WarSclerotic

Iran says U.S. ‘failed’ in IAEA bid to send nuclear issue to U.N..

Al Arabiya

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Syrian Baath Party building ‘hit by rockets’ – Telegraph.

Syrian Army defectors say they launched a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a Baath Party building in Damascus on Sunday, in the first insurgent attack inside the Syrian capital since the uprising began.

Syria: Insurgents fire grenades a… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

    AMMAN – At least two rocket-propelled grenades hit a ruling Baath Party building in Damascus on Sunday, residents said, in the first insurgent attack reported inside the Syrian capital since an eight-month uprising began against President Bashar Assad.

The attack occurred hours after an Arab League deadline for Syria to end its crackdown against protesters passed with no sign of violence abating, and Assad remained defiant in the face of growing international isolation.

“Security police blocked off the square where the Baath’s Damascus branch is located. But I saw smoke rising from the building and fire trucks around it,” said one witness, who declined to be named.

“The attack was just before dawn and the building was mostly empty. It seems to have been intended as a message to the regime,” said the witness.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 people were killed on Saturday by government forces. On Friday dozens were reported killed in clashes.

Assad was quoted on Saturday as saying he would press on with the crackdown against protesters despite increased international pressure to end it.

“The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue,” he told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. “However, I assure you that Syria will not bow down and that it will continue to resist the pressure being imposed on it.”

In video footage on the newspaper’s website, Assad said there would be elections in February or March when Syrians would vote for a parliament to create a new constitution and that would include provision for a presidential ballot

“That constitution will set the basis of how to elect a president, if they need a president or don’t need him,” he said.

“They have the elections, they can participate in it. The ballot boxes will decide who should be president.”

The Arab League had set a Saturday deadline for Syria to comply with a peace plan which would entail a military pullout from around restive areas, and threatened sanctions if Assad failed to end the violence.

The League, a group of Arab states, has already suspended Syria’s membership.

Non-Arab Turkey, once an ally of Assad’s, is also taking an increasingly tough attitude towards Damascus.

Turkish newspapers said on Saturday Ankara had contingency plans to create no-fly or buffer zones to protect civilians in neighboring Syria if the bloodshed worsened.

Turkish papers highlight contingency plans for Syria | Reuters.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish newspapers said on Saturday Ankara had contingency plans to create no-fly or buffer zones to protect civilians in neighbouring Syria from security forces there if the bloodshed worsens.

Turkey opposes unilateral steps or intervention aimed at “regime change” in Syria, the reports said, but it has not ruled out the possibility of more extensive military action if security forces began committing large-scale massacres.

The reports, based on a briefing by Turkish officials to selected journalists, came on the day of an Arab League deadline for President Bashar al-Assad’s government to end its repression of anti-government unrest and comply with a peace plan.

“It’s almost certain that Bashar al-Assad’s regime is going down, all the assessments are made based on this assumption. Foreign Ministry sources say that the sooner the regime goes down, the better for Turkey,” columnist Sedat Ergin wrote in Hurriyet newspaper.

“It is out of the question that Turkey carries out a military intervention to change the regime. However, it takes a flexible stance on opposition groups running activities in Turkey.”

Several thousand Syrians have fled to Turkey in the wake of the repression launched after pro-democracy protests erupted in March. Among them were soldiers who say they deserted rather than shoot their own people, and are now part of the armed resistance against Assad’s forces.

Turkey, along with other powers, fear that if Syria slips into civil war it would ignite sectarian and ethnic conflict that could spread elsewhere in the region.

Ruled by the Assad family for more than 40 years, Syria’s power circle is based around the Baath party and members of the minority Alawite sect to which the Assad family belong.

The Radikal newspaper’s columnist Murat Yetkin quoted one of the Turkish officials saying: “We believe that with each day that passes under the Assad regime, the threat to stability increases. We believe stability in Syria and in the region will only be possible again under a democratic government.”

The Arab League, and non-Arab Turkey, have threatened economic sanctions unless bloodshed stops. And Turkish officials told the journalists they expected Assad’s government to implode under popular pressure.

BUFFER ZONE

Turkey wants to avoid a massive influx of people across the border, having been inundated by 500,000 people from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.

Radikal’s Yetkin said the Turkish military could establish a buffer zone if the Syrian army advanced on a city, like Aleppo, close to the Turkish border.

Columnist Asli Aydintasbas of Milliyet newspaper wrote: “Foreign ministry sources added that Turkey could set up a no-fly buffer zone within Syria if Syrians fleeing the army create a mass wave of migration to Turkey.

“A more extensive military intervention could come on the table only if Syrian regime starts a large-scale massacre in a big city such as Aleppo or Damascus,” Aydintasbas added.

“Ankara could take a role in a military intervention against Syria only with the international community and following a U.N. Security Council decision.”

Having once cultivated Assad’s friendship, Turkey turned sharply critical during the eight-month-old uprising, as Damascus repeatedly ignored advice to end the violence and make reforms demanded by the people.

Attacks on their diplomatic missions in Damascus last weekend, prompted non-Arab Turkey and Arab governments to escalate pressure on Assad.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Syria was responsible for the breakdown in the relationship.

“Unfortunately, the Syrian regime was reluctant and insincere in carrying out reforms it had promised to. Furthermore, they wanted to quash the opposition through inhumane methods, by shedding blood,” he told a business forum.

“If there’s a policy change, it’s not Turkey’s but Syria’s change of policy. Syria has not kept the promises it made, neither to the Arab League nor the world,” he said. “Its actions have not been sincere and trustworthy.”

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay; editing by Andrew Roche)

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 20, 2011, 8:01 AM (GMT+02:00)

Al Qods trains Palestinians in anti-tank arms

Under cover of a four-day military exercise starting Friday, Nov. 18, Iran is reported exclusively by debkafile‘s Iranian and counter-terror sources to be transferring Palestinian terrorist units into Syria after training them at IRGC Al Qods facilities for cross-border raids into the West Bank and Israel.
By this step, Iran and Syria are fighting back for the armed campaign the opposition Free Syrian Army-FSA began launching last week on Syrian military installations and commands centers.

Tuesday night, Nov. 15, FSA mounted an organized assault on the “Syrian Air Force Intelligence Command” at Harasta near Damascus – the Assad regime’s primary covert tool of repression – using anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns. No official information was released about the scale of casualties or damage.

Western intelligence sources following events in Syria report that most of the buildings were torched, an estimated 10 Syrian soldiers were killed and at least 30 injured before a combat helicopter was lofted to break up the battle.

Wednesday, Nov. 16, a second FSA assault group armed with the same weapons hit ruling Baath party headquarters in Idlib.

Sunday, Nov. 20, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad issued his routine warning of a “Middle East earthquake” if attacked.
May 10, shortly after the Syrian uprising erupted, Bashar Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, a tycoon who controls 60 percent of the national economy, issued this warning: “Without stability in Syria, there will be no stability in Israel.”
debkafile‘s intelligence report that Damascus and Tehran appear to have decided this was the moment to make good on the threat.
In the intervening months, 300 “volunteers” were recruited in Syrian Palestinian refugee camps and transferred to Iran for courses in guerilla combat against strategic and urban targets. They were trained at al Qods elite unit facilities, some at their marine base.

Split into groups of twelve, they were taught combat tactics behind enemy lines. Three of these groups have been flown back to Damascus.

Friday, Nov. 18, straight after the International Atomic Energy Agency called on Iran to halt uranium enrichment and cooperate in disclosing its nuclear work, Tehran announced the start of a big four-day war game. Contrary to many reports, the exercise is not limited to testing the air defenses of Iran’s nuclear sites and infrastructure but rather a large-scale war game, debkafile‘s military sources report, staged by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and including operational intelligence and combat units of the Iranian army, disciplinary (security) forces and trained popular troops.
The “popular troops”, say our military sources, refer to the Bassij militia, whose task it is to preserve stable authority in cities in times of war or crisis, plus the Palestinian units recruited in Syria.

From Sunday, Nov. 20, the maneuver is extending to Iran’s five main cities, Tehran, Mashad, Urmieh, Kerman and Bushehr.

When the exercise winds down next week, three Iranian military planes will fly the rest of the Palestinians fighters to Syria.

BBC News – Syria Baath Party in Damascus hit by rockets.

Protests have taken place in towns and cities across Syria since March

At least two rocket-propelled grenades have hit a building of Syria’s governing Baath Party in the capital Damascus, residents and activists say.

One witness said security forces had blocked off the square where the office is located, while smoke was seen rising from the building.

If confirmed, it would be the first such attack reported inside the capital since the uprising began in March.

It comes amid growing fears of civil war in Syria, after months of unrest.

Foreign journalists are unable to move around Syria freely, making it difficult to verify reports.

The opposition Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) said “several” RPG rockets were shot at the Baath Party building in the Mazraa neighbourhood and that two fire brigades have been dispatched to the area.

‘Message to the regime’

An unnamed witness told the Reuters news agency the attack happened before dawn and said the building was mostly empty.

“Security police blocked off the square where the Baath’s Damascus branch is located. But I saw smoke rising from the building and fire trucks around it,” he told Reuters

“It seems to have been intended as a message to the regime,” he added.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to continue his crackdown on opposition groups despite mounting international condemnation.

“The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue,” he told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.

“However, I assure you that Syria will not bow down and that it will continue to resist the pressure being imposed on it,” he added.

Syria’s Assad vows to continue cr… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

    An Arab League deadline for Syria to end its repression of anti-government unrest passed with no sign of violence abating, and Syrian President Bashar Assad remained defiant in the face of growing international isolation.

Assad said the crackdown in his country would continue in the face of pressure from the Arab League to end it, according to an interview published late on Saturday.

“The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue,” he told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. “Syria will not bow down.”

The Arab League had on Wednesday set a Saturday deadline for Syria to comply with a peace plan which would entail a military pullout from around restive areas, and threatened sanctions if Assad failed to end the violence.

However, activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 civilians were killed in security force raids on Saturday while two army defectors died when they clashed with the Syrian army in Homs, which has become a center of armed revolt against more than 40 years of Assad family rule.

Assad has come under growing international pressure to stop the crackdown and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday expressed fear the country could be slipping into civil war.

Clinton said the international community was reluctant to intervene as it had in Libya and Assad again repeated his assertion that any Western military action taken against Syria would create an “earthquake” across the Middle East.

“If they are logical, rational and realistic, they shouldn’t do it because the repercussions are very dire. Military intervention will destabilize the region as a whole, and all countries will be affected,” he said.

The Sunday Times said Assad had promised to personally fight and die to resist foreign forces.

Assad also vowed to prevent further attacks by the Free Syrian Army, which opposition sources said had killed or wounded at least 20 security police in an assault on an Air Force Intelligence Complex near Damascus two days ago.

“The only way is to search for the armed people, chase the armed gangs, prevent the entry of arms and weapons from neighboring countries, prevent sabotage and enforce law and order,” he told the paper.