Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 168

Islamic Front seizes FSA warehouses
Influencing events in Syria just got a lot harder for the Obama administration and its allies. Despite receiving months of training, diplomatic support and aid from the West, the Free Syrian Army's command has lost control of its headquarters and supply depots in northern Syria to the recently formed Islamic Front -- another sign that the balance among rebel forces is tipping toward militant groups away from more secular brigades.
The warehouses -- belonging to the FSA's Supreme Military Command (SMC) -- are at Bab al Hawa, a border crossing into Turkey. There are conflicting reports about just how they were taken over and what they held. The head of the SMC, Gen. Salim Idris, told CNN that only food and other humanitarian supplies were taken; other FSA officials say guns and two tons of ammunition were removed.
Turkish authorities closed the Bab al Hawa crossing after the Islamic Front occupied the Syrian side. Different Islamist militant groups now control several areas along Syria's border with Turkey, making the resupply of the SMC more difficult..

FSA 'asked' Islamic Front to help them against ISIS
Syria's Western-backed opposition said on Thursday it had invited Islamist fighters to secure its depots on the Turkish frontier after an attack by al Qaeda militants.
The United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria after reports that Islamic Front forces had taken buildings belonging to the coalition's Syrian Military Council (SMC) in Bab al-Hawa on the border with Turkey.
But the opposition Syrian National Coalition said it had in fact asked the Islamic Front, a union of six major rebel groups, to defend the premises against fighters from the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
"The SMC warehouses were overrun by ISIL ... As a result of that, (SMC leader) General Salim Idris sent a request to the Islamic Front to protect these warehouses," coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh said in Istanbul.
"The Islamic Front came in and managed to push ISIL back and they are waiting for General Idris's group to come and take control of their warehouses," he said.

Islamic Front denies attacking FSA
Aid trucks have continued to enter Syria from Bab Al-Hawa crossing point after several parties and news channels
tried to spread misleading rumours that Turkey has closed the border because of alleged conflict between
The Islamic Front and General Staff of the Free Syrian Army. The Islamic Front ran several buses to help passengers
move between Turkey and Syria for free; at the same time, the Front intensified the safety measures that the people in
charge of the crossing point have discussed their importance for serving the passengers.

The Political Bureau

Mr Hassan Abboud, head of the political body in the Islamic Front, welcomed the initiative of doctor Yusuf Al-Ahmad to solve the problems in the town of Maskanah with The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham; Mr Abboud also confirmed that The Islamic Front has released all the prisoners of the Islamic State, and he said that the Islamic State should give back all the weapons and strongholds that some of its members previously took in Maskanah by Friday noon as a proof that the State is willing to make the Islamic law the only judge between them.

On December 15 2013 09:46 Acrofales wrote:
According to NATO? Link please? I have a hard time picturing NATO polling public opinion in a country that is currently in the middle of one of the most brutal civil wars of recent history.

On December 15 2013 10:00 Catch]22 wrote:


You are looking for sources in a post that said the US deserved 9/11 because media spins wars? Good luck

(Reuters) - Opponents of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad have been at an impossible disadvantage since the start of the Syrian conflict because the United States and Britain refused to help them, an influential Saudi Arabian prince said on Saturday.

The United States and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to northern Syria on Thursday after reports that Islamic Front - a union of six major rebel groups - had taken buildings belonging to the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Syrian Military Council on the border with Turkey.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal criticized the decision, saying the two countries had left the moderate FSA to fend for itself.

On December 15 2013 10:02 Acrofales wrote:

You assume I read further than the first few sentences before questioning the validity of the whole thing

On December 15 2013 10:00 Catch]22 wrote:


You are looking for sources in a post that said the US deserved 9/11 because media spins wars? Good luck

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government aircraft pounded opposition areas in the northern city of Aleppo and near the southern border with Jordan on Monday, a day after airstrikes killed at least 76 people, while the United Nations issued a record appeal for $6.5 billion to help the millions of Syrians uprooted by their homeland's civil war.

President Bashar Assad's air force is his greatest advantage in the country's civil war, and he has successfully exploited it to stem and even roll back rebel advances across the country. Human rights groups say Syrian military aircraft have carried out indiscriminate air raids that frequently hit civilian targets, such as hospitals, bakeries and residential areas.

The government has relied on its air power in particular in northern Syria, much of which fell to opposition fighters over the course of the past year. One of the major battlegrounds on that front is Aleppo, where Assad's forces and rebels have been bogged down in a bloody fight since rebels launched an assault on the city in mid-2012.

With no end in sight to the fighting, the humanitarian situation is worsening among 8.8 million Syrians who have been uprooted from their homes. Of those, 6.5 million are internally displaced and the other 2.3 million have sought refuge abroad.

Blindly funding the global jihad for 'humanitarian reasons' is why those planes hit the twin towers in the first place.

On December 15 2013 20:27 zeo wrote:

I assumed people knew how to use google.
http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/05/31/nato-data-assad-winning-the-war-for-syrians-hearts-and-minds/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/17/syrians-support-assad-western-propaganda

On December 17 2013 06:24 Catch]22 wrote:


You continue to defend yourself by saying that since the US funded/helped Bin Laden to remove a soviet occupation from his homeland, the US, and more importantly the 3000 civilians inside the towers deserved to die?

How is this guy not banned?

On December 17 2013 06:01 DeepElemBlues wrote:


Saudi Arabia and Pakistan didn't blindly fund global jihad, they did it with very specific purposes in mind, most of which they have accomplished but are now in danger thanks to Iran. Which is why you see Saudi Arabia being backer numero uno of the Islamist Syrian rebels...

It may just come as a surprise to you, but "Muslim" countries are not unpowered, mindless robots lying around until the West gives them a spark and tells them what to do or they reject the West telling them what to do. They have their own ideas, their own goals, their own methods, their own power centers and power jockeying that have been going on for hundreds of years before the modern concept of the "West" ever existed.

All this could have been avoided and it is a very sad thing is no one will ever be impeached.

What I said was that the members of the Clinton administration should have known better than to have done the things that they did, and that the media should not have been just and extended arm of the State Department.

Funny thing is that after this 'arab spring' there are no more stable second world countries not under the control of Saudi Arabia in the region. Instead we have tribal nations under Sharia Law.