First Assad Images Since Bomb Attack

Syrian state TV shows pictures claiming to be the president, amid reports rebels are in control of at least two border crossings.

First Images Of Assad Broadcast

Unverified footage that is said to show Syrian rebel fighters taking over a border crossing with Turkey.

 

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has been seen swearing in his new defence minister following Wednesday’s attack on the inner circle of his regime.

It is the first public sighting of the president since the bomb blast in Damascus killed three top regime officials, including the new minister Fahd al Freij’s predecessor, Daoud Rajha.

The high-profile bombing, which targeted a meeting of Assad’s security chiefs in the capital, also killed his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and General Hassan Turkmani, head of the regime’s crisis team on the 16-month uprising.

The fresh pictures of Assad come as rebels take over the Abu Kamal border crossings with Iraq and the crossing with Turkey at Jarablus Falls, where government forces have pulled out.

Unconfirmed reports also say more border crossings with Iraq have also fallen to the rebels.

Earlier, unverified footage showed rebels tearing down a poster of Assad at the border crossing believed to be with Turkey.

Sky’s Foreign Affairs Editor Tim Marshall said: “It is a significant development… If a country’s leader no longer controls the passage in and out of his country, then you are in a different phase.”

Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says regime troops have stormed a Damascus district with tanks for the first time – five days on from the outbreak of fierce clashes in the capital.

Damascus has been the scene of fierce clashes over the past five days

“The army stormed the Qaboon district with a large number of tanks,” said Rami Abdel Rahman from the NGO.

“This is the first time that tanks enter a Damascus district.”

The army’s move stoked fears of an imminent massacre in the western quarter of the capital, scene of clashes over the past five days, the monitoring group said.

The White House says the United States has made it clear to the Syrian government that it will be held accountable if it uses chemical weapons against the opposition.

About 20,000 Syrians have travelled across the main border crossing into Lebanon over the past 24 hours, a Lebanese security source working at the border has told Reuters.

The latest developments come as Russia and China have vetoed a UN call for sanctions on Syria for a third time, sparking  outrage from the international community.

Violence has killed at least 107 people across Syria and forced hundreds of Damascus residents to flee their homes for safer neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Fighting has engulfed the capital since the rebel Free Syrian Army announced on Monday the launch of Operation Damascus Volcano “in response to massacres and barbaric crimes” committed by the president’s regime.

Syrian state television earlier warned its citizens that gunmen were planning to attack people in the capital using military uniforms as disguises.

It said: “Armed men in Tadamon, Midan, Qaa and Nahr Aisha (neighbourhoods of Damascus) are wearing military uniforms with the insignia of the Republican Guard.

“This confirms they are planning to commit crimes and attack people, exploiting the trust of citizens in our courageous armed forces.”

And British Prime Minister David Cameron earlier called on Assad to step down following the escalation of violence.

Near the scene of the bombing that killed three top Assad aides

He said it is time for the Syrian leader “to go”, saying that otherwise civil war is inevitable.

And a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Council said Wednesday’s attack marked “the beginning of the end of the regime”, calling it a “major blow to (Assad) and the regime’s repressive security apparatus”.

One Syrian security official said the bombing that killed three top Assad aides was carried out by a bodyguard of one of the ministers or security chiefs at the meeting and the attacker had been wearing an explosives belt.

Another official said the blast was caused by a briefcase packed with explosives that a bodyguard left in the meeting room and detonated from a distance via remote control.

State media initially said it was a “suicide bombing” before apparently retracting and calling it a “terrorist attack”. SOURCE

100 Dead and 300 Wounded in Bloodiest Iraq Carnage of 2012.

Posted By Chaos Sweeps Away the World We Know! The Disaster, current events & Catastrophe Blog. Forecasts for 2012 to 2020. Read tomorrows news today! Plus current economic, commodities, stock indices and financial news.

July 23, 2012 – 100 Dead and 300 Wounded in Bloodiest Iraq Carnage of 2012: A barrage of bombings and attacks targeting civilians and members of the Iraqi armed forces killed and wounded scores of people in nearly two dozen towns and cities across Iraq on Monday after a statement attributed to an al Qaeda-linked militant group threatened Baghdad’s Shiite-led government.

At least 91 people were killed and 318 wounded in the latest spasm of violence, according to accounts late Monday from the Ministry of Interior and security officials around the country. The Associated Press reported that at least 103 people had died.

The bloodshed coincided with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, a period of daylight fasting and prayers that started Saturday for most adherents of the Shiite branch of Islam, which accounts for the majority of Iraq’s population. For most Sunni Muslims around the world, including in Iraq, the first day of Ramadan was Friday.

The bloodiest attacks in Iraq on Monday were aimed at predominantly Shiite areas, in Baghdad and elsewhere, and at army and police units in oil-rich areas north of the capital that have been roiled by sectarian and ethnic tensions for years.

Several parked car bombs were detonated in markets packed with Ramadan shoppers in predominantly Shiite areas such as Baghdad’s congested Sadr City district, the town of Taji northwest of the capital and the city of Diwaniya to the south, killing and wounding dozens, according to a Ministry of Interior official.

In the most brazen series of assaults against Iraqi security forces in more than a year, gunmen in several vehicles used rocket launchers and grenades in a dawn attack on two military outposts for the Iraqi army’s Fourth Division. The outposts are located in a desert area known as al-Udhaim between Baghdad and the northern oil city of Kirkuk, security officials said.  Click on the link below, for the complete story from the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ - Attacks on Shiite Areas of Iraq Kill Scores.

The Master of Disaster

Saudis forces mass on Jordanian, Iraqi borders. Turkey, Syria reinforce strength

DEBKAfile Special Report June 29, 2012, 11:02 AM (GMT+02:00)

Turkey deploys anti-aircraft guns

The Syrian crisis was Friday, June 29, on a knife edge between a Western-Arab-Turkish military offensive in the next 48 hours and a big power accord to ward it off.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report heavy Saudi troop movements toward the Jordanian and Iraqi borders Thursday overnight and up until Friday morning, June 29, after King Abdullah put the Saudi military on high alert for joining an anti-Assad offensive in Syria. The Saudi units are poised with tanks, missiles, special forces and anti-air batteries to enter Jordan in two heads:
One will safeguard Jordan’s King Abdullah against potential Syrian or Iranian reprisals from Syria or Iraq.

The second will cut north through Jordan to enter southeastern Syriam, where a security zone will be established around the towns of Deraa, Deir al-Zour and Abu Kemal – all centers of the anti-Assad rebellion. The region is also the home terrain of the Shammar tribe, brethren of the Shammars of the Saudi Nejd province.
The Saudi units deployed on the Iraqi border are there to defend the kingdom against potential incursions by Iraqi Shiite militias crossing into the kingdom for reprisals. The Iraqi militias are well trained and armed and serve under officers of the Iranian Al-Qods Brigades, the Revolutionary Guards’ external arm.
Western Gulf sources report that Jordan too is on war alert.
Following the downing of a Turkish plane by Syria a week ago, Turkey continues to build up its Syrian border units with anti-aircraft guns, tanks and missiles towed by long convoys of trucks.

A Free Syria Army officer, Gen. Mustafa al-Sheikh, reported Friday that 170 Syrian army tanks of the 17th Mechanized Division were massed near the village of Musalmieh northeast of Aleppo, 30 km from the Turkish border.  He said they stood ready to attack any Turkish forces crossing into Syria.
As these war preparations advanced, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in St. Petersburg Friday for crucial talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.  They meet the day before the new UN-sponsored Action Group convenes in Geneva to discuss UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s latest transition proposal for Syria. He hopes for a political settlement that will ward off military intervention.
Invited to the meeting are the five veto-wielding UN Security Council members plus Turkey and Arab League envoys from Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq.

Annan proposes forming a transitional national unity government in Damascus that includes the opposition and excludes unacceptable regime members.
It was widely reported Thursday that Russia had agreed to this formula, even though it entailed evicting Bashar Assad from power. However, Lavrov stepped in to correct the record, stressing in reference to the Annan proposal that Moscow would not lend its support to “any outside interference or imposition of recipes in Syria.”
This position is doubly aimed at the intensive military movements afoot around Syria.
Clinton and Lavrov are therefore expected to go at the Syrian issue hammer and tongs. The outcome of their meeting will not only determine the course of the Action Group’s discussions but, more importantly, whether the Western-Arab-Turkish alliance goes forward with its military operation against Syria.

US-Russian concurrence on a plan for Assad’s removal could avert the operation. The failure of their talks would spell a worsening of the Syrian crisis and precipitate Western-Arab military intervention, which according to military sources in the Gulf is scheduled for launch Saturday, June 30.

The United States is planning a significant military presence of 13,500 troops in Kuwait

Posted by endtimeheadlines

WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States is planning a significant military presence of 13,500 troops in Kuwait to give it the flexibility to respond to sudden conflicts in the region as Iraq adjusts to the withdrawal of American combat forces and the world nervously eyes Iran, according to a congressional report.

The study by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined the U.S. relationship with the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman – against a fast-moving backdrop. In just the last two days, Saudi Arabia’s ruler named Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz as the country’s new crown prince after last week’s death of Prince Nayef, and Kuwait’s government suspended parliament for a month over an internal political feud.

The latest developments inject even more uncertainty as the Middle East deals with the demands of the Arab Spring, the end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq at the end of 2011 and fears of Iran’s nuclear program.

“Home to more than half of the world’s oil reserves and over a third of its natural gas, the stability of the Persian Gulf is critical to the global economy,” the report said. “However, the region faces a myriad of political and security challenges, from the Iranian nuclear program to the threat of terrorism to the political crisis in Bahrain.”

The report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of Tuesday’s release provided precise numbers on U.S. forces in Kuwait, a presence that Pentagon officials have only acknowledged on condition of anonymity. Currently, there are about 15,000 U.S. forces in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring, giving the United States staging hubs, training ranges and locations to provide logistical support. The report said the number of troops is likely to drop to 13,500.

Several members of Congress, most notably Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., had pressed for a residual U.S. force to remain in Iraq, but the failure of the two countries to agree on whether American troops should be granted legal immunity scuttled that idea. Instead, officials talked of positioning a strong U.S. force just across the border in Kuwait. The strategy preserves “lily pad” basing that allows the military to move quickly from one location to the next.

As it recalibrates its national security strategy, the United States is drawing down forces in Europe while focusing on other regions, such as the Middle East and Asia. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said he envisions about 40,000 troops stationed in the Middle East region after the withdrawal from Iraq. By comparison, a cut of two Army combat brigades and the withdrawal of two other smaller units will leave about 68,000 troops in Europe.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, some half a million U.S. forces were in the Middle East region. The United States maintained about 5,000 troops in Kuwait from the end of the Gulf War to March 2003, when U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led invasion was in response to reports, later discredited, that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., who asked his staff to conduct the study, said in a statement: “This is a period of historic, but turbulent change in the Middle East. We need to be clear-eyed about what these interests are and how best to promote them. This report provides a thoughtful set of recommendations designed to do exactly that.”

The 37-page report raises questions about how the United States can leverage its financial aid to force change in the Middle East. Late last year, two Democrats – Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts – opposed the U.S. sale of spare parts and equipment to Bahrain, arguing that the ruling Sunni monarchy was violating human rights and using excessive force to crack down on protests. The State Department went ahead earlier this year with the sale of some military equipment, saying it was for Bahrain’s external defense and support for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is based in the country.

Bahrain stands as a strategic ally to counter Iran.

The report said the Unites States “should not be quick to rescind security assurances or assistance in response to human rights abuses but should evaluate each case on its own merits. U.S. government officials should use these tools to advance human rights through careful diplomacy. … The United States should make clear that states must not use arms procured from the United States against their own people engaged in peaceful assembly or exploit the U.S. security umbrella as protection for belligerent action against their neighbors.”

The report also recommended that the United States promote the development of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League while strengthening bilateral links to the six countries; seek opportunities for burden-sharing on operations such as missile defense, combat air patrol and maritime security; and push for the integration of Iraq into the Arab fold.

The report emphasized that the region is critical as a counterbalance to Iran, whose conventional military includes 350,000 ground forces, 1,800 tanks and more than 300 fighter aircraft. It also has ballistic missiles with the range to target regional allies, including Israel. SOURCE