Syria - What should we do if anything?

Basically climate change did not cause the Syrian war. People simply took advantage of the drought to gain control.

Interesting that Russia voted to adopt a US-drafted resolution condemning their beloved allied al-Assad use of chemical weapons.

( Al Jazeera ) UN Security Council condemns chlorine attacks in Syria

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a United States-drafted resolution condemning the use of chlorine in Syria and threatening measures if chemicals are used in attacks in the future.

The measure was endorsed by 14 of the 15 council members on Friday, with Venezuela abstaining in the vote.

Syria opposition attacked civilians 'indiscriminately' (AFP-yahoo March 23th 2015)

Syrian armed opposition groups, among them jihadists but also Western-backed rebels, have indiscriminately targeted civilians in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

In a new report, the New York-based group said it had documented dozens of opposition attacks against civilians in government-held parts of Syria.

The group's deputy Middle East and North Africa director Nadim Houry said there had been a "race to the bottom in Syria, with rebel groups mimicking the ruthlessness of government forces." Syria's government has also been accused of widespread abuses, including indiscriminate aerial bombardment, endemic torture and the use of chemical weapons.

"Civilians are paying the price, be it in government or rebel-held areas, with an inadequate international response," Houry said.

The group documented car bombings and indiscriminate shelling in government-held areas between January 2012 and April 2014, focusing mostly on areas investigators were able to visit. The report said several dozen car bomb attacks in Damascus and Homs provinces had hit areas with no government military targets, and often targeted districts occupied by religious minorities.

"Besides being indiscriminate, many of these attacks seemed primarily intended to spread terror among the civilian population," the report said.

Among the worst of the bombings was an attack in October last year outside a school in the Akrameh neighbourhood of central Homs city that killed more than 45 children.

HRW also documented regular indiscriminate shelling by opposition groups on the capital Damascus and Homs city, mostly against civilian areas, and in some cases schools full of children.

The groups responsible for the indiscriminate attacks ranged from jihadists like the Islamic State group to rebels grouped under the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, the report said.

At least 10 of the bomb attacks it investigated were claimed by jihadists from the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front, but FSA groups also regularly claimed responsiblity for shelling civilian areas in Damascus, HRW said.

More than 215,000 people have been killed in Syria since an anti-government movement that began in March 2011 descended into a violent civil war.

http://news.yahoo.com/syria-opposition-attacked-civilians-indiscriminately-hrw-143633710.html

Assad 'welcomes' larger Russian naval presence in Syria (AFP-yahoo March 26th, 2015)

Syria would welcome an increased Russian military presence at its sea ports, President Bashar al-Assad

said in an interview with Russian news channels published Friday.

"I can say with complete confidence that we welcome any widening of the Russian presence in the eastern Mediterranean and on Syrian coasts and ports," including the port of Tartus, Assad said.

"For us, the larger this presence in our neighbourhood, the better it is for stability in this region," he told journalists.

Russia operates a naval base in Tartus along Syria's western shores that includes warships, barracks and warehouses.

Set up under a 1971 security agreement, Moscow has called its Tartus presence "a supply and technical point for the Russian navy".

Assad told the reporters of eight news channels that Russian military support to Syria "has continued" throughout the past four years of war in his country.

He also welcomed Russia's role in hosting a second round of peace talks but said the negotiating parties must not be influenced by external players.

"For the success of these talks, the negotiating parties must be independent and must reflect what the Syrian people, with all of their different political views, want," Assad said.

"Today, people would not accept that their future, their fate, or their rules are decided from outside," he said.

"A solution to the Syrian crisis is not impossible -- if the Syrian people sit with each other and discuss, then we'll get results," he said.

Assad said Western countries, including the US, France, and Britain, "don't want a political solution" in Syria and were being "hypocritical"

"It doesn't matter to us if they say the president will fall or stay ... And it doesn't matter to us if they say a president is legitimate or not," Assad said.

In his extensive interview, Assad also said he hoped for a closer relationship with Egypt.

"We hope we will soon see a Syrian-Egyptian rapprochement," he said, although there was as yet no "real relationship" between the two Arab states.

http://news.yahoo.com/assad-welcomes-larger-russian-naval-presence-syria-001734775.html

IS enters Palestinian camp in Damascus; Jordan closes border

Islamic State militants infiltrated a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus on Wednesday and were clashing with a Palestinian group, the deepest foray yet by the extremist group into the Syrian capital, seat of President Bashar Assad's power, according to opposition activists and Palestinian officials.

Islamic State fighters, who control large swaths of territory in northern Syria, entered the Yarmouk camp from the nearby Hajar Aswad neighborhood. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the IS group took control of large parts of the camp. If they gain full control, they can potentially threaten the heart of the capital.

The Observatory reported heavy clashes in the camp between IS fighters and members of an anti-Assad Palestinian faction called Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis.

He said Wednesday's push into the camp showed coordination between IS and a rival group, the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's branch in Syria.

"Credible information from public sources indicate that a variety of armed groups are engaged in fierce fighting in areas where Yarmouk's 18,000 civilians, including a large number of children reside, placing them at extreme risk of death, serious injury, trauma and displacement," the agency said in a statement. It demanded "an end to the fighting and a return to conditions that will enable its staff to support and assist Yarmouk's civilians."

http://news.yahoo.com/reports-clashes-palestinian-group-syrian-capital-123802054.html

Islamic State Seizes Palestinian Refugee Camp in Syria (NYT April 4th)

The officials called for quick action by international organizations, the Syrian government and all armed groups to head off an unfolding catastrophe. Reports of killings and even beheadings were beginning to circulate on Saturday, worsening what is already a longstanding humanitarian nightmare for the 18,000 residents of the Yarmouk refugee camp.

By seizing much of the camp, the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, made its greatest inroads yet into Damascus, a significant step for a group that rose largely in the northern and eastern provinces of Syria, far from the capital. Yet at the same time, the move suggests that as the Islamic State loses ground in Iraq and northeastern Syria, the most daring response it could muster on the ground was to attack one of the most vulnerable populations in Syria.

Palestinian envoy to UN urges Security Council to help besieged refugees(Haaretz April 6th)

UN official: Situation at Palestinian refugee camp in Syria 'beyond inhumane'; 18,000 civilians

remain trapped in Yarmouk camp, which is under attack by Islamic State.

The council held an emergency meeting Monday on the crisis at the Yarmouk camp, which is now mainly controlled by the Islamic State group.

Would be interesting to know if ISIS forces pull their forces from Iraq inside Syria and if the bombings of IS is sufficiently in Syria at all after they are under much pressure in Iraq.

"funny" story..

> Did NBC Cover Up Role of U.S.-Backed Free Syrian Army in 2012 Kidnapping of Richard Engel?

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/17/did_nbc_cover_up_role_of

NBC News is at the center of a new controversy, this time focused on its chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Back in 2012 he and five other members of an NBC News team were kidnapped by armed gunmen in Syria. They were held for five days. Just after his release Engel spoke on NBC News and said this about his captors: "This is a government militia. These are people who are loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. They are Shiite." Well, earlier this week, a New York Times investigation prompted Engel to revise his story and reveal he was actually captured by Sunni militants affiliated with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army. In an article published on Wednesday, Engel said the kidnappers had "put on an elaborate ruse to convince us they were Shiite Shabiha militiamen." According to the Times investigation, NBC knew more than it let on about the kidnappers. We speak to As’ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He runs the Angry Arab News Service blog. He expressed serious doubts about the circumstances surrounding Engel’s captivity and release when the story first broke in December 2012

> NYT: NBC News Alters Account of Correspondent’s Kidnapping in Syria

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/business/media/nbc-news-alters-account-of-correspondents-kidnapping-in-syria.html

> NYT: Vanity Fair Updates Article by NBC Reporter Engel

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/media/vanity-fair-updates-article-by-nbc-reporter-engel.html

> TI: NBC’S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/16/nbcs-conduct-richard-engel-kidnapping-serious-brian-williams-scandal/

(The following is actually more fitting in this topic instead)

US official admission as early as August 2012 of support of Salafists (Al-Qaida in Iraq - later ISIL) by the "The West, Gulf Countries and Turkey" sharing common strategic goals, against the "Syrian Regime".

(click image for full declassified report under FOIA)

Source US Department of Defense (via Judicial Watch)

In July 2012, in this forum i was bringing attention to so called "Unconventional Warfare" US policy, at the time, the mentioned manual, as far as public information would go, could pass only as circumstantial evidence of collusion with terrorist activity in Syria. At the time the implications were dismissed as "conspiracy theories" by the most vocal. Today not anymore.

A reminder...

Check the ratline by Seymour Hersh and the latest revelations on what happened after the fall of Ghadafi's regime. Active support all along..

I missed that one. I will read it.

It actually realates with Judicial Watch's report on the release of the documents, where:

Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.†The growing sectarian direction of the war was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, which included the “grave danger†of the rise of ISIS

you got it ;)

At the time the implications were dismissed as "conspiracy theories" by the most vocal. Today not anymore.

conspiracy theory is word used most often when true is not like mainstream media say and when big corporations or banks baked something

ISIS 'controls 50% of Syria' (TheGuardian, May 21st)

Islamic State is thought to be holding sway over half of Syria’s landmass after its seizure of Palmyra, where it has reportedly begun massacring a rebellious tribe and faces no opposition to sacking the city’s ancient ruins.

http://isis.liveuamap.com/

Isis seized Palmyra on Wednesday night after a week-long siege that led to the collapse of forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. The militants are drawing closer to his strongholds of Homs and Damascus and are severing supply lines to Deir Ezzor in the east, which faces an overpowering Isis crackdown.

But more significantly, Isis controls vast swaths of Syria, from Palmyra to Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in the country’s west, a tract that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates to be 95,000 sq km, or more than half Syria’s landmass. With its seizure of the Arak and al-Hail gas fields near Palmyra, it also controls much of the country’s electricity supply – those two fields power much of the Syrian regime’s strongholds in the west.

Palmyra, once a Silk Road hub and one of the cultural centres of the ancient world that occupies mythological status in Syria, is home to some of the most beautiful and well-preserved ruins of antiquity, including the Temple of Bel, built in the first century.

Isis considers the preservation of such historical ruins a form of idolatry and has destroyed temples and historic artefacts, as well as ancient Assyrian sites in Nineveh in Iraq, after conquering the province in a lightning offensive last year.

The fall of the city raises questions about the fighting capability and cohesion of Assad’s remaining troops and allied militias, whose rapid collapse surprised observers, given their close proximity to supply lines and the strategic importance of Palmyra.

The regime is stretched thin after a string of losses to rebels in Idlib in the north, who are backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but residents had expected Assad’s forces to withstand the siege for longer. Instead, they appear to be retrenching in the country’s west, cutting their losses in the face of advances by Isis and the opposition.

Palmyra is the second city to be seized by Isis in less than a week, after the militants routed Iraqi security forces in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, highlighting the group’s resilience in the face of a US-led air campaign and the limits of its strategy.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/21/isis-palmyra-syria-islamic-state

Edit: moved to ISIS thread

(The following is actually more fitting in this topic instead)

US official admission as early as August 2012 of support of Salafists (Al-Qaida in Iraq - later ISIL) by the "The West, Gulf Countries and Turkey" sharing common strategic goals, against the "Syrian Regime".

So... US supports terrorism? What should we do with this? Keep calm and carry on?

So... US supports terrorism? What should we do with this? Keep calm and carry on?

Repeating a lie doesn't make it true, unlike what Goebbels and Putin believe.

About barrel bombs.......this article covers some additional infos. Report is a bit older from Febr. this year.

When the U.S. dropped barrel bombs in war (Washington Post)

"It's a childish story that keeps repeating in the West," smiled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in an interview with the BBC last week. He was dismissing allegations that his regime is attacking Syrian civilians with barrel bombs, crude devices packed with fuel and shrapnel that inflict brutal, indiscriminate damage.

If you think Assad doth protest too much, you're probably right. Human rights organizations, witness testimony and foreign governments all point to the Syrian government's frequent use of barrel bombs in densely packed urban areas, including a suspected attack last week in a devastated suburb of Damascus.

The fact that it's a deliberately indiscriminate weapon of war makes the Assad regime liable for war crimes.

Assad is not alone in allegedly using barrel bombs. Last summer, Human Rights Watch accused the government in neighboring Iraq of dropping barrel bombs in civilian-populated areas during its clashes with the militants of the Islamic State.

Look a bit further into the past, and you'll find that barrel bombs were featured in an American military campaign, too.

A smart post on the War Is Boring blog details when the United States dropped barrels packed with fuel in an attempt to burn foliage in the dense forests of Vietnam and smoke out Viet Cong guerrillas:

Army crews kicked the incendiary drums out of Chinook helicopters onto suspected enemy camps. They strapped white phosphorus smoke grenades to the cylinders to set them alight.The Air Force took the concept one step further and tried to start raging forest fires in Viet Cong base areas. The flying branch used fire barrels as well as normal incendiary bombs.

In April 1968, the United States carried out "Operation Inferno," in which 14 C-130 cargo planes dropped dozens of 55-gallon incendiary barrels filled with fuel over southern Vietnam's U Minh forest. The United States also dropped barrels full of a chemical equivalent of tear gas, aimed at flushing insurgent fighters out of their bunkered hideaways.

The barrel bombings in Vietnam were not aimed at heavily populated areas, and did not exact the human costs that the Assad regime probably has in its desperate fight with rebel forces. (---> except that up to two million civilians died in the Vietnam War and still sufffer from chemicals nowadays)

In its covert campaign over Laos, which served as a thoroughfare for Viet Cong fighters, the United States dropped 2.5 million tons of bombs on the Southeast Asian country, including 270 million cluster bomblets. A video visualizes the scope of the bombing runs.

A survey done in 2009 found that about 20,000 Laotian civilians had died since 1973, when the Vietnam war ended, as a consequence of stumbling upon unexploded ordnance - Cluster Bombs - dropped by the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/16/when-the-u-s-dropped-barrel-bombs-in-war/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_bomb#Barrel_bombs_by_country

Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut

Key lawmakers have moved to slash funding of a secret CIA operation to train and arm rebels in Syria,

a move that U.S. officials said reflects rising skepticism of the effectiveness of the agency program and the Obama administration’s strategy in the Middle East.

The House Intelligence Committee recently voted unanimously to cut as much as 20 percent of the classified funds flowing into a CIA program that U.S. officials said has become one the agency’s largest covert operations, with a budget approaching $1 billion a year.

U.S. officials said the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years — meaning that the agency is spending roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program.

This week, President Obama expanded the U.S. military’s role against the Islamic State, unveiling plans to deploy U.S. advisers to new bases in Iraq, while announcing no change to the limited American-led bombing campaign that began in Iraq and Syria last year.

But the sudden contraction of Assad’s sphere of control has focused renewed attention on Syria and the CIA program set up in 2013 to bolster moderate forces that still represent the United States’ most direct involvement on the ground in Syria’s civil war.

The CIA declined to comment on the program or its budget. But U.S. officials defended the scale of the expenditures, saying the money goes toward much more than salaries and weapons and is part of a broader, multibillion-dollar effort involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to bolster a coalition of militias known as the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army.

Much of the CIA’s money goes toward running secret training camps in Jordan, gathering intelligence to help guide the operations of agency-backed militias and managing a sprawling logistics network used to move fighters, ammunition and weapons into the country.

Still, officials said U.S.-backed fighters have made significant gains in recent weeks — including the seizure of a government army base — and represent the only meaningful prospect for the United States and its allies to maintain a foothold in the country if Assad falls.

Despite those gains south of Damascus, experts and officials said that the most significant pressure on Assad’s regime is in northern Syria, where the Islamic State is on the offensive. At the same time, a separate coalition of rebel groups known as the Army of Conquest has taken advantage of infusions of new weapons and cash from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

Recent CIA assessments have warned that the war is approaching a critical stage in which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is losing territory and strength, and might soon be forced to relinquish all but a narrow corridor of the country to rebel groups — some of them dominated by Islamist militants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmakers-move-to-curb-1-billion-cia-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/2015/06/12/b0f45a9e-1114-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html

*They are talking about moderate forces and the Free Syrian Army, wheras in other reports it was said already months ago that the Free Syrian Army does not exist anymore in bigger numbers and many did defect to the Islamic State.

Its FSA in the north (almost non existing and remains to exit the cooperation with the USA due requirements going vs ISIS only) vs FSA in the south (very supported by US, Israel, Jordan, probably Egypt and other Gulf countries).

(BBC) Syria conflict: Will Aleppo fall to Islamic State?

Developments in the north and the withdrawals from both Idlib and Palmyra suggest the president might be preparing for a divided Syria in which he kept control of Damascus and the Mediterranean cost in the west, leaving the north to the jihadists.

But at the same time, the regime feels embarrassed about the rebel advance. It could not justify the loss of Idlib to its loyalists internally nor to its allies, especially Iran, which has sent military personnel and arms to help.

And as the rebels get closer to the regime's coastal stronghold of Latakia, Tehran looks increasingly unwilling to rely on Mr Assad's forces.

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, is reported to have recently visited Latakia, and declared: "The world will be surprised by what we and the Syrian military leadership are preparing for the coming days."

The pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper, Assafir, has said almost 20,000 fighters from Iran and Iraq have arrived in Syria to fight for Idlib.

This is in addition to the fighters from those countries already on the ground, indicating how the regime is growing weaker by the day and how strategic decisions are increasingly made abroad.

U.S. Counter-Terrorism and the Saudi-Turkish-Israeli Strategic Alliance to Overthrow Assad

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14044

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter and TRNN's Paul Jay discuss U.S. policy in Syria and Iraq as its allies in the region push for the overthrow of the Assad regime

Well this has been going on for a long time, as well as weapon sales. Was that really news to you?

http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-oil-revenue-islamic-state-makes-money-selling-gas-bashar-assad-new-bbc2-1892370

Eh... Excuse me, but... Assad pays for oil from his own fields captured by ISIS and gives ISIS money so they would capture more Assad's territory?