Obama’s Reluctant Mideast Role Tested by Region’s Turmoil
By John Walcott & Nicole Gaouette - Jul 1, 2013 9:31 AM GMT+1000
With the death toll in Syria’s civil war approaching 100,000, civil strife in Libya, Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt now in turmoil, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is suddenly the bright spot in the Obama administration’s Mideast policy.
While Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday his three days of shuttle diplomacy produced “real progress,’’ a durable peace between Israel and the Palestinians remains a distant hope. Now that small step is being eclipsed by the struggle for control of Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, the first to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and a linchpin of American policy in the Arab world.
Yesterday, Egyptians massed by the hundreds of thousands to demand President Mohamed Mursi’s ouster while the Islamist leader’s backers gathered at a dueling rally, with both sides citing fears of a conflagration of violence after days of deadly clashes. Thousands streamed into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and elsewhere across Egypt, saying they were determined to reclaim control of a revolution whose goals have been trampled to cement the power of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
“What’s happening in Egypt is another manifestation of what’s happening across the region -- the era of the strong, centralized Arab state giving way to decentralization, sectarianism, incompetent governance, and violence,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran U.S. Mideast envoy and now a vice president of the Wilson Center, a Washington public policy research organization.
‘Changing Trend’
“It’s now affecting the largest, most powerful Arab state, but it’s happening everywhere -- Syria, Libya, Iraq,” Miller said. “It’s emblematic of this changing trend. We’re stuck in a region we can’t fix and we can’t leave, and that’s a very bad place for a great power to be. That leaves us drifting.”
Until Kerry threw himself into reviving the stalled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Obama administration had engaged the region cautiously and intermittently. The U.S. played a limited role supporting allies in the effort to oust Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, prompting Republican charges Obama was “leading from behind.” The White House resisted pleas to arm Syrian rebels before reluctantly providing small arms and ammunition, hasn’t dealt with the rising Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq and played up its intention to pay more attention to the Asia-Pacific region.
The limits of American influence lie deeper than Obama’s reluctance to commit American power in the Mideast and North Africa. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq on the false premise that dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the 12-year effort to remake Afghanistan have fed Arab suspicions that not only is America allied with Israel, it also is hostile to Islam.
Reluctant Engagement
Most damaging may be the perception that “America is short of breath,” as then-Syrian foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam put it 30 years ago. The U.S.’s retreats from Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and now Afghanistan under presidents of both parties, and its reluctance to engage in Libya and Syria, have strengthened that perception, said a U.S. official with decades of experience in the region.
Rebels in Syria, reformers in Egypt and Libya and pro-democratic activists elsewhere voice the same doubts about America’s reliability, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to critique the current administration’s policies.
“You see a confusion in the administration’s own view on Egypt,” said Miller. While the U.S. had to respect the results of the election in which Mursi won 52 percent of the vote, he said, the Egyptian leader hasn’t been willing to do much with the opposition since then, and the U.S. hasn’t pushed or encouraged him.
Uncertain Future
With the Obama administration reluctant to use its limited leverage and the American-backed Egyptian military trying to stay on the sidelines, the U.S. official said one of America’s most important Arab allies could plunge into anarchy or find itself under harsh Islamic rule by Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
“Events are out of control because they’re being driven by years of anger, resentment, despair, desire for change, and those feelings are legitimate because they’re homegrown,” Miller said. “It goes both ways. It can lead to Islamists in control and a lot of violence and incompetent government.”
Some members of Congress already have said they are uneasy about the $1.3 billion in military aid the U.S. sends to Egypt, and the turmoil now threatens even those ties with Egypt, said Tamara Coffman Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a public policy research organization in Washington, and a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.
Preserving Cooperation
“The United States has managed to achieve its most important priority in its relationship with Egypt since the revolution, which is the preservation of its security cooperation and the preservation of Egypt’s commitment to shared security interests, including the peace treaty with Israel,” she said in an interview.
Still, she said, “If the political turmoil in Egypt continues, and if Egypt cannot move onto a more stable and democratic trajectory, I don’t know that security cooperation will be sustainable over time.”
Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood government, increasingly under siege from its own population, might turn toward nationalist jingoism that could undermine the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which in turn could threaten security cooperation with Washington, Miller said.
‘Unhappy End’
“We’re heading for an unhappy end in Egypt, how unhappy isn’t clear,” said Miller. “I don’t see a happy way out of this. The Muslim Brotherhood can’t govern, the military won’t govern, and the opposition doesn’t know how to govern, which means no one is in charge.”
If the protests don’t change the status quo, there may be no quick end in sight to the administration’s Egypt challenge.
“What is very worrisome is that I don’t think the opposition has more of a plan now than they ever had in 2011,” said Marina Ottaway, senior counsel at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “They still think that if the demonstrations are large enough, Mursi will simply resign and somehow the Muslim Brotherhood will be put in its place. And there’s definitely a section of the opposition that talks very openly about bringing in the military, that the military needs to take power again, and the military will give power to the secular groups.”
Disorganized Opposition
“The opposition hasn’t done the things it needs to do in order to organize,” she said in an interview. “They speak to the West, they don’t talk to people in the countryside. They have not set up organizations.”
The opposition’s only message is its shared opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood and Mursi, Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview. “Other than that, there’s not much that binds these groups together,” he said.
The political situation in Egypt is “devilishly difficult to understand, let alone to resolve,” Michele Dunne, director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, said in an e-mail.
“There are at least three principal political forces at work: Islamists, secularists, and the old state, some of whom are secularists, some of whom are observant Muslims, but none of whom are liberals,” she said.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel want Egypt to become a failed state, said Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Mideast envoy and adviser for a succession of U.S. presidents since Ronald Reagan.
“But neither of us is going to determine Egypt’s future -- only Egyptians can do that, and today, there seems to be little common ground for restoring stability,” Ross said.
To contact the reporters on this story: John Walcott in Washington at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net;
Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
WORLD_ SYRIA_ Assad's forces battle to tighten control of central Syria
Assad's forces battle to tighten control of central Syria
Khaled Yacoub Oweis 44 minutes ago
Politics Syria Homs
A damaged car is seen in the Al-khalidiya neighbourhood of Homs June 30, 2013. REUTERS/Yazan Homsy
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad's forces pounded Sunni Muslim rebels in the city of Homs with artillery and from the air on Sunday, the second day of their offensive in central Syria, activists said.
They said rebels defending the old center of Homs and five adjacent Sunni districts had largely repelled a ground attack on Saturday by Assad's forces, backed by guerrillas from the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, but reported clashes and deaths within the city on Sunday.
Mohammad Mroueh, a member of the opposition "Homs Crisis Cell" said at least 25 loyalist troops including four Hezbollah fighters had been killed in Homs in the previous 24 hours. Such reports are difficult to verify in Syria, where independent media cannot usually report freely.
The offensive follows steady military gains by Assad's forces, backed by Hezbollah, in villages in Homs province and towns close to the Lebanese border.
Opposition sources and diplomats said the loyalist advance had tightened the siege of Homs and secured a main road link to Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon and to army bases in Alawite-held territory near the Syrian coast, the main entry point for Russian arms that have given Assad an advantage in firepower.
At least 100,000 people have been killed since the Syrian revolt against four decades of rule by Assad and his late father erupted in March 2011, making the uprising the bloodiest of the Arab Spring revolutions against entrenched autocrats.
The Syrian conflict is increasingly pitting Assad's Alawite minority, backed by Shi'ite Iran and its Hezbollah ally, against mainly Sunni rebel brigades supported by the Gulf states, Egypt, Turkey and others.
Sunni Jihadists, including al Qaeda fighters from Iraq, have also entered the fray.
ALARM
The loyalist advances have alarmed international supporters of the rebels, leading the United States to announce it will step up military support. Saudi Arabia has accelerated deliveries of sophisticated weaponry, Gulf sources say.
Opposition activists said a woman and child had been killed in a strike by government aircraft on the old city of Homs, home to hundreds of civilians.
Video footage taken by the activists showed the bodies being carried in blankets and a man holding a wounded child with a gash in his head.
Rebel fighters fought loyalist forces backed by tanks in the old covered market, which links the old city with Khalidiya, a district inhabited by members of tribes who have been at the forefront of the armed insurgency.
"After failing to make any significant advances yesterday, the regime is trying to sever the link between Khalidiya and the old city," Abu Bilal, one of the activists, said from Homs.
"We are seeing a sectarian attack on Homs par excellence, The army has taken a back role. Most of the attacking forces are comprised of Alawite militia being directed by Hezbollah."
Alawites belong to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and have controlled Syria since the 1960s, when members of the sect took over the army and security apparatus in the mainly Sunni country.
URBAN WARFARE
Homs is a majority Sunni city. But a large number of Alawites have moved there in recent decades, drawn by army and security jobs.
Lebanese security forces said Hezbollah appeared to be present in the rural areas surrounding Homs.
Anwar Abu al-Waleed, an activist, said rebel brigades were prepared to fight a long battle, unlike in Qusair and Tel Kalakh, two towns in rural Homs near the border with Lebanon that fell to loyalist forces in recent weeks.
"We are talking about serious urban warfare in Homs. We are not talking about scattered buildings in an isolated town but a large urban area that provides a lot of cover," he said.
State media said the army had "destroyed terrorist concentrations" in several districts of Homs and made "big progress" in Khalidiya.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad must halt his "brutal assault" on Homs and allow full humanitarian aid access to the country. Gulf countries, which back the rebels, urged Lebanon to stop outside parties interfering in the conflict, a reference to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
The Syrian conflict has aggravated neighboring Lebanon's own complex sectarian rivalry, triggering fighting between Alawite pro-Assad and Sunni anti-Assad militia in the northern city of Tripoli that has killed dozens.
Syria's official state news agency said a helicopter carrying Ministry of Education employees heading to a northern area to supervise school exams had been shot down. The seven employees and the helicopter's crew were killed, it said.
The agency said the plane was brought down as "part of the scheme of the armed terrorist gangs to halt normal life".
Opposition activists said the helicopter had been carrying supplies to two Shi'ite villages north of the city of Aleppo where Hezbollah fighters had been deployed.
(Additional reporting by Angus McDowall and William Maclean in Dubai; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01072013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
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Khaled Yacoub Oweis 44 minutes ago
Politics Syria Homs
A damaged car is seen in the Al-khalidiya neighbourhood of Homs June 30, 2013. REUTERS/Yazan Homsy
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad's forces pounded Sunni Muslim rebels in the city of Homs with artillery and from the air on Sunday, the second day of their offensive in central Syria, activists said.
They said rebels defending the old center of Homs and five adjacent Sunni districts had largely repelled a ground attack on Saturday by Assad's forces, backed by guerrillas from the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, but reported clashes and deaths within the city on Sunday.
Mohammad Mroueh, a member of the opposition "Homs Crisis Cell" said at least 25 loyalist troops including four Hezbollah fighters had been killed in Homs in the previous 24 hours. Such reports are difficult to verify in Syria, where independent media cannot usually report freely.
The offensive follows steady military gains by Assad's forces, backed by Hezbollah, in villages in Homs province and towns close to the Lebanese border.
Opposition sources and diplomats said the loyalist advance had tightened the siege of Homs and secured a main road link to Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon and to army bases in Alawite-held territory near the Syrian coast, the main entry point for Russian arms that have given Assad an advantage in firepower.
At least 100,000 people have been killed since the Syrian revolt against four decades of rule by Assad and his late father erupted in March 2011, making the uprising the bloodiest of the Arab Spring revolutions against entrenched autocrats.
The Syrian conflict is increasingly pitting Assad's Alawite minority, backed by Shi'ite Iran and its Hezbollah ally, against mainly Sunni rebel brigades supported by the Gulf states, Egypt, Turkey and others.
Sunni Jihadists, including al Qaeda fighters from Iraq, have also entered the fray.
ALARM
The loyalist advances have alarmed international supporters of the rebels, leading the United States to announce it will step up military support. Saudi Arabia has accelerated deliveries of sophisticated weaponry, Gulf sources say.
Opposition activists said a woman and child had been killed in a strike by government aircraft on the old city of Homs, home to hundreds of civilians.
Video footage taken by the activists showed the bodies being carried in blankets and a man holding a wounded child with a gash in his head.
Rebel fighters fought loyalist forces backed by tanks in the old covered market, which links the old city with Khalidiya, a district inhabited by members of tribes who have been at the forefront of the armed insurgency.
"After failing to make any significant advances yesterday, the regime is trying to sever the link between Khalidiya and the old city," Abu Bilal, one of the activists, said from Homs.
"We are seeing a sectarian attack on Homs par excellence, The army has taken a back role. Most of the attacking forces are comprised of Alawite militia being directed by Hezbollah."
Alawites belong to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and have controlled Syria since the 1960s, when members of the sect took over the army and security apparatus in the mainly Sunni country.
URBAN WARFARE
Homs is a majority Sunni city. But a large number of Alawites have moved there in recent decades, drawn by army and security jobs.
Lebanese security forces said Hezbollah appeared to be present in the rural areas surrounding Homs.
Anwar Abu al-Waleed, an activist, said rebel brigades were prepared to fight a long battle, unlike in Qusair and Tel Kalakh, two towns in rural Homs near the border with Lebanon that fell to loyalist forces in recent weeks.
"We are talking about serious urban warfare in Homs. We are not talking about scattered buildings in an isolated town but a large urban area that provides a lot of cover," he said.
State media said the army had "destroyed terrorist concentrations" in several districts of Homs and made "big progress" in Khalidiya.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad must halt his "brutal assault" on Homs and allow full humanitarian aid access to the country. Gulf countries, which back the rebels, urged Lebanon to stop outside parties interfering in the conflict, a reference to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
The Syrian conflict has aggravated neighboring Lebanon's own complex sectarian rivalry, triggering fighting between Alawite pro-Assad and Sunni anti-Assad militia in the northern city of Tripoli that has killed dozens.
Syria's official state news agency said a helicopter carrying Ministry of Education employees heading to a northern area to supervise school exams had been shot down. The seven employees and the helicopter's crew were killed, it said.
The agency said the plane was brought down as "part of the scheme of the armed terrorist gangs to halt normal life".
Opposition activists said the helicopter had been carrying supplies to two Shi'ite villages north of the city of Aleppo where Hezbollah fighters had been deployed.
(Additional reporting by Angus McDowall and William Maclean in Dubai; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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conbenho
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01072013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Saturday, June 29, 2013
WORLD_ SYRIA_ Syrian rebels capture major checkpoint in south
Syrian rebels capture major checkpoint in south
SARAH EL DEEB
June 28, 2013
Politics
BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels captured a major army post in the southern city of Daraa Friday after nearly two weeks of intense fighting, as battles raged between troops and opposition forces in the province that borders Jordan, activists said.
Daraa, the provincial capital of a region that carries the same name, is the birthplace of the uprising against President Bashar Assad that started 27 months ago. Rebels hope to one day launch an offensive from the area to take the capital, Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists around the country, said Islamic militants led by members of the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, captured the checkpoint after a two-week siege.
It said rebels blew up a car bomb Thursday killing and wounding a number of soldiers then stormed the post, made up of two of the highest buildings in the city.
"This post is very important because it overlooks old Daraa," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads The Observatory. He added that the capture opens the way for rebels to take the southern neighborhood of Manshiyeh that is close to the Jordanian border.
View gallery
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News …
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated base …
An amateur video posted by activists showed rebels blowing up one of the two buildings after putting explosives inside it.
"This is considered the most dangerous and powerful post in Daraa and the whole province," said a man whose voice could be heard in the video as smoke billowed from the building.
Another video showed four militants carrying Nusra Front black flag standing in front of the building saying it will be blown up, apparently to prevent the regime from using it in case its forces capture it again.
The videos appeared genuine and were consistent with other AP reporting of the events.
Earlier, the Observatory said intense shelling by Syrian government troops on the village of Karak in Daraa province killed at least 10 women and girls overnight.
View gallery
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News …
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated base …
Buoyed by an influx of fighters from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and other foreign Shiite Muslim militants, the Syrian regime has grabbed the initiative in the more than 2-year-old conflict in recent weeks, capturing a strategic town near the border with Lebanon and squeezing rebel positions around the capital, Damascus.
It said two women were killed when a shell hit the home of a local rebel commander. The women killed were his mother and aunt, the Observatory said.
A video posted on an Daraa activist's Facebook page showed the bodies of the women and children allegedly killed in the shelling lying wrapped in blankets. Another video from the village showed residents carrying other wounded into vehicles as women and children wailed.
The videos appeared genuine and were consistent with other AP reporting of the events.
The United Nations has estimated that more than 6,000 children are among the some 93,000 people killed in Syria's more than 2-year-old conflict, which started with largely peaceful protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad. The uprising escalated into an armed rebellion in response to a brutal government crackdown on the protest movement.
In recent weeks, government troops have gone on the offensive against rebel-held areas to try to cut the opposition's supply lines and secure Damascus and the corridor running to the Mediterranean coast, which is the heartland of the president's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Regime forces have also made inroads in the south. Syria's state news agency said Friday government troops were chasing "terrorist cells" in the city of Daraa as well as the surrounding countryside, including along the border with Jordan. It did not mention Karak.
SANA said 18 opposition fighters including Jordanians, a Saudi and a Chechen, were killed and weapons were seized. It did not refer to civilian casualties.
State-owned Al-Ikhbariya TV also reported that government forces seized a truck loaded with weapons and ammunition in the central Homs province apparently destined for rebel fighters. The truck included with anti-tank missiles, machine guns, shoulder propelled grenades and communication devices, the station said.
The United States and its allies recently said they will help arm the rebels amid reports that Washington's Gulf allies have already sent much-coveted anti-tank missiles to select groups of fighters. The U.S. is still trying to sort out which rebels exactly will be given weapons and how, fearing that advanced arms may fall in the hands of Islamic extremists in the rebel ranks.
Meanwhile, the Observatory said a rare attack in Damascus's Old City Thursday was caused by an explosive device planted near a Shiite charity organization. The attack, which killed four people, was first believed to be a suicide attack near a church.
State media showed pictures of the body of the suspected suicide bomber in the ancient quarter. Residents had disagreed on the target of the attack but a government official also said a bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up near the Greek Orthodox Church.
Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Observatory, said investigation by activists on the ground indicated that a device was planted near the Shiite charity, and it blew up when this man was walking past. The Observatory originally reported that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber. The church and charity are only around two dozen meters (yards) apart.
The conflict has increasingly taken on sectarian overtones. The rebels fighting to remove Assad are largely Sunnis, and have been joined by foreign fighters from other Muslim countries. The regime of Assad is led by the president's Alawite sect and his forces have been joined by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militant group, a factor that has helped fan the sectarian nature of the conflict.
In an apparent snub to the targeting of a religious institution, The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said in a statement Friday that it "rejects" actions that violate the unity of Syrians and fuels sectarian strife, blaming the regime for attempting to incite it.
"The unfortunate practices of various individuals do not reflect the true values of the revolution," the statement said. "The Syrian Coalition reiterates that those who commit crimes and infringe on international conventions will be identified, pursued and brought to justice."
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-capture-major-checkpoint-south-181915493.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
SARAH EL DEEB
June 28, 2013
Politics
BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels captured a major army post in the southern city of Daraa Friday after nearly two weeks of intense fighting, as battles raged between troops and opposition forces in the province that borders Jordan, activists said.
Daraa, the provincial capital of a region that carries the same name, is the birthplace of the uprising against President Bashar Assad that started 27 months ago. Rebels hope to one day launch an offensive from the area to take the capital, Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists around the country, said Islamic militants led by members of the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, captured the checkpoint after a two-week siege.
It said rebels blew up a car bomb Thursday killing and wounding a number of soldiers then stormed the post, made up of two of the highest buildings in the city.
"This post is very important because it overlooks old Daraa," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads The Observatory. He added that the capture opens the way for rebels to take the southern neighborhood of Manshiyeh that is close to the Jordanian border.
View gallery
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News …
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated base …
An amateur video posted by activists showed rebels blowing up one of the two buildings after putting explosives inside it.
"This is considered the most dangerous and powerful post in Daraa and the whole province," said a man whose voice could be heard in the video as smoke billowed from the building.
Another video showed four militants carrying Nusra Front black flag standing in front of the building saying it will be blown up, apparently to prevent the regime from using it in case its forces capture it again.
The videos appeared genuine and were consistent with other AP reporting of the events.
Earlier, the Observatory said intense shelling by Syrian government troops on the village of Karak in Daraa province killed at least 10 women and girls overnight.
View gallery
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News …
This citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated base …
Buoyed by an influx of fighters from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and other foreign Shiite Muslim militants, the Syrian regime has grabbed the initiative in the more than 2-year-old conflict in recent weeks, capturing a strategic town near the border with Lebanon and squeezing rebel positions around the capital, Damascus.
It said two women were killed when a shell hit the home of a local rebel commander. The women killed were his mother and aunt, the Observatory said.
A video posted on an Daraa activist's Facebook page showed the bodies of the women and children allegedly killed in the shelling lying wrapped in blankets. Another video from the village showed residents carrying other wounded into vehicles as women and children wailed.
The videos appeared genuine and were consistent with other AP reporting of the events.
The United Nations has estimated that more than 6,000 children are among the some 93,000 people killed in Syria's more than 2-year-old conflict, which started with largely peaceful protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad. The uprising escalated into an armed rebellion in response to a brutal government crackdown on the protest movement.
In recent weeks, government troops have gone on the offensive against rebel-held areas to try to cut the opposition's supply lines and secure Damascus and the corridor running to the Mediterranean coast, which is the heartland of the president's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Regime forces have also made inroads in the south. Syria's state news agency said Friday government troops were chasing "terrorist cells" in the city of Daraa as well as the surrounding countryside, including along the border with Jordan. It did not mention Karak.
SANA said 18 opposition fighters including Jordanians, a Saudi and a Chechen, were killed and weapons were seized. It did not refer to civilian casualties.
State-owned Al-Ikhbariya TV also reported that government forces seized a truck loaded with weapons and ammunition in the central Homs province apparently destined for rebel fighters. The truck included with anti-tank missiles, machine guns, shoulder propelled grenades and communication devices, the station said.
The United States and its allies recently said they will help arm the rebels amid reports that Washington's Gulf allies have already sent much-coveted anti-tank missiles to select groups of fighters. The U.S. is still trying to sort out which rebels exactly will be given weapons and how, fearing that advanced arms may fall in the hands of Islamic extremists in the rebel ranks.
Meanwhile, the Observatory said a rare attack in Damascus's Old City Thursday was caused by an explosive device planted near a Shiite charity organization. The attack, which killed four people, was first believed to be a suicide attack near a church.
State media showed pictures of the body of the suspected suicide bomber in the ancient quarter. Residents had disagreed on the target of the attack but a government official also said a bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up near the Greek Orthodox Church.
Abdul-Rahman, the director of the Observatory, said investigation by activists on the ground indicated that a device was planted near the Shiite charity, and it blew up when this man was walking past. The Observatory originally reported that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber. The church and charity are only around two dozen meters (yards) apart.
The conflict has increasingly taken on sectarian overtones. The rebels fighting to remove Assad are largely Sunnis, and have been joined by foreign fighters from other Muslim countries. The regime of Assad is led by the president's Alawite sect and his forces have been joined by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah militant group, a factor that has helped fan the sectarian nature of the conflict.
In an apparent snub to the targeting of a religious institution, The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said in a statement Friday that it "rejects" actions that violate the unity of Syrians and fuels sectarian strife, blaming the regime for attempting to incite it.
"The unfortunate practices of various individuals do not reflect the true values of the revolution," the statement said. "The Syrian Coalition reiterates that those who commit crimes and infringe on international conventions will be identified, pursued and brought to justice."
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-capture-major-checkpoint-south-181915493.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Friday, June 28, 2013
WORLD_ Syrian Rebels Claim Big Gains in City Where Protests Began
Syrian Rebels Claim Big Gains in City Where Protests Began
By HANIA MOURTADA and RICK GLADSTONE
Published: June 28, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Rebel fighters in southern Syria claimed on Friday to be in control of most of the city of Dara’a, the cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, after having battled his forces there for two weeks. The assertions, if confirmed, would represent a rare military victory for the insurgency, which has been struggling since it lost the stronghold city of Qusayr near the Lebanon border on June 5.
A dispatch by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad activist group in Britain with a network of contacts inside Syria, said “Islamic rebel battalions” had seized the Binayat checkpoint, an important military gateway into Dara’a, which had enabled them to then assert a strategic advantage over much of the city.
Video posted on the Internet showed what the rebels claimed to be the destruction of a high-rise building at the checkpoint, along with proclamations of victory by fighters of the Nusra Front “and the Islamic battalions who participated in the operation.”
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory, said the insurgents had not taken full control of Dara’a. But in remarks quoted by Reuters, he said the Syrian military’s position in Dara’a was under threat and “this could change the balance of power there.”
An anti-Assad activist from Dara’a who is currently in Jordan agreed in a telephone interview that the seizure of the Binayat checkpoint was a setback for Syrian forces in Dara’a, but cautioned that the rebel claims of victory could be overstated. “The Islamic groups are trying to make a big deal behind this operation, a boasting attempt,” said the activist, who identified himself only by his given name, Taysir, for security reasons.
Dara’a is also near the border with Jordan, which anti-Assad activists say has emerged as a conduit for supplying rebels with weapons and supplies.
Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper quoted residents of Dara’a as saying the rebels also had seized what was left of the Omari mosque, which was the gathering point for political protests that erupted in March 2011 against Mr. Assad and his family’s four decades in power in Syria.
The government’s harsh repression of those protests began a cycle of conflict that has since turned into an insurgency that has been joined by Sunni jihadist fighters from other countries fighting to topple Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is supported by Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.
The Syrian Observatory said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people had been killed in the conflict. The United Nations has estimated that at least 93,000 people have been killed.
Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 29, 2013, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Syrian Rebels Claim Big Gains In City Where Protests Began ..
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
By HANIA MOURTADA and RICK GLADSTONE
Published: June 28, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Rebel fighters in southern Syria claimed on Friday to be in control of most of the city of Dara’a, the cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, after having battled his forces there for two weeks. The assertions, if confirmed, would represent a rare military victory for the insurgency, which has been struggling since it lost the stronghold city of Qusayr near the Lebanon border on June 5.
A dispatch by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad activist group in Britain with a network of contacts inside Syria, said “Islamic rebel battalions” had seized the Binayat checkpoint, an important military gateway into Dara’a, which had enabled them to then assert a strategic advantage over much of the city.
Video posted on the Internet showed what the rebels claimed to be the destruction of a high-rise building at the checkpoint, along with proclamations of victory by fighters of the Nusra Front “and the Islamic battalions who participated in the operation.”
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory, said the insurgents had not taken full control of Dara’a. But in remarks quoted by Reuters, he said the Syrian military’s position in Dara’a was under threat and “this could change the balance of power there.”
An anti-Assad activist from Dara’a who is currently in Jordan agreed in a telephone interview that the seizure of the Binayat checkpoint was a setback for Syrian forces in Dara’a, but cautioned that the rebel claims of victory could be overstated. “The Islamic groups are trying to make a big deal behind this operation, a boasting attempt,” said the activist, who identified himself only by his given name, Taysir, for security reasons.
Dara’a is also near the border with Jordan, which anti-Assad activists say has emerged as a conduit for supplying rebels with weapons and supplies.
Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper quoted residents of Dara’a as saying the rebels also had seized what was left of the Omari mosque, which was the gathering point for political protests that erupted in March 2011 against Mr. Assad and his family’s four decades in power in Syria.
The government’s harsh repression of those protests began a cycle of conflict that has since turned into an insurgency that has been joined by Sunni jihadist fighters from other countries fighting to topple Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is supported by Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.
The Syrian Observatory said Wednesday that more than 100,000 people had been killed in the conflict. The United Nations has estimated that at least 93,000 people have been killed.
Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 29, 2013, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Syrian Rebels Claim Big Gains In City Where Protests Began ..
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ SYRIA_ Activists say 8 women and children killed in Syria
Activists say 8 women and children killed in Syria
12 hours ago
Politics & Government Syria
BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say intense Syrian government shelling has killed eight women and girls in the southern province of Daraa.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday the late night attack on Karak, in eastern Daraa, killed four women and four girls. The Observatory relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria for its information.
Syria state news agency said regime forces were chasing "terrorist cells" in Daraa province, including along the border with Jordan. It did not mention Karak.
SANA said 18 opposition fighters including Jordanians, a Saudi and a Chechen, were killed. It did not refer to civilian casualties.
The United Nations says more than 6,000 children are among more than 93,000 people killed in Syria's civil war.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
12 hours ago
Politics & Government Syria
BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say intense Syrian government shelling has killed eight women and girls in the southern province of Daraa.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday the late night attack on Karak, in eastern Daraa, killed four women and four girls. The Observatory relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria for its information.
Syria state news agency said regime forces were chasing "terrorist cells" in Daraa province, including along the border with Jordan. It did not mention Karak.
SANA said 18 opposition fighters including Jordanians, a Saudi and a Chechen, were killed. It did not refer to civilian casualties.
The United Nations says more than 6,000 children are among more than 93,000 people killed in Syria's civil war.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ SYRIA_ Suicide bomber kills 4 in Syrian capital
Suicide bomber kills 4 in Syrian capital
AAP
June 28, 2013 2:26PM
A SUICIDE bomber has killed at least four people in a Christian area of the Syrian capital as aid groups say they cannot keep pace with the ever-growing suffering.
State media said the "terrorist" bomber struck on Thursday near a church of an order of the Maronite church, killing four people and wounding four others.
"Terrorists" is the term the government in Damascus uses for rebels in Syria.
Confirming the toll, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near the Mariamite church".
It also reported shelling in nearby Al-Amin Street, also in old Damascus, but gave no more details.
In a statement issued later, it said the bodies of 16 men who died under torture at the hands of Syria's security forces had been handed to their families.
It said the men had been from Harasta, one of a number of rebel strongholds near Damascus that have come under immense army pressure in recent weeks, as the regime has pressed a campaign to secure the capital.
"It happens all too frequently that the bodies of detainees with torture marks are handed back to their families," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"I fear for the lives of thousands of other detainees."
Elsewhere, regime forces stormed the town of Al-Qariatayn in the central province of Homs, state television said, and "restored peace and security".
The Observatory said troops in the town were detaining people.
North of Homs city, the army intensified its bombardment of rebel-held Rastan and Talbisseh.
The army also renewed its shelling of the town of Houla, scene of a massacre last year, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, a network of activists.
The Observatory reported the army has retaken parts of the Barzeh district in Damascus from rebels.
The latest violence in a conflict the Observatory says has killed more than 100,000 people comes as relief groups say they are unable to keep pace with the rising misery.
"There is a huge discrepancy between the ability to cope with the Syrian crisis and the escalating speed in which the demands in Syria are growing," said Peter Maurer, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
"And this gap still continues to widen as we speak," he said in Geneva, decrying "incredible violence and incredible suffering, and quite extraordinary violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Syria".
Maurer, presenting the ICRC's 2012 annual report, said the Syrian conflict represented the organisation's largest outlay, with 101.3 million Swiss francs ($A116.04 million) dedicated to addressing it this year.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met the top UN expert leading a probe into allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, a ministry official in Ankara said.
Davutoglu held closed-door talks with Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom, who has so far been barred from entering Syria.
As US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Syria with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman, Russia accused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states of funding "terror".
It was responding to accusations by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal that Russia was responsible for mass killings in Syria because of its military support for the regime.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council backed UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights carrying machine guns, as fallout from the Syria war increased in the ceasefire zone.
The 15-member council passed a resolution to extend the mandate of the force, which monitors a three-decade-old ceasefire between Syria and Israel. The resolution called on Syrian government and opposition fighters to stay out of the zone.
UN officials and diplomats said the peacekeepers, who traditionally only carry very light arms, will get machine guns, extra body armour and more armoured vehicles.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/suicide-bomber-strikes-in-syria/story-e6frfkui-1226671183737#ixzz2XUoRARJd
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
28062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
AAP
June 28, 2013 2:26PM
A SUICIDE bomber has killed at least four people in a Christian area of the Syrian capital as aid groups say they cannot keep pace with the ever-growing suffering.
State media said the "terrorist" bomber struck on Thursday near a church of an order of the Maronite church, killing four people and wounding four others.
"Terrorists" is the term the government in Damascus uses for rebels in Syria.
Confirming the toll, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near the Mariamite church".
It also reported shelling in nearby Al-Amin Street, also in old Damascus, but gave no more details.
In a statement issued later, it said the bodies of 16 men who died under torture at the hands of Syria's security forces had been handed to their families.
It said the men had been from Harasta, one of a number of rebel strongholds near Damascus that have come under immense army pressure in recent weeks, as the regime has pressed a campaign to secure the capital.
"It happens all too frequently that the bodies of detainees with torture marks are handed back to their families," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"I fear for the lives of thousands of other detainees."
Elsewhere, regime forces stormed the town of Al-Qariatayn in the central province of Homs, state television said, and "restored peace and security".
The Observatory said troops in the town were detaining people.
North of Homs city, the army intensified its bombardment of rebel-held Rastan and Talbisseh.
The army also renewed its shelling of the town of Houla, scene of a massacre last year, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, a network of activists.
The Observatory reported the army has retaken parts of the Barzeh district in Damascus from rebels.
The latest violence in a conflict the Observatory says has killed more than 100,000 people comes as relief groups say they are unable to keep pace with the rising misery.
"There is a huge discrepancy between the ability to cope with the Syrian crisis and the escalating speed in which the demands in Syria are growing," said Peter Maurer, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
"And this gap still continues to widen as we speak," he said in Geneva, decrying "incredible violence and incredible suffering, and quite extraordinary violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Syria".
Maurer, presenting the ICRC's 2012 annual report, said the Syrian conflict represented the organisation's largest outlay, with 101.3 million Swiss francs ($A116.04 million) dedicated to addressing it this year.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met the top UN expert leading a probe into allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, a ministry official in Ankara said.
Davutoglu held closed-door talks with Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom, who has so far been barred from entering Syria.
As US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Syria with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman, Russia accused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states of funding "terror".
It was responding to accusations by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal that Russia was responsible for mass killings in Syria because of its military support for the regime.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council backed UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights carrying machine guns, as fallout from the Syria war increased in the ceasefire zone.
The 15-member council passed a resolution to extend the mandate of the force, which monitors a three-decade-old ceasefire between Syria and Israel. The resolution called on Syrian government and opposition fighters to stay out of the zone.
UN officials and diplomats said the peacekeepers, who traditionally only carry very light arms, will get machine guns, extra body armour and more armoured vehicles.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/suicide-bomber-strikes-in-syria/story-e6frfkui-1226671183737#ixzz2XUoRARJd
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
28062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Thursday, June 27, 2013
WORLD_ SYRIA_ Activists say death toll in Syria now tops 100,000
Activists say death toll in Syria now tops 100,000
SARAH EL DEEB 13 hours ago
Syria
BEIRUT (AP) — The civil war in Syria has now killed more than 100,000 people, a grim new estimate Wednesday that comes at a time when the conflict is spreading beyond its borders and hopes are fading for a settlement to end the bloodshed.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll through a network of activists in the country, said most of the 100,191 killed in the last 27 months were combatants.
The regime losses were estimated at nearly 43,000, including pro-government militias and 169 fighters from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group — a recent entrant in the conflict.
The Observatory said 36,661 of the dead are civilians. Recorded deaths among the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad reached more than 18,000, including 2,518 foreign fighters.
Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said he suspected that the toll actually was higher, since neither side has been totally forthcoming about its losses.
The United Nations recently estimated that 93,000 people were killed between March 2011, when the crisis started, and the end of April 2013, concurring with Abdul-Rahman that the actual toll is likely much higher.
The Syrian government has not given a death toll. State media published the names of the government's dead in the first months of the crisis, but then stopped publishing its losses after the opposition became an armed insurgency.
Abdul-Rahman said that the group's tally of military deaths is based on information from medical sources, records obtained by the group from state agencies and activists' own count of funerals in government-held areas of the country. Other sources are the activist videos showing soldiers who were killed in rebel areas and later identified.
The new estimate comes at a time when hopes for peace talks are fading. The U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Tuesday an international conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. will not take place until later in the summer, partly because of opposition disarray.
Regime forces are pushing into rebel-held areas in an attempt to secure the seat of Assad's power in the capital of Damascus and along the Mediterranean coast in the heartland of the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs.
The offensive, along with new reports that Assad has used chemical weapons in 10 different incidents in the conflict, also prompted Washington and its allies to declare they have decided to arm the rebels.
On Wednesday, the Observatory said the regime drove rebels out of the town of Talkalakh, along the border with Lebanon. The town, which had a predominantly Sunni population of about 70,000 before the conflict, is surrounded by 12 Alawite villages located within walking distance of the Lebanon border.
The government takeover will likely affect the rebels' ability to bring supplies, fighters and weapons from Lebanon.
The town also lies on the highway that links the city of Homs to Tartus, in the coastal Alawite enclave that is home to one of Syria's two main seaports.
Syrian state TV showed soldiers patrolling the streets of Talkalakh, inspecting underground tunnels and displaying weapons seized from the opposition.
The governor of Homs, Ahmed Munir, told the private Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen that some rebels in Talkalakh handed their weapons over to authorities. He said the town was a major area for infiltrators from Lebanon.
"Talkalakh is clear of weapons," Munir said.
Southeast of Talkalakh, government forces also took control of the village of Quarayaten on a highway that links the rebels to another supply route from Iraq, according to an activist who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
The regime victories are likely to help it advance on rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, he said. The activist, who is connected to rebels in Homs, spoke by Skype.
The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, urged the U.N. to help civilians in Talkalakh open routes to facilitate the rescue of women, children, the elderly and the wounded.
The fighting has increasingly taken on sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate the rebel ranks while Assad's regime is dominated by Alawites, and has been backed by Hezbollah fighters, particularly in towns near the Lebanese borders.
The conflict has also polarized the region. Several Gulf states, including Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, back the rebels. Shiite powerhouse Iran is a major Assad supporter.
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi lashed out at Saudi Arabia after that country condemned Damascus for enlisting fighters from its Lebanese ally in its struggle with rebels.
The remarks by al-Zoubi were carried late Tuesday by the state agency SANA after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jiddah and condemned Assad for bolstering his army with fighters from Hezbollah. Prince Saud charged that Syria faces a "foreign invasion."
Al-Zoubi fired back, saying Saudi diplomats have blood on their hands and are "trembling in fear of the victories of the Syrian army."
___ Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-death-toll-syria-now-tops-100-000-201432503.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
27062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
SARAH EL DEEB 13 hours ago
Syria
BEIRUT (AP) — The civil war in Syria has now killed more than 100,000 people, a grim new estimate Wednesday that comes at a time when the conflict is spreading beyond its borders and hopes are fading for a settlement to end the bloodshed.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll through a network of activists in the country, said most of the 100,191 killed in the last 27 months were combatants.
The regime losses were estimated at nearly 43,000, including pro-government militias and 169 fighters from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group — a recent entrant in the conflict.
The Observatory said 36,661 of the dead are civilians. Recorded deaths among the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad reached more than 18,000, including 2,518 foreign fighters.
Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said he suspected that the toll actually was higher, since neither side has been totally forthcoming about its losses.
The United Nations recently estimated that 93,000 people were killed between March 2011, when the crisis started, and the end of April 2013, concurring with Abdul-Rahman that the actual toll is likely much higher.
The Syrian government has not given a death toll. State media published the names of the government's dead in the first months of the crisis, but then stopped publishing its losses after the opposition became an armed insurgency.
Abdul-Rahman said that the group's tally of military deaths is based on information from medical sources, records obtained by the group from state agencies and activists' own count of funerals in government-held areas of the country. Other sources are the activist videos showing soldiers who were killed in rebel areas and later identified.
The new estimate comes at a time when hopes for peace talks are fading. The U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Tuesday an international conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. will not take place until later in the summer, partly because of opposition disarray.
Regime forces are pushing into rebel-held areas in an attempt to secure the seat of Assad's power in the capital of Damascus and along the Mediterranean coast in the heartland of the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs.
The offensive, along with new reports that Assad has used chemical weapons in 10 different incidents in the conflict, also prompted Washington and its allies to declare they have decided to arm the rebels.
On Wednesday, the Observatory said the regime drove rebels out of the town of Talkalakh, along the border with Lebanon. The town, which had a predominantly Sunni population of about 70,000 before the conflict, is surrounded by 12 Alawite villages located within walking distance of the Lebanon border.
The government takeover will likely affect the rebels' ability to bring supplies, fighters and weapons from Lebanon.
The town also lies on the highway that links the city of Homs to Tartus, in the coastal Alawite enclave that is home to one of Syria's two main seaports.
Syrian state TV showed soldiers patrolling the streets of Talkalakh, inspecting underground tunnels and displaying weapons seized from the opposition.
The governor of Homs, Ahmed Munir, told the private Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen that some rebels in Talkalakh handed their weapons over to authorities. He said the town was a major area for infiltrators from Lebanon.
"Talkalakh is clear of weapons," Munir said.
Southeast of Talkalakh, government forces also took control of the village of Quarayaten on a highway that links the rebels to another supply route from Iraq, according to an activist who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
The regime victories are likely to help it advance on rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, he said. The activist, who is connected to rebels in Homs, spoke by Skype.
The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, urged the U.N. to help civilians in Talkalakh open routes to facilitate the rescue of women, children, the elderly and the wounded.
The fighting has increasingly taken on sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate the rebel ranks while Assad's regime is dominated by Alawites, and has been backed by Hezbollah fighters, particularly in towns near the Lebanese borders.
The conflict has also polarized the region. Several Gulf states, including Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, back the rebels. Shiite powerhouse Iran is a major Assad supporter.
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi lashed out at Saudi Arabia after that country condemned Damascus for enlisting fighters from its Lebanese ally in its struggle with rebels.
The remarks by al-Zoubi were carried late Tuesday by the state agency SANA after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jiddah and condemned Assad for bolstering his army with fighters from Hezbollah. Prince Saud charged that Syria faces a "foreign invasion."
Al-Zoubi fired back, saying Saudi diplomats have blood on their hands and are "trembling in fear of the victories of the Syrian army."
___ Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/activists-death-toll-syria-now-tops-100-000-201432503.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
27062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
WORLD_ USA_ Susan Rice: Syria inaction a 'stain' on security council
26 June 2013 Last updated at 01:22 GMT
Susan Rice: Syria inaction a 'stain' on security council
BBC
Rice said "history will judge harshly" the UN's inaction on Syria
Susan Rice has called the UN Security Council's inaction on the Syrian war "a stain" on the body, in final remarks as US ambassador to the organisation.
She criticised Russia and China for vetoing three resolutions that would have increased pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
But the US envoy said the post had been "the best job I've ever had".
Ms Rice is leaving the ambassadorship to become President Barack Obama's national security adviser.
Mr Obama has nominated Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former White House adviser, to replace her. Ms Power must now be confirmed by the US Senate.
'Moral, strategic disgrace'
The departing US ambassador described her time at the UN as "a remarkable period", but said she regretted more was not done to stem the bloodshed in Syria.
"I particularly regret that the Security Council has failed to act decisively as more than 90,000 Syrians have been killed and millions more displaced," she said.
"The council's inaction on Syria is a moral and strategic disgrace that history will judge harshly."
Ms Rice said the council's failure to act could not be laid at the feet of the United States.
"I don't know how in any circumstance one could ascribe that to a failure of US policy or US leadership," she said, "when the vast majority of the council was ready and willing to move ahead."
Russia and China used their Security Council veto powers once in 2011 and twice in 2012 to prevent the body from adopting resolutions that condemned the violence in Syria, demanded an end to human rights violations by Syrian government forces, and threatened non-military sanctions.
The Russians criticised the resolutions as tantamount to taking sides in a civil war.
Despite Ms Rice's criticism of Russia on Syria, she said it was not inevitable that "complex and multifaceted" relations between the two countries should sour.
"On issues as important as Iran and North Korea, and many others, we have been able to find common ground," she said.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
26062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Susan Rice: Syria inaction a 'stain' on security council
BBC
Rice said "history will judge harshly" the UN's inaction on Syria
Susan Rice has called the UN Security Council's inaction on the Syrian war "a stain" on the body, in final remarks as US ambassador to the organisation.
She criticised Russia and China for vetoing three resolutions that would have increased pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
But the US envoy said the post had been "the best job I've ever had".
Ms Rice is leaving the ambassadorship to become President Barack Obama's national security adviser.
Mr Obama has nominated Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former White House adviser, to replace her. Ms Power must now be confirmed by the US Senate.
'Moral, strategic disgrace'
The departing US ambassador described her time at the UN as "a remarkable period", but said she regretted more was not done to stem the bloodshed in Syria.
"I particularly regret that the Security Council has failed to act decisively as more than 90,000 Syrians have been killed and millions more displaced," she said.
"The council's inaction on Syria is a moral and strategic disgrace that history will judge harshly."
Ms Rice said the council's failure to act could not be laid at the feet of the United States.
"I don't know how in any circumstance one could ascribe that to a failure of US policy or US leadership," she said, "when the vast majority of the council was ready and willing to move ahead."
Russia and China used their Security Council veto powers once in 2011 and twice in 2012 to prevent the body from adopting resolutions that condemned the violence in Syria, demanded an end to human rights violations by Syrian government forces, and threatened non-military sanctions.
The Russians criticised the resolutions as tantamount to taking sides in a civil war.
Despite Ms Rice's criticism of Russia on Syria, she said it was not inevitable that "complex and multifaceted" relations between the two countries should sour.
"On issues as important as Iran and North Korea, and many others, we have been able to find common ground," she said.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
26062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Monday, June 24, 2013
WORLD_ Lebanon faces tumult after deadliest Syria-related clashes
Lebanon faces tumult after deadliest Syria-related clashes
Reuters – 3 hrs ago
Reuters/Reuters - Lebanese army soldiers deploy at a mosque complex, where hardline Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir was believed to be sheltering with his supporters in Abra near Sidon, southern Lebanon, June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Lebanese government will try on Tuesday to secure the country after the deadliest violence since the start of a two-year conflict in neighboring Syria that has pushed Lebanon's myriad militia to clashes.
Gunfights between the army and Sunni Muslim radical groups in the southern port of Sidon extended into Monday night after Lebanese soldiers stormed a complex holding gunmen loyal to a radical Islamist cleric and arrested dozens of his supporters. Violence also spread to the city of Tripoli in the north.
Residents fear that Syria-related clashes could drag their country back into sectarian civil war. Lebanon is still struggling to heal the wounds of 15 years of war between 1975 and 1990 and remains home to armed sectarian militia.
The army said 12 soldiers were killed in Sidon where troops stormed the mosque complex of hardline Sunni cleric Ahmed al-Assir. A medic told Reuters that 22 bodies had been pulled from the mosque complex.
Late on Monday, clouds of smoke rose from the mosque. Assir's office across the road was completely destroyed. At least four tanks and several army vehicles at the scene had been torched. Assir remained at large.
The government declared Tuesday a day of mourning for the dead soldiers and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and premier-designate Tammam Salam issued a statement late on Monday rejecting "any attack on the army".
Sidon had been on edge since violence erupted last week between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim fighters, at odds over the Syrian conflict which pits mainly Sunni rebels against President Bashar al-Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah has sent fighters into Syria to help Assad's forces recapture a strategic town, enraging Sunni groups.
Fighting started after gunmen loyal to Assir opened fire on an army checkpoint on Sunday, the army said. Assir's supporters accuse the army of backing Hezbollah.
The government called for the need to secure Sidon and "prevent all armed manifestations in a comprehensive manner."
Violence spread on Monday to Tripoli, where gunmen opened fire on the military and blocked roads with cement blocks and burning tires. Clashes there have wounded two soldiers and three gunmen.
In the capital Beirut, militia loyal to both sides blocked roads. Local media reported that some hardline Sunni mosques in Tripoli and Beirut called for jihad, or holy war, in support of Assir. Jihadi feeds on Twitter were also full of calls for Sunnis to fight in support of him.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Peter Graff)
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
25062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Reuters – 3 hrs ago
Reuters/Reuters - Lebanese army soldiers deploy at a mosque complex, where hardline Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir was believed to be sheltering with his supporters in Abra near Sidon, southern Lebanon, June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Lebanese government will try on Tuesday to secure the country after the deadliest violence since the start of a two-year conflict in neighboring Syria that has pushed Lebanon's myriad militia to clashes.
Gunfights between the army and Sunni Muslim radical groups in the southern port of Sidon extended into Monday night after Lebanese soldiers stormed a complex holding gunmen loyal to a radical Islamist cleric and arrested dozens of his supporters. Violence also spread to the city of Tripoli in the north.
Residents fear that Syria-related clashes could drag their country back into sectarian civil war. Lebanon is still struggling to heal the wounds of 15 years of war between 1975 and 1990 and remains home to armed sectarian militia.
The army said 12 soldiers were killed in Sidon where troops stormed the mosque complex of hardline Sunni cleric Ahmed al-Assir. A medic told Reuters that 22 bodies had been pulled from the mosque complex.
Late on Monday, clouds of smoke rose from the mosque. Assir's office across the road was completely destroyed. At least four tanks and several army vehicles at the scene had been torched. Assir remained at large.
The government declared Tuesday a day of mourning for the dead soldiers and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and premier-designate Tammam Salam issued a statement late on Monday rejecting "any attack on the army".
Sidon had been on edge since violence erupted last week between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim fighters, at odds over the Syrian conflict which pits mainly Sunni rebels against President Bashar al-Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah has sent fighters into Syria to help Assad's forces recapture a strategic town, enraging Sunni groups.
Fighting started after gunmen loyal to Assir opened fire on an army checkpoint on Sunday, the army said. Assir's supporters accuse the army of backing Hezbollah.
The government called for the need to secure Sidon and "prevent all armed manifestations in a comprehensive manner."
Violence spread on Monday to Tripoli, where gunmen opened fire on the military and blocked roads with cement blocks and burning tires. Clashes there have wounded two soldiers and three gunmen.
In the capital Beirut, militia loyal to both sides blocked roads. Local media reported that some hardline Sunni mosques in Tripoli and Beirut called for jihad, or holy war, in support of Assir. Jihadi feeds on Twitter were also full of calls for Sunnis to fight in support of him.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Peter Graff)
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
25062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
OPINION_ Inching Into Syria
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Inching Into Syria
By BILL KELLER
Published: June 23, 2013
15 Comments
REYHANLI, Turkey — In the border towns where Syrian rebels recuperate and resupply, the buzz is that the long wait for Barack Obama may be near an end. The excitement is not the result of the White House announcement on June 13 that the United States will supply light weapons to the groups seeking to overthrow the homicidal regime of Bashar al-Assad. Bullets and body armor won’t help much against Assad’s tanks, bombs and mortars. But the rebels say they see Obama’s hand in some bigger, less-publicized developments: the arrival of more and better antitank weapons, and rumors of long-withheld antiaircraft weapons. The heavier ordnance is coming from Europe, the gulf and — as The Times reported Saturday — from Libya. But it seems to be flowing now with a wink and a nod from the U.S.
“These thing don’t happen without America’s permission,” said a logistics coordinator for a rebel unit fighting in Homs, the birthplace of the uprising.
When I set out to meet with Syrian rebel operatives in the wake of Obama’s halfhearted shift, I expected a reaction of rolled eyes, too-little-too-late and thanks-for-nothing. What I found was a surprising surge of optimism, a sense that something has changed — specifically, that America is inching toward more serious engagement.
Of course, nobody is saying this is yet a game-changer. Gen. Salim Idris, the former Syrian Army officer who heads the opposition Supreme Military Council, told me that while the Americans have become more helpful in recent days, the speculation about antiaircraft missiles is premature, and there is still no sign that the United States is willing to enforce a no-fly zone or use cruise missiles against Syrian airfields, which could shift the advantage to the rebels. (I’m told Qatar arranged a small shipment of surface-to-air missiles and the U.S. looked the other way.) Whatever the details, intentionally or not, Obama has raised expectations.
Whether this fresh whiff of faith in America is justified, only the president can tell us, and I wish he would.
It’s hard to tell what has driven Obama even this far. Is it the prodding of critics like Bill Clinton, mocking the president’s poll-minded caution? Is there a belated revulsion at the humanitarian catastrophe? A recognition that diplomacy backed by nothing much — which has been the White House answer until recently — is a fool’s errand? Whether or not you agree with me that America has a big stake in the outcome, you are entitled to wonder: What, exactly, is the strategy?
Assad has been pounding his people mercilessly for more than two years, with a death toll that is nearing 100,000, the total for the entire Bosnian war in about half the time. With or without chemical weapons, Assad has achieved mass destruction and cinematic desperation. In Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, rebels say residents have already clear-cut the trees for fuel to get through one cold winter under siege and will face the next one without firewood. In Homs, a rebel from that city said, the opposition recently completed a two-mile tunnel, foul from crossed sewage lines, to bring in supplies and evacuate the sick and wounded.
The refugee burden is straining the good will and budgets of neighboring countries. In Jordan and Lebanon the frictions between fleeing Syrians and the locals have erupted in violence.
In Turkey, which has been by far the most warmly hospitable neighbor to the rebels and the displaced, refugee camps like Altinozu, a camp we visited in Hatay, were once a media novelty. Now some of them have become more like permanent settlements: clinics, classrooms, laundry service, arts and crafts classes, Al Jazeera news on TV and Internet access, all paid for by the Turkish government at some price in public resentment. And here in Reyhanli last month, a duet of car bombs assumed to be spillover of the Syrian war killed more than 50 people.
Like the rebels, the refugees are waiting for America.
“They think American will have the last word,” said a camp administrator. “When America decides, it will end, and they can go home.”
We should have no illusion that this war will end neatly, whatever we do. The opposition figures I talked to concede that Syria now is a much bigger mess than a year ago. Assad is faring better thanks to help from Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. The opposition is fractured into so many “Grandsons of the Prophet” and “Tiger Brigades” that it is hard to keep the players straight. The umbrella Free Syrian Army that General Idris’s council oversees labors to keep track of the metastasizing fighting units, and doesn’t pretend to control them all. And of course, among the rebels there is a minority of fanatic Islamists with Qaeda sympathies, filling a vacuum the standoffish West declined to fill.
Over tea in a Reyhanli cafe with a view of the Syrian hills, I asked a rebel commander named Abu Jarah how he imagined Syria after Assad.
“Maybe Somalia plus Afghanistan,” he replied.
That, I allowed, was a pretty horrifying prospect.
“Not our mistake,” he said. “It’s not what we want. It’s what you gave us, with two years standing and watching.”
In Istanbul, Fahed Awad, a spokesman for one major Free Syrian Army battalion, told me, with disarming candor, that it would probably take three wars to complete the Syrian revolution — one to defeat Assad; then a sectarian war within Islam between the Sunnis and Assad’s Shia sect, the Alawites; and finally a fight over just how Islamic the new Syria should be. (Like most of the opposition, he favors a more secular Islamic democracy, similar to Turkey’s.)
These are worst-case scenarios, but hardly far-fetched. That is one reason so many Americans recoil from any involvement. Seared by two wars in the region, Americans are understandably doubtful that Syria is our problem, or within our competence, or even within our comprehension. While many Syrians believe America just wants to keep Syria weak, the more sophisticated understand that their uprising is a casualty of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We’ve been unlucky in our revolution,” said Awad, acknowledging America’s reluctance. “Unlucky in our timing. Unlucky in our geography.”
I’ve written before that Syria is, in critical ways, not Iraq redux. The stakes this time are real, not fabricated; the insurgency is genuine and indigenous; we have options far short of occupation. We should not, as Bill Clinton put it in his recent excoriation of Obama’s passivity, “overlearn the lessons of the past.”
What we know is that without our involvement several things are likely: The slaughter will continue. The menacing alliance of Iran, Hezbollah and Syria, stoked by Russia, will be empowered and emboldened. America’s influence on issues like Iran’s nuclear program will be seriously diminished. Jordan and Lebanon and Iraq will be destabilized. Bloodied Syria will be more than ever a breeding ground of terror.
Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute, says that even if Assad remains in power, large swaths of Syria will remain beyond his control. “We have a Syria which is being transformed from a U.S.-listed state sponsor of terrorism — which is bad enough — into a Syria divided into three parts, with terrorist groups ascendant in each. And Syria is home to the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the region.”
The dangers of intervention, even a carefully calibrated intervention, are real. But keeping our distance doesn’t avoid them. It just postpones them and raises the price.
Nobody, except perhaps our enemies, wants to see American troops in Syria. Our aim should be to make life so miserable for Assad and his friends that he agrees, or his sponsors agree, that it is time to stop the killing, send Assad and his circle into exile, and move from blood bath to diplomacy. Is that achievable? I honestly don’t know. But given the certain costs of doing nothing, I think it’s worth a try. I wish I knew whether President Obama felt the same.
*** 15 Comments
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/opinion/keller-inching-into-syria.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=syria
___________
WHAT DO YOU THINK ?
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
24062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Inching Into Syria
By BILL KELLER
Published: June 23, 2013
15 Comments
REYHANLI, Turkey — In the border towns where Syrian rebels recuperate and resupply, the buzz is that the long wait for Barack Obama may be near an end. The excitement is not the result of the White House announcement on June 13 that the United States will supply light weapons to the groups seeking to overthrow the homicidal regime of Bashar al-Assad. Bullets and body armor won’t help much against Assad’s tanks, bombs and mortars. But the rebels say they see Obama’s hand in some bigger, less-publicized developments: the arrival of more and better antitank weapons, and rumors of long-withheld antiaircraft weapons. The heavier ordnance is coming from Europe, the gulf and — as The Times reported Saturday — from Libya. But it seems to be flowing now with a wink and a nod from the U.S.
“These thing don’t happen without America’s permission,” said a logistics coordinator for a rebel unit fighting in Homs, the birthplace of the uprising.
When I set out to meet with Syrian rebel operatives in the wake of Obama’s halfhearted shift, I expected a reaction of rolled eyes, too-little-too-late and thanks-for-nothing. What I found was a surprising surge of optimism, a sense that something has changed — specifically, that America is inching toward more serious engagement.
Of course, nobody is saying this is yet a game-changer. Gen. Salim Idris, the former Syrian Army officer who heads the opposition Supreme Military Council, told me that while the Americans have become more helpful in recent days, the speculation about antiaircraft missiles is premature, and there is still no sign that the United States is willing to enforce a no-fly zone or use cruise missiles against Syrian airfields, which could shift the advantage to the rebels. (I’m told Qatar arranged a small shipment of surface-to-air missiles and the U.S. looked the other way.) Whatever the details, intentionally or not, Obama has raised expectations.
Whether this fresh whiff of faith in America is justified, only the president can tell us, and I wish he would.
It’s hard to tell what has driven Obama even this far. Is it the prodding of critics like Bill Clinton, mocking the president’s poll-minded caution? Is there a belated revulsion at the humanitarian catastrophe? A recognition that diplomacy backed by nothing much — which has been the White House answer until recently — is a fool’s errand? Whether or not you agree with me that America has a big stake in the outcome, you are entitled to wonder: What, exactly, is the strategy?
Assad has been pounding his people mercilessly for more than two years, with a death toll that is nearing 100,000, the total for the entire Bosnian war in about half the time. With or without chemical weapons, Assad has achieved mass destruction and cinematic desperation. In Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, rebels say residents have already clear-cut the trees for fuel to get through one cold winter under siege and will face the next one without firewood. In Homs, a rebel from that city said, the opposition recently completed a two-mile tunnel, foul from crossed sewage lines, to bring in supplies and evacuate the sick and wounded.
The refugee burden is straining the good will and budgets of neighboring countries. In Jordan and Lebanon the frictions between fleeing Syrians and the locals have erupted in violence.
In Turkey, which has been by far the most warmly hospitable neighbor to the rebels and the displaced, refugee camps like Altinozu, a camp we visited in Hatay, were once a media novelty. Now some of them have become more like permanent settlements: clinics, classrooms, laundry service, arts and crafts classes, Al Jazeera news on TV and Internet access, all paid for by the Turkish government at some price in public resentment. And here in Reyhanli last month, a duet of car bombs assumed to be spillover of the Syrian war killed more than 50 people.
Like the rebels, the refugees are waiting for America.
“They think American will have the last word,” said a camp administrator. “When America decides, it will end, and they can go home.”
We should have no illusion that this war will end neatly, whatever we do. The opposition figures I talked to concede that Syria now is a much bigger mess than a year ago. Assad is faring better thanks to help from Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. The opposition is fractured into so many “Grandsons of the Prophet” and “Tiger Brigades” that it is hard to keep the players straight. The umbrella Free Syrian Army that General Idris’s council oversees labors to keep track of the metastasizing fighting units, and doesn’t pretend to control them all. And of course, among the rebels there is a minority of fanatic Islamists with Qaeda sympathies, filling a vacuum the standoffish West declined to fill.
Over tea in a Reyhanli cafe with a view of the Syrian hills, I asked a rebel commander named Abu Jarah how he imagined Syria after Assad.
“Maybe Somalia plus Afghanistan,” he replied.
That, I allowed, was a pretty horrifying prospect.
“Not our mistake,” he said. “It’s not what we want. It’s what you gave us, with two years standing and watching.”
In Istanbul, Fahed Awad, a spokesman for one major Free Syrian Army battalion, told me, with disarming candor, that it would probably take three wars to complete the Syrian revolution — one to defeat Assad; then a sectarian war within Islam between the Sunnis and Assad’s Shia sect, the Alawites; and finally a fight over just how Islamic the new Syria should be. (Like most of the opposition, he favors a more secular Islamic democracy, similar to Turkey’s.)
These are worst-case scenarios, but hardly far-fetched. That is one reason so many Americans recoil from any involvement. Seared by two wars in the region, Americans are understandably doubtful that Syria is our problem, or within our competence, or even within our comprehension. While many Syrians believe America just wants to keep Syria weak, the more sophisticated understand that their uprising is a casualty of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We’ve been unlucky in our revolution,” said Awad, acknowledging America’s reluctance. “Unlucky in our timing. Unlucky in our geography.”
I’ve written before that Syria is, in critical ways, not Iraq redux. The stakes this time are real, not fabricated; the insurgency is genuine and indigenous; we have options far short of occupation. We should not, as Bill Clinton put it in his recent excoriation of Obama’s passivity, “overlearn the lessons of the past.”
What we know is that without our involvement several things are likely: The slaughter will continue. The menacing alliance of Iran, Hezbollah and Syria, stoked by Russia, will be empowered and emboldened. America’s influence on issues like Iran’s nuclear program will be seriously diminished. Jordan and Lebanon and Iraq will be destabilized. Bloodied Syria will be more than ever a breeding ground of terror.
Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute, says that even if Assad remains in power, large swaths of Syria will remain beyond his control. “We have a Syria which is being transformed from a U.S.-listed state sponsor of terrorism — which is bad enough — into a Syria divided into three parts, with terrorist groups ascendant in each. And Syria is home to the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the region.”
The dangers of intervention, even a carefully calibrated intervention, are real. But keeping our distance doesn’t avoid them. It just postpones them and raises the price.
Nobody, except perhaps our enemies, wants to see American troops in Syria. Our aim should be to make life so miserable for Assad and his friends that he agrees, or his sponsors agree, that it is time to stop the killing, send Assad and his circle into exile, and move from blood bath to diplomacy. Is that achievable? I honestly don’t know. But given the certain costs of doing nothing, I think it’s worth a try. I wish I knew whether President Obama felt the same.
*** 15 Comments
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/opinion/keller-inching-into-syria.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=syria
___________
WHAT DO YOU THINK ?
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
24062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Sunday, June 23, 2013
WORLD_ How the Syria conflict is spreading deadly violence to Lebanon
How the Syria conflict is spreading deadly violence to Lebanon
13 hours ago
NBC NEWS
Joseph Eid / AFP - Getty Images, file Lebanese army soldiers patrol Syria street in Tripoli's Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh to restore a tense calm four hours after the clash broke out between Salafists who support the revolt in Syria and pro-Damascus fighters, on June 7, 2013 in Lebanon.
By Ben Gilbert, Contributor, NBC News
TRIPOLI, Lebanon – An armored personnel-carrier rolls through the city center, its 50-caliber machine gun at the ready as sniper fire cracks in the distance.
“I had to move out of my home last night because of the fighting,” says resident Mida Mohammad, her 3-year-old daughter Youmma clutching a teddy bear by her side. “Young guys with guns told me to leave my home so they could use it as a firing position.”
It could be a scene from war-ravaged Syria. But this is actually in Lebanon, whose second-largest city, Tripoli, has become a simmering reflection of the ethnic and religious divisions in the neighboring civil war.
On one side are the Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam) of Jebel Mohsen, a hill on the northern edge of the city, filled with supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and thus allied with Hezbollah.
Just a few hundred yards down the hill is the Sunni neighborhood of Beb al-Tabaneh, where people support the Syrian opposition and are against Hezbollah. T
he aptly-named Syria Street divides the two neighborhoods, and serves as a frontline during fighting.
“We can’t tell from where the snipers are shooting from,” said a Sunni fighter who came out of Bab al-Tabbaneh to meet two reporters on the edge of the neighborhood. He did not want to be identified
The 41-year-old fighter runs a bakery on Syria Street in calmer times, but says he is now commanding 40 local fighters.
He wore camouflage pants and a black shirt with the Muslim “shahadah” on it – the Islamic creed that declares belief in a single God. He arrived on a motorbike with another young man, both openly carrying Kalashnikov automatic rifles.
The fighter says he’s a Salafi, and that he first started fighting in 2008, after Hezbollah steamrolled the Sunni community in Lebanon. Now, he says he fights because someone has to defend his neighborhood against Syria’s allies, Hezbollah and the Alawites. He says today’s clashes have a root in the past, and also in the current situation in Syria.
“The clashes date back 30 years ago, when the Syrian army, with the help of Alawites in Jebel Mohsen, committed massacres against the people of Bab al-Tabaneh,” he said. “But, of course, the situation in northern Tripoli is an extension of what’s going on in northern Syria, because the Alawites are fighting in Syria, and people from Bab al-Tabbaneh are also fighting in Syria.”
“Tonight we will fight here,” he added, as sniper fire cracked in the distance.
On his iPhone, he scrolled through dozens of photos of Sunni fighters killed in Syria. He says he knows of around 90 Lebanese Sunnis fighting in Syria now. He says he knows of 12 who have been killed there, including three Tripoli natives killed in the recent battle for Qusair.
The Syria-aligned Alawites, meanwhile, scoff at Sunni allegations that they start every fight. They are vastly outnumbered by the Sunnis in Tripoli and are encircled.
“The people of Jebel Mohsen are in danger from the people around them – there’s an attack on the Alawite sect,” said Ali Faddah, spokesman for the Alawite political party in Lebanon, the Arab Democratic Party. Sunni extremists started this latest round of fighting in Tripoli, he said.
Just down the street, Mayez al-Dahmee, a Sunni, runs a newspaper called Al-Inshaa.
He argues that the Sunnis have no leadership in Lebanon – and that extremist conservative Islamist groups and preachers are filling the void.
“These young men are being misled and pushed into jihad,” Dahmee said. “So that any religious person can convince them it is their duty to do that.”
Tripoli’s violence has erupted with a previously unseen intensity. And although the Lebanese Army has tried to crack down, fighting has spread to other parts of the city, in part because weapons and ammunition are available, residents and officials say.
Earlier this month, fighting erupted in Tripoli’s old market – a neighborhood that hasn’t seen such violence since 2008 – while in Beb al-Tabaneh six people died in sniper fire that the Lebanese army was helpless to contain.
In May, two dozen people were killed and more than 200 injured during a week of fighting that Lebanese security forces said saw more than 1,000 rocket propelled grenades and mortars explode in the city.
Even downtown Tripoli has felt the effects of the tensions and fighting.
At an Alawite-owned café on Tripoli’s main street, employee Hannan Tarraf, 35, said she wasn’t afraid. But she said the café was closing earlier than usual because young men riding by on motorcycles – assumed to be involved in the fighting - were intimidating her.
“We usually stay open until 1 a.m., but tonight we’ll close at 9 p.m. or 9:30 p.m., because of the guys on motorcycles,” she said.
Many are sick of the fighting and the tension that comes along with it.
“The government isn’t doing anything to stop it, the state is totally absent. We are fed up with the fighting,” said a Tripoli-based lawyer, Khaled Merheb.
The Lebanese Army last week moved into both Beb al-Tabanay and Jebel Mohsen to remove makeshift barricades and establish checkpoints in order to stop the fighting.
Many residents hope it will, but the army is spread thinly across the country and lacks the resources to impose a ceasefire.
“They should live in peace together,” said Mida Mohammad, the young mother who ventured out onto the nearly deserted main street near Beb al-Tabaneh. “They’re not going to get rid of the other side. No one is going to win.”
*** 33 Comments
Read more: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/23/19058264-how-the-syria-conflict-is-spreading-deadly-violence-to-lebanon?lite
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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24062013
___________
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Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
13 hours ago
NBC NEWS
Joseph Eid / AFP - Getty Images, file Lebanese army soldiers patrol Syria street in Tripoli's Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh to restore a tense calm four hours after the clash broke out between Salafists who support the revolt in Syria and pro-Damascus fighters, on June 7, 2013 in Lebanon.
By Ben Gilbert, Contributor, NBC News
TRIPOLI, Lebanon – An armored personnel-carrier rolls through the city center, its 50-caliber machine gun at the ready as sniper fire cracks in the distance.
“I had to move out of my home last night because of the fighting,” says resident Mida Mohammad, her 3-year-old daughter Youmma clutching a teddy bear by her side. “Young guys with guns told me to leave my home so they could use it as a firing position.”
It could be a scene from war-ravaged Syria. But this is actually in Lebanon, whose second-largest city, Tripoli, has become a simmering reflection of the ethnic and religious divisions in the neighboring civil war.
On one side are the Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam) of Jebel Mohsen, a hill on the northern edge of the city, filled with supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and thus allied with Hezbollah.
Just a few hundred yards down the hill is the Sunni neighborhood of Beb al-Tabaneh, where people support the Syrian opposition and are against Hezbollah. T
he aptly-named Syria Street divides the two neighborhoods, and serves as a frontline during fighting.
“We can’t tell from where the snipers are shooting from,” said a Sunni fighter who came out of Bab al-Tabbaneh to meet two reporters on the edge of the neighborhood. He did not want to be identified
The 41-year-old fighter runs a bakery on Syria Street in calmer times, but says he is now commanding 40 local fighters.
He wore camouflage pants and a black shirt with the Muslim “shahadah” on it – the Islamic creed that declares belief in a single God. He arrived on a motorbike with another young man, both openly carrying Kalashnikov automatic rifles.
The fighter says he’s a Salafi, and that he first started fighting in 2008, after Hezbollah steamrolled the Sunni community in Lebanon. Now, he says he fights because someone has to defend his neighborhood against Syria’s allies, Hezbollah and the Alawites. He says today’s clashes have a root in the past, and also in the current situation in Syria.
“The clashes date back 30 years ago, when the Syrian army, with the help of Alawites in Jebel Mohsen, committed massacres against the people of Bab al-Tabaneh,” he said. “But, of course, the situation in northern Tripoli is an extension of what’s going on in northern Syria, because the Alawites are fighting in Syria, and people from Bab al-Tabbaneh are also fighting in Syria.”
“Tonight we will fight here,” he added, as sniper fire cracked in the distance.
On his iPhone, he scrolled through dozens of photos of Sunni fighters killed in Syria. He says he knows of around 90 Lebanese Sunnis fighting in Syria now. He says he knows of 12 who have been killed there, including three Tripoli natives killed in the recent battle for Qusair.
The Syria-aligned Alawites, meanwhile, scoff at Sunni allegations that they start every fight. They are vastly outnumbered by the Sunnis in Tripoli and are encircled.
“The people of Jebel Mohsen are in danger from the people around them – there’s an attack on the Alawite sect,” said Ali Faddah, spokesman for the Alawite political party in Lebanon, the Arab Democratic Party. Sunni extremists started this latest round of fighting in Tripoli, he said.
Just down the street, Mayez al-Dahmee, a Sunni, runs a newspaper called Al-Inshaa.
He argues that the Sunnis have no leadership in Lebanon – and that extremist conservative Islamist groups and preachers are filling the void.
“These young men are being misled and pushed into jihad,” Dahmee said. “So that any religious person can convince them it is their duty to do that.”
Tripoli’s violence has erupted with a previously unseen intensity. And although the Lebanese Army has tried to crack down, fighting has spread to other parts of the city, in part because weapons and ammunition are available, residents and officials say.
Earlier this month, fighting erupted in Tripoli’s old market – a neighborhood that hasn’t seen such violence since 2008 – while in Beb al-Tabaneh six people died in sniper fire that the Lebanese army was helpless to contain.
In May, two dozen people were killed and more than 200 injured during a week of fighting that Lebanese security forces said saw more than 1,000 rocket propelled grenades and mortars explode in the city.
Even downtown Tripoli has felt the effects of the tensions and fighting.
At an Alawite-owned café on Tripoli’s main street, employee Hannan Tarraf, 35, said she wasn’t afraid. But she said the café was closing earlier than usual because young men riding by on motorcycles – assumed to be involved in the fighting - were intimidating her.
“We usually stay open until 1 a.m., but tonight we’ll close at 9 p.m. or 9:30 p.m., because of the guys on motorcycles,” she said.
Many are sick of the fighting and the tension that comes along with it.
“The government isn’t doing anything to stop it, the state is totally absent. We are fed up with the fighting,” said a Tripoli-based lawyer, Khaled Merheb.
The Lebanese Army last week moved into both Beb al-Tabanay and Jebel Mohsen to remove makeshift barricades and establish checkpoints in order to stop the fighting.
Many residents hope it will, but the army is spread thinly across the country and lacks the resources to impose a ceasefire.
“They should live in peace together,” said Mida Mohammad, the young mother who ventured out onto the nearly deserted main street near Beb al-Tabaneh. “They’re not going to get rid of the other side. No one is going to win.”
*** 33 Comments
Read more: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/23/19058264-how-the-syria-conflict-is-spreading-deadly-violence-to-lebanon?lite
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
24062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Bomb attacks in Syrian capital kill 8 people
Bomb attacks in Syrian capital kill 8 people
Associated Press By ALBERT AJI and BARBARA SURK | Associated Press – 1 hr 1 min ago
Associated Press/SANA - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrians investigate a damaged vehicle after two suicide bombings hit security compounds in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, June 23, 2013. Syrian activists and state media say several have been killed in two suicide bombing attacks on security compounds in the capital, Damascus. The state-run news agency says three suicide bombers blew themselves up while trying to break into the Rukneddine police station. (AP Photo/SANA)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Suicide bombers targeted security compounds in Damascus and a car bomb exploded in a pro-regime district there Sunday, killing at least eight people, the latest in a surge of civil war violence in the capital.
In northern Syria, a car bomb killed 12 soldiers in Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists in Syria for information. It had no other details, and the government did not comment.
The state-run news agency SANA said three suicide bombers blew themselves up while trying to break into the Rukneddine police station in northern Damascus, killing five people and wounding several others. SANA said three would-be suicide bombers also tried to break into the Criminal Security Branch in the southern Bab Mousalla area but were caught by security forces before they could detonate their explosives.
Activists confirmed the death toll.
SANA said a car bomb exploded in Mazzeh 86 district in the capital, killing three people, including a 3-year-old boy. Residents of the district are mostly Alawites, an offshoot Shiite sect that President Bashar Assad's family belongs to. The opposition forces fighting against Assad's regime are mostly Sunni Muslims.
Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the Damascus explosions, but they bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida-linked groups that have joined forces with rebels fighting to oust Assad.
The attacks in Syria's two largest cities came as government forces pressed an offensive on the outskirts of the capital.
SANA carried a statement by the Interior Ministry saying that the Damascus attacks were a "new escalation by terrorist groups," a term used by the government to refer to the rebels.
More than 93,000 people have been killed in Syrian conflict that started in March 2011 as peaceful protest against Assad's rule. In the past year, the war has taken on sectarian overtones.
The conflict has increasingly spilled across Syria's borders.
In neighboring Lebanon, clashes erupted between Lebanese military and supporters of hard-line Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Assar. Six Lebanese soldiers were killed, according to the army.
The fighting broke out in the predominantly Sunni southern port city of Sidon after al-Assir's supporters opened fire on an army checkpoint.
The military issued a statement confirming that six soldiers died in the shooting, including three officers. It said the shooting was unprovoked.
Heavy fighting with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades caused panic in the city, which until recently had been largely spared the violence hitting other areas. Many people who were spending the day on the beach hurried home, while others living on high floors came down or fled to safer areas. Gray smoke billowed over parts of the city.
The clashes centered on the Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque, where al-Assir preaches. The cleric, a virulent critic of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, is believed to have hundreds of armed supporters in Sidon. Dozens of al-Assir's gunmen also partially shut down the main highway linking south Lebanon with Beirut.
By Sunday evening, the army appeared poised to move against al-Assir and his supporters, who have been agitating for months. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the army have surrounded the mosque, sealing off access to it from all directions and neutralized hostile fire from neighboring buildings.
The NNA report said Assir was believed to be hiding inside the mosque with several of his followers.
The cleric and his followers support Sunni rebels in the Syria conflict, and he has threatened to clear apartments in Sidon where Hezbollah supporters live.
Sunday's clashes in Sidon deepened tensions in Lebanon. on edge since the Syrian conflict began more than two years ago.
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman called an emergency meeting of the security cabinet for Monday. NNA also reported sporadic shooting in the volatile city of Tripoli in the north, and the army announced additional force deployments in around Beirut.
The violence came a day after an 11-nation group that includes the U.S. met in the Qatari capital of Doha to coordinate military aid and other forms of assistance to the rebels.
Syria's al-Thawra newspaper, the mouthpiece of the government, assailed the Friends of Syria meeting.
"It's clear that the enemies of Syria are rushing to arm the terrorists to kill the chances for holding the Geneva conference," the newspaper said, referring to a U.S.-Russia initiative for bringing Assad's government and rebels together to negotiate an end to the crisis.
The Syrian paper pledged that the army would "continue the showdown to eliminate terrorism and restore security and stability."
____
Surk reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
24062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Associated Press By ALBERT AJI and BARBARA SURK | Associated Press – 1 hr 1 min ago
Associated Press/SANA - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrians investigate a damaged vehicle after two suicide bombings hit security compounds in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, June 23, 2013. Syrian activists and state media say several have been killed in two suicide bombing attacks on security compounds in the capital, Damascus. The state-run news agency says three suicide bombers blew themselves up while trying to break into the Rukneddine police station. (AP Photo/SANA)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Suicide bombers targeted security compounds in Damascus and a car bomb exploded in a pro-regime district there Sunday, killing at least eight people, the latest in a surge of civil war violence in the capital.
In northern Syria, a car bomb killed 12 soldiers in Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists in Syria for information. It had no other details, and the government did not comment.
The state-run news agency SANA said three suicide bombers blew themselves up while trying to break into the Rukneddine police station in northern Damascus, killing five people and wounding several others. SANA said three would-be suicide bombers also tried to break into the Criminal Security Branch in the southern Bab Mousalla area but were caught by security forces before they could detonate their explosives.
Activists confirmed the death toll.
SANA said a car bomb exploded in Mazzeh 86 district in the capital, killing three people, including a 3-year-old boy. Residents of the district are mostly Alawites, an offshoot Shiite sect that President Bashar Assad's family belongs to. The opposition forces fighting against Assad's regime are mostly Sunni Muslims.
Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the Damascus explosions, but they bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida-linked groups that have joined forces with rebels fighting to oust Assad.
The attacks in Syria's two largest cities came as government forces pressed an offensive on the outskirts of the capital.
SANA carried a statement by the Interior Ministry saying that the Damascus attacks were a "new escalation by terrorist groups," a term used by the government to refer to the rebels.
More than 93,000 people have been killed in Syrian conflict that started in March 2011 as peaceful protest against Assad's rule. In the past year, the war has taken on sectarian overtones.
The conflict has increasingly spilled across Syria's borders.
In neighboring Lebanon, clashes erupted between Lebanese military and supporters of hard-line Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Assar. Six Lebanese soldiers were killed, according to the army.
The fighting broke out in the predominantly Sunni southern port city of Sidon after al-Assir's supporters opened fire on an army checkpoint.
The military issued a statement confirming that six soldiers died in the shooting, including three officers. It said the shooting was unprovoked.
Heavy fighting with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades caused panic in the city, which until recently had been largely spared the violence hitting other areas. Many people who were spending the day on the beach hurried home, while others living on high floors came down or fled to safer areas. Gray smoke billowed over parts of the city.
The clashes centered on the Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque, where al-Assir preaches. The cleric, a virulent critic of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, is believed to have hundreds of armed supporters in Sidon. Dozens of al-Assir's gunmen also partially shut down the main highway linking south Lebanon with Beirut.
By Sunday evening, the army appeared poised to move against al-Assir and his supporters, who have been agitating for months. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the army have surrounded the mosque, sealing off access to it from all directions and neutralized hostile fire from neighboring buildings.
The NNA report said Assir was believed to be hiding inside the mosque with several of his followers.
The cleric and his followers support Sunni rebels in the Syria conflict, and he has threatened to clear apartments in Sidon where Hezbollah supporters live.
Sunday's clashes in Sidon deepened tensions in Lebanon. on edge since the Syrian conflict began more than two years ago.
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman called an emergency meeting of the security cabinet for Monday. NNA also reported sporadic shooting in the volatile city of Tripoli in the north, and the army announced additional force deployments in around Beirut.
The violence came a day after an 11-nation group that includes the U.S. met in the Qatari capital of Doha to coordinate military aid and other forms of assistance to the rebels.
Syria's al-Thawra newspaper, the mouthpiece of the government, assailed the Friends of Syria meeting.
"It's clear that the enemies of Syria are rushing to arm the terrorists to kill the chances for holding the Geneva conference," the newspaper said, referring to a U.S.-Russia initiative for bringing Assad's government and rebels together to negotiate an end to the crisis.
The Syrian paper pledged that the army would "continue the showdown to eliminate terrorism and restore security and stability."
____
Surk reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
24062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ World powers to provide 'urgent aid' to Syria rebels
World powers to provide 'urgent aid' to Syria rebels
June 22, 2013 05:22 PM
The Daily Star
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) walks with Qatari Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the Sea Palace in Doha June 22, 2013. REUTERS/Jacquelyn Martin/Pool
DOHA: World powers supporting Syria's rebels decided on Saturday to provide them with urgent military aid so they can counter "brutal attacks" by the regime and "protect the Syrian people."
Yet even as they prepared to step up their own contribution to a war that has killed nearly 100,000 people, they demanded that Iran and Lebanese movement Hezbollah stop supporting President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Top Qatari diplomat and host Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said a meeting in Doha of foreign ministers of the "Friends of Syria" had taken "secret decisions about practical measures to change the situation on the ground".
A final communique said "each country in its own way" would provide "urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment" so that the rebels could "counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people."
Sheikh Hamad said two of the 11 countries participating had expressed reservations, with diplomats saying they were Germany and Italy.
Also attending were the foreign ministers of Britain, Egypt, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Washington and Doha had called for increasing aid to end what US Secretary of State John Kerry called an "imbalance" in Assad's favour.
Kerry said the United States remained committed to a peace plan that includes a conference in Geneva and a transitional government picked both by Assad and the opposition.
But he said the rebels need more support "for the purpose of being able to get to Geneva and to be able to address the imbalance on the ground".
Sheikh Hamad echoed Kerry's remarks, saying a peaceful end "cannot be reached unless a balance on the ground is achieved, in order to force the regime to sit down to talks."
On Thursday, the rebel Free Syrian Army said it needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.
A Western diplomat in Doha said on Saturday that FSA chief of staff General Selim Idriss had presented a wish list and that it had been agreed to for the most part.
"Everybody is going to help and help better," the diplomat said, adding that there would be on "important qualitative and quantitative leap".
Later on Saturday, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Qatar for talks with the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
He was expected to highlight the "need for trust, clarity and coordination" in backing the rebels, as Qatar is accused of "supporting Syrian opposition groups it does not know," a French diplomat said.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the ministers demanded that predominantly Shiite Iran and Hezbollah stop meddling in the war by supporting Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
"We have demanded that Iran and Hezbollah end their intervention in the conflict," said Fabius.
"We are fully against the internationalisation of the conflict," he told reporters.
Kerry also accused Assad of an "internationalisation" of the conflict by bringing in Iran and Hezbollah.
And the final communique said that the entry into Syria of militia and fighters that support the regime, a clear reference to Hezbollah, "must be prevented."
In that respect, they emphasised that neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon need to "actively safeguard their borders in order to ensure that fighters and equipment do not escalate current tensions".
The ministers also warned of the "increasing presence and growing radicalism" and "terrorist elements in Syria."
Western powers have hesitated to arm the rebels for fear weapons would fall into the hands of radical elements among them, such as the powerful Al-Nusra Front, which wants to establish an Islamic state in Syria.
Sheikh Hamad also voiced support for a peace conference but insisted there could be no role in the future government for "Assad and aides with bloodstained hands".
He accused Assad's regime of wanting to block the Geneva conference in order to stay in power, "even if that costs one million dead, millions of displaced and refugees and the destruction of Syria and its partition".
And the final communique stated that Assad "has no role in the transitional governing body or thereafter".
On the ground, loyalist forces pressed a fierce four-day assault on rebel-held parts of Damascus, while insurgents launched a new attack on regime-controlled neighbourhoods of second city Aleppo.
Saturday's developments come as the military pushed on with its bid to end the insurgency in and around Homs in central Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
They also come a day after at least 100 people were killed nationwide, it added.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Jun-22/221282-friends-of-syria-agree-to-give-all-necessary-equipment-to-opposition-statement.ashx#ixzz2X2F3M8Nu
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
23062013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
June 22, 2013 05:22 PM
The Daily Star
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) walks with Qatari Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the Sea Palace in Doha June 22, 2013. REUTERS/Jacquelyn Martin/Pool
DOHA: World powers supporting Syria's rebels decided on Saturday to provide them with urgent military aid so they can counter "brutal attacks" by the regime and "protect the Syrian people."
Yet even as they prepared to step up their own contribution to a war that has killed nearly 100,000 people, they demanded that Iran and Lebanese movement Hezbollah stop supporting President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Top Qatari diplomat and host Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said a meeting in Doha of foreign ministers of the "Friends of Syria" had taken "secret decisions about practical measures to change the situation on the ground".
A final communique said "each country in its own way" would provide "urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment" so that the rebels could "counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people."
Sheikh Hamad said two of the 11 countries participating had expressed reservations, with diplomats saying they were Germany and Italy.
Also attending were the foreign ministers of Britain, Egypt, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Washington and Doha had called for increasing aid to end what US Secretary of State John Kerry called an "imbalance" in Assad's favour.
Kerry said the United States remained committed to a peace plan that includes a conference in Geneva and a transitional government picked both by Assad and the opposition.
But he said the rebels need more support "for the purpose of being able to get to Geneva and to be able to address the imbalance on the ground".
Sheikh Hamad echoed Kerry's remarks, saying a peaceful end "cannot be reached unless a balance on the ground is achieved, in order to force the regime to sit down to talks."
On Thursday, the rebel Free Syrian Army said it needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.
A Western diplomat in Doha said on Saturday that FSA chief of staff General Selim Idriss had presented a wish list and that it had been agreed to for the most part.
"Everybody is going to help and help better," the diplomat said, adding that there would be on "important qualitative and quantitative leap".
Later on Saturday, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Qatar for talks with the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
He was expected to highlight the "need for trust, clarity and coordination" in backing the rebels, as Qatar is accused of "supporting Syrian opposition groups it does not know," a French diplomat said.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the ministers demanded that predominantly Shiite Iran and Hezbollah stop meddling in the war by supporting Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
"We have demanded that Iran and Hezbollah end their intervention in the conflict," said Fabius.
"We are fully against the internationalisation of the conflict," he told reporters.
Kerry also accused Assad of an "internationalisation" of the conflict by bringing in Iran and Hezbollah.
And the final communique said that the entry into Syria of militia and fighters that support the regime, a clear reference to Hezbollah, "must be prevented."
In that respect, they emphasised that neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon need to "actively safeguard their borders in order to ensure that fighters and equipment do not escalate current tensions".
The ministers also warned of the "increasing presence and growing radicalism" and "terrorist elements in Syria."
Western powers have hesitated to arm the rebels for fear weapons would fall into the hands of radical elements among them, such as the powerful Al-Nusra Front, which wants to establish an Islamic state in Syria.
Sheikh Hamad also voiced support for a peace conference but insisted there could be no role in the future government for "Assad and aides with bloodstained hands".
He accused Assad's regime of wanting to block the Geneva conference in order to stay in power, "even if that costs one million dead, millions of displaced and refugees and the destruction of Syria and its partition".
And the final communique stated that Assad "has no role in the transitional governing body or thereafter".
On the ground, loyalist forces pressed a fierce four-day assault on rebel-held parts of Damascus, while insurgents launched a new attack on regime-controlled neighbourhoods of second city Aleppo.
Saturday's developments come as the military pushed on with its bid to end the insurgency in and around Homs in central Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
They also come a day after at least 100 people were killed nationwide, it added.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Jun-22/221282-friends-of-syria-agree-to-give-all-necessary-equipment-to-opposition-statement.ashx#ixzz2X2F3M8Nu
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
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