Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 176

An Israeli airstrike hit a small Lebanese town near the border with Syria late on Monday, according to an official Lebanese news agency.

According to the reports, planes hit several targets clustered in the Baalbk region of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold.

An eyewitness told Al Arabiya television that Israeli planes flew at very low altitudes over the towns of Janya Brital and Nabi Chit in two separate strikes that came within minutes.

According to reports in the Syrian media and on websites run by the opposition, Jordan is replacing – or perhaps has already replaced – Turkey as the rebels’ new base of operations. Every month, between 200 and 250 combat soldiers undergo exercises in the Jordanian special forces’ training base near the city of Salt.

Meanwhile, the United States is constructing runways for reconnaissance aircraft near the border between Jordan and Syria, and in recent weeks Saudi Arabia has flown weaponry and ammunition purchased in Ukraine to bases in Jordan. The Gulf states have sent many convoys of food and tents for use by new refugees.

All of this is apparently being done in preparation for a large military operation that reports say will originate in Jordan and extend across the desert in an attempt to reach Damascus. A military headquarters for coordinating actions in Syria has been established in Jordan. The U.S., Saudi Arabia and Jordan are jointly planning the way the attack will be launched, and according to The Washington Post, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have already prepared a list of militias that will be receive advanced weaponry.

KIEV: Russia on Tuesday warned Saudi Arabia against supplying Syrian rebels with shoulder-launched missile launchers, saying such a move would endanger security across the Middle East and beyond.

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that it was "deeply concerned" by news reports that Saudi Arabia was planning to buy Pakistani-made shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank systems for armed Syrian rebels based in Jordan.

It said that the aim was to alter the balance of power in a planned spring offensive by rebels on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

"If this sensitive weapon falls into the hands of extremists and terrorists who have flooded Syria, there is a great probability that in the end it will be used far from the borders of this Middle Eastern country," the foreign ministry said.

Long-existing tensions between Russia and Saudi Arabia have intensified further as a result of the Syria conflict, with Moscow standing by Assad but Riyadh offering open support for the rebels.

Another Dutch Jihadist has died in Syria, this is the 11th Dutch death in the Syrian war region.
The jihadist is Moroccan-Dutch man ‘Abu Hamza’.

According to recent figures of the national anti-terrorism group Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV), around 100 Dutch Jihadists, or ‘polderjihadists’ have traveled to Syria. Of these, 70 are still fighting.

Israeli warplanes struck a convoy transporting surface-to-surface missiles from Syria into Lebanon on Monday in an attempt to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining certain weapons, an anonymous Israeli security official reportedly told TIME Magazine on Tuesday.

On Monday night, Lebanese media reported that IAF jets had hit a Hezbollah target near the Lebanon-Syria border.

On February 26 2014 07:20 Gorsameth wrote:

Why is this news anyway? A ton of people are dying in Syria and if some extremist wants to go there to die my only comment is "good riddance".

On February 26 2014 07:20 Gorsameth wrote:

Why is this news anyway? A ton of people are dying in Syria and if some extremist wants to go there to die my only comment is "good riddance".

he directive from ISIS, citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", requires Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety.

BBC map of Raqqa and Damascus in Syria
It says Christians must not make renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public.

Christians must not carry arms, and must follow other rules imposed by ISIS (also known as ISIL) on their daily lives.

The statement said the group had met Christian representatives and offered them three choices - they could convert to Islam, accept ISIS' conditions, or reject their control and risk being killed.

"If they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword," the statement said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26366197

Doha: The government of Qatar said it will not bow to demands from three Gulf states to alter its foreign policy, sources close to its government said, suggesting Doha is unlikely to abandon support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Syrian Islamists.

In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar on Wednesday, saying Doha had failed to abide by an accord not to interfere in each others’ internal affairs.
Hours later Qatar’s cabinet voiced “regret and surprise” at the decision by the fellow-members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but said Doha would not pull out its own envoys and that it remained committed to GCC security.

On Thursday, a source close to the Qatari government suggested Qatar would not comply. “Qatar will not let go of its foreign policy, no matter what the pressures are. This is a matter of principles which we will stick to, no matter the price,” the source said.

Washington: The brutal war in Syria could grind on for a decade as Iran and Russia prop up President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and jihadist groups flood the battlefield, experts warned on Thursday.

Assad has chosen a deliberate “Machiavellian strategy” of standing by while militant groups such as Al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) flourish, leaving the US-backed moderate opposition fighting on two fronts, lawmakers were told.

“It’s now clear that Assad’s fall is not the inevitability that many analysts believed a year ago,” said analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, referring to former confident predictions by the US administration that Assad’s days were numbered.
“The likeliest scenario is that which the US intelligence community now predicts, which is the war continuing for another decade or more,” he told the Senate foreign relations committee.

Baghdad — Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supporting militant groups in Iraq and have effectively declared war on the country, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said as nationwide violence left 15 dead Saturday.

The rare direct attack on the Sunni Gulf powers, with Maliki also accusing Riyadh of supporting global terrorism, comes with Iraq embroiled in its worst prolonged period of bloodshed since 2008, with more than 1,800 people killed already this year, ahead of parliamentary elections due next month.

The bloodletting in Iraq, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, has been driven principally by widespread discontent among the country's Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Maliki, a Shiite, has in the past blamed unnamed regional countries and neighbours for destabilising Iraq.

But in an interview with France 24 broadcast on Saturday, the Iraqi premier said allegations he was marginalising Sunnis were being pushed by "sectarians with ties to foreign agendas, with Saudi and Qatari incitement".

Referring to the two countries, he said: "They are attacking Iraq, through Syria and in a direct way, and they announced war on Iraq, as they announced it on Syria, and unfortunately it is on a sectarian and political basis."

"These two countries are primarily responsible for the sectarian and terrorist and security crisis of Iraq."

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have emerged as regional rivals because, while both have provided support to fighters opposed to embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the two countries have also sparred in recent weeks over Doha's support for the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.

Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, withdrew its ambassador to Qatar this month.

A British rapper who joined rebels fighting the Syrian regime has claimed he was kidnapped, tortured and robbed by members of rival Islamic terror groups.
Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 23, walked out of his family's £1million home in Maida Vale, west London, last year to join militant groups, telling them he was 'leaving everything for the sake of Allah'.
Now Bary - whose music has featured on BBC Radio 1 - has posted on Twitter that he and another Briton were abducted and robbed, with their money, phones and guns stolen by other jihadists.

BEIRUT: Recent threats made by the Nusra Front in Lebanon to Shiite soldiers of the Lebanese Army over their alleged involvement in the fighting in Syria are part of a renewed attempt to instigate more dangerous terrorist activities on Lebanese soil, reliable sources recently revealed.

A security source confirmed that information made available to the Lebanese Army’s intelligence unit by Arab and Western sources contained stark warnings of what is to come in the next six months, saying it could be the worst phase witnessed by Lebanon in recent years.

The information suggests that terrorist attacks could increase in number, targeting embassies and diplomatic missions, as well as army and government institutions.

The Nusra Front in Lebanon, an offshoot of the Syrian rebel group, reiterated calls over the weekend for Lebanese Sunnis to defect from the army. It accused the military establishment of targeting Sunnis and serving Iranian interests.

It also said that there were some Shiite members of the army who were fighting in Syria.

A British suicide bomber who blew himself in Syria is a “hero” worthy of the Victoria Cross, not a terrorist who posed a danger to the UK, his brother has said.

Abdul Waheed Majeed, 41, from Crawley, died on 6 February when he drove a heavily armoured lorry through gunfire to the gate of Aleppo prison during an attack said to have freed up to 300 inmates.

His brother Hafeez Majeed insisted the dead man, a father-of-three, had not been anti-British, and had died bravely trying to free opponents of President Bashar al-Assad who have faced torture in prison.

“If my brother had been a British soldier and there were British people in that prison and the act of heroism or bravery that he did, I know he would have been awarded the posthumous Victoria Cross,” he told the BBC's Newsnight.

“My brother was not a terrorist. My brother was a hero. My brother paid the full price with his life for what he did.