Hamas will ‘never recognize Israel,’ PM Haniyeh says to 30,000 Iranians.

Hamas will ‘never recognize Israel,’ PM Haniyeh says to 30,000 Iranians

Saturday, 11 February 2012

Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a ceremony to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Tehran’s Azadi square. (Reuters)

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Hamas “will never recognize Israel,” its Gaza prime minister said Saturday in a speech in Iran that is likely to complicate Palestinian efforts to form a unity government in the teeth of opposition from the Jewish state.

“They want us to recognize the Israeli occupation and cease resistance but, as the representative of the Palestinian people and in the name of all the world’s freedom seekers, I am announcing from Azadi Square in Tehran that we will never recognize Israel,” Ismail Haniyeh said.

“The resistance will continue until all Palestinian land, including al-Quds (Jerusalem), has been liberated and all the refugees have returned,” he said.

Haniyeh’s reiteration of Hamas’s long-held stance was made on the occasion of Iran’s commemoration of its 1979 Islamic revolution. The Gaza leader spoke to an estimated crowd of 30,000 from a stage alongside Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The 1979 revolution toppled Iran’s pro-west monarchy and brought Islamic clerics to power.

Ahmadinejad was to address the crowd later on Saturday from the same stage as Haniyeh in front of which a full-scale model of a captured U.S. spy drone was erected.

The model drone and Hanieyh were clear signs of defiance by Iran’s regime as it confronts US-led Western economic sanctions and Israeli threats of military action against its controversial nuclear program.

Israel rejects efforts by Hamas to link up with Fatah, the secular faction of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas that runs the West Bank, to form a unity government. It views Hamas as a terrorist organization and Iran as its sponsor and weapon supplier.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.N. envoys on Thursday that a Hamas-Fatah accord signed this week to partner in the new government “does not contribute to the advancement of peace negotiations or the well-being of the Palestinian people.”

The so-called Quartet of diplomatic players in the Middle East peace process — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — has long demanded that any Palestinian government including Hamas must meet certain conditions to join negotiations.

Those are the renunciation of violence and the recognition of Israel and of past agreements with the Jewish state.

Direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since September 2010. The Palestinians have demanded that Israel halt settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. Israel rejects any conditions for talks to settle the Middle East conflict.

Iraqi official says jihadists, weapons are moving from Iraq to Syria.

Saturday, 11 February 2012

Weapons are being smuggled from Iraq to Syria. (File photo)

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Defiant Iran vows new nuclear projects within days, lashes out at Israel.

Saturday, 11 February 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during a ceremony to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Tehran’s Azadi square. (Reuters)

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Syrian News: Gunmen Assassinate Army General : NPR.

February 11, 2012

AP:  Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus on Wednesday in the first killing of a high military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in March, the state-run news agency said.

SANA said three gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital. No one claimed responsibility for the killing.

The attack indicates that violence in Syria is reaching the tightly controlled capital, which has been relatively quiet compared to other cities. Such assassinations are not uncommon outside Damascus and army officers have been killed in the past, mostly in the restive provinces of Homs and Idlib.

The U.N. estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March. But that figure is from January, when the U.N. stopped counting because the chaos in the country has made it all but impossible to check the figures.

The Assad regime says terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country are behind the uprising, not people seeking to transform the authoritarian regime. The Syrian government says more than 2,000 soldiers and police officers have been killed by terrorists since March.

Also Saturday, Syrian troops shelled the Baba Amr district in the central city of Homs, killing at least four people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees said 15 people were killed in Baba Amr on Saturday.

Syrian troops have been trying to regain control of areas in Homs since last Saturday when they started a major offensive on rebel-held areas. Activists say more than 400 people have been killed in Homs since then.

The Observatory also reported a rare clash between troops and defectors late Friday in the northern Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun but had no details. It said troops shot dead an activist in the area.

The violence came a day after two suicide car bombers struck security compounds in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 28 people. The blasts were the first significant violence in an industrial center that has largely stood by Assad during the 11-month uprising against his rule.

Anti-Assad activists denied any involvement and accused the regime of setting off Friday’s blasts to smear the opposition as government forces pummel rebels in one of their main strongholds, Homs. State media touted the bombings as proof the regime faces a campaign by terrorists.

Is Syria the next Iraq? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Just like Iraq, Syria may split into hostile, autonomous regions in post-Assad era

While Syrian President Bashar Assad clings to power, the Syrian state is crumbling under his feet. Western intelligence officials now see a reasonable chance for Syria breaking up into ethnic cantons following Assad’s eventual fall.

In fact, the above officials believe this is already happening. Syria, just like Iraq, may split into autonomous, hostile regions that are barely connected. The possibilities being mentioned are a Kurdish canton in the country’s northeast, an Alawite canton in the northwest, an autonomous Druze region, and the rest being divided among Sunni tribes.

One of the indicators of disintegration is the defections from Bashar Assad’s camp by chiefs of important Alawite tribes who declare that they are no longer loyal to the president. The flow of defectors in the army is growing as well, but has not yet reached mass proportions.

Some 3,000 Syrian soldiers have defectedthus far, including a brigadier general. However, what’s more important is that the Syrian army is thinning its border presence and dispatching units to fight the armed rebels in the Idlib, Homs and Daraa areas, controlled by armed Sunni tribes that are fighting the Syrian military with great success.

Armed groups of rebels are also operating in the suburbs of Damascus; in order to fight these forces, the Syrian army thinned its presence at the Golan Heights border with Israel as well.

Intelligence sources say that several hundreds of Revolutionary Guards members arrived in Syria from Iran, in addition to Hezbollah men who arrived from Lebanon in order to help the regime repress the revolt. Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guards forces join Syrian units and make sure that Sunni soldiers and officers do not hesitate to fight the rebels amongst them.

Syrian army bases are attacked on a daily basis. The only division uninvolved in the fighting directly is the Republican Guard, which safeguards Assad’s palace as well as vital government and infrastructure sites in the Damascus region.

Syrian economy crashing

Intelligence officials note that Syria’s economic situation is deteriorating rapidly, a fact that may prompt the middle class in the large cities to end their ongoing support for Assad’s regime.

The Syrin Lira’s exchange rate has been cut in half since the uprising began. A shortage in staples is growing, mostly in fuels, bread and electricity. The price of fuel rose by 12% recently, and more significantly in the cold winter, the price of a gas tank skyrocketed by 60%. By now the regime initiates power outages in order to save fuel, with reserves dwindling quickly.

Despite the above, it appears that the fighting in Syria pits members of the Alawite sect against members of Sunni tribes only, with other ethnicities and religious groups sitting on the fence and waiting for the regime to fall, based on the assumption that they would be able to realize their aspirations for autonomy in the framework of a new Syrian regime.

For the time being, Western intelligence officials do not see indications that the Syrian army is handing over arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. One concern is that towards the regime’s end, and possibly as result of the expected anarchy, Hezbollah would manage to receive or smuggle advanced surface-to-air missile batteries, recently purchased by Damascus in Russia.

There are concerns that surface-to-surface missiles and possibly chemical and biological weapons could also reach Hezbollah.

This is the main fear in Israel at this time, yet for the time being there are no indications that it is being materialized. There are also no indications that Syria’s president will try to initiate a clash against Israel in order to divert attention away from the domestic conflict he faces.

‘Al Qaida behind deadly Syria bombings’ – JPost – Middle East.

(Al Qaida vs Assad?  Let ’em fight to the death… – JW)

Palestinian rocket damages civilian homes – JPost – Defense.

‘4 killed as Assad intensifies Homs shelli… JPost – Middle East.

By REUTERS

AMMAN – Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces killed at least four civilians in an intensified tank and rocket bombardment on opposition districts in the Syrian city of Homs on Saturday to put down a popular revolt demanding his removal, activists said.

“This is the most violent barrage since the attack on Homs started six days ago. The four included a 55-year old woman. They were killed by shelling that hit a building where they live in Bab Amro,” opposition activist Mohammad Hassan told Reuters by satellite phone from Homs.

The account could not be independently confirmed. Syria restricts access by most foreign journalists.

Footage on Youtube showed a doctor at a field hospital in Bab Amro next to the body of the woman, who appeared to have been hit in the head.

“This is Ibtissam al-Dalati, mother of three…Shrapnel hit her in the head,” the doctor says, holding the woman’s fractured and bloody head. “I call upon all Syrians to take to the streets to take the pressure off Homs.”

Ahmadinejad: World will witness … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS

TEHRAN – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the Islamic Republic would soon announce “very important” achievements in the nuclear field, state TV reported.

He was speaking on the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Tens of thousands of Iranians joined state-organized rallies across the country to mark the occasion.

Demonstrators carrying Iranian flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”

“In the coming days the world will witness Iran’s announcement of its very important and very major nuclear achievements,” Ahmadinejad told a crowd at Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square in a speech relayed live on state television.

He gave no details.

On Friday, Iran pledged to back Palestinian resistance against Israel, saying “soon the Zionist regime will be punished for its plots and aggression,” AFP reported Iran’s first vice-president Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.

Rahimi made the remarks to visiting Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who arrived Friday for three-day trip.

“Iran will not retreat one iota from its position on defending the rights of the Palestinian people,” AFP quoted Rahimi as saying.

Haniyeh arrived in Tehran Friday afternoon, where he was welcomed at Mehrabad International Airport by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Salehi.

On the agenda for Haniyeh’s visit was to meet with Iranian officials and “review regional developments,” Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

‘Iran vows to back Palestinian resistance … JPost – Middle East.