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Europe
Arrest warrant for Assad considered a sign of French helplessness in Africa
2023-11-16
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not really affect anything, says Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club . He stated this on November 15 to a Regnum correspondent .

Earlier, a court in Paris issued an arrest warrant for Assad, who is accused of using chemical weapons in 2013.

“This is due to the sharp weakening of Europe’s position in the Middle East and Africa, which France is trying to win back through some demonstrative steps, ” Mendkovich suggested. “ As we understand, in reality this will not affect anything. Relations between Europe and Syria after the liberation of the latter from militants are already at a fairly low level. Therefore, an arrest warrant for Assad will not fundamentally change anything. This is just an excuse for another campaign against Arab regimes unfriendly to France.”

In other words, as Mendkovich emphasized, France is trying to indicate its symbolic presence in the region, because there is simply no strength and opportunity for a real one.
How familiar.
The expert said that it is unlikely that France will be able to take active actions in the Middle East or Africa in the near future.

“After the inglorious flight from Niger, France will most likely take a very long time to regroup and look for ways to resume the struggle for influence in the world,” he said.

However, he believes that anti-Syrian forces will try to use this document to disrupt international visits and contacts of the official Syrian leadership.

“However, after Syria returns to the Arab League, I think these attempts will be like grain to an elephant. This arrest warrant means that France has no other means left to influence the politics of the region,” concluded Mendkovich.

In turn, orientalist Mikhail Balbus noted that such actions by the French authorities would make sense during the hot phase of the civil war in Syria, when provocations with the use of chemical weapons occurred.

“The timing is extremely unfortunate,” Balbus said. “ There will be no practical consequences [for Assad and Damascus] due to Syria’s recent return to the Arab League.”

Earlier , Regnum reported that, according to available data, France had issued four warrants: also against the brother of the Syrian leader, the commander of the Syrian Republican Guard, Maher Assad , and two generals. All defendants are charged with crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes.

The gas attack occurred in August 2013 in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. US intelligence stated that government forces were allegedly behind the attack; Damascus categorically rejected the accusations. In September 2023, American journalist Seymour Hersh published a Pentagon intelligence document stating that in 2013, not only the Assad government had access to sarin in Syria, but also the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra (banned in the Russian Federation).

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Four killed in Israeli strikes near Damascus, Israel warns Syria over Iran weapons transfers
2022-10-28
More on this story from yesterday.
[An Nahar] Four pro-Iranian fighters were killed early Thursday during Israeli strikes on several positions near Damascus, a war monitor said, in the third such attack in less than a week.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory since civil war broke out there in 2011, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters.

Explosions were heard in the Syrian capital in the night of Wednesday to Thursday, an AFP correspondent reported.

"At around 00:30 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Paleostinian territories targeting several positions in the vicinity of Damascus," the Syrian defense ministry had said in a statement.

Syria's air defense intercepted several missiles, the ministry added.

It did not provide any details on the targets and said that the strikes caused material damage.

The Israeli strikes targeted "weapons and ammunition depots and bases housing Iranian-backed groups a few kilometres from Damascus International Airport," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

The UK-based war monitor, which relies on a wide network of sources in Syria, later said that four pro-Iran
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...
fighters, including one Syrian, were killed during the strikes.

Report: Israel warns Syria it will ramp up strikes over Iran weapons transfers

[IsraelTimes] Al-Arabiya says Jerusalem sent message to Damascus after three strikes in recent days blamed on Israel; it also reports Iran
...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence...
is sending arms in shipments disguised as aid

Israel has threatened Syria it will ramp up Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s in the country over its cooperation with Iran in smuggling arms to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, according to a Thursday report, which came following three attacks in Syria attributed to Israel within days.

The Saudi-funded al-Arabiya, citing unidentified sources, said Iran has been sending weapons disguised as aid for Syria and Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...The land area formerly occupied by the state of Lebanon, before that Phoenicia...
 by air, land and sea.

The network said a rare daytime airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday targeted military sites belonging to the elite Fourth Armoured Division, which is commanded by Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
’s brother, Maher.

The report said Maher Assad’s unit "supports Iran in the transfer of strategic weapons and dangerous materials" for Syria and Lebanon.

Additionally, the strikes targeted the headquarters of the "Lebanese legion" of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, involved in transferring arms to Lebanon.

The report did not say how or when the Israeli message had been delivered.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Skirting The Ground: How The West Will Attack Syria
2013-08-27
More speculation on possibilities. Enjoy!
[Ynet] US, British top brass prepare for possible attack in Syria, British Daily Mail outs target bank, including Assad's air force, key regime facilities

The British Daily Mail newspaper revealed on Monday the American-British target list in Syria and the forces likely to participate in a military operation -- be it a short or a long one -- in the torn Arab country.

The favored option among top brass is for limited Western action using 'stand-off' weapons from long distance to disrupt Assad's ability to carry out chemical attacks and damage his military machine, the Daily Mail said.

Intelligence on targets would come from drones patrolling the skies above Syria and special forces on the ground.

According to the Daily Mail, military analysts believe an attack could last between 24 and 48 hours and would target key regime installations.

These would include Syria's integrated air defense system, command and control bunkers, communications hubs, government buildings, missile sites and Assad's air force.

The dictator's use of air power has been a huge advantage for the regime, and eliminating or weakening it would tilt the odds toward the rebels, said the report.

Other military options are Arclight airstrikes on Syrian units believed to be responsible for chemical attacks. Reports last week claimed the chemical weapons were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armoured Division of the Syrian Army.

This division, which has a military base in a mountain range west of Damascus is under the command of the president's brother, Maher Assad.

Forces at the ready
US-led strikes would be launched from warships or submarines patrolling in the eastern Mediterranean or Persian Gulf, or from combat aircraft that can fire missiles from hundreds of miles away.

A US Navy battle group including four destroyers is already in the eastern Mediterranean and has moved closer to Syria in preparation for action.

They are armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of hitting a target from up to 1,200 miles away. Around 124 of the 18ft-long, $468,000 warheads were fired by US and British forces against Colonel Qadaffy's forces during the Libyan war.

The US Air Force could also send B-2 stealth bombers to pound Assad's military installations. Based in Missouri, they can cover the entire world with just one refueling.

The most expensive aircraft ever -- at a cost of $935 million each -- they are almost invisible to radar and can carry 40,000lb of bombs.

According to the Daily Mail, as well as having F-16 fighter jets and refueling aircraft based at airfields in the Middle East, the US also has defensive Patriot missile batteries positioned in Jordan, which neighbors Syria.

British firepower
Despite multi-billion-dollar cuts to the defense budge that have seen top brass axe fast jets, warships, spy planes and 30,000 troops, the British armed forces can still contribute to an assault on Syria.

The Royal Navy could fire Tomahawk missiles from its nuclear-powered Trafalgar-class submarines -- one of which is constantly on patrol in the Middle East.

The subs carry a giant payload of the super-accurate missiles.

Heavily-armed RAF Tornados could, in theory, fly from RAF Marham in the UK to attack targets in Syria -- a 4,200 mile round trip -- or be deployed to Cyprus to launch bombing raids from there.

Carrying precision-guided Storm Shadow missiles, the air crews could devastate enemy defenses including radar stations, anti-aircraft batteries and supply lines.

The Storm Shadows have a range of more than 150 miles, allowing the aircraft to attack targets deep inside enemy territory without getting too close to anti-air defenses.

The 1,300kg missile, which technicians program with the target details before the mission, then uses high-tech GPS systems and terrain-following equipment to fly low under radar to its detonation point.

Despite being fired from 150 miles away, the Storm Shadow is accurate to up to 6ft, reducing collateral damage.

Meanwhile in Syria, snipers opened fire Monday at a UN convoy carrying a team investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons outside of Damascus, a UN front man said. The Syrian government accused rebel forces of firing at the team, while the opposition said a pro-government militia was behind the attack.

Activists said the inspectors eventually arrived in Moadamiyeh, a western suburb of the capital and one of the areas where last week's attack allegedly occurred. They said the team members spent three hours at a makeshift hospital, meeting with doctors and taking samples from victims before they headed back to Damascus.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Secret prison likely site of torture, killings
2013-04-15
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Somewhere, underground, in the center of Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
 lies one of the most notorious and mysterious prison complexes in the Syria, holding what activists say are hundreds if not thousands of political prisoners.

The Human Rights Violations Documentation Center, a human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
 activist group documenting the locked away
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
 and killed in the Syrian conflict, released a new report Sunday detailing what is known about military branches of the army's 4th Division, the elite and most ruthless of the Syrian military divisions, headed by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
's brother, Maher Assad.

The VDC compiled the report based on testimony from former detainees, but admits little is known about the institutions and those being held there.

The VDC says a number of military institutions have been converted to informal prisons, as prison space ran out over the course of a massive government arrest campaign after the outbreak of the uprising against Assad in March 2011.

"Often detainees are directly held in the 4th Division premises after arrest, or they are transferred there later from air force intelligence branches," the report says.

Among the most used, the VDC says, is the Paratrooper's Regiment 555 complex near the Soumariah bus interchange in Damascus.

The exact location, the VDC says, is unknown, due to the fact that all those taken to this location have been blindfolded while transported to and from the facility.

"None of the detainees who have been held in this center has a clear description on the place's geography, since everyone who was taken there has been blindfolded," said front man Bassam al-Ahmad, who was himself held captive on political activism charges in the building for some 30 days before fleeing the country.

"From what we have been able to see from under the cloth and from the testimonies of others detained, we know it lies about 10-15 minutes from the Mezzah military intelligence division and about 1 km behind the Soumariah bus station," he told the Daily Star.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Pencilneck's brother now answers to 'Stumpy'
2012-08-17
BEIRUT: President Pencilneck Bashar Assad's feared brother Stumpy Maher lost a leg in a bomb attack on the Syrian leader's security cabinet a month ago, sources said on Thursday, in a severe blow to one of the main military commanders fighting an 17-month-old insurgency.

The attack on a meeting of Assad's security chiefs in Damascus on July 18 killed four members of the president's inner circle, including his brother-in-law, and emboldened the rebels to take their fight to the capital for the first time.

Maher has not been seen in public since the bombing, while Assad himself has restricted appearances to recorded clips broadcast on television, leading to speculation about the effectiveness of the leadership as the rebellion grows.
Doesn't exactly give the hard boyz confidence when Glorious Maximum Leader is cowering in the palace screaming "Kill themmmmmm! Kill them allllll!"
Maher, a close associate of the president,
He is a brother after all...
has acquired a fearsome reputation as the commander of the Syrian army's Republican Guard and 4th Division, elite formations largely composed of troops from the Assads' minority Alawite sect, whose loyalty can be relied on in the fight against the rebels.

"We heard that he (Maher Assad) lost one of his legs during the explosion, but don't know any more," a Western diplomat told Reuters.

A Gulf source confirmed the report: "He lost one of his legs. The news is true."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Speculation over 'Killing' of Assad Brother-in-Law Shawkat
2012-05-24
[An Nahar] Speculation was rife on Wednesday among Syrian anti-regime activists over the alleged "killing" of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's
Despoiler of Deraa...
 brother-in-law who is also Syria's deputy defense minister.

Assef Shawkat, former head of military intelligence, was poisoned, according to anti-regime activists. The authorities in Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
 could not be reached for comment and have not responded publicly to the claim.

According to anti-regime activists, Shawkat was being buried on Wednesday in his hometown, which they identified as Madhale, near the Mediterranean coastal city of Tartous.

Several activists quoted by Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television said black flags were flying in Madhale in mourning.

On their Syrian Revolution Facebook page, online anti-regime activists wrote that: "Assef Shawkat is being buried right now in his home town Madhale ... God curse him. He was poisoned."

They said Shawkat's body was transported to a hospital near his hometown that was emptied of patients on Tuesday evening.

Speculation over Shawkat's fate first emerged on May 20 when Al-Jazeera
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
 and Al-Arabiya television broadcast an amateur video showing a man claiming responsibility on behalf of a rebel group for killing six regime stalwarts.

They included Shawkat, Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar, Defense Minister Daoud Rajha, national security chief Hisham Bakhtiar and Hassan Turkmeni, assistant to the vice president.

Turkmeni appeared on state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
this week to dismiss the reports, while Shaar denied them in a telephone interview, accusing Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of "lies and slander."

But Shawkat has not made any public appearance or personally denied the reports, though he rarely makes public statements.

According to Peter Harling, an expert on Syria with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the reports are "essentially unconfirmed for now.

"What is interesting is this story's success, regardless of its factual grounding," Harling told Agence La Belle France Presse. "A month ago, Syrians would not have believed, conveyed, invested in such news and it would not have spread.

"The regime then appeared particularly strong. Now there is a sense that the armed opposition is on the offensive."

A member of the inner circle of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, Shawkat rose quickly through the ranks of power after he married the late leader's only daughter, Bushra, in the 1990s.

But Shawkat's relations with the Assad clan were not always smooth. Bashar's powerful brother Maher Assad allegedly shot him in the stomach in 1999.

The two men were named in leaked version of a preliminary U.N. report as possible suspects in the 2005 liquidation of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Hariri.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria: Assad's brother 'missing'
2011-12-30
Damascus official says Maher Assad 'has absconded' Syria and his whereabouts are unknown

Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
's brother Maher Assad may be missing, several Arab media outlets reported on Thursday that the younger Assad has not been seen in quite some time.
 
Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
 MP Khaled Daher was quoted as saying that Maher Assad had "absconded Syria."

"Whether he is injured and is being treated away from the limelight, or Bashir al-Assad is keeping him away from the military operations -- we don't know," he told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa.
 
Lieutenant Colonel Maher Assad heads the Syrian Army's Fourth Division, which oversees security for Damascus and includes the elite Republican Guard.
 
He is considered to be a ruthless military commander and one of the most feared people in the Syrian government.
 
Maher Assad's division is leading the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters across Syria. The United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
 believed over 5,000 people have been killed by the Damascus regime since mid-March.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrians Launch Civil Disobedience Campaign
2011-12-09
[An Nahar] Syrian activists on Thursday launched a campaign of civil disobedience to pile pressure on Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
, after he drew a stinging rebuke from the U.S. for denying he ordered a deadly crackdown.

Local human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
 groups said more than 100 people have been killed in Syria since the weekend, and the U.N. estimates at least 4,000 have died since March when anti-regime protests erupted.

But in a rare interview with Western media, President Assad questioned the U.N. toll and denied ordering the killing of protesters, saying only a "crazy person" would do so.

Washington said Assad's remarks showed he was disconnected from reality or himself "crazy," as he comes under mounting global pressure, with Arab nations and Turkey joining the West in pursuing sanctions against his regime.

Despite the rhetoric, the Local Coordination Committees activist network reported on Thursday that Assad's forces used bombs and "heavy and indiscriminate gunfire" in Damascus
...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
 and northwestern Idlib province.

The LCC, which organizes anti-regime protests on the ground in Syria, appealed for citizens to mobilize for a "dignity strike ... which will lead to the sudden death of this tyrant regime."

The campaign would "snowball... and grow each day of the revolution to reach every home and anyone who wants to live delighted and dignified in his/her country," said an LCC statement received in Nicosia.

It urged citizens to begin the action on Sunday -- the first day of the working week in Syria -- starting with sit-ins at work, and the closure of shops and universities, before the shutdown of transportation networks and a general public sector strike.

"The Syrian revolution is... a renaissance against slavery; a scream at the face of humiliation started from the first day as demonstrators cried 'Syrians are not to be humiliated.'

"The echo of this scream will not vanish till it reaches all ears," said the English-language statement, adding the strike was "the first step in an overall civil disobedience" campaign which will overthrow the regime.

Reports that there was no let-up in the crackdown also came from another activist group, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said that festivities between Syria's regular army and mutinous soldiers shook the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province, near the border with Turkey, on Wednesday.

Also in Idlib, "military forces raided houses and tossed in the slammer three Death Eaters," in the vicinity of Saraqeb, while "some 50 armored vehicles, including tanks and troop carriers, came under attack in the village of al-Rami," it added.

The Observatory also said a 16-year-old girl was rubbed out and 20 people were maimed near Saraqeb, and that two women died for lack of medication in the al-Houla region of central Homs province.

In his interview, Assad denied he ordered the killing of thousands of protesters and brushed aside charges that Syrian forces tortured to death a 13-year-old boy, whom rights groups say was shot, burned and castrated in April.

"Every 'brute reaction' was by an individual, not by an institution, that's what you have to know," Assad told U.S. television network ABC News.

"There is a difference between having a policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials. There is a big difference."

Assad said he was not responsible for the nine months of bloodshed, declaring: "No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person."

"There was no command to kill or be brutal," Assad told ABC.

Assad said security forces belonged to "the government" and not him personally.

"I don't own them. I'm president. I don't own the country. So they are not my forces," he said.

Assad's family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for four decades. Assad's brother, Lieutenant Colonel Maher Assad, heads the army's Fourth Division, which oversees the capital as well as the elite Republican Guard.

U.S. State Department front man Mark Toner dared Assad to back up his assertions by letting in international observers and media, saying there was a "clear campaign against peaceful protesters."

"It either says that he's completely lost any power that he had within Syria, that he's simply a tool or that he's completely disconnected with reality," Toner told news hounds Wednesday.

"It's either disconnection, disregard or, as he said, crazy. I don't know," Toner said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Sanctions Target Assad Brother, 16 Other Senior Figures
2011-12-02
[An Nahar] The brother of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
, several ministers and telecom magnate Rami Makhlouf are on a list of 17 senior figures to be targeted by Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
 sanctions, officials said Thursday.

Under the economic measures agreed this week by the 22-member organization, they would be banned from travelling in the region and have any assets in Arab countries frozen, if the list is confirmed at a meeting on Saturday.

Ministers from Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, Oman and Sudan are to meet in Doha on Saturday. Other countries have been invited, but Iraq has already said it will boycott the vaporous Arab League measures.

The list comprises Maher Assad, the brother of the president, his cousin Makhlouf, as well as Defense Minister General Daood Rajha, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar and other military and intelligence figures.

In an unprecedented move, the pan-Arab bloc on Sunday approved a raft of sanctions against Syria to pressure Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
 to end its deadly crackdown against an uprising.

The sanctions also include freezing government assets, suspending cooperation with Syria's central bank and halting funding for projects in the country.

In its most recent toll issued early in November, the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
 estimated that more than 3,500 people have been killed in the violence that has shaken Syria since mid-March.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israeli Reports: Maher Assad, Assef Shawkat Suspects in Hariri Assassination
2011-07-03
[An Nahar] Yediot Ahronot Israeli newspaper reported on Saturday that the international investigation committee in the 2005 liquidation of ex-Premiere Rafik Hariri will "introduce a new list of accusations against Syrian security officials."

The reports said that handing the names of the accused to Damascus
...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
 has been "postponed due to the Syrian unrest."

"According to estimations, two members from President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
's family will be on the list, his brother Maher Assad and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat," they said.

The newspaper added that the "Lebanese suspects, Mustafa Badreddine and Salim Ayyash, left Leb and are currently hiding in Iran."

Arrest warrants against four Lebanese suspects accompanied the release of the in the Special Tribunal for Leb, which was released on Thursday.

The four individuals are likely Hizbullah members.

Meanwhile,
...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline was experimenting with ingredients...
 Der Spiegel German magazine leaked that "new indictments in the STL will include Lebanese, Syrian, and Paleostinian suspects."

On a related note, security sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the Israeli army ruled out any military escalation along the Lebanese border after the release of the indictment.

"The military is monitoring the situation in Leb and it is on full alert, but it doesn't expect that it (the indictment) would have a direct affect on the situation along the border," the sources said.

Yediot Ahronot noted that "Hizbullah has no interest in heating up the situation in Leb or at the border with Israel. It is currently worried about the situation in Syria and the president (Assad) who is becoming weaker."

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The Grand Turk
Erdogan: Syrian troops barbaric
2011-06-10
In an escalation of rhetoric towards Syrian President Bashar Assad yet unseen from Ankara, Turkish Prime Minsiter Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the Syrian crackdown on protesters "inhumane," and described it as barbaric, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported on Friday.

As some 2,500 refugees have fled to Turkey in recent days from Syria's northern region where troops and tanks are amassing ahead of an expected offensive, blasted the tactics employed by Syria's elite army units, led by President Assad's brother, Maher.

"Sadly, they don't behave like humans," Erdogan said of the Syrian army's 4th Division, commanded by Maher Assad
Erdogan would know: he's been studying humans---from the outside, all his life.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria's Nukes
2007-01-02
By Olivier Guitta

The Iraq Survey Group is calling for open negotiations with Syria, but new reports show that Damascus is up to no good. Indeed, while world attention is rightly focused on the nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea, Syria has been quietly — but quickly — advancing its own secret nuclear program.

The first signs appeared in 2003 when the Russian Foreign Ministry inadvertently revealed that a Russian-Syrian agreement for the delivery of a nuclear power plant in an undisclosed Syrian location had been signed.

In 2004, Syrian President Bashar Assad made a point to say that Syria would not dispose of its WMD program until Israel did the same. “Since some of my country is occupied,” Assad added, “Syria can legitimately use all the necessary means to liberate its territories.”

German magazine Der Spiegel revealed in March 2004 that Swedish authorities and the CIA were investigating a very likely Syrian nuclear program secretly developed in Homs in the northern part of the country. That July, investigators looking into the Pakistani nuclear network of A.Q. Khan pointed out that Syria may have procured centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to produce a bomb.

This fact was confirmed in May 2006 in a declassified report to the U.S. Congress on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Syria also got help from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Keep in mind that Syria’s economy was very dependent on Iraq’s trade, especially oil-smuggling revenues. Sunday Telegraph journalist Con Coughlin affirmed in a September 2004 article that 12 Iraqi nuclear scientists — who were transferred to Syria and given new identities before the war — were on their way to Iran to assist their counterparts there in building a nuclear weapon. “The results of the research would then be shared with Syria,” Coughlin added.

But what really broke the camel’s back was a recent report from the well-informed Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Seyassah. It quoted European intelligence sources as saying that “Syria has an advanced nuclear program” in a secret site located in the province of Al Hassaka, close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. British sources quoted by the paper believe that “it is President Assad’s brother, Colonel Maher Assad and his cousin Rami Makhlouf, who supervise the program.”

This nuclear weapons program is based on material that Saddam Hussein’s two sons shipped to Syria before — and during — the U.S. war against Iraq. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper, this explains why international investigative teams found no proof of Hussein’s nuclear program.

Furthermore, British sources in Brussels affirm that “Iranian nuclear experts contribute to the Syrian program along with 60 Iraqi experts who had taken refuge in Syria since 2003 and experts from the ex-Soviet republics.” British intelligence says this information is validated by their German counterparts, who were well established in the countries close to the ex- Communist block, including Syria.

Europeans fear that a focus solely on the Iranian nuclear program might facilitate a much quieter joint Iranian-Syrian program of uranium enrichment in Hassaka. The geographical choice for the Syrian nuclear site is very meaningful. Because it is located in an area with a Kurdish majority, the program evades Western suspicions. And striking against these installations would initially hurt the Kurds — who historically have sided with the West against the Baathist regimes in both Baghdad and Damascus.

In light of all these facts, it is not surprising that Syria might actually turn out to be “Plan B” for the mullahs’ regime in Tehran. This is, in fact, quite a smart strategy: While the world community focuses on Iran, Syria can continue its own nuclear program without unwelcome attention.

But because of the close links between Tehran and Damascus, sealed by an important defense agreement signed over the summer and the fact that Syria would do anything to please its benefactor, Syria getting the bomb would be exactly like Iran getting it. For proof, Al Seyassah reported on Dec. 13 that top Syrian leaders had transferred $3 billion to the Iranian central bank.

Need we say more?
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