WarSclerotic

The Bunker Busters and the Measure of Support for Israel « Commentary Magazine.

Iran ‘steals surface-to-air missiles from Libya’ | Iran | Trend.

‘Obama sold special bombs to Israel’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

New report claims US secretly approved transfer of ‘bunker buster’ bombs that could be used in attack against Iran just months after Barack Obama took office, even though Bush administration had previously blocked deal

The upcoming issue of Newsweek, which is set to hit newsstands on Monday, claims that two years ago US President Barack Obama secretly approved the transfer of 55 “bunker-busters“, a form of deep-penetrating bombs, to Israel. The country had been requesting the bombs since the time of the Bush administration, the Daily Beast website reported on Friday.

According to the report, US and Israeli officials told Newsweek that the GBU-28 type bombs, which could be potentially be used in an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, were transferred to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama came into office.

AFP: Russia ‘believes US, Israel behind Iran worm attack’.

MOSCOW — Russia believes Israel and the United States were responsible for unleashing the malicious Stuxnet computer worm on Iran’s nuclear programme last year, a top official said on Friday.

“We are seeing attempts of cyberspace being used by some states to act against others — of it being used for political-military purposes,” said the foreign ministry’s emerging challenges and threats department chief Ilya Rogachyov.

“The only case in which experts believe the actions of states have been proven in this area … is the Stuxnet system that was launched in 2010 against the centrifuge control system used to enrich uranium in Iran,” he said.

“Experts believe that traces of this lead back to the actions of Israel and the United States,” Rogachyov told reporters. “This is the only proven case of actual cyber-warfare.”

Most of the Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there. The worm was crafted to recognize the system it was to attack.

Tehran has also blamed Israel and the United States for the killing of two of its nuclear scientists in November and January.

Russia picked up the construction of Iran’s first nuclear power plant from Germany in the 1990s and the unit was hooked up to the power grid system for the first time this month.

Worried by the rapid rise of advanced technology, Moscow has spent several years pushing the United Nations into adopting new guiding principles for the Internet age that prohibit countries from engaging in so-called cyber-warfare.

“We are categorically against this opportunity being secured in some sort of international agreements,” said the foreign ministry official.

“We believe that the international community must agree on certain principles of establishing national jurisdiction over cyberspace.”

The United States has in turn only supported initiatives that help protect the physical safety of communications cable used by the Internet, Rogachyov said.

DEBKA.

An Israel-made drone with Azerbaijan Air Force markings was downed on Sept. 12 over Nagorno Karabach by Russian anti-aircraft officers who entered the tiny Caucasian republic from neighboring Armenia. Their immediate mission was to gain access to the secret innards of the highly-advanced unmanned aerial vehicle, as revealed here for the first time by DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been fighting since the early nineties for control of the Karabakh republic, a patch of land just 4,400 square kilometers in area with 200,000 inhabitants – 80 percent Armenian, 20 percent Azeri – wedged between the two southern Caucasian rivals.
Russia secretly backs the Armenian claim, mainly with intelligence and arms.
Israel has sold drones to Azerbaijan and sent technicians to service them. In March, Azerbaijan and Israel Aerospace Industries agreed to build a new plant and go into co-production of the Israeli unmanned vehicles.
The Azerbaijani drone was shot down by antiaircraft troops of the Russian Situation Corps over Nagorno Karabackh Martuni district ,where the little republic and Armenia have been concentrating forces in anticipation of a fresh round of fighting.
The Nagorno Karabakh Ministry of Defense in the capital of Stepanakert said the downing of the Azerbaijani drone was “the result of ‘special measures’ taken by its antiaircraft units.”
Russia’s sign to Israel: Hands off the Caspian
Our military sources define those “special measures” as a combination of Russian antiaircraft officers and the advanced anti-drone equipment owned by Nagorno Karabakh’s antiaircraft defense units.
Moscow and Yerevan decided to station Russian forces in the Karabakh zones of combat after Azerbaijani drone flights over those areas increased and the republic had no means to repel them.
Western intelligence sources monitoring the military movements warn of dangerous developments brewing in the southern Caucasus.
Drones have been introduced into battle for the first time since three years ago Israeli-made drones in the Georgian Air Force exposed the weakness of the Russian army in their 2008 war. Moscow later purchased several dozen drones from Israel but plans to establish an Israeli drone factory in Russia were stalled by US objections to making advanced drone technology accessible to Russia.
But Moscow never gave up on its quest.
Western sources believe that the downing of the Azerbaijani drone was a one-off incident and that the Russians have not established a regular presence in Nagorno Karabakh’s war zones. They see Moscow as staging the incident for four objectives:
1. As a hands-off sign to Israel to stay out of the Caspian Sea region and its conflicts.
Moscow has taken note of Israel’s deepening economic and military footholds in four countries: Azerbaijan, which is the largest, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Georgia, and regards its supply of arms to these countries as unwanted interference in Russia’s backyard.
Moscow’s implied threat to pass Israeli drone secrets to Iran
2. Revenge for Israel reneging on its 2009 commitment to build a drone factory in Russia. This was achieved by confronting Israeli drone technicians with Russian antiaircraft crews for a losing contest.
3. Moscow was also telling Tehran that it was serious about cooperating with the Islamic Republic for safeguarding its rights in the Caspian Sea and willing to use diplomatic, military and intelligence means to halt the spread of Azerbaijani and Israeli influence in the region.
Iran has an abiding interest in cutting Azerbaijan down to size because of the affection it commands from Iran’s Azeri minority.
Although official statistics are lacking, Iranian Azeris are estimated to number 15-22 million, nearly one-third of Iran’s s population of 75 million. They also account for some 4 million of Tehran’s 11 million inhabitants and dominate the grocery and small trading sector of the capital.
The Islamic rulers’ biggest problem with Azerbaijan and its influence on the Azeri minority is the character of its government. While the population is largely Shiite, the government is secular. A secular-Shiite regime is totally at odds with Iran’s revolutionary Shiite doctrine whereby the government draws its legitimacy from religion. An Azeri minority this large must be discouraged from developing its affinity to Baku and its style of government as a potential threat to the Shiite revolutionaries of Iran.
4. The Defense Ministry in Stepanakert published pictures of the downed drone deliberately exposing its camera as a warning to Jerusalem and Baku that if Azerbaijani drones continue to fly, Moscow may decide to turn the secret vehicle’s fragments over to Iranian intelligence experts.

DEBKA.

US Offers Iran Deal on Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran: First Syria and Bahrain

Barack Obama

In early September, President Barack Obama’s administration embarked secretly on a venturesome diplomatic initiative to engage Tehran in an ambitious give-and-take deal Iran on a wide variety of disputed issues. Washington was looking ahead to the security of the US units remaining in Afghanistan and Iraq after the bulk of US troops depart those countries in December 2011 and the summer of 2014, respectively.
Qatari ruler Sheik Ahmad bin Jasem bin Muhammad al-Thani was dispatched to Tehran on Sept. 3 with the following proposition:
Iran was asked to accept the presence of 15,000 American troops in Iraq and an undetermined number in Afghanistan after the US army wraps up its campaigns there and join forces with US counterterrorist efforts in both countries.
In Afghanistan, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) would cut off weapons supplies to the Taliban and its allies, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar‘s Hezb-e Islami.
In Iraq, Gen. Qassam Soleimani, commander of the Al Qods Brigades, would rein in Shiite militias and the terrorist groups he runs and halt their terrorist activity.
Special attention must be given to curtailing the Shiite Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous) also known as Ahl al-Kahf. Its estimated 3,000 fighters have claimed responsibility for more than 6,000 attacks on US, coalition and Iraqi forces.
Another group run by Al Qods which Washington wants hobbled is the Iraqi Hizballah (Ketaeb Hizballah) which bombarded Kuwait’s Great al Mubarak Port from Iraq with Scud missiles on Aug. 26.
Washington wants to see Tehran halting arms and explosives supplies to Al Qaeda, which has used them to double its strength and expand its attacks.
But most of all, the Obama administration wants assurances from Tehran that the 15,000 US troops remaining in Iraq are safe from attack.
US offers Iran military coordination in the Persian Gulf
In return, Washington offered to create a joint US-Iranian mechanism for coordinating the movements of US and Iranian military, air and naval activity in the Persian Gulf.
This mechanism would provide Tehran with a guarantee of immunity against American attack.
There was no mention in any of the American proposals of Iran’s disputed nuclear program. This conveyed the impression to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources that Iran’s nuclear weapon drive was no longer a core issue between Washington and Tehran.
Also on offer was American intelligence-sharing with regional states, including Iran and Turkey, on separatist terrorist movements and targets – meaning the Kurdish rebel PKK and PAJK.
(See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 508 of Sept. 9: First US-Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi KRG Armed Alliance).
After listening to the Qatari ruler, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, launched into a harsh attack on America’s role in the Arab Revolt. He singled out US inaction in the face of the Saudi army’s takeover of Bahrain to subdue the uprising against the king.
On Syria, the Iranian president turned to threats. He warned Washington through the Qatari emir that if the US, Turkey or NATO intervened militarily in the revolt against Bashar Assad, Iranian missiles would blow up American bases in Iraq and Turkish military installations. But the first round of missiles would hit the Qatari capital of Doha.
Khamenei slams the door which Ahmadinejad left ajar
Although the Iranian president was clear about spurning the initial American proposition, he did not quite shut the door. “If the Obama administration agrees to coordinate its moves with us on Bahrain and Syria, Tehran would be amenable to accords with Washington on Iraq and Afghanistan,” he is quoted as saying.
But Sheik Al-Thani had had enough. On returning to Doha, he told the Americans to count him out of future missions to Iran.
Left with no middleman for contacts with Tehran – Turkey lost its credibility with Iran after denouncing the Syrian president’s brutal suppression of dissent – Washington turned to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. This got complicated when the Shiite prime minister started behaving as though he was one of the sides in the exchanges and not just America’s middleman vis-à-vis Tehran.
For example, he took it upon himself to tell the Americans to first deal with the Saudi takeover of Bahrain before any agreement is sought with Tehran, because he refuses to see Bahraini Shiites oppressed. Washington must assure them of a share in power befitting their majority status in the population.
The Obama administration’s venture into dialogue with Tehran was then truly bogged down when the hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei weighed in to shut the door the Iranian president had left ajar.
Addressing an International Islamic conference in Tehran Saturday, Sept. 17, he issued a strong warning to all Arab nations overtaken by uprisings against letting the US or NATO have a say in their post-revolution systems of government.
“Never trust America, NATO, and criminal regimes like Britain, France and Italy who for a long time divided and plundered your lands,” said the Ayatollah. Hold [to your] suspicion of them and don’t believe their smiles. Behind those smiles and promises lie conspiracy and betrayal.”
The Obama administration won’t take Tehran’s no for an answer
Translating his words into action, Iran sent Shiite demonstrators back on the streets of the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain this week for a fresh outburst of protest.
Wednesday, Sept. 21, the Shiite protesters slowed traffic to a crawl on many Bahrain highways by flooding them with vehicles as a show of strength ahead of the kingdom’s parliamentary elections Saturday. This was their answer to royal cautions not to disrupt voting in the kingdom.
Unfazed by these setbacks, the Obama administration has not given up: The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, Sept. 19, that the US is considering setting up a direct military hotline with Iran in order to defuse potential confrontations between the two countries’ military forces.
One plan would be to build a link between the Iranian navy and the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. The newspaper said US officials are particularly worried about a fleet of speedboats run by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard which, they say, “have been involved in several near-altercations.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources say that the speedboat threat has been around for at least four years. Over time, US Navy commanders in America and the Gulf have said on occasion that the US Navy has developed methods for dealing with these speedboats and could handle them should the need arise.
Tehran shows it has a bigger stick than Washington
But the Obama administration appears nevertheless to be seeking a negotiated solution of the problem as a way to signal Tehran that the proposition delivered by the Qatari emir was still on the table and Washington was willing to explore it further.
At the same time, Obama’s strategic planners refuse to learn from the numerous failures their policy of engaging Iran has encountered.
It happened again this week, when the Maliki government was finally persuaded by Washington to publish a strong condemnation of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown of his opponents Tuesday, Sept. 21. Washington and Baghdad sources disclose that the Iraqi prime minister extracted from the Obama administration guarantees of US military protection against potential Syrian economic and military punishment.
But Damascus was saved from responding.
The next day, after Maliki was whipped into line by Tehran, the Iraqi government denied it had ever condemned the Syrian ruler, proving that Iran wielded a bigger stick than America.
This episode demonstrated that Iran would never come to terms on security in Iraq and Afghanistan – or any of the issues troubling the Obama administration – until Washington reconciles itself to Tehran calling the shots in Baghdad.

Ahmadinejad is the real threat – JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.

    With the Obama administration and much of the organized Jewish community focused on the schizophrenic Palestinian bid for UN membership, a series of recent remarks by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seem to have largely slipped under the radar.

“Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime,” Ahmadinejad said in an August 26 interview according to the Iranian Student News Agency. The following day, in a Tehran speech in support of the Palestinian cause, he again advocated what amounts to genocide. “Do not think that your [Israel’s] existence will be recognized with the recognition of the Palestinian state,” he threatened. “You have no place in our region and among our nations, and you will not be able to continue your ignominious life on even a small part of the Palestinian territories.”

While unctuously offering to “arrange for the release” of two American hikers jailed in Iran for the past two years on bogus espionage charges, Ahmadinejad shamelessly resurrected the old anti-Semitic stereotypes that make Jews the scapegoat for every evil, plague and natural disaster on the face of the earth. Zionists, Ahmadinejad told The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth on September 13, were “behind the First World War and the Second World War.”

“Whenever there is a conflict or war,” he said, without contradiction on the part of the interviewer or in the published transcript, Zionists – read Jews – are “behind it.”

Ahmadinejad should have been held to account under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide long ago. The crime of genocide, in the words of the UN General Assembly Resolution 96(I), “is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings,” and Ahmadinejad’s intent “to destroy… a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” thus falls squarely within the scope of the Convention.

Moreover, “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” is also a direct violation of Genocide Convention, to which, incidentally, Iran is a party. Repeatedly dismissing the Holocaust as a “myth” and a “lie” invented to justify the creation of the State of Israel, Ahmadinejad has been advocating the annihilation of Israel and its Jewish citizens for years. As Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel succinctly said after yet another of the Iranian leader’s diatribes, Ahmadinejad “preaches hatred and therefore he should be in jail, actually, in The Hague, for incitement of genocide. That is a crime against humanity.”

Along the same lines, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney wrote in an op-ed as far back as September, 2007, that since Ahmadinejad “calls for the elimination of a nation and pursues the means that would allow him to carry it out… he should be indicted under the Genocide Convention.”

Romney deserves credit for pointing out repeatedly and consistently over the years that Ahmadinejad’s “regime threatens not only Israel, but also every other nation in the region, and ultimately the world. It is a repressive regime… an intractable enemy of liberty and human rights… the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and subversive war.”

It would be foolish in the extreme for any of us to lose sight of the fact that Ahmadinejad’s continued saber-rattling constitutes a far greater time-bomb than anything that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, or any other Palestinian leader, says or does.

Very specifically, we need to remember that incitement to commit mass murder has been recognized as a crime ever since the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg where Julius Streicher, the publisher of the virulously anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer received the death sentence for his incendiary words.

“Streicher’s incitement to murder and extermination, at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions,” the Tribunal held, “constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with War Crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a Crime against Humanity.”

“According to the International Law Commission,” the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda wrote 52 years later in its judgment against Jean-Paul Akayesu, a Hutu politician on trial for his role in the genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsi population, “public incitement is characterized by a call for criminal action to a number of individuals in a public place or to members of the general public at large by such means as the mass media, for example radio or television.”

Placing Ahmadinejad’s words in this context is not an idle academic exercise. He does not miss an opportunity to publicly call for the destruction of Israel by violent means, which perforce means the mass killing of its citizens. He focuses his vitriol exclusively on Israel’s Zionist – that is Jewish – population. It is critical that the international community be made to acknowledge once and for all that such genocidal rhetoric cannot be allowed to be continuously ignored and swept under the rug.

The writer is adjunct professor of Law at Cornell Law School, lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, and distinguished visiting lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law.

Ahmedinejad: U.S. and allies threaten anyone who attacks Holocaust, 9/11 – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Delegations walk out of the United Nations General Assembly after Iranian president says U.S. and allies view Zionism as ‘sacred’ ideology.

By Reuters and DPA

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked Western powers on Thursday for a catalogue of misdeeds, but his address to the United Nations failed to mention Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

The U.S. delegation walked out when Ahmadinejad said “arrogant powers” threatened anyone who questioned the Holocaust and the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States with sanctions and military action. Other Western delegations soon made their exit.

Ahmadinejad made only a passing reference to the Palestinian issue which has overshadowed this year’s UN General Assembly and did not comment on the Palestinian plan to ask the UN Security Council to recognize their nascent state.

	Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the 66th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, September 22, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

He accused the United States of using the “mysterious” Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a pretext to launch wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States and its allies “view Zionism as a sacred notion and ideology,” the Iranian leader said.

“By using their imperialistic media network which is under the influence of colonialism they threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the Sept. 11 event with sanctions and military actions,” he added.

Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. mission at the United Nations, condemned Ahmadinejad’s remarks.” “Mr Ahmadinejad had a chance to address his own people’s aspirations for freedom and dignity, but instead he again turned to abhorrent anti-Semitic slurs and despicable conspiracy theories,” Kornblau said in a statement.

Ahmadinejad’s address also passed in silence over the pro-democracy uprisings that have swept the Arab world this year, including Syria, Iran’s closest Arab ally.

U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday that Iran and North Korea risked more pressure if they pursued nuclear programs that flouted international law.

“There is a future of greater opportunity for the people of these nations if their governments meet their obligations. But if they continue down a path that is outside international law, they must be met with greater pressure and isolation,” he said.

Syria accuses Israel of posing ‘nuclear threat’ to the world – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

The exchange between the two adversaries at UN nuclear agency underlines deep divisions between Arab states and Israel ahead of rare talks to rid the world of atomic bombs.

By Reuters

Syria accused Israel on Wednesday of posing a threat to the world with its “huge military nuclear arsenal”, a day after Israel criticized Damascus for stonewalling a UN watchdog investigation into its atomic activities.

The exchange between the two adversaries, at an annual member state meeting of the UN nuclear agency, underlined deep divisions between Arab states and Israel ahead of rare talks later this year on efforts to rid the world of atomic bombs.

	The nuclear power plant in Dimona.
	Photo by: Archive

Israel is widely believed to hold the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, drawing frequent Arab and Iranian condemnation.

Israel and the United States see Iran — and to a lesser extent Syria — as the Middle East’s main proliferation threats, accusing Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear arms capability in secret.

Arab nations have dropped plans to single out Israel over its presumed nuclear weapons at this week’s gathering of International Atomic Energy Agency members, calling this a goodwill gesture in the run-up to the Nov. 21-22 discussions.

But the Syrian and Israeli statements this week highlighted a high level of mistrust ahead of the meeting, hosted by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, to debate the experience of regions elsewhere in the world that have banned nuclear arms.

Relations between the two are especially fraught in the nuclear arena. Israel bombed a Syrian desert site in 2007 which U.S. intelligence said was a nascent reactor intended to produce plutonium for nuclear weaponry. Syria denies this.

“In the Middle East there is a unique feature: Israel is the only country which has a military and nuclear arsenal, outside the realm of any international control,” Syrian Ambassador Bassam Al-Sabbagh told the IAEA’s annual General Conference.

For the November talks to be successful, “all participants should be parties to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and the agenda of such a meeting should focus on the issue of creating a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East”.

Arab states, Israel and other countries are expected to attend the talks, which are regarded s a way to kick-start a dialogue and help generate some badly needed confidence.

 

Big power divisions

Addressing the IAEA conference on Tuesday, the head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission lashed out at Syria for still refusing UN nuclear inspectors access to all its atomic sites.

Naming also Iran, Shaul Chorev said: “Regimes that brutally repress their own citizens … have no hesitation when it comes to non-compliance with their legally binding obligations under international law.

“The international community has failed to convey a decisive message to such rulers. (They) still consider non-compliance as a low risk. The international community should prove them wrong. Violators should be punished,” said Chorev.

Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons under a policy of ambiguity to deter numerically superior foes. It is the only country in the Middle East outside the NPT.

Arab states, backed by Iran, say Israel’s stance poses a threat to regional peace and stability. They want Israel to subject all its nuclear facilities to IAEA monitoring.

Israel says it would only join the pact if there is a comprehensive Middle East peace with its longtime Arab and Iranian adversaries. If it signed the 1970 NPT pact, Israel would have to renounce nuclear weaponry.

In a U.S.-led move, the IAEA’s 35-nation board voted in June to report Syria to the UN Security Council over its refusal to allow agency inspectors to visit the Dair Alzour site. Russia and China opposed the move, betraying big power splits.

Syria has since offered to cooperate on the issue of Dair Alzour and Sabbagh said a meeting with the UN agency had been set for October. Western diplomats have expressed caution about previous such overtures from Damascus.

Al-Sabbagh said Israel’s attack on Dair Alzour had violated international law. “As a consequence of this heinous aggression the military building, which did not have any relation with nuclear activities, was destroyed,” he said.

The IAEA assessed in a recent nuclear safeguards report on Syria that the site was “very likely” to have been a nuclear reactor under construction, before it was leveled.

Syria forces amass ahead of major protest crackdown, activists say – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Anti-Assad protesters say Syrian troops deployed in central cities of Hama and Homs, as well as the southern province of Daraa.

By DPA

Syrian troops have amassed in several areas across the country that have been at the centre of the uprising against the government of President Bashar Assad, Beirut-based
Syrian activists said Thursday.

The activists said troops were deployed to the central cities of Hama and Homs, as well as the southern province of Daraa, flashpoints in the security crackdown on protesters in recent months.

	Syrian protesting against President Bashar Assad in the city of Homs, September 16, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

“They are preparing for a wide-scale operation in these cities again,” one activist who requested anonymity told the German Press Agency DPA in Beirut.

The activist said security forces were targeting and attacking the families of activists and sympathizers of the protesters who first took to the streets in mid-March.

“The Syrian security forces and their dogs, the intelligence, are not sparing anyone in Syria, if they look for an activist and they cannot find him in the country they go to his family, attack or arrest them, just to put pressure on us,” he said.

According to a statement released by the Syrian Human Rights Committee, the parents of internationally-known pianist Malek Jandali were attacked in their home by pro-government militiamen. The 39-year-old German-born musician who grew up in Homs has often expressed support for the protesters.

The committee said in its statement that it held al-Assad’s government responsible for the attack and called for an end to “barbaric and unjustified acts.”

State television meanwhile reported the arrest of members “of an armed terrorist group” at a farm in Daraa, saying security forces had “confiscated a big quantity of explosives and remote-control bombs.”

According to the report, “the goal of the terrorist group was to plant the explosives in crowded civilian areas to kill a large number of citizens.”

Security forces have killed some 2,700 people, including at least 100 children since the anti-government protests began in mid-March, according to the United Nations.