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

Assad receives last warning to stop moving his WMD: Top generals defect

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 15, 2012, 10:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

Shabiha heavies. Their generals defected

Several high-placed generals bolted Bashar Assad’s inner circle Sunday, July 17, including such key figures as two security services chiefs who were operations commanders of the Alawite Shabiha militia plus the former head of Syria’s chemical and biological administration who took six other generals with him. They all fled to Turkey and defected. A fourth senior general from another security service was assassinated in Aleppo. This is reported exclusively by DEBKAfile’s military sources.

The loss of the generals orchestrating the pro-Assad paramilitary Shabiha’s savage crackdown on the opposition has seriously weakened Assad’s protective circle of trusties and reduced his military and security options.
Also today, the Syrian ruler was given a “last warning” through intelligence channels in the West to leave the warheads and shells loaded with mustard gas, sarin and cyanide where they are. If he dared move them out of the northern and central locations where he deployed them last week, they would be destroyed from the air.
DEBKAfile names the defecting Shabiha commanders as:  Gen. Mohamed Tatouh, Deputy chief of Syrian political intelligence, and Gen. Mohamed Kodissia, deputy chief of the “Palestinian” Intelligence agency (a misnomer: it has nothing to do with Palestinians).

The murdered general, Ali Khallouf, was ambushed by rebels in Aleppo.
Maj. Gen. Adnan Nawras Salou, a Sunnite, who headed the chemical warfare authority until 2008, will no doubt have important intelligence to offer the West about the Assad regime’s current activities and plans for his WMD.
DEBKAfile points to three singular features of the latest wave of defections:
1.  They all managed to spirit their families out of Syria well before they absconded themselves, an operation that must have required weeks of careful and secret preparation. The failure of Assad’s many-tentacled, clandestine agencies to discover what was up and foil the walkouts, attests to serious lapses in their notorious efficiency.

2.  All the defectors served in Damascus at the regime’s nerve center for suppressing the revolt.
3.  They all made tracks for Beirut before making their way to Turkey. Neverthetheless, the extensive spy networks run by Iran and Hizballah in the Lebanese capital failed to pick up on the city’s use as a way station for Syrian defectors in flight to Turkey.

4.  Despite their active roles in crushing the civil uprising in Syria, those generals clearly hoped to escape the consequences of their actions and becoming liable for prosecution.  The Red Cross Committee in Geneva, the first international organization to call the violence in Syria a full-blown civil war, made it clear Sunday, July 15, that international humanitarian law applied henceforth throughout the country and provided a basis for war crimes prosecution, especially if civilians were attacked.

Israel advised to brace for Syrian missile attack – conventional or chemical

DEBKAfile Special Report July 14, 2012, 2:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons

As the already unthinkable pace of slaughter in Syria accelerates further, Western military sources warned Saturday, July 14, that not only Israel, but additional strategic targets in Middle East lands deemed enemies by Bashar Assad should prepare for him to launch surface-to-surface missile attacks. The assaults would start out with conventional warheads, but as the regime continued to be hammered, the beleaguered ruler might well arm the next round of missiles from his huge stockpile of mustard gas – not to mention sarin nerve poison and cyanide.
Western intelligence sources say Assad has a list of targets ready to go. Analyzing the Syrian war game taking place last week, they calculated that Wednesday and Thursday, July 11 and 12, the Syrian army practiced shooting missiles at strategic centers in Israel, Turkey and Jordan.
But while most Western officials now confirm that Assad has moved his WMD warheads and shells out of storage, they are already divided on what it means. Some US officials are soft-pedaling the menace, offering the theory that the Syrian ruler is only safeguarding his unconventional weapons from falling into rebel – or what he calls “terrorist” – hands.

Other Western intelligence watchers, especially in Britain, believe he is preparing a campaign of ethnic cleansing at centers of revolt and report that chemical weapons have already been transferred to Homs, Latakia and Aleppo for operational use.
That is one game-changing predicament facing the West. It would quickly assume a regional dimension if Turkey, Israel and Jordan were to come under Syrian missile assault.  Air and missile reprisals against Syrian military or regime centers would carry the danger of Hizballah retaliation from Lebanon leading to direct attacks from Iran. Before going down that road, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan – who are not on speaking terms – would certainly confer with US President Barack Obama.

Even then, their consultations would not necessarily lead to action.
For example, three weeks have gone by since Syria shot down a Turkish Air Force reconnaissance jet and yet after, close consultation with Washington, the Erdogan government was persuaded to leave the incident without response. Administration officials explained to the Turks that covert warfare carried a price in failure and casualties.
This US attitude might well embolden the Syrian ruler to risk his arm with limited missile strikes against Turkey and Israel and bank on the Obama administration twisting their leaders’ arms behind their backs to prevent them making any serious response.

NATO launches war games in Mediterranean amid tension with Syria

Posted by truther

NATO’s joint maritime group is flexing its muscle in the eastern Mediterranean Sea by conducting anti-terrorism drills as tensions between NATO member Turkey and its neighbor Syria escalate.

The Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) is determined “to give a clear message to terrorists in the region that NATO is on duty,” German Rear Admiral Thorsten Kahler told the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

“What we have to make sure is to tell the terrorists to be careful; we are here and providing security for NATO member states,” he said.

The admiral said the group will be heading from Istanbul further into the Mediterranean on July 7. The force currently consists of three frigates from Turkey, Germany and France. The ships are armed with 76-mm and 27-mm guns, Mark 46 anti-submarine torpedoes, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles and carry helicopters. They are manned by 545 sailors in total.

Kahler took over command of the group from his Turkish colleague Rear Admiral Sinan Azmi Tosun on June 15.

The naval drills come as relations between Turkey and its neighbor Syria remain tense following a recent cross border incident. Syrian troops shot down a Turkish jet last month after it violated the country’s airspace.

Damascus says their military acted in self-defense, but offered an apology for the incident and the subsequent death of the two Turkish pilots onboard. Ankara said it was an act of aggression on Syria’s part, claiming that the plane crossed the border by incident and was shot down without warning after flying back into the international airspace.

Turkey called a NATO meeting to discuss the incident. The alliance condemned the incident, but refrained from taking any more serious action against Syria.

Syria and Turkey has increasingly been at odds recently over Ankara’s vocal criticism of the Syrian crackdown on its domestic opposition. Following the downing of the jet, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan pledged support to the Syrian opposition in their bid to topple the government.

Source

Iran Drafted A Bill To Block Tankers In The Strait Of Hormuz

Walter Hickey

US Navy See Also It Is Once Again Totally Legal To Lie About Military Service Troops Are Piling Up On Both Sides Of The Syria-Turkey Border As Tensions Escalate Here’s What Defense Secretary Panetta Learns From Gravely Wounded US Troops

The European Union enacted Oil sanctions against IranSunday. It was the largest round of sanctions in OPEC history since the Libyan sanctions. 

Now, Iran is serious. The price of milk, eggs, and bread has already risen 20% since Sunday and chicken costs 80% more.

A senior member of the Iranian parliament just floated the idea out that Iran would dare to take and close the Strait of Hormuz if this goes on any longer, according to Azerbaijani news source Trend.az.

In preparation for possible conflict Tehran is preparing a ballistic missille war game to prepare for a counterattack dhould the U.S. or Israel strike.

This, after the country’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee drafted a bill to stop all tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We take the control of the Hormuz Strait. If we are supposed to be sanctioned, we will not allow a drop of oil to pass through the strait,” said MP Arsalan Fathipour. ”In such a situation, oil price will surge and we will see that those who have imposed sanctions will not be able to be accountable for their people.”

That would be catastrophic to the world financial system. Around 20% of the world’s oil passes through the Strait.

Even reducing traffic through the narrow body of water could cause the price of oil to rise dramatically across a world where economic recovery remains at best tenuous.

The threat is the latest in a buildup on both sides of the dispute. Lately, the United States has sent multiple ships to the area around the Strait.

Most telling is the deployment of four minesweepers to the area near the strait, indicating that the U.S. is plausibly worried that Iran may passively take the Strait by mining it. The Navy has also sent over new missile to ships in the area.

A pipeline recommissioned by Saudi Arabia, designed to circumvent shipping lanes by Iraq, reentered service recently in recognition of the plausible threat that Iran posed to international oil distribution. Still, that pipeline would only likely blunt the blow. 

Finally, a recent Foreign Military Sale of Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) missile interceptor systems to the United Arab Emirates — a nation which comprises the other shore of the Strait of Hormuz — shows that the United States may be bracing for a larger scale attack on the Strait.

Now, check out China’s military capabilities >>

Read more: 
http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-considers-closure-of-strait-of-hormuz-after-european-union-sanctions-2012-7#ixzz1zhLhewAa

Reports of Troop Movements Near Syrian Borders

Posted by truther

Stephen Lendman

After Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced new rules of engagement, Turkey deployed missile batteries, rocket launchers, and anti-aircraft weapons close to Syria’s border.

About 30 military trucks arrived in Iskenderun. From there, they moved toward Syria’s border 30 miles away.

Armored military vehicles also headed for Sanliurfa and Reyhanli in Southern Turkey’s Hatay Province.

On June 29, Reuters headlined “Syrian tanks amass near Turkish border, FSA (Free Syrian Army) general says.”

According to General Mustafa al-Sheikh, Syria deployed around 170 tanks north of Aleppo within 19 miles of Turkey’s border. No independent confirmation was provided.

Speaking to Reuters by phone, al-Sheikh said:

Tanks from the 17th Mechanized Division “are now at the Infantry School. They’re either preparing to move to the border to counter the Turkish deployment or attack the rebellious (Syrian) towns and villages in and around the border zone north of Aleppo.”

On Thursday, Turkey belligerently sent troops and weapons close to Syria’s border. Damascus perhaps reacted defensively.

Expect no imminent attack by either side. Ankara won’t act without orders from Washington. It hasn’t come, but could given escalating violence and rhetoric.

Saber rattling suggests public opinion is being conditioned for war. On June 28, Ankara’s National Security Council (MSK) said:

“Turkey will act with determination and make use of all its rights within international law against this hostile act.”

It referred to Syria downing its aircraft. It provocatively entered its territory low and fast. Damascus was blamed for Ankara’s belligerence. Expect more provocations to follow.

Meanwhile, Mossad-connected DEBKAfile (DF) headlined “Saudi forces mass on Jordanian, Iraqi borders. Turkey, Syria reinforce strength,” saying:

“(H)eavy Saudi troop movements (headed) toward the Jordanian and Iraqi borders (with Syria) overnight and up until Friday morning….after King Abdulah put the Saudi military on high alert for joining an anti-Assad offensive….”

Units include tanks, missiles, special forces and anti-air batteries. Two units were deployed. “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 Syrian, 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.”

DF said Western forces reported Jordan “on war alert.”

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other regional states know Syria poses no threat. If confirmed, deploying Saudi troops to Syria’s border escalates tensions. It may also reflect belligerent intent.

On June 28, Assad was interviewed on Iran’s IRIB channel 4. He blamed Turkey for inciting violence. He’s hopeful military action won’t follow.

Libya’s model isn’t “a solution to be copied because it took (the country) from one situation into a much worse one. We all now see how the Libyan people are paying the price,” he said.

“The policies of the Turkish officials lead to the killing and bloodshed of the Syrian people,” he added.

He said reports about Iranian and Hezbollah forces aiding Syria are false.

“This is a joke that we hear many times in order to show that a rift has been created within the army and that therefore there is not an army.”

Pointing fingers at Washington, he said:

“The colonialist nature of the West has not changed. From the colonialist standpoint, regional countries should not move according to their national interests and if any country moves against their (Western) values and interests, they say no, like what happened in the case of Iran’s nuclear program.”

“Western states are opposed to Iran’s access to nuclear knowhow; they are more fearful of Iran’s expertise in the nuclear field than what they claim to be a nuclear bomb.”

He also called insurgents “gangs of mercenaries and criminals.” Outside forces are directing them.

For them and their sponsors, “reforms are not important, since the very forces that claimed (a lack of) reforms were the problem. They never benefited from them…all they wanted was (continued) unrest.”

He heavily criticized Arab League states. Their policies harm their own people. They supported NATO’s war on Libya.

“Syria was the only country that opposed the move and therefore we had to pay the price for this policy.”

“Consequently, immediately following our decision,” Western states “acted through the Arab League to put the attack on Syria on their agenda.”

“This has been the Arab League reality in the past, as it is at present.”

He acknowledged that Western-instigated violence ravages Syria. Thousands of ceasefire violations occurred. He has no information about planned military attacks. However, some countries “are making efforts to guide the situation toward” one.

“The West expresses support for the Annan Plan on the one hand, while on the other hand, they seek a plan to overthrow (the government).”

“This is the same double standard (approach) and political hypocrisy.”

“Westerners speak of human rights but give Israel weapons to kill Palestinians. This Western hypocrisy has not changed and will not change.”

He holds “outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist gangs” responsible for Syrian violence. He’ll continue confronting it responsibly.

On June 30, Hillary Clinton and Sergei Lavrov will discuss Syria in Geneva. Expect no breakthroughs. Washington wants regime change.

Moscow wants Syrians alone to decide who’ll lead them. Lavrov and other Russian officials have been firm opposing foreign intervention. Expect neither side to yield on Saturday.

DF sounded an ominous warning, saying:

“The failure of (US/Russian) 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.”

Determining when DF is right or wrong isn’t easy. The above comment sounds like bluster. It’s also about conditioning public opinion for war. Events on the ground bear watching.

Source

Syrian peace plan DOA: battles escalate in Syria, Turkey scrambles jet fighters to Syrian border

Posted by The Extinction Protocol: 2012 and beyond

July 1, 2012 – SYRIA – Turkey has scrambled six F-16 fighter jets near its border with Syria after Syrian helicopters came close to the border, the country’s army says. Six jets were sent to the area in response to three such incidents on Saturday, the statement said, adding that there was no violation of Turkish airspace. Last month, Syrian forces shot down a Turkish jet in the border area. The incident further strained already tense relations between former allies. Turkey’s government has been outspoken in its condemnation of Syria’s response to the 16-month anti-government uprising, which has seen more than 30,000 Syrian refugees enter Turkey. On Friday, Turkey said it had begun deploying rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns along the border in response to the downing of its F-4 Phantom jet on 22 June. The move came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Turkey had changed its rules of military engagement and would now treat any Syrian military approaching the border as a threat. Turkey’s military has more than 500 miles of border with Syria to defend. It has now decided to treat everything that happens on the Syrian side of the border with extreme suspicion. The scrambling of the jets is a sign of continuing tensions. A little over a week ago, Syria shot down a Turkish warplane. Syria says that the aircraft was flying inside Syrian airspace – a charge denied by Turkey. Following this incident, the Turkish government announced that it had revised its military rules of engagement towards Syria. From now on, every military element that approached the Turkish border from Syria would be considered as a threat. The military has now acted on its new rules. –BBC

Battles escalate in Syria: A plan by world powers for a Syrian political transition appeared doomed Sunday, with Bashar al-Assad’s regime interpreting the outcome as a fresh lifeline from Russia—its principal international backer—while the lack of any reference in the plan to Mr. Assad’s departure from office angered the Syrian opposition. With no sign of any commitment by Syria’s warring sides to embrace the transition plan outlined in Geneva on Saturday, many warned that violence could worsen even beyond the levels seen in June, which is now believed to have been the bloodiest month in the Syrian conflict. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition group, nearly 4,000 people, including members of the security forces, have been killed since May 26. At the core of the latest initiative by the international community to resolve the nearly 16-month conflict, which many now describe as a civil war, is the creation by “mutual consent” of a new transitional government that would have much of the executive powers exercised by President Assad and bring together members of the current government, the opposition and other groups, according to the communiqué issued at the end of the Geneva meeting. The meeting brought together foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China—as well as Turkey, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait. European Union and Arab League officials also attended. It excluded Iran—after U.S. objection to the participation of a Syrian ally seen as aiding the regime in its domestic crackdown—and Saudi Arabia, a main supporter of Syrian political and armed opposition groups. Kofi Annan, a former U.N. chief now serving as special envoy for the Syrian crisis, described the latest proposal as “a serious agreement on how we can help Syria at this grim and brutal time,” but said everything hinged on the implementation of a cease fire, the first item of an existing U.N. and Arab League-backed six-point peace plan already in tatters. “The bloodshed must end, and the parties must be prepared to put forward effective interlocutors to work with me toward a Syrian-led settlement,” Mr. Annan said at the end of the meeting. As of Sunday, there was no official reaction from the Syrian government to the idea of creating a new transitional government with significantly more powers, but state media outlets framed the result of the Geneva meeting as a victory for the regime and its ally Russia. -WSJ

More deaths: At least 83 people were killed, mostly civilians, in violence across Syria on Saturday, and hundreds more were trapped in Douma as regime forces stormed the town in Damascus province, monitors said. In the single most serious incident, mortar fire killed 30 civilians who were attending a funeral in the town of Zamalka, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said. The Observatory did not give any further details on the Zamalka incident but published two videos from people on the ground. The first showed several dozen people, mostly men waving Syrian revolutionary flags and shouting slogans as they accompanied the funeral cortege, when the picture was interrupted by an explosion. The second, which could not be confirmed as being shot at the same scene, showed people running away from a cloud of dust that gradually dissipated to show numerous bodies lying on the ground. –GMA

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.

NATO Proxies Turkey and Saudi Arabia Move to War Footing on Eve of Syrian ‘Peace Summit’

Posted by truther

Finian Cunningham
Global Research

The NATO-backed covert aggression against Syria could be reaching a tipping point for all-out war involving state forces. That should be no surprise. For the past 16 months, NATO and its regional proxies have been steadily increasing the violence and turmoil inside and outside Syria, while the Western corporate-controlled media maintain the ridiculous fiction that the bloody chaos is largely due to the government forces of President Bashar Al Assad cracking down on “peaceful protesters”.

Ironically, the crisis is culminating at the same time that the United Nations convenes an emergency summit on Syria in Geneva this weekend. The meeting, which is ostensibly aimed at “reviving the Kofi Annan peace plan”, will be attended by the five permanent members of the UN security council and other “invited” regional states. The irony is that leading NATO members, the US, Britain and France, as well as their Turkish and Arab allies who will also be attending the crisis conference, are the very parties that have deliberately created the precipice for all-out war in the Middle East.

As dignitaries fly into Geneva to “salvage peace in Syria”, there is a lockstep military build-up on the northern and southern flanks of Syria underway, with news that Turkey has dispatched battlefield tanks, missile batteries and heavy artillery to its Syrian border, while to the south Saudi Arabia has announced that its military forces have been put on a “state of high alert”.

Ankara’s military mobilization along its 800km land border with Syria came within hours of the declaration by Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan slating Syria as “a hostile state”. The immediate cause of the deterioration in relations between the neighbouring countries is the downing of a Turkish fighter jet last week in Syrian territorial waters. Syria claims it was acting in self-defence after the Phantom RF-4E warplane entered its airspace on Friday. Ankara has so far failed to give an explanation for why one of its warplanes was making such a provocative low-flying manoeuvre into Syrian airspace. But the Turkish government has announced that any move by Syrian armed forces towards its border will be viewed as another “hostile act” that it will respond to. How’s that for a provocative tether? Especially towards a country that is being attacked by armed groups crossing over its border with Turkey.

Meanwhile, on the same day that Turkey is militarizing along its border with Syria, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah makes an unprecedented announcement putting his armed forces on high alert “due to the tense situation in the Middle East”. Using vague and contrived language, the Saudi ruler warned against “foreign orterrorist attacks” to justify the mobilization of the kingdom’s armed forces.

The military pincer movement against Syria tends to support the analysis that the downing of the Turkish fighter jet was a deliberate set-piece scenario designed to furnish a cause for war, or at least a stepping up of the international psy-ops campaign of intimidation against Syria.

It is notable that the circumstances surrounding the shooting down of the warplane have yet to be clarified. The Syrians seem to have firm grounds for acting in the way they did given the provocative conduct of the Turkish fighter jet. And there is an onus on the Ankara government to give some explanation for the unusual military manoeuvre, especially in the light of claims that the aircraft was on a reconnaissance mission on behalf of anti-Assad forces on the ground in Syria. Yet almost reflexively, before details have been established about the incident, Turkey has moved on to a war footing. Equally telling is that Saudi Arabia, a key ally of Ankara in opposition to Syria, has simultaneously moved also on to a war footing – without any substantive grounds for such a mobilization.

Some informed analysts have said that the Turkish-Saudi pincer on Syria is more aimed at intensifying the psy-ops pressure on Bashar Al Assad to cave in and relinquish power. Hisham Jaber, director of the Beirut-based Center for Middle East Studies, told Press TV that Ankara and Riyadh will balk at an all-out war with Syria because both are well aware that any such conflict will bring in Iran, Russia and China in support of their ally in Damascus.

Nonetheless, there is an ineluctable logic towards all-out war. Ever since the armed insurrection by foreign mercenaries was instigated in Syria’s southern town of Deraa in mid-March 2011, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have played key roles in fomenting the covert campaign of aggression to overthrow the Assad government – a campaign that is authored by leading NATO members, the US, Britain and France. The division of labour is such that Turkey has supplied land bases to organize the mercenaries from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq; while Saudi Arabia provides the money – up to $100 million – to buy weapons and pay wages for the soldiers of fortune; and ultimately it is Washington, London and Paris that are calling the tactical shots in the NATO war plan on Syria.

As several other commentators have pointed out, this war plan is aimed at asserting Western capitalist hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia regions. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria are part of an overarching bid for “full-spectrum dominance” that will eventually target, overtly, Iran, Russia and China.

It is this crucial wider context of war-making by the waning capitalist powers that underscores the gravity of the military build-up inside and outside Syria. The dynamic for war has a compelling, nefarious logic – as the history of world wars testifies.

Which makes the Geneva “crisis conference” this weekend appear all the more ludicrous. In attendance are the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Arab monarchical states of Kuwait and Qatar. All are professing to support a peaceful solution in Syria even though all the above are funnelling weapons, logistics and personnel to wage a brutal, terrorist assault on that country – an assault that has now led to the precipice of all-out regional war.

Also attending the UN conference are secretary general Ban Ki-moon and the UN/Arab League special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan. The UN and the Arab League and these two figureheads in particular have shown themselves to be willing dupes to NATO’s war of aggression on Syria, and beyond, by indulging in the charade that the Western powers are “supporting peace” instead of denouncing them as “supporting war”. Significantly, the UN and Annan have not invited Iran to attend the conference as a result of US pressure. How provocative is that? Iran clearly has vital interests at stake given its proximity and geopolitical threats from the encroaching war on its Syrian ally.

The other ghost missing from the feast in Geneva this weekend is Saudi Arabia. The omission of Saudi Arabia should not be seen as some kind of consolation to Syrian and Iranian sensibilities, but rather as a way of shielding the House of Saud from embarrassment. Considering the incendiary role of Saudi Arabia in Syria, and possibly the region’s conflagration, the Saudi rulers should be summoned to a top seat at the “peace summit” – to face the most withering questions about their warmongering, criminal interference in a neighbouring state.

Then, using Nuremburg principles, prosecutors should proceed to arraign the rulers in Riyadh along with their accomplices in Washington, London, Paris and Ankara.

Syria May Have Mistaken Turkish Jet for Israeli One

The downing of a Turkish fighter plane by Syria may have been a case of mistaken identity, a Syrian minister says amid rising tensions.

 IsraelNationalNews

By Gabe Kahn

First Publish: 6/27/2012, 10:09 PM

Israeli F-16i (Illustration Only)

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A Syrian minister on Wednesday was quoted as saying his country’s forces may have mistaken the Turkish plane they shot down for an Israeli one.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi told the Turkish news channel A Haber in a telephone interview that Damascus did “not want a crisis between Turkey and Syria.”

Al-Zoebi said Turkish and Israeli fighter jets were mostly US-made, which may have led the Syrian forces to mistake it for an Israeli jet.

However, military observers note that Israel retired its last F-4 Phantom jet – the type of jet shot down by Syria –- in 2004.

Turkey warned Syria on Tuesday to keep its troops away from the countries’ troubled border or risk an armed response, an angry reply to the downing of the Turkish reconnaissance plane last week.

The warning came after Turkey deployed its own forces along its Syrian frontier on Wednesday.

However, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan clearly stated on Wednesday that Ankara had no intention of attacking Syria.

The statement was a clear drawing back from bellicose rhetoric earlier in the week, wherin Erdogan clearly defined Syria as an enemy and warned of consequences over the downing of the Turkish jet.

Analysts say both nations, former allies whose relations have progressively soured as Syrias ongoing ‘Arab Spring’ revolt has drawn out, are seeking ways to reduce potentially dangerous tensions.

UN officials say Syrian president Bashar al-Assad‘s bloody crackdown on the now-16 month popular uprising against his regime has killed some 10,000 people, mostly civilians.

Diplomats, however, say the actual number is likely much higher.

Meanwhile, UN special envoy Kofi Annan has invited the five major powers – Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States – as well as Turkey, the European Union, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar to a round-table discussion on the Syria crisis.

The call came just one day after Assad told his newly sworn on cabinet that Syria was at war with its own citizens.

“When we’re in a state of war, all of our politics has to be concentrated on winning this war,” he said of the popular-uprising-turned-civil-war rocking Damascus.