Two released hostages in Syria overheard captor's blaming rebels for chemical attacks

An Italian journalist and a Belgian writer who were held hostage in Syria for five months have claimed that they overheard a conversation suggesting that rebel forces were behind a chemical weapon attack on Damascus and not President Assad's army.

Domenico Quirico and Pierre Piccinin de Prata were kidnapped while working in the war torn country in April. The pair were released on Sunday night and have now said that they heard a conversation between their captors in English on Skype in which they allegedly revealed that rebels launched the attack to prompt Western forces to intervene.

Quirico, a veteran reporter for La Stampa daily with vast experience of reporting on conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, told the newspaper: 'In this conversation, they said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily. Read more >>

Obama slumps to lowest ratings of his presidency

On Tuesday night President Obama will deliver one of the most important political addresses of his presidency, trying to convince a war-weary American public to support his call for military intervention in Syria.

Having casually drawn a red line in the sand on the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, Obama’s own credibility – not that of the United States – is on the line. But he faces an uphill struggle to win over public opinion, and is almost certainly heading for a heavy defeat on Capitol Hill, where opposition is mounting among Members of Congress.

The scale of the challenge for Mr. Obama is encapsulated in a new poll released by Fox News (conducted by both Democratic and Republican pollsters), which shows the president’s approval rating falling to 40 percent, the lowest level of support in his presidency (on par with December 2010). Obama’s disapproval stands at 54 percent, the highest negative rating he has received since taking office. Read more >>

Assad tells Charlie Rose U.S. should "expect every action" in response to Syria strikes

President Bashar Assad warned Sunday that if President Obama decides to launch military strikes on Syria, the U.S. and its allies should "expect every action" in retaliation.


"You should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government," Assad told "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose in his first television interview since Mr. Obama sought congressional approval for military action.

In a clear reference to his allies in Iran and the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, Assad warned that his government is "not the only player in this region."

"You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology. You have everything in this region now," said Assad, who has been accused by the White House of killing 1,400 of his own people in an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburbs. Read more >>

Another Russian Ship Heads Towards Syria

Russian landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov is reportedly heading to the Syrian coast as tension in the region continues to escalate.

The deployment of another vessel by Moscow, a key ally of Damascus, comes as the US considers unleashing a military strike against president Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"The vessel will dock in Novorossiysk where it will take special cargo on board and head to the designated area of military service in the eastern Mediterranean," an unnamed naval source told Russia's Interfax news agency.

The nature of the cargo is still unclear. The vessel has capacity for 3,300 troops and 1,700 tonnes of cargo, including 20 tanks. It is protected by three guns and three missile launchers.

Ahead of the movement of the large vessel, two Russian ships passed the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul en route to the eastern stretch of the Mediterranean. Read more >>

China Officially Backs Russia On Syria

Until now China had kept a relatively low profile on the Syria issue, occasionally issuing veiled support for the Assad regime. That changed at today's G-20 meeting in Russia, when China's vice-finance minister Zhu Guangyao officially launched the Syrian axis of Russia and China, both of which now indirectly support the Assad regime, and oppose US-led military intervention.

From the FT: "China warned on Thursday that military intervention in Syria would hurt the world economy and push up oil prices, reinforcing Vladimir Putin’s attempts to talk US President Barack Obama out of air strikes. “Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price – it will cause a hike in the oil price,” Chinese vice-finance minister Zhu Guangyao told a briefing before the start of the G20 leaders’ talks." Read more >>

Are Spy Agencies Once Again Lying to Justify War Against Syria?

The U.S. government’s main “classified” claim is that it intercepted communications from the Syrian government both before and after the chemical weapons attack which implicate at least some people in Assad’s government. For example, the Washington Post notes:

Unknown to Syrian officials, U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged chemical attack, from the extensive preparations to the launching of rockets to the after-action assessments by Syrian officials. Those records and intercepts would become the core of the Obama administration’s evidentiary case linking the Syrian government to what one official called an “indiscriminate, inconceivable horror” — the use of outlawed toxins to kill nearly 1,500 civilians, including at least 426 children.

Who would have intercepted those communications?

You guessed it … likely the National Security Agency, the American agency tasked with intercepting foreign communications.

The NSA has consistently been caught lying about what it is and isn’t doing. Read more >>

Flashback January: US 'backed plan to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria, blame it on Assad govt': Report

By ANI | ANI – Wed 30 Jan, 2013 via Yahoo News

London, Jan 30 (ANI): The Obama administration gave green signal to a chemical weapons attack plan in Syria that could be blamed on President Bashar al Assad's regime and in turn, spur international military action in the devastated country, leaked documents have shown.

A new report, that contains an email exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britam Defence, showed a scheme 'approved by Washington'.

As per the scheme 'Qatar would fund rebel forces in Syria to use chemical weapons,' the Daily Mail reports.

Barack Obama made it clear to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last month that the U.S. would not tolerate Syria using chemical weapons against its own people.

According to Infowars.com, the December 25 email was sent from Britam's Business Development Director David Goulding to company founder Philip Doughty.

The emails were released by a Malaysian hacker who also obtained senior executives resumes and copies of passports via an unprotected company server, according to Cyber War News. According to the paper, the U.S. State Department has declined to comment on the matter. (ANI)

Navy ready to launch first strike on Syria

Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets.

Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.

As the preparations gathered pace, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, warned that the world could not stand by and allow the Assad regime to use chemical weapons against the Syrian people “with impunity”.

Britain, the US and their allies must show Mr Assad that to perpetrate such an atrocity “is to cross a line and that the world will respond when that line is crossed”, he said. Read more >>

Russia Hits Back at U.S. Over Syria

The Kremlin Friday dismissed as unconvincing evidence that U.S. officials provided of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons and criticized Washington's decision to arm Syrian opposition fighters, but stopped short of threatening to deliver air-defense missiles to the Assad government in response.

A senior Kremlin official said Moscow is "not yet" discussing the delivery of the advanced air-defense system in the wake of the U.S. decision. Last month, Russian officials threatened to fulfill the 2010 contract for the S-300 missiles as a way to deter potential outside military intervention in the two-year-old Syrian civil war. Western powers and Israel have staunchly opposed the sale of the system.

Both Moscow and the U.S. are pushing the warring sides in Syria to enter peace talks in the coming months. But opposition forces have appealed for more weapons and support in recent weeks as they've lost ground against Mr. Assad's troops and their allies from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. The Kremlin opposes any international action against its longtime client, Mr. Assad, and has been skeptical of past Western claims that his forces were using chemical weapons. Read more >>

Hezbollah joins the war in Syria

Lebanon's Hezbollah has hurled itself into the war in Syria at the behest of its mentor Iran at the risk of damaging its reputation in the Arab world, experts say. The powerful Shiite movement has won widespread support outside Lebanon for standing up to Israel on the battlefield.

But its involvement in Syria fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's troops against rebels has tarnished its reputation in the region, analysts told AFP. "Hezbollah's participation in the war in Syria stems from an Iranian decision to support the regime until the end through regional actors, starting with Hezbollah," said Ziad Majed, professor in political sciences and the Middle East at the American University of Paris.

Hezbollah sent almost 1,700 fighters to the central Syrian town of Qusayr a week ago to support the regime's assault on the rebel stronghold. Its chief Hassan Nasrallah had previously justified the organisation's involvement in Syria by saying they were defending Shiite villages and holy sites. But the offensive on the mostly-Sunni town of Qusayr forced the movement to change its argument.

"Syria is the rear guard of the resistance (Hezbollah's fight with Israel), its backbone, and the resistance cannot stay with its arms folded when its rear guard is exposed," Nasrallah said on Saturday in a speech for the 13th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. Read more >>

US-Backed Saudis Step Up Help for Rebels in Syria With Croatian Arms

Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to antigovernment fighters in Syria in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that has allowed President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power, according to American and Western officials familiar with the purchases.

The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad.

The arms transfers appeared to signal a shift among several governments to a more activist approach to assisting Syria’s armed opposition, in part as an effort to counter shipments of weapons from Iran to Mr. Assad’s forces. The weapons’ distribution has been principally to armed groups viewed as nationalist and secular, and appears to have been intended to bypass the jihadist groups whose roles in the war have alarmed Western and regional powers. Read more >>

Russia stands by Syria President Bashar Assad

Russia said Sunday that it has no intention of pushing for the ouster of President Bashar Assad, as international negotiators seeking a way out of the escalating Syrian crisis again failed to reach a breakthrough.

Meantime, Syria's turmoil continued to spill over its borders, as four more people were killed in the latest spasm of Syria-related violence in the tense northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

And in Syria, another day of fierce clashes and government bombardment was reported in the suburbs of Damascus as government troops battled rebels intent on cutting off the capital and its international airport.

Violence in Syria has long been outpacing efforts to reach a diplomatic solution. International mediators have stepped up attempts to broker a peace deal in recent days as clashes have intensified and fears have risen about the government's potential use of chemical weapons on its citizens. Read more >>

Russia 'sends six warships to Syria

Russia today dispatched six warships to its naval base in Syria in a move that is likely to spark concern in the West. A flotilla led by an anti-submarine destroyer have sailed from the Arctic port of Severomorsk to Tartus. However, military sources claim the deployment is nothing to do with the growing tensions in the country where the crackdown by government troops against opposition forces has intensified in recent weeks.

It comes as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has proposed ending Syria's conflict 'step by step', starting with districts that have seen the worst violence, UN secretary general Kofi Annan told a news conference in Tehran today. He made a suggestion of building an approach from the ground up in some of the districts where we have extreme violence - to try and contain the violence in those districts and, step by step, build up and end the violence across the country,' Annan said.

He declined to give details, saying the plan needed to be discussed with the Syrian opposition. The Admiral Chabanenko and three landing craft will be joined in the Mediterranean by Russian patrol ship Yaroslav Mudry and an assistance vessel. 'The programme of the voyage includes a call in the Syrian port of Tartus,' a military source told Interfax news agency. Read more >>