Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 25

Syrian forces have threatened to mount a "decisive battle" for Aleppo as rebels head towards the city's ancient center under intense bombardment and strafing from fighter jets.

The pro-government Al Watan newspaper said the Syrian army was bracing itself for a "decisive battle" to clear Aleppo, Syria's largest city, from the rebels.

It gave no possible timetable and for more than a week, activists have claimed the government is gearing up for an all-out offensive on the northern commercial centre, another critical battleground for Bashar al-Assad's government to survive.

In Damascus, armed men appeared to step up guerrilla-like forays in central districts that were once firmly in the regime's hands.

On August 04 2012 15:43 zalz wrote:


They said they would like to install Sharia, but they are on the transitional government, which thus far hasn't done much Sharia enforcing of any kind.

Meanwhile, in the elections, the Libyans elected a liberal group over an Islamist one. So, once they are given the control over the country, I wouldn't be too negative about their chances.



There is a substantial difference between having CIA agents and diplomats in a region, and having troops on active duty there. Yeah, the US has always been involved in the middle-east, but not to this degree, where we actively have to build bridges between Sunnis and Shias if we want any kind of stability.

Pre-occupation we could have left the Sunnis and Shias to go at each others throat and nobody would argue that we had an obligation to stop them. With troops there, the thing becomes a great deal more difficult to ignore.



Yeah, deliberately turning the prosperous Iraq into a shithole. I wonder why we did that.

Ooh yeah, I remember, cause they couldn't stop invading everything and everyone that happened to show their back to Iraq. Don't try and make them into anything they weren't.

Their internal policies were atrocious, one of the worst human rights records you can imagine, and their foreign policy was surprisingly medieval in its goals. Or should the US have shrugged and let them annex Kuwait?



You have to let these people and their systems fail. If you don't let them see why Islamism is shit in practice, they will keep idealizing it forever.



Who ever said that I didn't know this? Considering they operate the majority of the economy, it would indeed be somewhat hard to miss.

But again, if the military just goes back to Mubarak days, you get the same mess all over again. People won't be permitted to be politically active, so they will gather in their mosques every friday and discuss politics there. Politics in a mosque tend to be rather Islamist in nature.

Keeping them down is what is causing them to latch onto Islamism, the only political alternative they dare to speak about.



Again, the problem is that by keeping these people down, they aren't given any alternative than Islamism.

These dictatorial governments ban political gatherings, and really just gatherings of any kind, but the only gathering they can't ban, are religious gatherings.

If the US banned all political and other gatherings, the only place people could meet in groups would be sunday morning at church.

Given time, the Egyptian people will learn that Islamism is a dead-end and they will vote for other candidates.

On August 06 2012 06:37 frontliner2 wrote:


Besides, Muslims are waaaay to loyal to Islam and thus Islamism (the purest political form of Islam).

On August 06 2012 07:09 CoR wrote:
d ont know for which side i should be ... i seem alot of terrorist stuff in the "free army" too ...
seems both sides dont good for the people ...

On August 06 2012 07:30 WTFZerg wrote:
"Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names Liberation-this, Patriotic-that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other. I guess they can't own up to what they usually are -- Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves freedom fighters."

Not Africa, obviously, but the point remains.

On August 06 2012 06:46 Sub40APM wrote:
is that why islamists lost in libya? cant get elected in malaysia or indonesia? or even in pakistan?

On August 06 2012 07:34 Celestia wrote:

Great quote, I liked that movie.


That's a half truth, in Libya islamists lost to more radical islamists.

On August 06 2012 07:40 zalz wrote:


I was not aware that Liberals were a more extreme version of Islamism.

On August 06 2012 07:49 Celestia wrote:

I was not aware that Sharia Law was a liberal thing.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/26/world/africa/libya-sharia/index.html

So how moderate will the new Libya look in a year's time, with its new legal framework (supposedly) in place? Unlike some Islamist tendancies, the NFA doesn't believe the country should be run entirely by Sharia law, but does hold that Sharia should be "the main inspiration for legislation"

On August 06 2012 07:55 zalz wrote:


The transitional council has done little to enforce that.

The transitional council is also exactly that, transitional. Soon they will be making way for the people that were elected in the recent election.

Who were they?

Liberals. It isn't that hard if you keep yourself informed on Libya.

They voted for Liberals, the Liberals won, the Liberals got the majority, the Liberals are going to be in power. You might not like that narative, but thems the facts.

Syria's prime minister, who defected on Monday, has accused President Bashar al-Assad of carrying out "genocide" against his own people.

Riad Farid Hijab accused his former master of carrying out "genocide" against his own people but said four decades of Assad family rule were collapsing.

Hijab, a leading Sunni Muslim in Assad's minority Alawite-dominated regime, became the highest-ranking official to flee Assad's regime in the nearly 17-month uprising when he crossed into Jordan on Sunday night.

Hijab's home province of Deir Ezzor in the northeast has been one of the key battlegrounds of the conflict and seen a mounting death toll from operations by the army.

On August 11 2012 06:05 ImFromPortugal wrote:
wtf!?

Witness: Fighting involving armored vehicles breaks out between Jordanian, Syrian troops in border region - @Reuters

More: Jordanian source confirms Syria border clash, says there appears to be no Jordanian casualties - @Reuters

(Reuters) - Syrian and Jordanian forces clashed along the border overnight in an incident that highlighted international concerns that the civil war in Syria could ignite a wider regional conflict.

Qatar offered Syrian ambassador $5.8mn for defection - report

Qatar’s ambassador in Mauritania allegedly offered his Syrian counterpart an advance payment of US$1 million and a monthly salary of $20,000 over 20 years, trying to convince the diplomat to defect and voice support for the opposition.

Hamad Seed Albni was also offered a permanent residence in the Qatari capital Doha, but refused the proposition, claims Lebanese-based Al-Manar TV. The diplomat reportedly called the offer a “blatant interference” in Syria’s affairs and warned not to come up with such initiatives anymore.

Bashar al-Assad’s government has endured a number of high-profile defections recently. Diplomats representing Syria in the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, Abdel Latif al-Dabbagh and Nawaf al-Fares, abandoned their positions and so did the country’s Prime Minister Riyad Hijab. The officials explained their defections, saying they could not work for a regime oppressing its own people

Damascus says Qatar uses its financial resources to promote defections among the ranks of Syrian officials. Doha reportedly allocated $300 million for the purpose, Iran’s Fars news agency claimed.

On August 12 2012 04:17 ahappystar wrote:

http://www.rt.com/news/syria-ambassador-qatar-defection-421/
This explains a lot.
A large number of rebels see Assad as too Liberal and Atheist for their liking, I mean it's not like any other 'uprising' has gone to the shits *cough* Libya *cough*

On August 12 2012 04:17 ahappystar wrote:

http://www.rt.com/news/syria-ambassador-qatar-defection-421/
This explains a lot.
A large number of rebels see Assad as too Liberal and Atheist for their liking, I mean it's not like any other 'uprising' has gone to the shits *cough* Libya *cough*

Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's president, has told an Arab League conference that "change" of government is needed in violence-wracked Syria and that time should not be wasted "speaking of reform".

"This time has passed now. Now it is time for change," Morsi, who was making his first presidential address to the league, said on Wednesday in the capital Cairo.

He said that a quartet of regional states - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Egypt - would meet to discuss the Syrian crisis, which started 17 months ago as an insurrection, but has turned into a civil war with opposition fighters battling to dislodge Bashar al-Assad from power.

"The quartet which Egypt has called for will meet now," Morsi told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers, without giving more details of the gathering.

Morsi's comments follows his speech at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in the Iranian capital Tehran where he called it an "ethical duty" to support the Syrian people against the "oppressive regime" in Damascus.

He said Assad must learn from "recent history" and step down before it was too late, alluding to the fate of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen that have been overthrown by Arab uprisings.

"I tell the Syrian regime 'there is still a chance to end the bloodshed'," Morsi said, adding: "Don't take the right step at the wrong time... because that would be the wrong step."

As political tensions mount between neighboring Syria and Turkey, newly-leaked Syrian intelligence documents obtained by Al Arabiya disclose shocking claims shedding light on the dreadful fate of two Turkish Air Force pilots.

Contrary to what was publically claimed, the documents reveal that the pilots survived the crash, but were later executed by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad!

This disclosure is the first in a series of revelations based on a number of newly-leaked and highly classified Syrian security documents which will be aired in a special program produced by Al Arabiya over the next two weeks; the channel’s English portal – http://english.alarabiya.net – will be carrying a subtitled version of the program on daily basis as well as publishing downloadable copies of the leaked documents.

The documents were obtained with the assistance of members of the Syrian opposition who refused to elaborate on how they laid hand on the documents.

Al Arabiya said that it has verified and authenticated hundreds of these documents and that it is has decided to disclose the ones with substantial news value and political relevance.

The downed jet
On June 22, a Turkish military jet was shot down by a Syrian missile in international airspace, Ankara’s official report said; a claim Damascus has refuted.

Assad’s regime said the country’s defense forces shot down the two-seater F-4 Phantom as it was in the Syrian airspace.

In an interview with Turkish paper Cumhuriyet published in July, Assad said he wished his forces did not shoot down the jet, claiming that Damascus did not know the identity of the plane at the time.

The incident set off tensions between the former allies, but Ankara, which had vowed a harsh response to any border violations by Syria, limited its reaction to sending military reinforcements to the common frontiers.

The two pilots on board of the jet were killed.

But both official reports by Syria and Turkey have restrained their explanation on the causes of the deaths of Air Force Captain Gokhan Ertan and Air Force Lieutenant Hasan Huseyin Aksoy.

Turkey’s armed forces said it had found the bodies of both pilots on the Mediterranean seabed.

“The bodies (of the two pilots) have been recovered [from] the seabed and work is underway to bring them to the surface,” the army command said in a statement released early in July.

The military did not specify where the bodies were found, but there has been no report that the pilots ejected from the plane.

However, after investigating the leaked documents it obtained, Al Arabiya can now reveal for the first time an alternative narrative of what might have happened to the two Turkish pilots.

One highly confidential document was sent directly from the presidential office of President Assad to brigadier Hassan Abdel Rahman (who Al Arabiya’s sources identify as the chief of the Syrian Special Operations Unit) states the following:

“Two Turkish pilots were captured by the Syrian Air Force Intelligence after their jet was shot down in coordination with the Russian naval base in (the Syrian city of) Tartus.”


Picture of the highly confidential document sent from the office of the Syrian president confirming the capture of the two Turkish pilots (Al Arabiya)
The file therefore reveals two critical reports. First, the pilots were still alive after the plane had crashed. And second, that Russia held its share of involvement in this secretive mission.

The same document orders the concerned parties to treat both Turkish pilots according to the protocol of war prisoners, as instructed by the president.

It also requests that both men be investigated about Turkey’s role in supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the country’s main armed opposition group.

The report also suggests the possibility of transferring the pilots into the neighboring Lebanese territory, leaving them in the custody of Assad’s ally, Hezbollah.

However, if the Turkish air commanders were not killed upon the crash of their F-4 Phantom, further leaked documents confirm that their death was inevitable.

Russian “Guidance”
A subsequently leaked file, also sent from the presidential palace and addressed to all heads of units of the Syrian foreign intelligence, reads: “Based on information and guidance from the Russian leadership comes a need to eliminate the two Turkish pilots detained by the Special Operations Unit in a natural way and their bodies need to be returned to the crash site in international waters.”

The document also suggests the Syrian government sends a “menacing” message to the Turkish government, insinuating Syria’s capability of mobilizing Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK) on the Turkish borders, notifying Ankara from the danger it might face in case of any hostile move.


A copy of the presidential order for the killing in a “natural way” of two Turkish pilots. (Al Arabiya)
The report insists that the Syrian leadership should hasten and make a formal apology to the Turkish government for bringing down the plane, which would embarrass the Turks and win the support of international public opinion. As such, the Syrian Regime did apologize.

Al Arabiya’s exclusive series on the newly-leaked Syrian security documents continues tomorrow.