a fact," he said.

In a separate development, mobile phone and Internet services, cut since Wednesday night, were being gradually restored in Aleppo by Thursday afternoon.

As clashes between government forces and rebels took place nationwide, at least 67 people, including 36 civilians, 16 soldiers and 15 rebels, were killed across the country on Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In the capital Damascus, heavy fighting erupted in the southern Tadamun district, the Syrian Observatory said.

"Syrian troops withdrew from the neighbourhood following heavy clashes with rebel battalions, which resulted in the killing of four rebels and at least three soldiers," the UK-based activist group added.

Also, for the first time, regime forces raided the exclusive Muhajireen neighbourhood of north Damascus, arresting about 20 young men.







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Syria banks face deposit
challenge as civil war expands

03/08/2012
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=6&id=30566​

AMMAN/DUBAI (Reuters) - Now that rebels have carried Syria's civil war from remote villages to the capital and the commercial hub, a banking system that survived 16 months of unrest will face its biggest test.

In most of the country, banks have been managing to stay open, thanks to strenuous efforts by their managers and the needs of desperate customers who continue to deposit money because they can find no safer place.

But the spread of major fighting to Damascus last month, and then to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city and top commercial centre, marks a new, more destructive period for the economy, putting banks under fresh pressure.

"Aleppo will hurt the real economy - the disruption of production, inputs reaching plants. How long it will last - a few days, a week, two weeks - no one knows," said Nabil Sukr, a Damascus economist who previously worked at the World Bank.

Like Syria's economy as a whole, its banking industry is severely damaged and some parts of it have almost stopped functioning. There is little corporate lending or trade finance, but deposits and withdrawals continue.

The banking sector, which is dominated by four state-owned banks but includes 14 privately owned institutions, mostly subsidiaries of banks in Lebanon and other Arab countries, has largely been cut off from the global financial system by international sanctions against Assad's regime.

Deposits at the banks, which had total assets of 2 trillion Syrian pounds ($29 billion) before the revolt, shrank by roughly a third in the uprising's first year as panicky companies and individuals sent money abroad, much to Beirut, bankers said.

But thanks mainly to a windfall from their foreign currency holdings as the Syrian pound's exchange rate plunged, the banks posted strong profits last year. Net profit at Chambank, one of three Islamic banks in Syria and 32 percent owned by Commercial Bank of Kuwait, soared 553 percent last year.

INTENSE

In the last several months, the banks have been hit harder as the fighting has become more intense. For example, the Syrian subsidiary of Jordan's Arab Bank suffered a net loss of 141 million pounds in the second quarter of this year, after a profit of 825 million pounds in the first quarter.

"There is no lending and demand for money itself is low. Operations and decisions are being made on a day-to-day basis," said a Damascus-based banker, who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the issue.

A senior Gulf Arab banker who operates in Syria said banks there were still extending credit lines to some of the wealthiest companies and merchants, but that otherwise "banking has been reduced to the bare minimum".

"There are no banking operations such as letters of credit for imports...and that applies to collection of debts," said a banker working in the Syrian subsidiary of a Lebanese bank.

Nevertheless, the outflow of deposits from banks appears to have slowed greatly or even stopped in the last few months, perhaps because most people who want to transfer money overseas have now already done so, several bankers said.

For example, deposits at the unit of Arab Bank rose 5.5 percent between end-2011 and June 30, while the Syrian unit of Lebanon's Byblos Bank saw its deposits climb 15.1 percent, according to its earnings statements.

The Damascus banker said many bank branches in the city stayed open at their discretion during last month's fighting in the capital, and deposits even rose on some days.

"One explanation is that small depositors were afraid to keep cash at home because of fear of looting after homes were broken into by the army," he said.

WHERE SHOULD I TAKE IT?​

Syrians say they have few options left but to trust banks. Mohammed, a travel agent in his late 30s from the city of Homs, withdrew 100,000 Syrian pounds (about $1,450) from his bank in June to keep in a safe at home, but deposited it back a week later before fleeing for refuge in the coastal city of Latakia.

"I had no other choice but to leave the money at the bank. Where should I take it to? Keep it at home? It would be stolen while I wasn't there," he said by telephone. "Take it with me in a suitcase? They'll kill me on the road. Transfer it outside the country - to whom?"

The Gulf Arab banker agreed that huge amounts were no longer being withdrawn from Syrian banks. One reason is the central bank's success in keeping the pound's exchange rate stable in the last several months after last year's plunge, he said. This has allowed depositors to retain some faith in the currency.

Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank in Lebanon, said that so far, the Syrian affiliates of Lebanese banks had not needed capital injections to survive.

"They've been drawing on Lebanese banks' experience in surviving long years of war. I don't believe the Syrian banking system will collapse," he said.

The danger remains, though, that further damage to the economy from the fighting - perhaps hyperinflation or a fresh plunge of the currency - could trigger full-fledged bank runs, causing banks to go bust or the government to close them.

Sukr, the Damascus economist, said most Syrians retained some confidence in the economy because they could still buy daily necessities. "When you go to the markets, products are available, fruits and vegetables. Food is available," he said.

The Damascus banker said the country was experiencing "panic pricing" - temporary price surges in response to specific events in the conflict, such as bouts of fighting in the capital - rather than very high, sustained inflation which would put daily necessities out of the reach of most people.

"Last week people were buying bread at 60 pounds a packet and usually you take it at 35 pounds. This is 100 percent inflation, but it was for five days and then the bread crisis eased," he said.

Inflation could jump, however, if the fighting in Aleppo is prolonged and does widespread damage to factories and firms. The city accounts for over 50 percent of the country's manufacturing employment, according to the city government.

Another uncertainty is how long the central bank can keep supporting the pound by supplying its foreign currency reserves to meet demand.

The pound has tumbled from an official rate of 47 to the U.S. dollar when pro-democracy protests began in March last year to around 69 now, but it has been almost stable since mid-May.

The Damascus banker said ordinary Syrians were still able to buy some dollars at the official rate, while the black market rate of roughly 70 was not far away.

Syria's foreign reserves were $18.2 billion at the end of 2010, shortly before the unrest began, according to the latest figures from the International Monetary Fund.

Like other Syrian economic data, up-to-date figures for the reserves are not available. But private economists estimated reserves shrank by at least several billion dollars last year, and they may have dropped by a similar amount so far this year.

If reserves eventually run out or Syrians come to believe they are about to do so, expectations for uncontrolled depreciation of the pound could prompt mass flight from bank deposits denominated in the local currency.









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Russia Denies Report of
Docking Warships in Syria

Late Breaking: Reports of Russian warships in Syria untrue. Civil
strife heats up. Missiles stationed near Lebanon. More civilians killed.

By Ben Bresky
First Publish: 8/3/2012, 3:38 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158565​

The government of Russia released a report on Friday denying previous reports that Russian warships were scheduled to dock in Syria. The Russian Ministry of Defense said the reports were incorrect, according to Yedioth Ahronoth news which quoted the Reuter news agency.

Numerous international media outlets reported Friday afternoon that Russia was planning to dock three ships manned by marines to its naval base at Tartus in Syria. According to those reports, each ship has 120 marines. The ships were said to be currently stationed in the Mediterranean.

According to the Russian Interfax Information Services as quoted by the New York Times and other media outlets the ships were reportedly to deliver supplies to Russian military personnel currently stationed in Syria. There are approximately 30,000 Russian citizens in Syria.

Also reported on Friday was the movement of several missile launchers and other weaponry by the Syrian military. The missiles were stationed along the border with Lebanon.

The ongoing armed conflict between the regime of President Bashar Assad and Syrian rebels has been heating up since it began in 2011.

Between 12 and 21 people were reported killed in a mortar attack in a community near Damascus on Thursday and at least 35 civilians were killed during a separate attack on a Damascus suburb.

As far as Russia's involvement in the situation, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov referred on Wednesday to a video showing Syrian rebels in Aleppo executing members of shabiha, the militia loyal to the Assad regime, saying it proves that both sides have committed human rights violations.

“The harsh massacre of supporters of the government by the opposition confirms human rights violations are taking place on both sides,” Gatilov said on Twitter. “It would be useful if Western and Arab politicians looked at the situation in Syria from this angle too. Everybody must stop violence.”

Syria is Israel's neighbor to the north. It is considered an enemy state. Syria waged war against Israel in the War of Independence in 1948, the Six Day War of 1967, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and engaged troops against Israel in the First Lebanon War of 1982.








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Syria's rebels have a new villain: the United States

The US has stepped up its rhetoric against President Assad
and is providing covert support to rebels. But for many
fighting the Assad regime, it is not enough.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / August 2, 2012

For those challenging the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
the list of villains has always included the regime's closest allies:
Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Midd...eds/world+(Christian+Science+Monitor+|+World)​

But as the death toll rises and Syria marks 17 months and counting of revolt, many in the embattled city of Aleppo say they have added another, perhaps surprising, villain: the United States.

The US is an arch-foe of the Syrian regime. US officials have stated plainly and repeatedly that Assad "must" go. And President Barack Obama earlier this year signed a secret order authorizing clandestine aid to rebel forces, it was reported today.

But in the rebel-held enclave of Salaheddin, guerrilla gunmen and ordinary Syrians alike wonder why the US has not acted to stop the killing by at least ending the Syrian Army's artillery bombardment and imposing a no-fly zone on the helicopters and planes that menace them from the skies.

"We all believe the US and all Western countries want Assad to stay in power," says the coordinator for the Revolutionary Council in Aleppo, who gave his name as Abu Thaier.

"I believe that Syrian intelligence up to this moment is cooperating with the CIA," the wizened revolutionary told the Monitor. "The Westerners are afraid of the destiny of Israel; this is what stops them. Assad takes advantage of that, and says, 'These terrorists [rebels] will go to Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan and we must crush them.'... Western countries gave up on the Syrian people because they believe most demonstrators are Islamists," he says.

'Petroleum is worth more than Syrian blood'

Syrians under fire from government troops often bring up Washington's perceived neglect when they see an American journalist.

"We look on Americans as the most important people to look after democracy," says Abu Thaier. "We consider the torch of freedom in New York a torch for all humanity, not just America. We hope that the Statue of Liberty did not yet lose its real meaning."

He brings up Libya and the US-orchestrated NATO intervention last year that was instrumental in ensuring that rag-tag rebels were able to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. The only difference, he asserts, is that Libya has oil, and Syria does not.

"They think petroleum is worth more than Syrian blood," asserts Abu Thaier. "Now if you are living in Western countries, if someone kills 50 or 100 [pet] animals, the response would be more than for Syrians."

The United Nations puts the death toll in Syria at 17,000, while rebel groups assert that it is closer to 20,000.

US officials would take issue with that pessimism. Almost a year ago, Mr. Obama stated: "For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside."

And earlier this year Obama approved an intelligence finding that authorizes the CIA and other US agencies to support the rebels against the regime, Reuters reported today.






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Mystery of the missing spy chief

By K.P. Nayar
www.telegraphindia.com – 14 hours ago.. .

http://in.news.yahoo.com/mystery-missing-spy-chief-231052423.html​

Washington, Aug. 2: Speculation is sweeping the US and Israel about the fate of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's spy chief, who is said to have planned the July 18 "Damascus Volcano" that killed Syria's defence minister Dawoud Rajiha.

The attack killed several members of President Bashar al Assad's inner circle, including Assad's brother-in-law and deputy defence minister Assef Shawkat. It was the most daring act so far by those who want regime change in Damascus.

The next day King Abdullah named Bandar as chief of general intelligence in addition to his post-2005 job of secretary-general of the kingdom's National Security Council. The new appointment was seen as a reward for the successful Damascus bombing operation.

Three days later, according to reports which have gained currency here and in Israel, Prince Bandar was killed in an equally daring bomb attack on Saudi Arabia's intelligence headquarters in Riyadh.

Strategic analysts with a sense of history here are comparing Bandar's killing, if it is true, to the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria which was a trigger for World War I four weeks later.

The murders of his brother-in-law and his defence minister have hardened Assad's resolve to go all out in fighting the opposition, whom he describes as Saudi and Qatari-funded terrorists. So far, the President had largely played the "good cop", leaving it to Maher al Assad, his younger brother and commander of the elite Republican Guards, and some other openly hardline members of the Assad clan to play the "bad cops" and lead the fighting.

Yesterday, even as Assad openly urged his army to be "the shield, the wall and fortress of our nation", Sausan Ghosheh, the UN spokeswoman in Damascus, said: "For the first time, our observers saw firing from a fighter aircraft. We also now have confirmation that the opposition is in a position of having heavy weapons, including tanks."

This week, the Syrians managed to capture a Saudi army colonel who is said to have spilled plans for an attack on Damascus by the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, Iranian dissidents based in Iraq and supported by the Saudis and the US. The assault to take over parts of the Syrian capital would have involved 20,000 men.

Israel, now convinced that Assad will not survive, has prepared plans to invade Syria, not as an occupation force, but to take possession of Syria's chemical weapons so that they do not fall into the hands of an unstable and unpredictable successor government in Damascus.

The Israelis also want to ensure that Syrian stocks of missiles or chemical weapons are not handed over by a falling Assad regime to Tel Aviv's deadly enemy, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the only force in the region which has so far stood up to Israel's military might.

Israel's defence minister Ehud Barak has not been coy about his country's plans. "I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that... we will be able to consider carrying out an operation," he said on television 10 days ago.

All in all, therefore, West Asia may be heading for another war. Hence the worry that if Bandar has indeed been killed, his assassination may be a trigger like the Sarajevo assassination of the presumptive heir to the Austrian throne in 1914 started a World War.

Bandar, unlike Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was not considered to be in the line of succession to the throne, but his father, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud, was. Prince Sultan died late last year.

Extensive news reports that Bandar was assassinated on July 22 have been met so far by Riyadh with a silence reminiscent of the grave. The prince has not been seen in public and the kingdom is not responding to reports of his death.

But curiously, Arab News, a major Saudi newspaper, on Sunday published an opinion article in praise of Bandar and his record in the kingdom's service for no apparent reason.

Without addressing reports about his assassination so as not to break Saudi Arabia's tenets of media censorship, the article said foreigners only had to "watch Saudi TV and they would see Prince Bandar among other royals and officials chatting with each other when receiving the King.

"If we Saudis can see him, then why can't the western think tanks see him?"

But the newspaper did not publish any picture clips in support of sighting Bandar. Nor did it offer any evidence or example of anyone seeing the prince since the bomb attack on the Saudi general intelligence headquarters, which is not in dispute. It is known that the attack killed Bandar's deputy, Mashaal al-Qarni.

Syria, which is believed to have swiftly taken revenge for "Damascus Volcano" with a Riyadh reprisal, is also not commenting on any aspect of the entire episode. There is speculation here that Iranian contacts in the kingdom may have been used by Assad in pulling off the assassinations at the nerve centre of Saudi intelligence, but officially Tehran is also silent.

If Bandar has been killed, it would mark the loss of one of the most colourful personalities in global diplomacy for more than two decades.

The 63-year-old prince was Saudi ambassador in Washington for 22 long years and played an insider role in two American wars in the Gulf: the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's occupation and the 2003 invasion of Iraq that overthrew that country's Baathist regime.

Despite being the son of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Bandar's reputation has been that of a self-made prince. That is because his mother was a commoner, assuring his half-brothers born of royal pedigree from both parents higher claims within the al Saud family.

Because his mother was an outsider, Bandar's childhood was not spent in a royal palace, but in an ordinary Riyadh neighbourhood. His sense of humour is well known in this city where he called himself "the peasant prince" to emphasise his semi-commoner status.

It was a ploy that went down well with the Americans who are ambivalent about royalty except their own brand of famous families such as the Kennedys, for instance. Bandar's familiarity with the Bush Presidents, both father and son, earned him the nickname of "Bandar Bush".

After accounts of his influence on the American presidency became widely known here and a biography with graphic details of his White House access was published, King Abdullah recalled him to Riyadh in 2005.

Unlike many members of the al Saud family, Bandar realised that he had to work to make a mark.

He joined his country's air force when he was 19 and rose to head its aerial acrobatics squadron.

He was Saudi defence attach� in Washington before being made ambassador.

The biggest reward for the "working" prince came when Princess Haifa Bint Faisal, daughter of the late King Faisal married him, cementing his place in the house of Saud.

Haifa has said that their marriage was not arranged Saudi style.









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Saudi Spy Chief Prince Bandar Assassinated: Report

By Pepe Escobar
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32059.htm​

August 02, 2012 "Asia Times" - -Was Prince Bandar "Bush", 63, son of Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz (perennial Saudi Defense Minister,1963-2001), semi-perennial ambassador to Washington (1983-2005), and secretive jihad financier, killed by a Syrian intelligence death squad?

Thunderous silence prevails on Syrian, Iranian and Arab media (most of it controlled by the Saudis). The same applies for al-Jazeera. This is DEBKA's somewhat fanciful take.

Dates are crucial. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud may have pulled off operation "Damascus Volcano" on July 18. He was definitely promoted to head of Saudi intelligence on July 19. And he might have been killed in a bomb attack on the Saudi General Intelligence HQ in Riyadh on July 22.

One Syrian rumor mill version rules that "Damascus Volcano" came from Saudi intel - with logistics provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This is highly unlikely; the CIA is clueless on how to penetrate Assad's inner sanctum. The predominant version circulating in the Syrian capital is this was a white coup.

"Damascus Volcano", by the way, was a flop; the swarm of mercenaries - infiltrated via Jordan - who were supposed to take over the capital had to retreat up north. Now the news cycle is fixated on another faux game-changer - the "Battle of Aleppo".

There are serious problems with all the spin around "Damascus Volcano". None of the Assad regime's four heads of military intelligence were killed - they are actually running the (ghastly) show in Aleppo.

There are also problems with a Syrian death squad being able to strike Riyadh's inner sanctum. But Iranian intelligence could certainly pull this off. As for Debka's assumption that Tehran may have hired al-Qaeda jihadis for an inside job against the House of Saud, that is rubbish.

The bottom line; no one knows, because no one is talking.

What is certain is that Bandar as head of Saudi intelligence was part of King Abdullah's hardcore response to the Arab Spring.

In Syria, the House of Saud strategy boils down to regime change - and a fragile, fragmented, Sunni government in Damascus not aligned with Tehran.

Internally, the strategy is to viciously smash any peaceful Shi'ite-majority protest in the eastern provinces. Essentially, there's no Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia because the House of Saud either bribes or intimidates its subjects.

The overall strategy of choice is "blame it on Iran"; as this logic goes, Saudi Shi'ites are Iranian puppets as much as Bahraini Shi'ites. The Obama administration blindly subscribes to this fallacy - totally missing the point; the House of Saud hates any semblance of Western parliamentary democracy as much as it hates Shi'ites - Iranian and otherwise.

So what happened in Riyadh? A graphic Tehran message to the House of Saud? A rogue suicide bomber? An internal Saudi war? The House of Saud is not talking. And Bandar is not moving.

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2012-08-03

Don’t Hold Your Breath For Iran Sanctions

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=53723​

While sanctions may be gradually stirring discontent amongst the population, the rate at which they are doing so is slower than the progress of Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, report Roshanna Lawrence and Daniel Nisman.

Middle East Online​

On July 25, in a rare public acknowledgement, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shed light on the detrimental impact of international sanctions on Iranian society. During a meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his political rival, Speaker Ali Larijani, Khamenei called for an end to infighting over Iran’s deteriorating economy, stressing the need for national unity." The reality is that there are problems, however you must not blame them on this or that party," Khamenei was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency. "Instead you must solve those problems with unity."

Pundits and politicians in the West should be in no rush to laud this admittance or Iran's floundering economy as a sign that the regime’s resilience in pursuit of nuclear capability has begun to waver. For those in Jerusalem grappling with a historic decision, sanctions have failed to achieve their baseline goal- suspension of the Iranian nuclear program.

Current sanctions aim to foment public discontent in Iran by inducing economic hardship, threatening to usher in a Persian edition of the Arab Spring. Recently implemented sanctions by the European Union have been rightfully hailed as the harshest to date, and there are indeed indications that this ban on oil imports has taken a toll on the Iranian economy.

Reduced participation in the international banking system due to American sanctions has forced Iran to trade through barter arrangements of commodities in place of hard currency. As a result, the rial has devaluated, contributing to rampant inflation. Official government estimates place inflation rates at 22.4 percent annually, but economists assert that it may be higher. This translates into soaring prices for common consumer goods like bread, whose price is 16 times higher than in 2010 when bread subsidies were withdrawn. Inflation has since contributed to domestic discontent, most recently when protests erupted in the northeastern Iranian city of Nishabur over the cost of chicken in July 2012.

On July 4, 2012, an official Iranian website (briefly) displayed the results of a public opinion survey, which indicated that 60% of those polled would forgo their country’s nuclear progress in exchange for an easing of sanctions. However, while the poll illustrates that resentment toward the government for economic hardship is growing, a significant portion of the population still blames the international community for using sanctions that disproportionately impact the public rather than the regime. Included in this group are Iran’s influential merchant and labor sectors. These segments of society played an important role in overthrowing the Shah in 1979, and any successful uprising would be short-lived without their participation.

The potential for domestic pressure to spur a decisive shift on the regime’s nuclear program itself currently remains limited as well. The ill-fated uprising attempts in 2008-09 and 2011-12 largely dealt with issues of democratic and political reform, not nuclear policy. Meanwhile, those sectors of society which encompass the regime’s power base view nuclear enrichment as a national entitlement, spelling dire political consequences for any reneging by the Ayatollahs on their pursuit of a seat at the nuclear table.

While sanctions may be gradually stirring discontent amongst the population, the rate at which they are doing so is slower than the progress of Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Indeed, continued deadlocks in negotiations, provocative military exercises involving long-range missiles, and announcements on nuclear achievements illustrate the regime’s intentions to continue defying the West.

During the same July 25 meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly told the Supreme Leader that Iran has 10 percent more centrifuges operating in July 2012 than it had at the time of the last IAEA report in May 2012. With each declaration of progressing enrichment activity, Iran further toes Israel's red lines for military action.

It is no coincidence that following Ahmadinejad’s statement, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak asserted that current sanctions "are not enough to stop Iran's nuclear program," and that Israel would have to make "tough and crucial decisions" about its security. That rhetoric has since been echoed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF's top brass.

The endless line of Obama Administration officials rotating through Jerusalem will likely find little success in swaying Israeli policy makers to place their bets on current sanctions. For Israel's leadership, an Iranian bomb is considered an existential threat to survival of the Jewish State, and the stakes are too high to risk holding out for regime change.

With the clock ticking down toward Iranian nuclear breakout capability, those hopeful for a diplomatic solution for this potentially destructive crisis would be wise to switch time zones. Although the West’s sanctions continue to bite, the Ayatollah’s centrifuges continue to spin, ensuring that a regional conflagration is only a matter of time.






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Newsletter Friday August 3, 2012

Ahmadinejad:
All who love freedom, justice,
must annihilate Zionist regime

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=5281​

In most recent diatribe against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says "annihilation of the Zionist regime" is the way to solve the world's problems • Says "Zionist tribe ... pulls strings behind the scenes in politics, the media, and the financial sphere" • Kuwaiti newspaper says Tehran has offered asylum to Nasrallah.

The Zionists control the world and are the source of all evil in it, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday in the latest of his regular diatribes against Israel.

In a speech delivered in Tehran to ambassadors from Islamic countries ahead of Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), an annual anti-Zionist event created by Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini in 1979, Ahmadinejad said, "All those who love freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime to make the world more just and free."


In his speech, Ahmadinejad addressed the question, "What should be done to cut the root of the world's problems?"

"For 400 years the revolting Zionist tribe has been controlling the world's affairs and pulling strings behind the scenes in politics, the media, and the financial sphere," Ahmadinejad said, as quoted by the IRNA news agency. In an apparent reference to the upcoming U.S. elections, he said, "They [the Zionists] are the decision-makers, to the point where presidential candidates of a superpower of 300 million people have to go kiss the feet of the Zionists in order to ensure their victory in the elections. If the votes [of all the citizens in the superpower] are so important, why must a candidate go kiss the feet of the secret Zionist minority, thereby sacrificing their dignity and the values of their country?"


According to Ahmadinejad, Israel represents Zionism, and it is Zionism that runs the world. "The Zionist regime is as much a symbol of Zionist hegemony in the world as it is a means of oppression by the world's superpowers," he said. "There are profound differences between Western governments, but all are united in supporting the Zionist regime."


If people want to change this global decision-making process and achieve justice, "they should unite behind the ultimate goal: the annihilation of the Zionist regime," the Iranian president said.


“Quds Day is not just a strategic solution to the Palestinian problem — it is to be viewed as a way for solving the world's problems," he said. He also said that Arab countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria and Turkey had been affected by Israel's "plots" in the region.


Ahmadinejad has called for Israel's annihilation in the past, notably in his 2005 speech when he said in Farsi that Israel should be "wiped off the map."


The Anti-Defamation League blasted Ahmadinejad's comments on Thursday, saying, his "call for the annihilation of Israel is 'ominous' in light of Iran's continuing march toward nuclear weapons."


"These remarks, filled with anti-Semitism and expressions of contempt for Israel and its leaders, are a hallmark of the hate-filled and irrational nature of the Iranian regime," ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman was quoted in a press release as saying. “In his bluntness, Ahmadinejad cuts through the false dichotomy of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism when he uses the term 'Zionist' to describe alleged Jewish control of the world for 400 years."


Meanwhile, Iranian officials have reportedly called on Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to leave Lebanon and come to Iran amid concerns over his safety if and when the Assad regime in neighboring Syria falls.


According to a report in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa that quoted Iranian officials, Tehran has already prepared a plan to evacuate Nasrallah, along with other Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, and Revolutionary Guard officers currently stationed in Syria, should Assad's regime collapse.


Under the plan, on the day that Assad falls, Iran will send Revolutionary Guard reinforcements to Syria and transfer stockpiles of weapons to Hezbollah to strengthen its hold over Damascus.

According to the report, the entire Lebanese Bekaa Valley is controlled by Iran, and Lebanese army forces are not allowed to operate there without the consent of the Iranians.






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Report:
America’s Plan for Attack on Iran

An Israeli paper says American officials shared their country’s
contingency plan for hitting Iran’s nuclear program.

By Maayana Miskin
First Publish: 8/3/2012, 1:11 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158563​

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was in Israel this week to talk with Israeli leaders about Iran’s nuclear program. Now the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot is reporting that Panetta shared America’s contingency plan in case talks with Iran fail to halt its nuclear program.

Panetta may have shared the plan to assuage Israeli leaders’ concerns that the United States is putting undue confidence in the efficacy of sanctions.

The plan would reportedly be put into effect only in one and a half years. Israeli leaders have indicated that Israel may pursue a military strike much sooner – possibly in the next three months.

Experts believe that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would postpone the country’s nuclear program by at least five years, and possibly up to a decade.

The plan published Friday is a two-stage operation, in which warplanes launched from the Strait of Hormuz strike first. The second stage includes the use of bunker-buster missiles.







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"The plan would reportedly be put into effect only in one and a half years."

Hey Dutch,

What kind of drugs are these people smoking??? Eighteen months, are you kidding me???

Report:
America’s Plan for Attack on Iran

An Israeli paper says American officials shared their country’s
contingency plan for hitting Iran’s nuclear program.

By Maayana Miskin
First Publish: 8/3/2012, 1:11 PM
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/158563​

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was in Israel this week to talk with Israeli leaders about Iran’s nuclear program. Now the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot is reporting that Panetta shared America’s contingency plan in case talks with Iran fail to halt its nuclear program.

Panetta may have shared the plan to assuage Israeli leaders’ concerns that the United States is putting undue confidence in the efficacy of sanctions.

The plan would reportedly be put into effect only in one and a half years. Israeli leaders have indicated that Israel may pursue a military strike much sooner – possibly in the next three months.

Experts believe that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would postpone the country’s nuclear program by at least five years, and possibly up to a decade.

The plan published Friday is a two-stage operation, in which warplanes launched from the Strait of Hormuz strike first. The second stage includes the use of bunker-buster missiles.







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Mystery deepens over Assad’s whereabouts

August 02, 2012 02:06 AM
By Daily Star Staff
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...ns-over-assads-whereabouts.ashx#axzz22Ud8lYZQ​

ALEPPO, BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad urged his military Wednesday to boost its fight against rebels but his written call to arms only deepened a mystery over his whereabouts two weeks after a bomb penetrated his inner circle.

Assad has not spoken publicly since the July 18 bombing killed four of his top security official during a rebel assault on Damascus.

The president’s low profile has raised questions about whether he fears for his personal safety as the conflict escalates dramatically, while the United States called the Syrian president a coward for marshaling his forces from the pages of the army’s official magazine.

“We think it’s cowardly, quite frankly, to have a man hiding out of sight, exhorting his armed forces to continue to slaughter the civilians of his own country,” U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

Separately, the State Department said that Washington has now set aside a total of $25 million for aid to Syrian rebels, although the assistance remains limited to non-lethal supplies such as communications gear.

The Obama administration originally set aside $15 million to help the Syrian opposition, but some time ago added another $10 million to the amount available, Ventrell said.

“The $25 million number actually is the number we’re working from,” he told a regular daily news briefing.

“I don’t have the exact number of the money that has been has been spent ... but the bottomline is we’ve already spent millions of dollars of this $25 million pot and will continue as the requests come in,” he said.

A U.S. official Wednesday said the non-lethal aid was mostly for communications equipment, including encrypted radios.

Amid the week-old offensive by government forces on the city of Aleppo, officials and international organizations expressed their alarm at the methods being used by both sides in the conflict.

Sausan Ghosheh, the spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Syria, said that international observers witnessed warplanes firing in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, where intense fighting has been raging for 12 days.

Speaking to reporters in Damascus, Ghosheh said the situation in Aleppo was dire.

“Yesterday, for the first time, our observers saw firing from a fighter aircraft. We also now have confirmation that the opposition is in a position of having heavy weapons, including tanks,” she said, adding that for civilians, there “is a shortage of food, fuel, water and gas.” Tuesday’s posting of a video that showed rebels executing a notorious leader of a pro-regime militia in Aleppo, Zeino Berri, drew criticism from a Russian official, who said both sides in the conflict were guilty of human rights violations.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Twitter Wednesday that “The harsh massacre of supporters of the government by the opposition confirms human rights violations are taking place on both sides.”

“It would be useful if Western and Arab politicians looked at the situation in Syria from this angle too. Everybody must stop violence,” he added.

The video was followed by one claiming to show rebel fighters entering Berri’s luxurious home and destroying pro-regime portraits and paraphernalia.

On the diplomatic front, Arab countries are pushing ahead with a symbolic U.N. General Assembly resolution that tells Assad to resign and turn over power to a transitional government. It also demands that the Syrian army stop its shelling and helicopter attacks and withdraw to its barracks.

A vote is set for Thursday morning.

The draft resolution takes a swipe at Russia and China by “deploring the Security Council failure” to act. Moscow and Beijing have used their veto three times to kill resolutions that might have opened the door to sanctions on Syria.

The 193-member General Assembly has no legal mechanism for enforcing such a resolution, but can carry moral and symbolic power if a vote is overwhelming.

Syria’s state news agency Wednesday claimed several victories by government forces in Aleppo, especially in the contested neighborhood of Salaheddin. It said dozens of “terrorists” were killed, including some with African nationalities.

Rebels gave a different account, saying they had extended their control over the strategic city by taking two police stations.

Opposition websites reported casualty figures of well over 100 people killed throughout the country Wednesday, most of them in the Greater Damascus area. Around 50 bodies were discovered in the town of Jdeidat Artouz, southwest of the capital, according to opposition groups.

While the regime and its supporters have claimed that the battle for Syria’s capital, which erupted last month, had ended, fierce shelling and skirmishes continued Wednesday in the greater Damascus area.

Residents of the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma in the old city of Damascus reported a half-hour gun battle early in the day.

There was also ongoing fighting in several other cities, including Homs, where pro-opposition websites reported fierce fighting in the neighborhood of Qarabees, which the Syrian regime this week said had been “cleansed” of “terrorist groups.”

Assad’s appeal to his armed forces, on the 67th anniversary of the Syrian army’s founding, appeared in the army’s magazine and was carried on the state news agency.

“Today you are invited to increase your readiness and willingness for the armed forces to be the shield, wall and fortress of our nation,” Assad said.

The regime has characterized the rebellion as the work of foreign terrorists, and Assad said that “internal agents” are collaborating with them.

“Our battle is against a multifaceted enemy with clear goals. This battle will determine the destiny of our people and the nation’s past, present and future,” he said.

The newly appointed Defense Minister, Gen. Fahd al-Freij, whose predecessor was killed in the July 18 bombing, echoed Assad’s words during a televised speech.

“The armed forces will pursue the remnants of these groups wherever they are and eliminate them, preserving the homeland from their evils and restoring peace and security to the country,” he said.

Assad’s only appearance since the July 18 bombing came in a brief taped segment on state TV as he swore in the new defense minister. But the clip had no audio, and it was unclear where it was shot.


Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...ns-over-assads-whereabouts.ashx#ixzz22UdFwHi1
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)





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"The plan would reportedly be put into effect only in one and a half years."

Hey Dutch,

What kind of drugs are these people smoking??? Eighteen months, are you kidding me???

Click to expand...

Pard (IMHO) We are in the "eye of the storm" ~ Wait a short bit, and we'll be hit with the "far wall" of this WAR/ storm. THEN WATCH OUT!




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New defense minister a symbol of brutal war

August 03, 2012 01:27 AM
By Mariam Karouny
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...ter-a-symbol-of-brutal-war.ashx#axzz22Ud8lYZQ​

BEIRUT: When Sunni officer Fahed al-Freij was promoted to replace Syria’s defense minister, slain in a bomb attack two weeks ago, few people paid much attention and rebels dismissed him as inconsequential.

But Lebanese officials close to the Syrian government said his appointment was a clear indication that President Bashar Assad, taken aback by the assassination of four top security officials, had decided to respond savagely.

They said Freij, a staunch Assad supporter, was known for brutality and shoot-to-kill tactics.

Upon his appointment he gave orders to “wipe out” the rebels. “Even if it is my father who is carrying weapons against Syria, treat him as a traitor and kill him,” pro-Assad websites quoted him as telling soldiers on the night of his appointment.

Freij, born in 1950, comes from the Hadeedy tribe from a village in Hama province, which saw the worst violence under Bashar’s father, President Hafez Assad, who sent troops in the 1980s to crush an armed Islamist revolt against his rule.

In his appointment speech hours after the bombing, Freij looked determined to fight back. Instead of ceremonial uniform he wore dark green fighting colors and a frown on his face, vowing to go on the offensive as he mourned the slain officials.

Unlike his late predecessor Daoud Rajha, who kept a low profile, Freij has issued several statements urging the soldiers to fight.

“Brothers in arms and doctrine, the Syrian people have put their trust in you and it is well deserved ... Your battle is the battle of right against wrong,” he said in his latest speech Wednesday, Syria’s armed forces day.

“Terminate them [the rebels] wherever you find them.”

Soon after his appointment, rebels were celebrating the capture of several districts in the capital, part of an operation they called ‘Damascus volcano,’ and parts of Aleppo and border crossings with Turkey and Iraq.

But Freij turned the tables. Right after he took over, the army launched a major offensive in Damascus, recapturing the central Midan district from rebels before moving to other rebel strongholds like Hajar al-Aswad.

For the first time since the 17-month-old revolt against Assad started, the military used fighter jets to strafe rebel areas in Rastan, Deraa and Aleppo.

The government declared victory Sunday in a battle for Syria’s capital, and pounded rebels who control parts of its largest city Aleppo. Government forces are now massing around Aleppo for another “decisive battle.”

Rebels seem to have changed their opinion of Freij.

“We did not know who he was at first. We have checked now. He is a Bedouin from Hama, commander of the operations [to crush opposition in] Deraa and Homs during the revolution,” said a rebel commander in Damascus.

“He is a military officer one hundred percent. He is ... known to be savage. He is known since he was a student in the military college as tough and firm,” he added.

Last year the army crushed Deraa, the cradle of revolt against Assad and a major attack on Homs left the city in ruins and almost empty.

Lebanese security sources described Freij as a solid individual with a ruthless personality.

“Before when a bullet was fired [by rebels] the orders were given to cut the electricity from that area and go after the rebels but with this man the orders are different – burn them,” said a Lebanese official close to the Syrian government.

The rebels are now better equipped and determined to fight back. Gunmen posted a video after his appointment saying that his tribe disavow him and that he will be their target.

“We inform him that he will be our coming target ... We tell him that victory is coming. God is Greatest.”


Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...ter-a-symbol-of-brutal-war.ashx#ixzz22UevQ5Ox
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)





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I know Dutch. It will be ugly! I say weeks at the most!!!






Pard (IMHO) We are in the "eye of the storm" ~ Wait a short bit, and we'll be hit with the "far wall" of this WAR/ storm. THEN WATCH OUT!




=[/QUOTE]

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In Syria, mortars kill 21 in Damascus refugee camp

August 03, 2012 11:56 AM
By Paul Schemm
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...amp-kills-15-civilians-ngo.ashx#axzz22Ud8lYZQ​

BEIRUT:Mortars rained down on a crowded marketplace in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital, killing 21 people as regime forces and rebels clashed on the southern outskirts of Damascus, activists said Friday.

The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights, which reported the deaths, said the shells hit Yarmouk camp Thursday as shoppers were buying food for the evening meal. The activists would not speculate on who was firing.

"We don't know where the mortars came from, whether they were from the Syrian regime or not the Syrian regime," said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Observatory. He added they could also have been strays from the fighting in nearby Tadamon neighborhood.

The state news agency blamed the bombardment on "terrorist mercenaries" - a term the government uses for rebel fighters - and said they had been chased away by security forces.

Government troops, however, have in the past attacked the camp, home to nearly 150,000 Palestinians and their descendants driven from their homes by the war surrounding Israel's 1948 creation. Palestinian refugees in Syria have tried to stay out of the 17-month old uprising but with Yarmouk nestled among neighborhoods sympathetic to the rebels, its residents were eventually drawn into the fighting.

Yarmouk's younger inhabitants have also been moved by the Arab Spring's calls for greater freedoms and have joined protests against President Bashar Assad's regime- and have died during demonstrations when Syrian troops fired on them.

With the civil war in Syria getting increasingly vicious, chances for a diplomatic solution to the conflict were fading after the resignation Thursday of Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria. Annan cited divisions within the Security Council preventing a united approach to stop the fighting.

The U.N. General Assembly was preparing to vote Friday on a new Arab-sponsored resolution condemning Syria's use of heavy weapons to crush the uprising that has killed an estimated 19,000 people since it began on March 2011.

The resolution - which like all General Assembly resolutions is unenforceable - is expected to denounce Syria for unleashing tanks, artillery, helicopters and warplanes on the people of Aleppo and Damascus, and demand that the Assad regime keep its chemical and biological weapons warehoused and under strict control.

The attack on the Palestinian camp came as clashes raged overnight between rebels and government forces in the nearby Damascus suburb of Tadamon, which was also bombed by army Thursday, sending plumes of black smoke over the city.

The Observatory also reported shelling of the southwestern suburb of Jdaidat Artouz, where dozens of bodies were found after government forces swept through on Wednesday.

Syria's civil war, which had raged across much of the country, came to the capital and northeastern city of Aleppo, Syria's main commercial hub in July.

A rebel assault and revolt in Damascus two weeks ago was vigorously crushed by government forces, but pockets of resistance and sympathetic neighborhoods remain. Sporadic clashes and shelling also continue in Aleppo, especially the rebel bastion of Salaheddine as rebels and government forces hold different parts of that city. On Thursday, the rebels even deployed a captured tank against the regime and briefly shelled an air force base outside Aleppo.

The U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous warned of a major government assault on Aleppo in the coming days to retake the rebel held neighborhoods.

"The focus is now on Aleppo, where there has been a considerable build-up of military means, and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start," he told reporters in New York late Thursday after briefing the Security Council on his trip to Syria.


Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...amp-kills-15-civilians-ngo.ashx#ixzz22UgOGdWl
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)





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Jordan pulls troops to border with Syria

3 August 2012, 10:21 (GMT+05:00)
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/2052931.html​

Jordan began to pull troops to the border with Syria last night, Al Arabiya said on Friday.

Several tanks and military vehicles were sent to the city of Al-Rams, located on the border of Syria.

There were several armed clashes between government troops of Syria and Jordan on the border of the countries.

Since the beginning of the revolt in Syria, Jordan has granted asylum to 140 thousand Syrian refugees.

Anti-government protests have continued in Syria for more than a year.

They turned into an armed struggle between the opposition and units of the power structures of the country. According to UN, the total number of victims of the conflict in Syria has exceeded 17,000 people. About 230,000 people became refugees.








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Dutch, thanks for the thread and your posts.
I hope Mr. Putin can control his government and speak with one policy voice. The US Ambassador to Saddams Iraq got to babbling on about real policy and inadvertently opened the door for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait(Gulf War I).
It would be reassuring if Mr. Putin could define his policy.
Or maybe he is being duplicitous, and hell bent on starting WWIII if necessary , to keep a Russian port on the Mediterranean.
SS

Shacknasty Shagrat said:

Dutch, thanks for the thread and your posts.
I hope Mr. Putin can control his government and speak with one policy voice. The US Ambassador to Saddams Iraq got to babbling on about real policy and inadvertently opened the door for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait(Gulf War I).
It would be reassuring if Mr. Putin could define his policy.
Or maybe he is being duplicitous, and hell bent on starting WWIII if necessary , to keep a Russian port on the Mediterranean.
SS

Click to expand...

It's the Cuban missles RUSS is installing that "bothers" my sence of calm.... TOO BAD JFK wasn't still around.....

Great point, Dutch
Has Mr. Obama given any position or policy on the New Cuban Missile deployment?
Or is his teleprompter blank?
SS

Report: Syria moves missiles to Lebanese border

Days after Netanyahu, Barak warn of possible military intervention in Syria, Assad moves anti-aircraft missile batteries to Lebanese border

Roi Kais, Reuters Published: 08.03.12, 11:37 / Israel News



The Syrian army has moved new surface-to-air missile batteries to the Lebanese border, Arab media reported Friday. The report comes after Israel had warned it will strike Syria's chemical facilities if President Bashar Assad transfers his chemical stockpile to Hezbollah.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he does not preclude the possibility of military intervention in Syria and Defense Minister Ehud Barak stressed that Israel will consider action.

On Thursday, a Lebanese defense official told the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper that the Syrians have shared some of the details of their deployment with the Lebanese. According to the source, the Syrians have devised a comprehensive military plan along the Lebanese border.


The London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat also addressed the deployment. A Lebanese military source told the paper there is no concrete information on the deployment of surface-to-air batteries on the border. He explained that the reinforcements were routine steps taken by the Syrian army in order to prevent the infiltration of gunmen from Lebanon into Syria.

He stressed there was no hostility between the two nations that would warrant the mobilization of anti-aircraft missiles. Asked whether the Syrian army is taking precautions for fear of a strike, he said that the deployment is done "according to a coordinated air defense plan. Assuming that the Syrians fear a NATO strike against them, Lebanon would not allow such a strike against Syria from its territory or airspace."


Lebanese military expert Nizar Abdul Kader said, "The Syrian military reinforcements were meant to warn outside elements of mounting military intervention against the regime. The deployment of anti-aircraft missiles is a precaution against airstrikes that can harm the Syrian regime."


Meanwhile, Syrian opposition members reported that two senior army officials have defected. One is Ahmed Tlas, head of military procurement at the interior ministry and the second is Mohammad al-Haj Ali, a military academy senior official.
Also Friday, Mortars rained down on a crowded marketplace in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, killing 21 people as regime forces and rebels clashed on the southern outskirts of Damascus, activists said.


The Britain-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights, which reported the deaths, said the shells hit Yarmouk camp Thursday as shoppers were buying food for the evening meal. The activists with the group would not speculate on who was firing.



Russia sends ships to Tartus

It was also reported that Moscow is sending three large landing ships with marines aboard to a Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus.



Russian news agencies quoted a source in the general staff as saying each ship would have up to 120 marines on board and that the vessels, already in the Mediterranean, would arrive in Tartus by the end of this week.


The source did not specify the goal of the mission, but Russia had earlier said it was preparing to send marines to Syria in case it needed to protect personnel and remove equipment from the naval maintenance facility.


The Russian Defense Ministry declined comment. The source said the ships would head back to the Russian port of Novorossiysk after spending several days in Tartus.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4264044,00.html

Syrian REgime keeps pushing at Jordan and the King may just use the tools he put together before he became king and unleash his country's SPECOPS people.

Jordan isn't a mil lightweight, and is lead by a hands on mil guy.....Ex-Snake driver, Ex-SPECOPS leader....

Oh and expect Vlad's people to keep denying the ships' cargo right up to the point of ignition...

night driver said:

Syrian REgime keeps pushing at Jordan and the King may just use the tools he put together before he became king and unleash his country's SPECOPS people.

Jordan isn't a mil lightweight, and is lead by a hands on mil guy.....Ex-Snake driver, Ex-SPECOPS leader....

Oh and expect Vlad's people to keep denying the ships' cargo right up to the point of ignition...

Click to expand...

And as one guest on Batchelor's show last night pointed out, you have 50,000 of Assad's most reliable troops involved in operations around Aleppo while 40 miles away you've go 150,000 Turkish troops on the border "cocked and locked" with CAS/SEAD/BARCAP and SRBMs on tap at short notice.

If Erdoğan decides enough is enough the investment or breaking of those units might be the final straw for Assad, or it would bring the Iranians directly into thing along with the Russians.

Reading this page literally made my hair stand on end.

Thanks to all news hounds and commenters.

A fault in Stewart's thinking IMHO involves his opinion as to the difficulty in smuggling chemical munitions into the US or Europe. Considering the amount of illegal drugs smuggled annually, a couple of gas cylinders shouldn't pose much more of a logistical issue.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/specter-syrian-chemical-weapons

The Specter of Syrian Chemical Weapons
August 2, 2012 | 0901 GMT
Stratfor
By Scott Stewart

The unraveling of the al Assad regime in Syria will produce many geopolitical consequences. One potential consequence has garnered a great deal of media attention in recent days: the possibility of the regime losing control of its chemical weapons stockpile. In an interview aired July 30 on CNN, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said it would be a "disaster to have those chemical weapons fall into the wrong hands -- hands of Hezbollah or other extremists in that area." When he mentioned other extremists, Panetta was referring to local and transnational jihadists, such as members of the group Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been fighting with other opposition forces against the Syrian regime. He was also referring to the many Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which have long had a presence in Syria and until recently have been supported by the al Assad regime.

The fear is that the jihadists will obtain chemical weapons to use in terrorist attacks against the West. Israel is also concerned that Palestinian groups could use them in terrorist attacks inside Israel or that Hezbollah could use such weapons against the Israelis in a conventional military battle. However, while the security of these weapons is a legitimate concern, it is important to recognize that there are a number of technical and practical considerations that will limit the impact of these weapons even if a militant group were able to obtain them.

Militant Use of Chemical Weapons

Militant groups have long had a fascination with chemical weapons. One of the largest non-state chemical and biological weapons programs in history belonged to the Aum Shinrikyo organization in Japan. The group had large production facilities located in an industrial park that it used to produce thousands of gallons of ineffective biological agents. After the failure of its biological program, it shifted its focus to chemical weapons production and conducted a number of attacks using chemical agents such as hydrogen cyanide gas, phosgene and VX and sarin nerve agents.

Jihadists have also demonstrated an interest in chemical weapons. The investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing found that bombmaker Abdul Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef) had added sodium cyanide to the large vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated in the Trade Center's basement parking garage. The cyanide was either consumed or so widely scattered by the huge blast that its effects were not noticed at the time of the attack. The presence of the cyanide was only uncovered after investigators found a list of the chemicals ordered by conspirator Nidal Ayyad and debriefed Basit after his arrest.

In his testimony at his 2001 trial for the Millennium Bomb plot, Ahmed Ressam described training he had received at al Qaeda's Deronta facility in Afghanistan for building a hydrogen cyanide device. Ressam said members of the group had practiced their skills, using the gas to kill a dog that was confined in a small box.

Videos found by U.S. troops after the invasion of Afghanistan supported Ressam's testimony -- as did confiscated al Qaeda training manuals that contained recipes for biological toxins and chemical agents, including hydrogen cyanide gas. The documents recovered in Afghanistan prompted the CIA to publish a report on al Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons program that created a lot of chatter in late 2004.

There have been other examples as well. In February 2002, Italian authorities arrested several Moroccan men who were found with about 4 kilograms (9 pounds) of potassium ferrocyanide and allegedly were planning to attack the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

In June 2006, Time magazine broke the story of an alleged al Qaeda plot to attack subways in the United States using improvised devices designed to generate hydrogen cyanide gas. The plot was reportedly aborted because the al Qaeda leadership feared it would be ineffective.

In 2007, jihadist militants deployed a series of large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices augmented with chlorine gas against targets in Iraq. However, the explosives in these attacks inflicted far more casualties than the gas. This caused the militants to deem the addition of chlorine to the devices as not worth the effort, and the Iraqi jihadists abandoned their chemical warfare experiment in favor of employing vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices without a chemical kicker.

There have also been several credible reports in Iraq of militants using chemical artillery rounds in improvised explosive device attacks against coalition forces, but those attacks also appear to have been largely ineffective.

Difficult to Employ

Using chemical munitions on the battlefield presents a number of challenges. The first of these is sufficiently concentrating the chemical agent to affect the targeted troops. In order to achieve heavy concentrations of the agent, chemical weapon attacks were usually delivered by a massive artillery bombardment using chemical weapons shells. Soviet military chemical weapons doctrine relied heavily on weapons systems such as batteries of BM-21 multiple rocket launchers, which can be used to deliver a massive amount of ordnance to a targeted area. Additionally, it is very difficult to control the gas cloud created by the massive barrage. There were instances in World War I and in the Iran-Iraq War in which troops were affected by chemical weapon clouds that had been created by their own artillery but had blown back upon them.

Delivering a lethal dose is also a problem in employing chemical weapons in terrorist attacks, as seen by the attacks outlined above. For example, in the March 20, 1995, attack on the Tokyo subway system, Aum Shinrikyo members punctured 11 plastic bags filled with sarin on five different subway trains. Despite the typically very heavy crowds on the trains and in the Tokyo subway stations that morning, the attacks resulted in only 12 deaths -- although thousands of other commuters were sickened by the attack, some severely.

The Syrian regime is thought to have mustard gas as well as tabun, sarin and VX nerve agents in its chemical weapons inventory. Mustard gas, a blistering agent, is the least dangerous of these compounds. In World War I, less than 5 percent of the troops who were exposed to mustard gas died. Tabun and sarin tend to be deployed in a volatile liquid form that evaporates to form a gas. Once in gas form, these agents tend to dissipate somewhat quickly. VX, on the other hand, a viscous nerve agent, was developed to persist in an area after it is delivered in order to prevent an enemy force from massing in or passing through that area. While VX is more persistent, it is more difficult to cause a mass casualty attack with it since droplets of the liquid agent must come into contact with the victim, unlike other agents that evaporate to form a large cloud.

But there are other difficulties besides delivering a lethal dose. Because of improvements in security measures and intelligence programs since 9/11, it has proved very difficult for jihadists to conduct attacks in the West, even when their attack plans have included using locally manufactured explosives. There have been numerous cases in which plots have either failed, like the May 2010 Times Square attack involving Faisal Shahzad, or been detected and thwarted, like the September 2009 plot to attack the New York subway system involving Najibullah Zazi.

Because of the improved security, it would be very difficult for jihadists to smuggle chemical agents into the United States or Europe, even if they were able to obtain them. Indeed, as mentioned above, the chemical artillery rounds used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq were employed in that country, not smuggled out of the region.

This means that jihadists not only face the tactical problem of effectively employing the agent in an attack but also the logistical problem of transporting it to the West. This difficulty of transport will increase further as awareness of the threat increases. One way around the logistical problem would be to use the agent against a soft target in the region. Such targets could include hotels, tourist sites, airport arrival lounges or even Western airliners departing from airports with less than optimal security.

Another option for jihadists or Palestinian militants could be to attempt to smuggle the chemical agent into Israel for use in an attack. However, in recent years, increased security measures following past suicide bombing attacks in Israel have caused problems for militant groups smuggling weapons into Israel. The same problems would apply to chemical agents -- especially since border security has already been stepped up again due to the increased flow of weapons from Libya to Gaza.

Militants could attempt to solve this logistical challenge by launching a warhead or a barrage of warheads into Israel using rockets, but such militant rocket fire tends to be very inaccurate and, like conventional rocket warheads, these chemical warheads would be unlikely to hit any target of value. Even if a rocket landed in a populated area, it would be unlikely to produce many casualties due to the problem of creating a lethal concentration of the agent -- although it would certainly cause a mass panic.

The use of chemical weapons would also undoubtedly spur Israel to retaliate heavily in order to deter additional attacks. This threat of massive retaliation has kept Syria from using chemical weapons against Israel or allowing its militant proxies to use them.

Hezbollah may be the militant organization in the region that could most effectively utilize Syrian chemical munitions. The group possesses a large inventory of artillery rockets, which could be used to deliver the type of barrage attack required for a successful chemical weapon attack. Rumors have been swirling around the region for many months that Libyan rebels sold some chemical munitions to Hezbollah and Hamas. While we have seen confirmed reports that man-portable air-defense systems and other Libyan weapons are being smuggled into Sinai en route to Gaza, there has been no confirmation that chemical rounds are being smuggled out of Libya.

Still, even if Hezbollah were to receive a stockpile of chemical munitions from Syria or Libya, it has a great deal to lose by employing such munitions. First, it would have to face the aforementioned massive retaliation from Israel. While Israel was somewhat constrained in its attacks on Hezbollah's leadership and infrastructure in the August 2006 war, it is unlikely to be nearly as constrained in responding to a chemical weapon attack on its armed forces or a population center. Because of the way chemical weapons are viewed, the Israelis would be seen internationally as having just cause for massive retaliation. Second, Hezbollah would face severe international repercussions over any such attack. As an organization, Hezbollah has been working for many years to establish itself as a legitimate political party in Lebanon and avoid being labeled as a terrorist organization in Europe and elsewhere. A chemical weapon attack would bring heavy international condemnation and would not be in the group's best interest at this time.

So, while securing Syrian chemical munitions is an imperative, there are tactical and practical constraints that will prevent militants from creating the type of nightmare scenario discussed in the media, even if some chemical weapons fell into the wrong hands.

Read more: The Specter of Syrian Chemical Weapons | Stratfor

WHAT?????????

tabithamordecai: RT @YuwshaAlUsbaani: @AntiGovDr RT @fsa_hq_syria: #Syria getting reports of large numbers of russian troops being landed at tartus...more info as we get it”
Friday, August 03, 2012 3:02:28 PM

mzkitty said:

WHAT?????????

tabithamordecai: RT @YuwshaAlUsbaani: @AntiGovDr RT @fsa_hq_syria: #Syria getting reports of large numbers of russian troops being landed at tartus...more info as we get it”
Friday, August 03, 2012 3:02:28 PM

Click to expand...

oh great... and i'll be at the campsite over the weekend..

CGTech said:

oh great... and i'll be at the campsite over the weekend..

Click to expand...

I know, right? Plus both sides are now accusing each other of going to be using chemical weapons; the FSA has a picture of them with UN gas masks; and there was this a bit ago. Check the Damascus thread, I might be forgetting something else about the Russians from a little earlier:


JohnWill213: RT @brani_child: #Breaking_News: Al-#Watan Newspaper: Two #Chinese destroyers and frigate crossed #Suez #Canal towards #Syria http://t.co/zmfzxtPm
Friday, August 03, 2012 2:25:34 PM

Russian UN envoy condemns General Assembly resolution on Syria, says it's 'harmful' and masks 'blatant support' for rebels - @Reuters

13 mins ago by editor

(I'm getting a headache now)

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH04Ak02.html

Middle East
Aug 4, 2012
Obama brings Erdogan in to bat
By M K Bhadrakumar

The image the White House used to illustrate United States President Barack Obama's phone call to Recep Tayyip Erdogan conveyed a simple but blunt message, according to the Turkish press: "Whack Bashar, Erdogan Bey". However, in helping overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Turkish prime minister is hamstrung by a state of disarray in Turkey's armed forces that he helped to engineer.

The realization came only belatedly in Ankara when the White House released the photograph that United States President Barack Obama was holding a baseball bat with one hand as he made a phone call to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday night.

The White House statement merely said Obama discussed with Erdogan how to "coordinate efforts to accelerate a political transition in Syria, which would include the departure of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad" and to share the "growing concerns" about the violence in Syria and the "deteriorating humanitarian conditions".

Why hold a baseball bat while on statecraft - and then publicize it? The Turks could see any number of reasons: Obama was likely grandstanding as a tough world leader; possibly, threatening Bashar; maybe, impressing Israel and Saudi Arabia - or, Iran and Russia. But they calmly concluded that Obama was conveying a blunt message to Erdogan to speed up the "regime change" in Syria: "Whack Bashar, ErdoganBey".

Indeed, the Turkish army is maneuvering with tanks on the Syrian border. But Erdogan is yet to take the momentous step of approaching the Turkish parliament for approval for the army to cross the border into the country. Erdogan is thinking furiously. He took a meeting of the Supreme Military Council in Ankara on Wednesday to oversee "war preparations" and inter alia realized that the Turkish armed forces are in great disarray.

Sixty-eight pashas (a title used for military and civil officers) are locked up in jail facing charges of treason. The meeting on Wednesday was called to decide on the annual promotions of the Turkish top brass, but the choice was severely limited, since something like 40 generals out of the 68 happen to be in the "promotion zone" but cannot be considered for promotion since they are in jail. The Turkish commentator Murat Yetkin surveyed the scandalous situation:

"Last year, Chief of General Staff Isik Kosaner resigned along with three force commanders in protest at the arrests. That puts even more pressure on the current Chief of Staff General Necdet Ozel, who is already under pressure because of the arrest of a former Chief of Staff, Ilker Basburg. Basburg has been accused of being the "chief of a terrorist organization". Another former Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok is expected to appear before the Istanbul criminal court today [Thursday]."

Ozkok has since pleaded that he was indeed aware of two possible coup plots hatched against the elected government by the Pashas during the period 2003-2004. But he went on to rationalize: "When the AKP [Erdogan's Justice and Development Party] came to power, the Turkish Armed Forces staff, including me, had concerns. Taking into consideration the [AKP officials'] statements in the past, we were worried about whether Turkey would roll back to old days [read Islamism]. We began discussing these issues. In the army everyone expresses their opinions even if they think differently from each other, this is normal, but they obey the chief of General Staff's orders in the end."

Erdogan has a formidable challenge on his hands - he is being exhorted by Obama for taking quick military action to expel Bashar, while the Turkish army itself is sinking into a morass, as Ozkok's testimony gets played out in the coming days and weeks in army barracks across Anatolia.

Meanwhile, Kurdish separatists watching from mountain hideouts have opened another front near the remote eastern town of Sendinli located in the tricky tri-junction between Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Turkish army has been fighting there for a week.

Concurrently, the incipient political rift between him and incumbent President Abdullah Gul (who used to be his deputy in the AKP), surged last week. Gul dropped a political bombshell by letting it be known Monday he probably would have an open mind about seeking a second term as president in the 2014 election.

Gul reset the kaleidoscope of Turkish politics. A riposte came from Erdogan camp within the day when AKP's deputy chairman and a confidante of Erdogan, Huseyin Celik reminded Gul that he owed his job as president to Erdogan and it was time to reciprocate goodwill by stepping down and opening the road to the presidency for Erdogan.

Gul himself responded Wednesday that there is still a lot of time to talk about what Celik said. Indeed, two years is a long time in politics and Gul is right, nothing is ever a done thing in politics. Both Gul and Erdogan are charismatic figures and the expectation among Turks was that they might opt for a Russian style switch of roles in 2014. But then, there is also an "ideological" content to the Gul-Erdogan rift.

Gul has some definite views about the shortcomings of the kind of constitutional reform that Erdogan is presently seeking, which is a presidential system with greatly strengthened executive powers. To quote prominent political commentator SemihIdiz,

"Gul is opposed to the kind of presidential system the AKP wants … Gul believes the present parliamentary system should be cleansed of its shortcomings and improved in order to further enhance Turkey's democracy… Neither the AKP nor Erdogan have talked about the checks and balances that would exist in the presidential system they desire. This is what is worrying for many, especially given Erdogan's well-known authoritarian tendencies."

But does the war in Syria come into all this? Sure it does. Both Obama and Erdogan are agreed that the Syrian crisis should end soon. Obama seems to think that if Erdogan can be persuaded to "do more" - to borrow from the US exhortation to Pakistan - the civil war will end and a "new Syria" can take shape. Just like that.

But Erdogan has a problem here. He has an "operational" problem, given the disarray in the Turkish military, and increasingly, perhaps, a political problem as well.

Turkey's military machinery needs to be toned up first, which takes time, and now Gul has opened a dicey political front. Syria is becoming a dangerous minefield for Erdogan. A perceptive and experienced Turkish security analyst, Nihat Ozcan, recently peered into Syria through the looking glass:

"In my opinion, we need to ask four questions to understand how the Syria model will be at the end of the process. Firstly, what does the changing character of the war mean in analyses? Secondly, how does the proxy war affect political development and the time period? Thirdly, how does the deep sociological division among the people in Syria shape the problem? Fourthly, if there is no authority or sufficient power and desire to end the interference, how will Syria turn out?"

Ozcan sees the insurgency masterminded from Turkey expanding rapidly into a civil war. The Syrian army could incrementally begin to lose its all-national character and assume a sectarian character, composed of Alawites. On the other hand, the insurgency's "Sunni political features" could be further reinforced.

Indeed, the rebels would never be a fully disciplined and regular armed force, which in turn opens the prospect of a war continuing "without front, irregular, facade, brutal and no rule and no moral block," and seriously threatening the future of Syria.

Again, this is a "proxy war" involving outsiders, which implies that it will be simply within no one's capacity to bring an end to the war anytime soon. "This situation increases the capacity of both [Syrian] sides and causes the war to continue." Meanwhile, deep-rooted sociological, psychological and religious prejudices and the historical traumas of the past will begin to feed into the civil war, bolstering the strength and verve of warring parties.

Ozcan explains that if the current processes go on, Syria would fall apart and a reunification would take a very long time. As a military analyst knowledgeable about Turkish capabilities, he assessed: "In the foreseeable future, it is difficult to have clandestine operations, air operations, punitive air operations, blockages from the sea, peace-making and peacekeeping operations that would provide an advantageous position to one of the sides compared to the other. Apparently, the fire in Syria will extinguish with its own domestic dynamics."

Simply put, Erdogan is highly likely to find himself trapped in a Syrian quagmire unless he exercised circumspection about these increasingly rare trans-Atlantic phone calls. (Obama and Erdogan apparently spoke on the phone 13 times last year whereas, they have had only two phone conversations so far in 2012.) Ozcan's gloomy message is that the "future picture" of Syria leaves little for Erdogan to be complacent about.

Erdogan never played baseball. But he was a good soccer player - a semi-professional, in fact, playing for a 90-year old local club in Istanbul. Erdogan would know that on the soccer field if he lost control of the ball, anything could happen; it could be an own goal, or, it could be that Gul simply nutmegs him to nudge the ball into the back of the net.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

Related Articles:

Israel catches Turkey in two minds
(Jul 26, '12)

The rise and fall of Turkey's Erdogan
(Jul 23, '12)

mzkitty said:

I know, right? Plus both sides are now accusing each other of going to be using chemical weapons; the FSA has a picture of them with UN gas masks; and there was this a bit ago. Check the Damascus thread, I might be forgetting something else about the Russians from a little earlier:


JohnWill213: RT @brani_child: #Breaking_News: Al-#Watan Newspaper: Two #Chinese destroyers and frigate crossed #Suez #Canal towards #Syria http://t.co/zmfzxtPm
Friday, August 03, 2012 2:25:34 PM

Click to expand...

More info on the PLAN units....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.rferl.org/content/chinese-naval-boats-in-black-sea-for-first-time/24662169.html

Ukraine
Chinese Naval Boats Enter Black Sea For First Time
July 31, 2012

Officials at the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries say Chinese naval vessels have entered the Black Sea for the first time ever.

The "Qingdao" destroyer, armed with guided missiles, and the "Yantai" patrol boat, captained by the deputy commander of China's northern fleet, entered the sea on July 31 at Ukraine's invitation.

The two Chinese ships have previously taken part in international operations against pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

Officials said the "Yantai" was expected to sail to the Romanian port of Constanta before leaving the Black Sea on August 9, while the "Qingdao" was expected to stay in Ukraine's Crimean port of Sevastopol until August 4.

In accordance with the Montreux Convention, the vessels of non-Black Sea countries can remain in Black Sea for up to 21 days.

Based on reporting by ITAR-TASS and Interfax

___

The Type 052 DDG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhu_class



The Type 054 FFG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_054_frigate



ETA: It would be very interesting to know how many submarines were parked off the Syrian coast and who they belonged to right now...

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kirk-north-korea-20120803,0,5208507.story

Op-Ed
The North Korea guessing game
A recent visitor to Pyongyang leaves with more questions than answers about who's really in charge and where the country is headed under new leader Kim Jong Un.
By Donald Kirk
August 3, 2012

During the dark days of Soviet rule, the inner workings of the regime in Moscow were anything but transparent. Scholars and journalists had to rely on Kremlin watching, studying every statement and deed of government officials in an attempt to divine meaning. It was an inexact science, but in the Soviet era Kremlin watchers could at least watch the Kremlin. In North Korea today, it's nearly impossible even to discover where the government and its new leader, Kim Jong Un, operate.

In July, I made my ninth trip to North Korea — my fifth to the capital, Pyongyang. But as a journalist based in the region, I can't say I have begun to understand the country. I've traveled with tourist groups, with other journalists and with Korean Canadians hoping to see long-lost relatives. Last month I joined a group of American scholars.

The timing seemed propitious: just seven months after Kim took over after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. The point was to see whether anything had changed under new leadership, but it quickly became apparent that glasnost had not arrived in the Hermit Kingdom.

On my second day, I asked where the new "supreme leader" lived and worked. "In Pyongyang," my government guide told me. Pressed for a little more detail, she said that information was secret.

North Korea is the only place I have ever been that is almost as opaque from within as it is from without. My questions elicited obfuscation and suspicion about why I was prying into such closely guarded information. Neither journalists nor tourists are allowed to travel unaccompanied or talk to people on the street, and the sights the government guides allowed us to see involved no contact with ordinary people.

Our guide in Pyongyang was happy, though, to point out a similarity between North Korea and America. As we cruised by the enormous Supreme People's Assembly, near the top of the slope that's dominated by the statues of Kim Jong Un's grandfather and father, she said the assembly was equivalent to "your Congress."

She neglected to mention, of course, that the Supreme People's Assembly meets only once or twice a year — and sometimes not for several years at a time. Unlike the fractiousU.S. Congress, the People's Assembly exists only to rubber-stamp decisions made on high, by the Workers' Party and the national defense commission. Kim Jong Un ostensibly heads both of them, as did his father, but what he really does remains a complete mystery.

For all the opacity, however, one can glean a few signs that life in Pyongyang is not totally frozen in time. Traffic lights at major intersections had been installed since my last visit four years earlier, and during our time in the capital we even encountered occasional traffic jams. In previous visits, I don't recall ever having been delayed by other vehicles on the city's mostly empty streets.

On this trip, I also saw people preparing to move into brand-new homes in a row of high-rise apartments in the center of the city, a sign that those with rank and connections, at least, live comfortably.

Much else, however, remained unchanged. Beyond the new apartment buildings, Pyongyang looked as it had when I last visited. The same sights were on the mandatory itinerary, from the childhood home of Kim Il Sung to the Fatherland Liberation War Museum, where the main message was that "the Great Leader" had led his country to victory in two wars, first against the Japanese and then the Americans.

The deification of North Korea's only two previous leaders, Kim Il Sung, installed by the Russians after World War II, and his son Kim Jong Il, who ascended to power after his father's death in 1994, remains strong. The group I was traveling with, like all others, was asked on the first morning of our visit to pay homage with flowers and respectful bows at their statues.

Kim Jong Un by now has ascended to almost the same level of reverence, but he remains a largely unknown quantity. In Pyongyang near the end of my visit on July 11, I saw on the BBC that he had appeared with a mystery woman at a performance featuring Walt Disney characters. But no one I asked seemed to know who she was. In the days that followed, North Korea's state media showed Kim with the same attractive woman.

It seemed to me that the purpose of the whole show might be to portray the youthful Kim as a grown-up, ready at last to assume responsibility for both a family and the nation after emerging from the shadows of

his lofty forebears. My guide, however, professed to know nothing. She had no idea, she said, about her leader's private life. It wasn't until later in July that the state news agency, in an otherwise routine story about Kim's visit to a newly opened "fun fair," identified the woman as his wife, Ri Sol Ju.

So is North Korea changing? Does the introduction of a first lady portend a new openness? Are the new apartment buildings and traffic jams a sign of modernization? North Korea watchers can only speculate.

My latest visit to North Korea, like the ones before, left me with more questions than answers about who's really in charge and where the country is headed. I had no more chance of finding out this time than when I first made the journey 20 years ago. By comparison, Kremlin watching was simple.

Donald Kirk is a journalist and author of numerous books about Korea, most recently "Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine."

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...e25484-dd36-11e1-8ad1-909913931f71_story.html

China steps up campaign against Ramadan fasting for Uighurs; experts fear backlash
By Associated Press, Published: August 2 | Updated: Friday, August 3, 3:52 AM
Comments 4

BEIJING — China is discouraging some Muslims in the far western region of Xinjiang from fasting during Ramadan. The government says the move is motivated by health concerns, but others said Friday that it’s a risky campaign to secularize the Muslim minority that will likely backfire.

Several city, county and village governments in Xinjiang have posted notices on their websites banning or discouraging Communist Party members, civil servants, students and teachers from fasting during the religious holiday. Muslims around the world abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk during the 30-day period.

Regional spokeswoman Hou Hanmin was quoted in the state-run Global Times newspaper Friday as saying authorities encourage people to “eat properly for study and work” but don’t force anyone to eat during Ramadan.

Xinjiang is home to the traditionally Muslim Uighur ethnic group. Long-simmering resentment among Uighurs over rule by China’s Han majority and an influx of migrants has sporadically erupted into deadly violence.

Those familiar with the region say attempts to restrict participation in Ramadan are not new, but this year’s campaign is more intense.

There is “a much more public and concerted effort” than in previous years and in some cases Communist Party leaders are delivering food to village elders to try to get them to break their fast, according to Dru Gladney, a professor of anthropology at Pomona College in California and an expert on China’s Muslim minorities.

“I think it is a misguided effort to try to secularize the Uighurs and my feeling is it will backfire,” said Gladney. “It makes the Uighurs even more angry at the party for not honoring their religious customs.”

Separatist sentiment is rife in Xinjiang, with some Uighurs advocating armed rebellion. A smaller fringe has been radicalized by militant calls for Muslim holy war and trained in camps across the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In July 2009, rioting between Uighurs and Han Chinese killed nearly 200 people in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi. Uighur activists say the riots were the result of decades of pent-up frustration with Chinese rule.

China has responded by boosting police presence and restricting the practice of Islam — moves that have ratcheted up tensions.

Over the last few months, authorities in Xinjiang have stepped up a campaign against illegal religious schools, which they believe are fomenting extremism and separatist thought.

Hou, the regional spokeswoman, said battling religious extremism and terror in the region remains a priority.

“Religious extremism is closely related to violence and terrorism, and cracking down on these is one of our top priorities,” Hou was quoted as saying.

Ilham Tohti, a Beijing-based Uighur economist, said this year’s campaign against participation in Ramadan was being more strictly enforced, with officials in some areas requiring people to sign pledges that they won’t take part in religious activities.

Tohti said the campaign appeared aimed solely at Uighurs in Xinjiang, noting that Kazakh and Hui Muslims in Xinjiang and Uighurs outside the region face no such restrictions.

At the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, where Tohti teaches, there have been no warnings against taking part in Ramadan and up to 70 Muslim students, including about 10 Uighurs, gather nightly at a local restaurant next to campus to break their fast, he said.

He said officials may be particularly nervous about potential unrest in Xinjiang in the lead up to a once-a-decade leadership transition that will kick off in Beijing in the fall.

“As a result they are tightening control measures in many areas, not just religion, but this could give rise to new problems and they may end up with an outcome that is the opposite of what they were seeking,” he said.

On Monday, the U.S. State Department released a global report on religious freedom that criticized authorities in Xinjiang for their “repressive restrictions on religious practices” and failure to “distinguish between peaceful religious practice and criminal or terrorist activities.”

China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the U.S. report as biased and called it interference in Chinese affairs.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Navy to buy Italian frigates
Published on Friday, 03 August 2012 00:00
Written by VICTOR REYES
0 Comments

THE Armed Forces is acquiring two frigates from Italy, and these are expected to increase the Navy’s capability in protecting the country’s interest in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin yesterday said the second-hand vessels have anti-air and anti-submarine capabilities and will be acquired from Italy for about P11.7 billion as part of the military’s ongoing modernization program.

“These frigates are warships. These have anti-air, sub-surface, they have anti-submarine (capabilities). What we are getting are really meant for war,” said Gazmin of the Maestrale class frigates which are still used by the Italian Navy.

“As to when (they will be acquired), once the contract is approved,” he said.

Gazmin said the contract is projected to be signed in January next year and delivery might take place in November.

According to the website naval-technology.com, the Maestrale class frigates were built for the Italian Navy by the Italian company Fincantieri. The Italian Navy now has a fleet of eight but these are to be replaced by 2013.

Gazmin said the ships, commissioned in the 1980s, would undergo refurbishing before their delivery.

Gazmin said the frigates will be the most potent assets that the Navy will have in its inventory.

Last year, the military acquired a Hamilton class cutter from the US Coast Guard for about P400 million, although this is inferior to the Italian frigate and had some vital equipment missing. A similar cutter is due to arrive from US later this year or early next year.

Fernando Manalo, defense undersecretary for finance, munitions, installations and materiel, said a P3.2-billion contract for the acquisition of 10 attack helicopters from Eurocopter might be signed this month.

Manalo said the Government Policy and Procurement Board has already given the defense department the authority to engage in direct negotiations for the acquisition. He said attack helicopters are readily available and can be delivered within the year if the contract is signed this month.

Manalo also disclosed that government is inclined to acquire T-50 fighter planes from South Korea, to modernize the capability of the Air Force. A proposal has been submitted to President Aquino, he said.

“We are also looking at other options for the lead-in (fighters) but to be specific, based on our assessment, it is the T-50 of South Korea that is most advantageous to us in consideration to the obtaining situation in the West Philippine Sea and what is affordable to us,” said Manalo.