Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 164

BEIRUT - Six key Islamist groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria joined forces on Friday, a spokeperson for Aleppo's biggest rebel force said.

"Thank God, the complete merger of the major military factions fighting in Syria has been announced," Liwa al-Tawhid spokeperson Abu Firas said in a posting on Facebook.

The creation of the joint force -- which has been dubbed the Islamic Front -- came after major regime advances on key battlegrounds around Damascus and Aleppo in northern Syria.

Opposition sources and experts have attributed the regime's successes in part to rebel disunity.

The groups merged days after the death of Liwa al-Tawhid's charismatic military chief Abdel Qader Saleh, who had reportedly made calls for such a rebel alliance.

According to Abu Firas, the groups merging their troops were Liwa al-Tawhid, Ahrar al-Sham, the Army of Islam, Suqour al-Sham, Liwa al-Haq and the Ansar al-Sham battalions.

On November 22 2013 14:51 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Not sure I should post this but it is very NSFW, ANNA crew under sniper attack:

+ Show Spoiler +

This video footage from the historic Syriac Christian town of Sadad in Syria's Homs countryside shows militants from the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) shouting with jubilation as they claim to have "liberated" the Christian town from the regime forces.

Sadad - "What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half": this was stressed by Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama, in illustrating to Fides the tragic death toll in the Christian town of Sadad, invaded by Islamist militias a week ago and then re-conquered by the Syrian army.

"45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women. Some of them fled on foot travelling 8 km from Sadad to Al-Hafer to find refuge. About 2,500 families fled from Sadad, taking only their clothes, due to the irruption of armed groups and today they are refugees scattered between Damascus, Homs, Fayrouza, Zaydal, Maskane, and Al-Fhayle".

The archbishop continues showing all his bitterness: "There is no electricity, water and telephone in the city. All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated, deprived of old books and precious furniture. Schools, government buildings, municipal buildings have been destroyed, along with the post office, the hospital and the clinic"."What happened in Sadad - he says – is the largest massacre of Christians in Syria and the second in the Middle East, after the one in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Iraq, in 2010".

Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh concludes: "We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers? I think of all those who are suffering today in mourning and discomfort: We ask everyone to pray for us".Sadad is a small town of 15,000 people, mostly Syriac Orthodox Christians, located 160 km north of Damascus. It has 14 churches and a monastery with four priests.

On November 23 2013 15:57 Scorpion77 wrote:
If anything this Syrian Crisis has exposed the myth of "arming the rebels" which the liberal élite so often advocate. We have Governments for a reason; even if they're corrupt and run by the bad guys.

And even if the Syrian rebels won, and some new Government was installed: What makes them think the new boss is as any different to the old boss? And that's the best case scenario, now imagine the rebels begin to train and recruit more people from the region and start destabilising regional powers with WMD's like Israel/Iran.

We don't want to end up with an Arabic Warring States Period...

On November 23 2013 15:27 iyasq8 wrote:
i didnt see the European fighters, are they in the last video?

On November 23 2013 21:41 Gorsameth wrote:

It has been a problem this entire time and was discussed in more detail back when outside intervention was advocated.
This isnt so much the people rising up against there oppressors like Lybia, Most of these rebels are terrorists out for there own gain so there is no real "good" side to help which would lead to a better country.

On November 23 2013 15:57 Scorpion77 wrote:
If anything this Syrian Crisis has exposed the myth of "arming the rebels" which the liberal élite so often advocate. We have Governments for a reason; even if they're corrupt and run by the bad guys.

And even if the Syrian rebels won, and some new Government was installed: What makes them think the new boss is as any different to the old boss? And that's the best case scenario, now imagine the rebels begin to train and recruit more people from the region and start destabilising regional powers with WMD's like Israel/Iran.

We don't want to end up with an Arabic Warring States Period...

On November 24 2013 04:03 RvB wrote:

Isn't that what we thought with Lybia as well and it's not like our support to the rebels brought any stability.

On November 24 2013 05:28 Derez wrote:

Expecting stability instantly after decades of authoritarian rule is naive in the first place, and foreign ministers promising it know that they're lying. Any transition in countries like Syria and Libya will be violent and take time, but revolution and violence are inevitable when you have the majorities rights suppressed in favour of a minority.

Assad has lost all legitimacy and even if he wins the civil war, he'll never be able to effectively rule again and its just a matter of time until the next wave of conflict. Wouldn't it be better to just get it over with and get some kind of transition going, like in Libya?

On November 24 2013 05:34 Scorpion77 wrote:

Libya was a disaster. Kofi Annan was on 'This Week'; a latenight British politics talkshow on BBC, talking about how the Mali islamist insurgency was blowback from the Libyan Civil War.

In short, rogue militias/mercenaries who fought in the Libyan Civil War are not giving up their arms or taking a normal civilian job, rather they just cross the border and start trying to overthrow more Governments. The French Socialist President loves this, because it gives him an excuse to meddle with former French colonies and to build political capital by flying in and exploiting the post-colonial complex of the West Africans.

here's the full video for anyone interested
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21079909

Regarding Assad having 'no legitimacy, can't rule again' well he has as much legitimacy as George W. Bush or Comrade Barry or Prince Tonibler... and you can't just get rid of heads of governments all over the world just because you don't like them: that's neoimperialism. We've had enough of the Reagan Doctrine, frankly (which by the way, resulted in the formation of a CIA trained al-Qaeda, how's that working out for the world now?)