Syria - latest NATO/Mossad terrorists' war crime scene

[TonyGosling]

this site down - presumably NATO/Israeli cyberwarfare op.

Ministry of Information: News and Photos Broadcast by Some Media on Terrorist Bombing at National Security HQ Baseless
SANA News Agency - Jul 18, 2012
http://www.sana.sy/eng/21/2012/07/18/432283.htm
DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Ministry of Information said "Since the terrorist bombing which caused the death of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Armed Forces, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense Gen. Dawood Rajiha, Deputy Minister of Defense Gen. Asef Shawkat and Assistant Vice-President Gen. Hassan Turkmani hundreds of websites, social networking websites and satellite channels started broadcasting huge amount of information, news and photos aimed at undermining the morals of the Syrian citizen."
In its statement on Wednesday, the Ministry stressed that all these news and photos are baseless and have been prepared by western intelligence apparatuses and psychological war centers, adding that the goals of this campaign revealed a clear weakness on the side of the conspirators against Syria abroad and their tools inside Syria.
The statement added that weakness and frustration pushed these websites and satellite channels towards such a desperate attempt to get out of its frustration.
The statement pointed out that "the Ministry condemns this cheap manner of media and calls for giving up these ways which have been exposed to the public opinion" as it calls these satellite channels and websites to admit of their failure in their open media war against Syria.
The ministry stressed that the hired media will not be able to achieve what the armed gangs failed to achieve.
Al-Zoubi: Responsibility for Terrorist Explosion in Damascus Lies with the Countries Sending Money and Arms to Syria
Earlier, Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi stressed in an interview with the Syrian TV that the terrorist explosion which targeted the National Security headquarters in Damascus expresses Syria's enemies' feeling of weakness and frustration at the strength and firmness of the Syrian Arab Army and at the terrorists' failure to undermine the Army's unity.
The Minister held the Qatari, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli intelligence accountable for the terrorist bombing which hit the building of the National Security.
He added that Arab and western governments, intelligence systems and agents are legally, politically and morally responsible for the killing, assassination and sabotage acts taking place in Syria for sending money and arms to the terrorists in it and that they will be punished for their crimes.
Al-Zoubi said that the Syrian army will protect the country and safeguard the homeland, calling upon the intelligence systems, agents and governments which conspired against Syria and its people to stop their terrorist activities.
He said that "We are a real state, a real people and a real army…We have always been able to defend ourselves against any aggression and conspiracies… We will hold them accountable according to the legal, moral, political and legitimate international tools."
The Minister said that this coward terrorist act, which came a few days after successful military maneuvers were conducted by the Syrian armed forces which proved the Syrian army's firmness and ability to confront any foreign attack indicates the weakness and the frustration of Syria's enemies, which pushed those who supply the terrorists with money and arms to target the leaders of this army.
Al-Zoubi said that what happened today is "the last chapter of the U.S.-Western-Israeli conspiracy against Syria", stressing that the morals of the Syrian people and Army are high and at their best and that Syria's enemies are mistaken in their assessment of the strength of the people, army and the country.
He dismissed what the satellite channels that are involved in shedding the Syrian blood have reported on explosions taking place in Damascus as "completely untrue", stressing that Syria will not let these channels which went too far in the media war on the Syrian people get away with their crime of instigation against Syria and that they will be sued.
Al-Zoubi underscored the Syrian Armed Forces' full preparedness and determination to uproot terrorism in Syria.

[TonyGosling]

The last days of Syrian butcher Assad's regime ­and of his Western supporters!
http:///tinyurl.com/ckce72u
We are witnessing the last days of Bashar "The Butcher" Assad, the Alawite sectarian dictator ruling Syria. Slowly but surely, the revolutionaries of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are closing in on his vipers' nests. Three days ago a massive bomb, pre-positioned by FSA fighters, exploded during a meeting of Assad's top henchmen ­ Defeence Minister Dawud Rajiha, Deputy Defence Minister and Assad brother-in-law Asif Shawkat, Deputy Vice-President Hassan Turkmani and security services chief Hisham Ikhtiar. For nearly a week now, the revolutionaries have been fighting regime forces and Shabiha thugs in Damascus. The fact that they have been able to sustain the fight right in the centre of the capital is a clear sign that the noose is tightening around the butcher Assad's neck. Any day, any week, any month now, it will be over and Assad will be all over our television screens ­ a pathetic, lifeless corpse or sliming his way down the steps of a plane in Moscow or Beijing. Yes, here in the West, lurking in the darkest corners of ignorance ­“ on the internet and on the English-language propaganda television channels of Russia and Iran, RT and Press TV, cynics and self-styled "anti-imperialists" and some "leftists" continue to pour out their bile and poisonous disinformation in defence of Syria's doomed dictator. They know who they ­ we won't wastee our time engaging with them in interminable, futile debates. But very soon history judge them, and the inexorable march of the Arab Awakening will expose them and confine them to the dustbin of history, forever. Below we bring to your attention three articles that analyse the delusions and motives behind these reactionary, self-serving enemies of the Arab people:

*Henry Lowi, "Storming the Bastille in Syria"
http://tinyurl.com/bsz7lyb

*Phan Binh, "Libya and Syria: when anti-imperialism goes wrong"
http://tinyurl.com/brbe5rv

*Nureddin Sabir, "Cynicism and black propaganda: the left's reactions to the Libyan and Syrian revolutions
http://tinyurl.com/6r8nysf

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[Disco_Destroyer]

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/syria/navy-task-force-preparing-mass-e vacuations-of-britons-from-syria-jordan-lebanon-1.1051851


Navy task force preparing mass evacuations of Britons from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon

[TonyGosling]

Brilliant speech - Hillary Clinton is the Wicked Witch of the West and waging cyberwar and media war against the God fearing Syrians. She of course is a Nazi.

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hndl2IVgBu4

[TonyGosling]

UK special forces train Syria’s armed rebels
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/07/21/252015/uk-special-forces-train-ar med-rebels/
UK media say SAS soldiers train armed rebels in Syria.
Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:28AM GMT
The British media have admitted that that former Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers are training leaders of armed rebels in Syria as reports said Britain has placed more than 600 troops on standby over the unrest in Syria.
The Daily Mail admitted that leaders of armed terror groups in Syria have been trained by former SAS soldiers as it claimed that the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad would be toppled within four weeks.
Furthermore, the newspaper said defence chiefs in Britain have put over 600 British soldiers on standby as part of contingency plans to evacuate British nationals from Lebanon saying the unrest in Syria could spill over into Lebanon.
This comes after British Foreign Secretary William Hague vowed to step up support for armed rebels inside Syria, a bid aimed at further fanning the flames of unrest inside the country.
Speaking with the state-run BBC on Friday 20 July, Hague said Britain should be acting outside the United Nations Security Council and intensify its work to support terrorists in Syria who target its government officials.
A terrorist bombing at the headquarters of the National Security Bureau in Damascus earlier this week claimed the lives of four senior officials including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, Security Chief General Hisham Ikhtiyar, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmeni.

More than 300 people were reported to have died around the city on Thursday, while the UN’s refugee agency said between 8,500 and 30,000 people have fled into Lebanon over the past 48 hours.

Significantly, rebel fighters have seized control of several border posts on the southern frontier with Iraq and the northern border with Turkey.

[TonyGosling]

Back again now - was down for about 72 hours from approx midday Thursday to Midnight Saturday evening.
http://www.sana.sy/index_eng.html
Catch it while you can.

Meanwhile
A prominent author believes that the way Western media depicts the massacres in Syria reveals the fact that they are "done under the auspices of NATO". An unnamed military source said that the army attacked the terrorists who had killed and wounded many civilians in the village of al-Turaymisah on the outskirts of the western city of Hama on Thursday, Syria's official news agency SANA reported. The source added that a large number of armed rebels were killed and scores more captured in an offensive that was concluded without any civilian casualties.


Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xghPWcEpeRs

Press TV talks with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, regarding the issue.

[outsider]

Passed on to the group by Sheila Coombes:

http://du115w.dub115.mail.live.com/default.aspx#n=894866041&fid=1&fav= 1&mid=cc939b3c-d58b-11e1-b87e-00215ad6e18a&fv=1





German intelligence: al-Qaeda all over Syria
By John Rosenthal

German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed




by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question.

In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted that the content of these reports was to remain classified "by reason of national interest", Like many other Western governments, Germany expelled Syria's ambassador in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence.

Meanwhile, at least three major German newspapers - Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild - have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario.

Writing in Bild, longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of "deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government". He described this "massacre-marketing strategy" as being "among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict". Todenhofer had recently been to Damascus, where he interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for Germany's ARD public television.

Wring in Die Welt, Alfred Hackensberger noted that Taldo, the sub-district of Houla where the massacre occurred, has been under rebel control since December 2011 and is in an open plain, making it unlikely that "hundreds of soldiers and Assad supporters" could have entered the village to commit the massacre. (An abridged version of Hackenberger's report also appeared in Die Berliner Morgenpost.) Hackensberger visited Houla to conduct investigations for his report.

He also interviewed an alleged eyewitness - identified simply by the pseudonym "Jibril" - at the Saint James Monastery in Qara, Syria. In contrast to an earlier report in the FAZ, which had claimed that the victims were largely Shi'ites and Alawis, Jibril told Hackensberger that all of the victims were Sunnis "like everybody here". By his account, they were killed for refusing to support the rebellion. Jibril added that "a lot of people in Houla know what really happened" but would not say so out of fear for their lives. "Whoever says something," he explained, "can only repeat the rebels' version. Anything else is certain death."

While traveling in the region of Homs, Hackensberger heard similar stories about the conduct of the rebels. One - now former - resident of the city of Qusayr told him that not only were Christians like himself expelled from the town, but that anyone who refused to enroll their children in the Free Syrian Army had been shot. Hackensberger's source held foreign Islamists responsible for the atrocities. "I have seen them with my own eyes," he said, "Pakistanis, Libyans, Tunisians and also Lebanese. They call Osama bin Laden their sheikh."

A Sunni resident of Homs told Hackensberger that he had witnessed how an armed group stopped a bus: "The passengers were divided into two groups: on the one side, Sunnis; on the other, Alawis." According to Hackenberger's source, the insurgents then proceeded to decapitate the nine Alawi passengers.

That the German government would cite national interest in refusing to disclose its information concerning the circumstances of the Houla massacre is particularly notable in light of Germany's support for the rebellion and its political arm, the Syrian National Council (SNC).

While France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have figured as the most visible Western powers supporting the rebellion, Germany has been quietly playing a major role behind the scenes. According to a new report in the FAZ, the German foreign office is working with representatives of the Syrian opposition to develop "concrete plans" for a "political transition" in Syria following the fall of Assad.

John Rosenthal is a journalist who specializes on European politics and transatlantic security issues. His website isTransatlantic Intelligencer

(Copyright 2012 John Rosenthal.)

[outsider]

Stephen Lendman article on Syria:

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/07/23/washingtons-plan-b-for-syria/

'Obama officials are meeting with Israeli, Turkish, and Western counterparts. They’re also discussing policy with Syrian opposition leaders.

Internal Washington “daily high-level meetings” are held. At issue is Plan B “to help map out a possible post-Assad government.”

“The administration has had regular talks with the Israelis about how Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, administration officials said.”

Washington is directly involved in arming, funding, training, and directing Syrian opposition mercenaries. They’re cutthroat killers. They’re enlisted to commit mass murder.

They target pro-Assad civilians and others randomly. Expect stepped up efforts ahead of direct Western and/or regional allies’ intervention.

Unnamed US officials said:

“You’ll notice in the last couple of months, the opposition has been strengthened. Now we’re ready to accelerate that.”

According to hawkish, pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) member Andrew Tabler:

“We’re looking at the controlled demolition of the Assad regime.” '

[TonyGosling]

Robert Fisk's latest.
How long would the President last, then? "Bashar will not run away from Damascus – this is rubbish in Western newspapers." Then came the killer line. "A month or two, maybe…"
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-yes -theres-violence-but-some-syrians-think-its-time-to-return-7976723.htm l

[TonyGosling]

US "Intelligence Assets" leading the Syrian "Opposition", the Role of the Bilderberg and the CFR

by Chris Marsden - Global Research, July 18, 2012 - World Socialist Web Site - 2012-07-17
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAR201 20718&articleId=31960

In a July 12 article for the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section, Charlie Skelton poses the fundamental question the world’s media does not want asked.

“The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking?” is a devastating exposé of the intimate connections between the Syrian opposition and the US, British and French intelligence services, along with top US neo-cons. It traces the formation of the Syrian National Council and the appointment of its leading personnel to long-standing and well-funded plans for regime change in Syria and more generally in the Middle East. These plans date back to at least 2005, and have been funded by Washington in an effort to secure political control of the oil-rich region.

Skelton does not attempt to be comprehensive. He focuses on a few of the most prominent members of the SNC and identifies some of the most vociferous proponents of military intervention as being paid representatives of the Western powers.

Among those routinely cited as “official spokesmen” or “pro-democracy campaigner” is the Paris-based Syrian academic Bassma Kodmani, a member of the executive bureau and head of the SNC’s foreign affairs.

Kodmani is a repeated visitor to the Bilderberg group conference, an organisation of top political figures dedicated to strengthening the links between US and European imperialism and securing their collective global interests under the banner of promoting “Atlanticism.”

In 2005, she worked for the Ford Foundation in Cairo. That year saw a marked deterioration in US-Syria relations, with President George W. Bush contemplating military intervention against Damascus alongside Israel.

In September, Kodmani was made the executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, funded by the US Council on Foreign Relations and its US/Middle East project—chaired by former national security adviser General Brent Scowcroft.

“Financial oversight” of the project was given to the Centre for European Reform (CER), a British think-tank headed by Lord Kerr, deputy chairman of Royal Dutch Shell.

Kodmani is also a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, functioning as the executive director of its Arab Reform Initiative.

Radwan Ziadeh, the SNC’s director of foreign relations, is a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace and a signatory to a letter calling for US military intervention alongside former head of the CIA James Woolsey, Karl Rove and other prominent neo-cons. He has acted as an intermediary between the White House and the Syrian opposition since 2005.

Najib Ghadbian, a University of Arkansas political scientist, is a member of the general secretariat of the SNC and is on the advisory board of a Washington-based Syrian Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, along with Ziadeh.

Ausama Monajed of the SNC is the founder of Barada Television, a pro-opposition satellite broadcaster and the former “director of public relations for the London-based Movement for Justice and Development” (MJD). Both are heavily funded by the US State Department, according to WikiLeaks.

Skelton cites some of the many hundreds of millions of dollars channelled into the Syrian opposition from the US and the Gulf States.

Among Monajed’s services to Washington was his publishing an official policy statement of the SNC, a document drafted by Michael Weiss of the Henry Jackson Society calling for intervention in Syria. The society is backed by top neo-cons such as William Kristol and Richard Perle.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, whose inflated figures on casualties are constantly cited by the media, turns out to be one man, Rami Abdul Rahman, based in Coventry and a clothes retailer.

Another Henry Jackson Society luminary is Hamza Fakher, described by Nick Cohen of the Observer as “one of the most reliable sources on the crimes the regime’s news blackout hides.”

The stories he has initiated have been routinely cited as eye-witness reports.

Fakher is the communication manager of Monajed’s London-based Strategic Research and Communications Centre and an employee of Barada TV.

Skelton deserves credit for writing so honestly on the network of connections between the Syrian opposition and the US/European military security apparatus. But the fact is that what he exposes will be well known to the research departments of the Guardian, the New York Times, BBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, et al.

None of them are being hoodwinked by anyone. They are willing conduits for imperialist war propaganda who ask no questions of the sources they cite because they do not want to undercut the drumbeat for war.

It is this that accounts for the scathing denunciation of Skelton in the next day’s edition of the Guardian by diplomatic editor Julian Borger

“US manipulation of news from Syria is a red herring,” the headline declares, “The big picture is clear.”

Accusing Skelton of “innuendo,” a heavy use of quotation marks to denote skepticism, “banal prose” and other literary crimes, Borger defends the various intelligence assets identified by Skelton as “people who have devoted a substantial share of their working life studying Syrian society and politics.”

This is a definition so value-free that could be applied to any number of imperialist strategists and spies.

The clear importance of Bassma Kodmani in the SNC hierarchy is simply dismissed, while Skelton is even derided for describing the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as “a powerful US lobby group,” for being “needlessly sinister”. It is “America’s most prestigious foreign policy talking shop and research centre”, Borger insists.

Borger in fact argues against his own faux-naïf pose. No other foreign policy think tank is more influential than the CFR, and Kodmani is there as a trusted representative of US imperialist interests in the Middle East.

It must be added that Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and its global co-thinkers, the Pabloite United Secretariat, and other pseudo-left outfits demonstrate a similar politically motivated blindness to the true character of the Syrian opposition and its aims.

In June, Khalil Habash complained in the United Secretariat’s International Viewpoint, “The Syrian revolutionary process has since the beginning been met by circumspection by some on the left…accusing it of being a conspiracy of Western imperialist and reactionary regional countries such as Saudi Arabia. This trend has unfortunately continued….”

The SWP’s Simon Assaf was blunter still at the annual Marxism 2012 event. He said that he did not want to dwell on those alleging “conspiracy” due to the involvement of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or the US because “it would take me too long to calm down”.

It is not simply that these groups refuse to take a critical stance towards the opposition movement and the diverse social forces it represents—as would be necessary for anyone seeking to lay the basis for the development of an independent working class oppositional movement in Syria. Like the Guardian and other mainstream media, they very deliberately conceal the bourgeois, Sunni-sectarian and pro-imperialist character of the movement’s current leadership to conceal great-power imperialist intrigues, the end result of which will be more disastrous than even NATO’s war against Libya.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAR201 20718&articleId=31960

[TonyGosling]

Syria defeats NATO’s swarming terrorists
Armed rebels clash with Syrian government forces in the center of Syria's restive northern city of Aleppo.
Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:50AM GMT - By Webster G. Tarpley
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/27/252979/syria-defeats-natos-ter rorists/
NATO created a multi-layered strategy to subvert and destroy the Syrian state using covert action below the threshold of bombing and invasion, although including out special forces and espionage."
Last week, the NATO powers launched their long-awaited summer offensive against Syria. This was a multi-pronged effort designed not just to overthrow the government of President Assad, but also to totally disintegrate the existing structures of the Syrian state, dissolving the entire country into chaos, confusion, secession, attempted coups d’état, and a likely massacre of Assad backers, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, and other minority groups.
This assault peaked between July 18 and July 21. Almost a week later, all indications suggest that Assad, the Baath party, and the Syrian state have proven to be much stronger than the NATO planners had imagined, and that the imperialist attack has been defeated for the time being.
The easiest way for NATO to destroy independent Syria would be to obtain a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a no-fly zone, a bombing campaign, and incursions by special forces, many of them sent by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the other reactionary Gulf monarchies. But this path has been blocked by the courageous resistance of Russia and China. Another method would be to form a coalition of the willing outside of the United Nations and proceed to the attack, as was done in the cases of Serbia and Iraq. But, with Russian President Vladimir Putin reasserting Russia’s support for Syria, this method poses the risk of Russian and Chinese retaliation in ways which the Anglo-Americans might find extremely painful. Therefore, NATO created a multi-layered strategy to subvert and destroy the Syrian state using covert action below the threshold of bombing and invasion, although including out special forces and espionage.
The signal to activate the assembled capabilities was given by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 8, when she warned Damascus that little time remained to avoid a “catastrophic assault” capable of destroying the Syrian state. This is exactly what was attempted last week.
First, NATO attempted to isolate Syria by interrupting communications with its traditional ally, Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal of July 23, the United States in particular has exerted pressure on the government of Iraq to deny overflight permission for flights between Syria and Iran through Iraqi airspace. An official US diplomatic demarche delivered in Baghdad demanded that such flights be banned. At the same time, pressure was exerted on the government of Egypt to violate the international status of the Suez Canal by preventing the transit of Iranian ships allegedly headed for Syrian ports. But these efforts have yielded only mixed results, according to this account.
The main diplomatic thrust of the destabilization effort was yet another UN Security Council resolution opening the door to Chapter Seven economic sanctions and military attack on Syria. This transparent bid for a general war in the Middle East was duly vetoed by Russia and China, while Pakistan and South Africa abstained despite US pressure. United States Ambassador to the UN Susan E. Rice became hysterical, raving that the Russian Federation was “pitiful,” “dangerous,” and “deplorable” after she lost the vote. Hillary Clinton had previously branded Russia as “despicable” and “intolerable.” One imagines these charming ladies chewing the carpet as Hitler reportedly did during the run-up to the Munich conference of September 1938.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov correctly described the US diplomatic posture as “justifying terrorism.” According to Lavrov, the US stance amounted to, “We will continue to support terrorist attacks until the Security Council does what we want.” It would now be in order for Russia and China to propose a Security Council resolution condemning the United States and its allies for giving material support to terrorism.
The most dramatic single episode of the assault was an apparent explosion on Wednesday, July 18 in one of the main Syrian government buildings which killed Defense Minister Rajha (the top Christian in the government), crisis management director Turkmani, and Assef Shawkat, a military intelligence expert and brother-in-law of President Assad. Interior Minister Shaar was reported wounded, and national security director Ikhtiyar succumbed later to injuries. Western media were quick to gloat, attributing the explosion to a suicide bomber recruited from inside one of the key ministries, but this may reflect an attempt to launch a variation of Operation Splinter Factor among top officials. Other hypotheses include a rocket fired from a US drone. Thierry Meyssan has reported that the explosion was detonated from inside the US Embassy, which is nearby.
The goal of this attack was clearly the decapitation of the Syrian military and security forces, and of the Syrian state overall. But thanks to the fact that President Assad was not involved, Syria was able to maintain continuity of government and a functioning command structure, which quickly recovered from this staggering blow. Within hours, replacements for the slain officials had been nominated and announced to the public, and a reshuffling of top jobs continued for several days. If NATO had prepared a coup d’état to fill the void, there is no indication that it ever got off the ground.
So far, the NATO attack on Syria has depended mainly on Salvadoran-style death squads composed mainly of foreign fighters, including al-Qaeda and similar groups, some of which had originated as part of the US counterinsurgency effort in Iraq in 2005, during the tenure in Baghdad of US Ambassador John Negroponte. One of Negroponte’s disciples, Ambassador Robert Ford, was present in Damascus during the pre-2011 preparation of the current assault.
But, given the inability of the numerically weak death squads to capture and hold even a single town or village, to say nothing of a region of the country, it was decided to recruit and deploy an entirely new echelon of foreign fighters from all over North Africa and the Middle East. These were necessarily mercenaries, fanatics, convicts, and adventurers whose military training and weaponry would be inferior even to those of fighters deployed by NATO so far.
Their task was to implement a strategy of swarming. In military terms, swarming is the attempt to overwhelm an opponent by a rapid series of attacks from loosely coordinated autonomous groups. Quantity trumps quality. Many thousands of additional fighters were shipped in by NATO; Meyssan puts their numbers between 40,000 and 60,000, but this may be excessive. They crossed Syrian borders with Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraqi Kurdistan. The fighters themselves came from Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, and other countries. As they entered Syria from foreign territory, the fighters seized temporary control of several border crossings, a fact much-hyped by the Western press.
The premise of this irregular assault had been the wishful notion that resistance by the Syrian army would collapse. But the Fourth Armored division, the Republican Guard, and other key units held fast. This left the foreign fighters as sitting ducks in vulnerable positions they could not hope to defend. As of this writing, the foreign fighters have been largely mopped up in Damascus, and another large concentration in Aleppo appears to be surrounded and destined for annihilation. NATO’s pool of cannon fodder has thus been sharply depleted.
To spread the idea that Syrian resistance had collapsed and that further resistance against NATO was futile, Ben Rhodes of the Obama White House, the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Prince Bandar, and other officials had also prepared a campaign of psychological media warfare and video fakery. Syrian state television, al Adounia, and other pro-Syrian broadcasters were to be denied access to Nilesat and Arabsat, and their signals replaced by fake programming generated by the CIA, including with movie sets and Potemkin villages in the Gulf monarchies. But this plan had been revealed many weeks in advance, notably by Meyssan. Accordingly, loyal Syrian broadcasters prepared their audience with public service announcements about what was coming, and how to receive genuine programming.
Programming on Nilesat and Arabsat was in fact repeatedly interrupted, while the widely hated al Jazeera of Qatar and Saudi al Arabiya reported that Assad had fled. But few were fooled by the crude NATO substitutes, so shock and awe fell flat. A NATO plan to organize a panic run on the Syrian currency, contributing a further dimension of economic and logistical chaos, also fell short.
As it became clear that the anti-government forces trapped in Damascus were being decimated, King Abdullah of Jordan began harping on the danger that Syrian chemical weapons might be used or get out of control - an established meme of NATO propaganda. NATO was clearly still looking for a pretext to attack, but the eleven Russian warships assigned to Tartus and the eastern Mediterranean left that approach fraught with peril.
A danger is also emerging for the reactionary feudal monarchs who are NATO’s main allies in the Middle East. Partly as a result of NATO’s incessant pro-democracy rhetoric, the ferment of social protest is now widespread in Saudi Arabia, surely one of the countries most vulnerable to a mass upsurge. On July 22, an explosion occurred at the headquarters of the Saudi intelligence service in Riyadh, killing the deputy director. The target may also have been Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who had just been named intelligence boss, and who is deeply implicated in the Syrian events. Was this somebody’s payback? More importantly, might this attack become the trigger for a mass movement in Saudi Arabia powerful enough to threaten the feudal-reactionary dynasty and the power of the infamous Sudairi clan?

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.rt.com/news/tarturs-base-defense-evacuation-293/

Russian Navy to evacuate Syrian base in emergency

Published: 28 July, 2012, 15:06

Russian Navy amphibious landing vessel "Nikolai Filchenkov". (Reuters / Stringer)

Syria unrest

If the lives of the personnel at the Russian naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus are put at serious risk, they may be evacuated, Russia’s Navy chief says. This comes as Russia holds a major naval drill not far from the Syrian coast.
“If an emergency happens, we will remove the base’s personnel,” Vice-Adm. Viktor Chirkov told Echo Moscow radio Saturday, when asked what the Russian military would do if the base at the Syrian port Tartus came under attack.
He added that it would be up to the Russian president to order such a move.
Earlier, Navy sources warned that Russia currently has enough capabilities to defend its base in Syria from a rebel attack. This was in response to threats from the Free Syrian Army, who said they would target the base or Russian warships directly for Russia’s support of the Syrian government.
The Tartus base is used for repair and refueling of Russian military vessels in the Mediterranean. It is currently manned by some 50 sailors and officers. The base was first established in the 1970s as part of the Soviet Union’s effort to contain growing Israeli influence in the Middle East.
The base suffered from neglect in the 1990s, but Moscow decided to beef up its military presence in the region in 2008, which meant more investment in the Tartus base. In August 2010 then-commander of the Russian Navy Vladimir Vysotsky said the base would be upgraded to service high-tonnage ships, including aircraft carriers. On Thursday, Vice-Adm. Chirkov told the media that Russia intends to preserve the base.
The Tartus base has come into media spotlight lately, after Russia launched massive naval drills in the Mediterranean Sea. The Navy deployed 20 warships and support ships for the exercise. Several of the vessels in the fleet carry units of marines on board.
Some media speculated that the ships and ground troops could be used to help Damascus in its crackdown on the opposition. Moscow denied the allegations, saying the exercise was scheduled long before the Syrian conflict escalated. The Russian fleet is not even expected to visit the Tartus base as part of the drills.
The 17-month-long armed conflict in Syria has left 16,000 people dead, according to UN estimates. The armed opposition is struggling to oust President Bashar al-Assad’s government with support from the US, some European countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Syrian government says it is facing a covert foreign intervention.

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4261923,00.html

Chinese destroyer enters Mediterranean via Suez

[TonyGosling]

Free Syrian Army Franchise Advertised Abroad

'Clear evidence of foreign fighters joining battle in Syria'
Last updated Tue 31 Jul 2012
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-07-31/foreign-office-minister-clea r-evidence-of-foreign-fighters-in-syria/?
More foreign fighters will pour into Syria the longer president Bashar Assad maintains his grip on power, the British Government said today.
Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt warned the worsening civil war would attract jihadists to the country to fill the void created by fierce battles between Assad's forces and rebels. Mr Burt said:
We said at a very early stage that unless this finished early, unless the proposals to have a ceasefire and get political transition going in Syria among Syrians happened, then the fight would be joined by others from outside. There is clear evidence of this.

[TonyGosling]

Hey Kids. They're lying to you at the Guardian and the BBC!
Lying to you!

Syria Spin Machine: UK mainstream lies exposed

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4YcQ_cT1C4
While Syria's still locked in bloody confrontation on the ground, another war is also being waged - the media one. And as RT has discovered, even the world's most respected media outlets who have huge influence in shaping public opinion, resort to distorting facts.

[TonyGosling]

Mohammed Al-Saeed Dead: Militant Group Claims Kidnapping, Killing Of Syrian TV Presenter
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/05/mohammed-al-saeed-dead-milita nt-group-kidnapping-killing_n_1743392.html
Reuters | Posted: 08/05/2012 6:39 am Updated: 08/05/2012 10:43 am
DUBAI, Aug 5 (Reuters) - An Islamist militant group has claimed responsibility for the kidnap and killing of a Syrian television presenter and has threatened more attacks on supporters of President Bashar al-Assad, the SITE monitoring group which tracks Jihadist websites said on Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had said that Syrian state television presenter Mohammed al-Saeed, who was kidnapped from his home in mid-July, had been executed.
SITE said the Al Nusra Front stated in one of four communiques posted on Islamist forums on August 3 that it had kidnapped Saeed in Damascus province on July 19, and killed him after subjecting him to interrogation.
"Perhaps this operation and others will serve as an example to all who support this tyrannical regime, so that they may repent to God," SITE quoted the militant group as saying in a statement. "Otherwise, the swords of the mujahideen will cut off their heads and purify the Levant (Syria) from their obscenity."
It was not immediately possible to verify the claim from the group, which was unknown before it claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in Damascus and Aleppo that started in December.
Last month, the group claimed responsibility for a raid and bombing on June 27 of Ikhbariya headquarters, a pro-government Syrian TV channel, in which seven people were killed.
In June, the Al Nusra Front claimed responsibility for the killing of 13 men whose bodies were found bound and shot in the city of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria on May 29. The killings condemned by United Nations monitors as "appalling and inexcusable".
Camille Tawil, a historian of Islamist armed groups and writer for the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper has said the group was alienating the majority of the Syrian opposition.
SITE quoted Al Nusra Front as saying in another communique that its fighters, in a joint operation with the Al Sahaba Battalion - part of the Free Syrian Army, stormed a police station in Jdeidet Artouz, near Damascus, destroying it and capturing equipment and weaponry. (Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Massacres in Aleppo by Western-armed "Free Syrian Army"
by Tony Cartalucci - Global Research, August 5, 2012
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32205
landdestroyer.blogspot.com - 2012-08-04
"Responsibility to Protect" crumbles as Western-armed terror front slaughters civilians while foreign sponsors attempt to tie hands of Syrian security forces.
For the people of Aleppo, their only hope is Syria's security forces restoring order. In the pockets of Syria's largest city the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) has dug into, a campaign of systematic detention, torture, and mass murder has been carried out against "enemies of the revolution." Demonized as either "Shabiha" or "government supporters," men have been rounded up, lined up against walls, and gunned down en mass. Others await barbaric "drumhead trials" where FSA warlords deal out arbitrary justice under the guise of "Sharia law."
Worst of all, all of this is being reported by the Western media, but carefully downplayed, excused, spun, and otherwise sneaked through news cycles and headlines.
Reuters presented just such a report titled, "Rebels fill Aleppo power vacuum, some disapprove." Judging from the title, one might assume residents in the "liberated" alleys of select Aleppo neighborhoods are simply dissatisfied with late garbage collection and perhaps broken street lights. The title is far from the blood curdling hysteria accompanying Western accounts (and fabrications) of Syrian security operations over the last year and a half.
However, what Reuters actually reports is indeed growing basement-dungeons full of "suspected Shabiha," clear evidence of torture and abuse, as well as a growing number of summary executions and mass murder carried out before cameras and Western media in the streets.
The London Guardian likewise spins and downplays what are overt, ghoulish atrocities committed right on camera for the entire world to see. Russia Today covered one such massacre providing a graphic video depicting several bloodied men lined up against a wall and machine gunned to death, their bodies left in a tattered pile by FSA terrorists. RT leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that what they just witnessed was a war crime.
The Guardian however, begins downplaying the brutal massacre with the headline, "Syria crisis: rebels 'execute shabiha' in Aleppo." Already Guardian plays a role in shaping the potential reader's perception, convicting the massacred victims as "Shabiha." Scrolling down through a list of unverified accusations leveled against the Syrian government, one finds not an objective journalistic report of the massacre, but the justification provided by the FSA themselves, in a quote by Guardian's FSA "contact" that includes the somber warning:
"Regarding the video of the shabiha killed by the FSA, as far as I know these shabiha are from the "Berri" clan in Aleppo. They have a long history of being pro-regime shabiha and they have been involved in a lot of killing in Aleppo.
The regime used to provide them with light weapons and knives and gather them in schools to go and launch their attacks against civilians. Just before they left one of the schools they were caught by the FSA and killed.
In this war in which we left alone to fight such a vicious regime, everything is possible and legitimate and as long as the international community keeps looking at Syria in such carelessness, you will see more of that and even worse."
The Guardian not only excuses what was a massacre of civilians, but sows the ground for excusing war crimes that eclipse even this episode of barbarism. Unfortunately, the Guardian is not alone - this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout the Western media and signifies that as the military campaign winds down, the terror campaign is just beginning. US special interests' promise to "bleed" Syria is manifesting itself before our eyes.
The FSA's claims of everyone they round up, torture, and execute being "Shabiha" carry with them the familiar and horrifying ring of the term "African mercenaries" used to label black Libyans who were targeted by NATO-armed racist sectarian extremists also posing as "revolutionaries." In the end, entire cities were emptied out of blacks (and here) who had for generations called Libya home. Refugee camps were then systematically targeted until Libya's blacks were either dead, imprisoned or exiled beyond their homeland's borders as part of a brutal genocidal campaign covered up by the Western media and downplayed by the West's self-appointed global arbiters of human rights, namely Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
While the West still to this day claims Libya's blacks were "pro-Qaddafi," Libya's blacks had no choice but to fight NATO's terrorists of Benghazi, as their complexions and creeds, not political affiliations, had marked them as intolerable and undesirable by NATO's "liberators."
Likewise, a similar campaign of sectarian driven genocide, predicted for years should the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others unleash Al Qaeda aligned death squads across the Levant to destabilize their geopolitical enemies, is unfolding, due in part to the complicity of the Western media.
In 2007, in Hersh's "The Redirection," the following foreshadowing to the NATO and FSA's unfolding genocidal rampage was given:
"Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites" -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
Now, demonstratively, we see exactly this feared onslaught manifesting itself in Syria, in particular against Christians as indicated in LA Times' "Church fears 'ethnic cleansing' of Christians in Homs, Syria," and more recently in USA Today's distorted, but still telling, "Christians in Syria live in uneasy alliance with Assad, Alawites." Even the massacre in Houla, seems to echo of this 2007 warning, bearing all the hallmarks of sectarian extremists like Al Qaeda.
With the Western press freely admitting that their "freedom fighting" FSA is lining up "suspected government supporters" and machine gunning them en mass, it seems the massacre the West feared would unfold in Aleppo has come to pass - only it wasn't perpetrated by the Syrian government or its security forces, but rather by NATO and the Gulf State's very own armed and coddled FSA terrorists.
As the West's machinations implode upon themselves and shareholders begin hedging their bets and distancing themselves from possible culpability for egregious crimes against humanity, we must hope that global opposition reaches a critical mass, forcing the West to stand down and allowing the Syrian government to restore order across their nation-state. Until then, we as individuals must identify, boycott, and replace the corporate-financier interests driving this insidious conspiracy against humanity. While swatting mosquitoes seems to be the most immediate remedy at hand, draining the swamp from within which they flourish is the only way to solve this problem permanently.

[outsider]

Rough Google translated Icelandic newspaper report from British journalist captured by the 'rebels':

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en &ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ruv.is%2Ffrett%2Fenginn-s yrlendingur-i-sjonmali

[TonyGosling]

Fast becoming clear that the US & NATO have no respect for the Security Council or the UN as a whole
They are working on the China right wing andi Bo Shi Li faction in an attempt to swing the Chinese round to support an attack on Syria and isolate the Russians
Can you see where this is heading?

U.S., Turkey study Syria no-fly zone
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/11/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610S H20120811
(Reuters) - The United States and Turkey indicated they were studying a range of possible measures over Syria, including a no-fly zone, as battles between rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's forces shook Aleppo and the heart of Damascus.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after meeting her Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul on Saturday that Washington and Ankara should develop detailed operational planning on ways to assist the rebels fighting to topple Assad.
"Our intelligence services, our military have very important responsibilities and roles to play so we are going to be setting up a working group to do exactly that," she said.
Asked about options such as imposing a no-fly zone over rebel-held territory, Clinton said these were possibilities she and Davutoglu had agreed "need greater in-depth analysis", while indicating that no decisions were necessarily imminent.
"It is one thing to talk about all kinds of potential actions, but you cannot make reasoned decisions without doing intense analysis and operational planning," she said.
Though any intervention appears to be a distant prospect, her remarks were nevertheless the closest Washington has come to suggesting direct military action in Syria.
No-fly zones imposed by NATO and Arab allies helped Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi last year. Until recently, the West had shunned the idea of repeating any Libya-style action.

[TonyGosling]

ANd now the sensible conference

The two sides in world war three are becoming clear

An Iranian lawmaker says the United States seeks to downplay Iran's crucial role in resolving the Syrian crisis. Mohammad Saleh Jokar made the remark in response to the US reaction to Iran's holding of a recent consultative meeting on Syria. Iran hosted the day-long meeting on Thursday, August 7 to discuss the Syrian unrest. The gathering was attended by officials and representatives from nearly 30 countries.

The United States dismissed the importance of the conference and criticized the Islamic Republic for supporting the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. Jokar reiterated that "the policy of isolating Iran will get nowhere," adding that Washington aims to bar Iran's participation in ending the Syrian crisis

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian, to further discuss the issue.

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCwEkC3LNew

[TonyGosling]

30 NATIONS MEET IN TEHRAN FOR A PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVE TO HILLIARY CLINTON’S ATTACK ON SYRIA
http://syria360.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/30-nations-meet-in-tehran-for -a-peaceful-alternative-to-hilliary-clintons-attack-on-syria/

FINAL STATEMENT FROM TEHRAN CONFERENCE ON SYRIA

An Iranian lawmaker says the United States seeks to downplay Iran’s crucial role in resolving the Syrian crisis.

Mohammad Saleh Jokar made the remark in response to the US reaction to Iran’s holding of a recent consultative meeting on Syria.

Iran hosted the day-long meeting on Thursday, August 7 to discuss the Syrian unrest. The gathering was attended by officials and representatives from nearly 30 countries.

The United States dismissed the importance of the conference and criticized the Islamic Republic for supporting the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Jokar reiterated that “the policy of isolating Iran will get nowhere,” adding that Washington aims to bar Iran’s participation in ending the Syrian crisis

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian, to further discuss the issue.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: France is the first country to officially commit its military to the Syria situation. Is this a parallel to the role France played in Libya?

Tarpley: President Hollande has been a target of a very vigorous campaign by the reactionaries and colonialists in France, people around Sarkozy and including Sarkozy himself, demanding that Hollande take the lead as the aggressor in Syria. I think it’s a kind of a desperation tactic to keep something going when it’s not going.

Today we’ve had Hillary Clinton visiting Turkey. In her meeting with Foreign Minister Davutoglu, they talked about a no-fly zone that the United States and Turkey, perhaps with other countries, would somehow try to impose a no-fly zone over Syria which, of course, would mean a war.

Brennan, the anti-terror Czar of the Obama White House had talked about a no-fly zone earlier this week at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. It’s not clear whether that’s just talk, whether that’s bluffing. Given the track record of these people, we would have to take it very serious, indeed.

Press TV: On another front, the US secretary of State Hillary Clinton has come out saying Washington and Ankara are working on a detailed military and intelligence operation hopefully to bring a regime change in Syria. Do you think it’s going to work?

Tarpley: No, I think this is a somewhat desperate plan now.

I think the big turning point actually occurred yesterday. The Tehran consultative conference on Syria, it seems to me, is a landmark event in our times. 30 countries coming together on the basis, I would say, of national dependence and national dignity.

Not much more than that but that’s already a lot in today’s world, and certainly organized by the Iranian foreign ministry with the presence of Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Sudan, Cuba a very important selection of countries across the world.

It obviously shows that Syria is not isolated in a way that Hillary Clinton says. This is really the first time that we’ve had a kind of task-oriented, anti-imperialist conference.

It’s very interesting here in the United States, the media has not a word about this. It’s a complete blackout. I’ve looked at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the television stations, there’s nothing about this conference.

I think the US State Department is freaked out because this is a huge defeat for Hillary Clinton. What is Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy worth if 30 countries including about half the world when you get down to it, can come together on a pro-Syrian, pro-independence platform?

It seems to me that the imperialists are probably getting desperate. This is of course the classic time when they resort either to some kind of Gulf of Tonkin incidence, something military, or the classic false flag that we’ve seen them play so many times.

Press TV: Of course, Libya did not have this support in the situation at the time. However, how can one explain the US double standards on Syria compared with its role in Bahrain and Yemen? Why is the Western public opinion silent on the atrocities committed against the civilians by the so-called Free Syrian Army, in your opinion?

Tarpley: I don’t think there’s total silence here in the West. I think there’s an awareness and it’s a growing awareness. Obviously, the first part of your question, this is hypocrisy.

What I think we’re getting towards now is a situation where you have to frankly admit there are two blocks of states. There’s an imperialist block with the US, the British, NATO, the Israelis and so forth; but then there’s an anti-imperialist block which is very large and quite formidable when you’ve got Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia. That’s already a great deal.

Let me also focus on the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Mrs. Khar, who I think made a landmark statement of her own: it’s time now to reject, very categorically, any idea of foreign intervention into Syria.

This leaves the US in a terrible predicament. We have to see how they’re going to get out and it might be some ugly surprises.[/b]

[TonyGosling]

Tunnel full of weapons discovered in Syrian capital
Mon Aug 13, 2012 3:53PM GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/13/256051/weapons-ammunitions-sei zed-in-damascus/
Syrian security forces have discovered a tunnel under a house in the capital, Damascus, with a large amount of weapons and ammunition stored inside.
Israeli-made bombs, night vision goggles, sophisticated telecommunication equipment and a satellite sender were among things confiscated.
Syrian troops also discovered documents detailing insurgents' planned attacks on strategic locations. Stolen medicines were also found in the tunnel.
A number of insurgents were also arrested after security forces stormed the house. The tunnel was discovered in Old Damascus on Saturday.
Syria, which has been experiencing unrest since last year, has repeatedly said that weapons used by armed groups fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad are being smuggled into the country from Turkey and Lebanon.
Syria has also accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of fueling unrest in the country by funding and arming the anti-Syria gunmen.
Syria has been the scene of deadly unrest since mid-March, 2011 and many people, including large numbers of army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on August 1 that the country is engaged in a ''crucial and heroic'' battle that will determine the destiny of the nation.

[Disco_Destroyer]

'Americans should force Obama to go before he starts Syria war'


Link

[TonyGosling]

That means the Security Council can go to hell, troubling stuff 'Call Me Dave'

Cameron and Obama warn Syria over chemical weapons
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/cameron-and-obama-war n-syria-over-chemical-weapons-8075650.html
David Hughes - Thursday 23 August 2012
Prime Minister David Cameron and US president Barack Obama have agreed that the use of chemical weapons in Syria or even a threat to deploy them would be “completely unacceptable”.
In a phone call the two leaders said if President Bashar Assad made such a move it "would force them to revisit their approach so far".
The two leaders said there was "much more to do" to stop the brutal killing of civilians in the Middle East state.
Earlier this week President Obama warned that any movement of Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons would be a "red line" which would have "enormous consequences".
Mr Cameron also discussed the situation with French president Francois Hollande and the two European nations agreed to "work more closely to identify how they could bolster the opposition and help a potential transitional Syrian government after the inevitable fall of Assad".
Downing Street said Mr Cameron and President Obama "both agreed that the use - or threat - of chemical weapons was completely unacceptable and would force them to revisit their approach so far".
A spokeswoman added: "The Prime Minister restated the risk to the wider region posed by the fighting and the fact that regional and international cooperation was vital.
"He reinforced the need to work in close cooperation with Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others on the issue."
They also "firmly agreed that there was much more to do in order to stop the brutal killing of civilians and help put Syria on a path towards peace and stability".
They discussed how to build on the support both nations had offered to the opposition in Syria "to end the appalling violence and bring about stability".
The leaders said they hoped a meeting of opposition groups in Cairo would show "real unity of purpose and coherence in working towards transition".
Mr Cameron and Mr Obama agreed that more should be done by the international community to channel humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees through the UN appeal.
Mr Cameron and Mr Hollande discussed the need to maintain international pressure on the Assad regime.
They agreed that the refugee situation was "deeply troubling" and Mr Hollande said that the humanitarian crisis would be the focus of France's United Nations Security Council ministerial meeting at the end of the month.
The pair welcomed the appointment of Lakhdar Brahimi as the new UN envoy and hoped that he would carry on the work of Kofi Annan in "seeking a credible political solution - as well as holding the regime to account for any further atrocities".
Fierce fighting raged in Damascus yesterday, with regime forces shelling several areas of the southern city before tanks continued the assault, reportedly killing at least 35 suspected rebels.
The northern city of Aleppo also saw armed battles.

[TonyGosling]

Israeli Jets Violating Lebanese Airspace
Lebanon likely to Shoot it Down
Like Turkey's Jet was in Syria

Security - Army detects Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace
Fri 24/08/2012 18:10
http://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/newsDetailE.aspx?id=432691
NNA - 24/8/2012 - A reconnaissance plane affiliated with the Israeli enemy violated, at 7:10 am today, the Lebanese airspace over Naqoura village, a communique by the Lebanese Army Command-Guidance Directorate said Friday.
It added that the plane left at 11:40 am after effectuating the usual circular flight off Riaq, Baalbeck, Hermel, and Al-Arz regions.
Later at 9:40 am, a spying jet flew over Naqoura and executed the u-shaped maneuver off the South and Iqlim Kharroub.
It left at 1:15 pm from above Kafr Kila village.

[Disco_Destroyer]

Dawson, Controlled media propaganda on Syria, and pentagon waste


Link

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

So I guess it's okay for the Russians to go in there and take these Brits out?

SAS HUNT BIO ARMS
NEARLY 200 elite SAS and SBS troops are in or around Syria hunting for Assad’s weapons of mass destruction, we can reveal.
The crack teams are deep in the war-torn country preparing to capture the deadly chemical arsenal when the president decides to use it or move it.
Men of the special forces units plus 1 Para are on the ground working alongside MI6 and the CIA plus American and French troops.
“This is like something out of a Frederick Forsyth thriller but it’s true and a lot of people could get killed,” said a senior British defence expert
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/268989/SAS-hunt-bio-arms/

[TonyGosling]

Ah, now we get down to what NATO and the Israelis really want to destroy.
Heartbreaking

Terrorists target Syrian culture & history

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2bhrdh71h0
2012 is the year in which Syrians are facing systemic demolition of their infrastructure, and the media outlets naming this demolition as a revolution, yet Syrians believe this will destroy everything in its way.

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Suppressing Press TV is deplorable – Ofcom should restore its licence now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/24/suppressing-press- tv-ofcom-licence

Former Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark says Pentagon taking out 7 countries in 5 years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJkTwBEOtB8



Link

[Disco_Destroyer]

quick grab BBC trying to cover up their own impartial reporting

BBC News HD - Syrian rebels try to use prisoner for suicide bombing 2012


Link

[Disco_Destroyer]

Gordon Duff for Press TV

[TonyGosling]

CIA Director reportedly in Turkey for secret talks
September 4, 2012
http://www.blacklistednews.com/CIA_Director_reportedly_in_Turkey_for_s ecret_talks/21347/0/38/38/Y/M.html
Source: Intel News.org
Turkish and American authorities have refused comment on persistent reports that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is currently on a secret visit to Turkey. News of the alleged trip was first reported on Monday by Turkish tabloid daily Akşam. The newspaper said David Petraeus, who heads the United States’ foremost civilian intelligence agency, had arrived earlier that day in Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport, on his private plane. According to the article, the CIA chief decided to embark on the unannounced trip in order to discuss “counterterrorism and the situation in Syria” with senior Turkish officials. Several hours later, French news agency Agence France Presse reported that, according to “a US official”, the CIA Director was indeed in Turkey, holding secret “meetings on regional issues”. However, the unnamed US source would not provide specific information about Petreaeus’ meeting arrangements while in Turkey, nor would (s)he divulge the names of the Turkish officials that were scheduled to meet with him. Another Turkish daily, Hürriyet, said the CIA Director would probably meet with his Turkish counterpart, MİT chief Hakan Fidan, as well as with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . But repeated efforts by the paper to confirm this were rebuffed by representatives of the US embassy in Ankara, as well as Turkish officials.