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The al-Qaeda flag was propped up in a barrel painted with the three-starred Syrian revolutionary banner in the middle of the road at a makeshift checkpoint between the northern Syrian towns of Binnish and Taftanaz in Idlib province. The checkpoint was unmanned not especially surprising, given the dry mid-afternoon heat and the lethargy sometimes brought on early in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
But what was surprising was how openly the flag was displayed. It was white, unlike the more familiar black monochrome inscribed with No God but God in white lettering, above the circular seal of the Prophet Muhammad. But no matter the color, the implications were the same: that elements of al-Qaeda or the groups supporters were present in this part of Syria.
There has been much speculation about whether Islamic radicals have gained a foothold in the chaotic battlefield that is Syria today. They have, albeit a small one. While there are jihadists, both foreign and local, inside Syria, their presence should not be overstated. At this stage, they remain a minor player in the conflict. But as Karl Vicks story in the Aug. 6 issue of TIME (subscription required) relates, should the conflict spiral out of hand, their role may grow exponentially.
In late January, the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra li Ahl Ash-Sham, or the Support Front for the People of Syria, announced its formation and goal to bring down the regime of President Bashar Assad. In the months since, it has claimed responsibility for many of the larger, more spectacular bombing attacks on state security sites, including a double suicide car bombing in February targeting a security branch in Aleppo that left some 28 dead.
Little is known about the shadowy group beyond that it is headed by someone using the nom de guerre of Abu Mohammad al-Golani (Golani is a reference to Syrias Golan Heights, occupied by Israel.) Some say the group is a regime creation, to prove Assads assertion that he is fighting terrorists, while others say it is an offshoot of the al-Qaeda group the Islamic State of Iraq.
A foot soldier in the movement told TIME that it is neither. We are just people who follow and obey our religion, the young man, Ibrahim, said. I am a mujahid, but not al-Qaeda. Jihad is not al-Qaeda.
It took weeks of negotiations to secure an interview with a member of the movement, the first time anyone from the group has talked to the media. Higher-ups in the Jabhat declined to be interviewed but agreed to let Ibrahim, a 21-year-old Syrian, be interviewed.
The Jabhat has a presence in at least half a dozen towns in Idlib province as well as elsewhere across the country, including strong showings in the capital of Damascus and in Hama, according to the Jabhat member and other Islamists who are in contact with senior members of the group.
Get those commanists, faggots. They might also use good grammar and sentence structure!
Get those commanists, faggots. They might also use good grammar and sentence structure!
I guess that means you cannot be a "commanist."
WASHINGTON Despite a dire need for intelligence about the groups fighting to overthrow the Syrian government, the CIA has little if any presence in the country, seriously limiting its ability to collect information and influence the course of events, according to current and former U.S. officials.
American intelligence agencies have kept tabs on Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, using spy satellites and other forms of electronic eavesdropping as well as information from allied nations and U.S. personnel in Turkey and other neighboring countries. The CIA also has some understanding of President Bashar Assad's government, officials said.
But more than 16 months into the Syrian uprising, the U.S. government still is struggling for details about who the main opposition groups are and what motivates them, say the current and former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing covert intelligence activities.
Although U.S. officials have had considerable contact with anti-Assad exile groups, most analysts expect a post-Assad government to be dominated by the armed groups operating in the country.
U.S. officials have worried that some of those groups may be linked to, or sympathetic with, Al Qaeda affiliates. By one U.S. estimate, as many as a quarter of the 300 rebel groups may be inspired by Al Qaeda, says Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
A major impediment to determining who is who is that CIA officers largely have avoided entering Syria or traveling to the battle zones since February, when the U.S. Embassy in Damascus was shuttered for security reasons after threats by groups allied with the Assad government. Closing the embassy left the agency without a secure base from which to operate, and CIA personnel left the country, the officials said.
Critics say the CIA's absence from Syria is a missed opportunity to influence the fractured rebel movement.
"We should be on the ground with bucket loads of money renting the opposition groups that we need to steer this in the direction that benefits the United States," said a former CIA officer who spent years in the Middle East. "We're not, and good officers are extremely frustrated."
Get those commanists, faggots. They might also use good grammar and sentence structure!
I guess that means you cannot be a "commanist."
bobgnote types worse than 1st grade student.
Bugnuts is still riding that Crazy Train.
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Mustafa Tlass is one of the most influential, intelligent and highly capable people of the Syrian elite. Actually, it was he who brought to power Bashar al-Assad and helped him overcome a very strong resistance of the elite. Tlass stands behind several coups in the Arab world in the last half-century.
Today there is no more influential person outside of Syria. It is logical to assume that with him the West is conducting negotiations or at least negotiated the reconfiguration of power in Syria. And if negotiations eventually resulted in an agreement of the parties, the West gained access to the very heart of Syria's ruling elite.
Bugnuts is still riding that Crazy Train.
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She should really be banned for all her spamming and bullshit posts.
Undeterred by a wave of casualties, Syrian rebels say they will not back down in their quest to seize Aleppo, the country's commercial hub and a crucial city in the Syrian civil war.
After six days of fighting, the seesaw battle with government forces raged again Thursday as helicopter gunships flew over the city, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least one rebel fighter was killed, the group said.
The seat of President Bashar al-Assad's power also saw renewed violence Thursday as explosions rocked several Damascus neighborhoods, another opposition group said.
Regime and rebel forces battled in several Damascus neighborhoods, and the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk endured "fierce helicopter shelling with machine guns," the Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.
The LCC also reported dozens of dead and wounded in shelling by regime forces in Yalda, in the Damascus suburbs, and in bomb attacks in the Mashtal district of the capital.
BEIRUT—Like other communities sucked into Syria's widening civil war, the Yarmouk neighborhood in Damascus has seen death and destruction. Soldiers and snipers have gunned down demonstrators. Some protesters have taken up arms to fight back.
But there's one key difference: Most of Yarmouk's residents are not Syrian citizens. They are Palestinian refugees.
Since the start of the unrest, Syria's half-million Palestinians have struggled to remain on the sidelines. They've said they have little to gain and much to lose by taking sides in the fight between President Bashar Assad's regime and the armed rebels seeking to end his family's four-decade rule.
But young Palestinian refugees, enraged by this month's mounting violence and moved by Arab Spring calls for greater freedoms, are now flooding the streets and even joining the rebels despite efforts by the community's political leadership to keep them out of the conflict.
Large protests began two weeks ago in the country's largest Palestinian refugee camp, Yarmouk, a neighborhood of nearly 150,000 refugees crowded into simple apartment buildings on narrow streets in the Syrian capital. Security forces fired on the protesters, killing at least five and setting off a cycle of funerals, demonstrations and further crackdowns.
On Thursday, activists said troops posted outside Yarmouk were shelling the area, likely in preparation for a raid.
All you
All you
It's time this piece of shit to get banned.
The ancient and storied city of Aleppo is shaping up to be the next great bloodbath of Syrias 18-month rebellion. The regime is concentrating its elite forces, and their armor, artillery and air support, for an all-out assault to recapture those parts of the city seized by insurgents. The outcome will likely mirror last weeks battle in Damascus, where President Bashar al-Assads forces eventually forced the rebels to retreat. Not even the rebels are expecting to be able to hold the city against the regimes overwhelming firepower, and its determination to stop Syrias largest and most prosperous city falling to the rebellion.But Aleppo will not be the final or decisive battle of the war. Instead, it will more likely confirm a strategic stalemate, in which the regime is unable to destroy the rebellion, but the rebellion lacks the military power to destroy the regime. There may yet be many weeks and months of carnage ahead.
Having watched Assad bludgeon his rebellious citizenry for the past 18 months, the international media is understandably impatient to see the bloodletting brought to an end with the regimes collapse. Perhaps it was that impatience or the audacity of a rebel offensive in the capital, that included a devastating strike on the regimes key command center that killed four of Assads top security aides, followed by the opening of a second front in Aleppo that shifted the tone of coverage to one anticipating the regimes rapid demise. But after the initial shock of last weeks events in Damascus, the regime regained its footing and systematically, and brutally, drove the rebels out of most of the neighborhoods they had seized in the capital. The outcome in Aleppo may be similar.
Aleppo is a complex city, a local rebel supporter identified only as Amir told the Guardian. You can see people support the regime, those who are fearful and those who are pro-revolution. The middle and upper classes dont want the rebels to come in. They want everything to be business as usual. No one can can predict what will happen but there is unhappiness that the rebels have brought all this firepower down on Aleppo. By that description the rebels may have neither the firepower, nor the consensus within the city, necessary to hold it in the face of the counter-attack expected Friday or Saturday. Despite the many setbacks it has suffered and the clear sense that it is beyond Assads power to restore the status quo ante, his regime is far from beaten. Nor were the rebels necessarily expecting that their assaults on Damascus and Aleppo marked the final offensive.
The 1968 Tet Offensive, staged by the Vietcong revolutionaries against the U.S. and the local allies it was propping up in Vietnam, bears consideration here. As the lunar New Year dawned on January 30, 1968, tens of thousands Vietcong insurgents mounted simultaneous surprise attacks on command and control centers in more than 100 villages, towns and cities, including dramatic attacks on six key command centers (including the US Embassy) in South Vietnams capital, Saigon. They took control of the old imperial capital of Hue for close to a month, as well as besieging the U.S. base at Khe Sanh for three months. Although the Vietcong suffered massive casualties and were forced to yield those gains, the operation negated Washingtons triumphalism and convinced Americans that the Vietnam war was unwinnable. The offensive was in no sense a final assault on the bastions of U.S. power and the allies it propped up in South Vietnam. Their purpose, instead, was to send a political message: the U.S. and its allies would never eliminate the Vietcong.
CIA absence from Syria l]
CIA absence from Syria l]
Bloody liars!
CIA was in Syria since before "civilised" attacked Libya!
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...u4GICQ&usg=AFQjCNG_LKHGsAnQcUkCmbtIj0LeXHpvfg
Anadan, Syria (CNN) -- A distant machine gun rattled away in vain as a military helicopter flew long, slow circles, arcing from the contested Syrian city of Aleppo over to the rebel-controlled town of Anadan, six miles to the north.
A group of fighters stared and pointed from under the shelter of an overhanging building, until one man said in a worried tone, "Let's go away" before hurrying indoors.
In a matter of months, Syria's rebels have transformed themselves from ragtag village defense forces into an armed movement capable of attacking the country's two largest cities, Aleppo and Damascus. They have also punctured the image of invincibility projected by Syrian army tanks and armored personnel carriers, as proven by the twisted wreckage of armored vehicles that now litter some roads.
But the fighters still find themselves vastly out-gunned when facing government air power.
And yet, even that advantage may be shrinking.
Hidden away in rebel safe houses in this artillery-scarred town is a small arsenal of heavy weapons captured from Syrian security forces.
Fighters proudly opened garage doors to reveal trucks mounted with an enormous 120 millimeter mortar and a anti-aircraft gun.
The weapons have seen action.
"I've fired this gun about 2,000 times," said Jamal Awar, a bus driver-turned-rebel. He said that, during his mandatory military service, he specialized in firing the seated, double-barreled, anti-aircraft gun. Awar said that expertise helped him shoot down a helicopter during a battle in the nearby town of Azaz several weeks ago.
"I was ecstatic, I was very happy," Awar said.
Rebels like Awar appeared to be the only residents in this otherwise deserted town. The streets were eerily empty.
Beside one main road lay the twisted wreckage of a small truck, reeking of rotting flesh. Fighters said three passengers inside were killed when Syrian troops targeted the vehicle from an outpost several kilometers outside of town.
