Trump threatens Assad, calls out Putin and slams Obama

UN Security Council reaches 'milestone' Syria agreement

BY FRANKLIN SIMMONS

IN RESEARCH

— DEC 27, 2015




Foreign ministers from 17 countries, gathering in NY on Friday before the council's session, also failed to bridge differences including which opposition factions should be branded "terrorists".

The Security Council met Friday after the latest round of talks by the International Syria Support Group, which gathered in NY to renew its push for peace.

The resolution calls the transition Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, stressing that the "Syrian people will decide the future of Syria".

The idea is that Mr Assad's regime will open talks with rebel groups next month with the aim of forming a "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian" government within six months.

UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution on Syria at a meeting held at the level of foreign ministers attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura.

The deputy minister gave warning there were "severe differences over a list of terrorist groups". "Now I think that there will be follow-up meetings", said Nasser Judeh, adding that countries had submitted between 10 and 20 names each.

US President Barack Obama stressed on supporting the allies in the region and stopping the spread of terrorism, which can not happen without political process in Syria, Kerry said.

Even as the UN Security Council was voting on a resolution touted as a road to peace in Syria, developments on the Syrian-Turkish border, long the conduit for ISIS and other Islamist militias as well as for arms and recruits, threatened to turn the conflict into the flashpoint for a global conflagration.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two most important issues are launching political negotiations among Syrian parties and implementing a U.N.-monitored cease-fire. "Without peace talks, the cease-fire can not be sustained".

He said that IS is on the run, but will continue to be unsafe for some time.




It also backed a timeline previously agreed in Vienna for talks between the government on a unity government and opposition, and eventual elections.

A group of countries will join Jordan in developing that list, Kerry told reporters. Najib Ghadbian estimated that a month of preparation is needed. "We see how efficiently our pilots and intelligence agents coordinate their efforts with various kinds of forces - the army, navy and aviation, how they use the most modern weapons", Putin was quoted saying by Russian news agencies, according to Reuters UK.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has made a rare public appearance with a pre-Christmas visit to a church in an eastern suburb ofDamascus often targeted by rebel artillery.

Russian Federation has been conducting airstrikes in Syria since September 30. All of it within 18 months.

That designation would exclude a group from the political process while implicitly endorsing it as a target for the separate campaigns of airstrikes by Russian Federation and a US-led coalition. One of the killed women was pregnant, the observatory said.


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U.S. puts jets in Jordan, fuels Russian fear of Syria no-fly zone

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Rebels, government forces battle for Aleppo
8:33pm EDT









By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT | Sat Jun 15, 2013 9:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - The United States said on Saturday it would keep F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles in Jordan at Amman's request, and Russia bristled at the possibility they could be used to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria.

Washington, which has long called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, pledged military support to Syrian rebels this week, citing what it said was the Syrian military's use of chemical weapons - an allegation Damascus has denied.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved a Jordanian request for American F-16s and Patriot missiles to remain in the Western-backed kingdom after a joint military exercise there next week, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Western diplomats said on Friday Washington was considering a limited no-fly zone over parts of Syria, but the White House noted later that it would be far harder and costlier to set one up there than it was in Libya, saying the United States had no national interest in pursuing that option.

Russia, an ally of Damascus and fierce opponent of outside military intervention in Syria, said any attempt to impose a no-fly zone using F-16s and Patriots from Jordan would be illegal.

"You don't have to be a great expert to understand that this will violate international law," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The idea of a no-fly zone was endorsed by Egypt, the biggest Arab nation. President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist more distant from Washington than his deposed military predecessor, made a keynote speech in Cairo throwing Egypt's substantial weight more firmly than before against President Bashar al-Assad.

Despite their differences, the United States and Russia announced in May they would try to convene peace talks involving the Syrian government and its opponents, but have set no date.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said chemical attacks by Syrian forces and Hezbollah's involvement on Assad's side showed a lack of commitment to negotiations and threatened to "put a political settlement out of reach".

Kerry had not previously expressed such pessimism about prospects for the conference, which has run into many obstacles.

These include disarray in the Syrian opposition and military gains by the Syrian army and its Lebanese Hezbollah allies against rebels who have few ways to counter Assad's air power.

The involvement of Hezbollah fighters on the side of Assad, a fellow ally of the main Shi'ite power Iran, has galvanized Arab governments, including Egypt, behind the rebels, who mostly follow the Sunni version of Islam that dominates the Arab world.

That has hardened sectarian confrontation across the region, which some Arabs hope might be softened by the election of the moderate Hassan Rohani as Iran's president - though few believe he can truly influence Tehran's supreme leader.

Mursi, addressing thousands of cheering supporters at a stadium gathering organized by Egyptian Sunni clerics, demanded Hezbollah pull out of Syria and, after his Muslim Brotherhood joined calls for jihad against Assad and his Shi'ite allies, the president said Cairo had now cut diplomatic ties with Damascus.

Egypt's powerful, U.S.-backed army seems unlikely to involve itself in Syria, but religious passions are running high and more Egyptian volunteers could travel to join the rebels.

AIR STRIKES

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian jets and artillery had again attacked Jobar, a battered district where rebels operate on the edge of central Damascus.

It said heavy artillery was also shelling opposition fighters in the provinces of Homs, Aleppo and Deir al-Zor.

Western powers have been reluctant in the past to arm Syrian insurgents, let alone give them sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that might fall into the hands of Sunni Islamist insurgents in rebel ranks who have pledged loyalty to al Qaeda.

Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander Salim Idriss told Reuters late on Friday that rebels urgently needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, as well as a protective no-fly zone.

"But our friends in the United States haven't told us yet that they are going to support us with weapons and ammunition," he said after meeting U.S. and European officials in Turkey.

A source in the Middle East familiar with U.S. dealings with the rebels has said planned arms supplies would include automatic weapons, light mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

The United Nations says at least 93,000 people, including civilians and combatants, have died in the Syrian civil war, with the monthly death toll averaging 5,000 in the past year.

Abu Nidal, from the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, said U.S. help was welcome, but questioned how effective it would be.

"I doubt the influx of weapons will significantly tip the balance into our favor," he said via Skype. "They might help push back regime offensives of the last few days."

SYRIAN OFFICERS DEFECT

Abu Nidal's faction is not part of the more moderate FSA, Washington's chosen channel for military aid, but he said the two groups fight alongside each other on the battlefield.

The FSA was set up by defectors from the Syrian military in August 2011, but many rebel factions operate independently.

Assad's armed forces have remained relatively cohesive, although a Turkish official said 71 Syrian army officers, including six generals, had just defected to Turkey, in the biggest such mass desertion in months.

Western nations have stopped short of arming Syrian rebels or mounting an air campaign as they did, with U.N. approval, to help Libyan insurgents topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Intervening against Assad is considered riskier because Syria has a stronger military, sits on the sectarian faultlines of the Middle East, and is supported by Iran and Russia, which has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions on Syria.

Yet an apparent shift in the military balance in Assad's favor, especially with the arrival of thousands of Shi'ite fighters from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, has made his swift removal look unlikely without outside intervention.

However, Israel's defense minister suggested the pendulum could still swing the other way, despite the capture this month of Qusair, a former rebel stronghold near the Lebanese border.

"Bashar al-Assad's victory in Qusair was not a turning point in the Syrian civil war, and I do not believe that he has the momentum to win," said Moshe Yaalon, who is visiting Washington.

"He controls just 40 percent of the territory in Syria. Hezbollah is involved in the fighting in Syria and has suffered many casualties in the battles, and as far as we know, it is more than 1,000 casualties," Yaalon said in a statement.

"We should be prepared for a long civil war with ups and downs."

Israel has not taken sides in Syria, but does not want to see any Western anti-aircraft missiles or other advanced arms reach Islamist militants hostile to the Jewish state.



(Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch in Ankara, Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Mark Hosenball in Washington, Thomas Grove in Moscow and Tom Perry and Alastair Macdonald in Cairo; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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Lavrov and Rodham-Clinton in the recent 'good olde days'. 

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CIA will lead US effort to arm, train Syrian rebel forces, Fox confirms

Published June 15, 2013

FoxNews.com

The United States will supply Syrian rebels with weapons through a CIA-run program, FoxNews confirmed Saturday.

President Obama decided Thursday to supply rebel forces with small arms and ammunition, following confirmation that the regime of Syria President Bashar al-Assad's has been using chemical weapons in the 2-year-long civil war in which at least 90,000 people have been killed.

In addition to supplying the weapons, the CIA will train rebel forces, Fox News also confirmed.

Obama vowed last summer to take action should the Assad cross a “red line” by using chemical weapons but has been challenged in verifying whether his forces used chemical weapons and in determining which rebel forces can be trusted.

However, the rebels being supplied with only small arms has disappointed some Capitol Hill lawmakers and other Americas who want a more robust response and who say the administration’s actions might be too little, too late as Assad forces appear to be taking control of the war.

The White House has still not decided whether to send anti-tank weapons.

Arizona Republican John McCain, a military hawk, wants much heavier arms, including anti-aircraft missiles to go after Assad's air power.

Russia, for its part, question the evidence presented by the U.S. and says it does not meet stringent criteria for reliability.

Syria's state news agency is reporting that government forces have captured a suburb of Damascus near the capital's international airport.

SANA says troops killed several rebels and destroyed their hideouts in the Ahmadiyeh area on Saturday, two days after a mortar round landed near the airport's runway and briefly disrupted flights.

A local rebel commander who identified himself by his nickname, Abu Hareth, for fear of government reprisals, said soldiers and rebels have been fighting sporadically in the area since late Friday. He said two rebel fighters have been killed there since.

Ahmadiyeh is part of a region known as Eastern Ghouta, where government forces have been on the offensive for weeks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report



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'They'd rather sell arms than stand with the Syrian people': U.S. envoy storms out after Russia and China veto U.N resolution | Mail Online

'They'd rather sell arms than stand with the Syrian people': U.S. envoy storms out after Russia and China veto U.N resolution | Mail Online:

'via Blog this'

Obama accuses Assad of "slaughtering" Syrian people

Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:01am GMT

A demonstrator waves a Syrian flag during a protest against Syria"s President Bashar al-Assad at the courtyard of Fatih mosque in Istanbul June 24, 2011.

REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Khaled Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - The United States and European Union called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down on Thursday and President Barack Obama accused him of "torturing and slaughtering" his own people in what U.N. officials said could be crimes against humanity.

It was a dramatic sharpening of international rhetoric -- major states had urged Assad to reform rather than resign.

But with no threat of Western military action like that against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, the five-month-old conflict between Assad and his opponents seems likely to grind on in the streets.

Putting faith in sanctions rather than force, Obama ordered Syrian government assets in the United States frozen, banned U.S. citizens from operating in or investing in Syria and prohibited U.S. imports of Syrian oil products.

Though U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Assad had assured him on Wednesday that military operations were over, activists said Syrian forces carried out further raids in Deir al-Zor and surrounded a mosque in Latakia on Thursday.

"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way," Obama said. "His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people."

In a coordinated move, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Assad to step aside and said the EU was preparing to broaden sanctions against Syria.

At the United Nations, Britain, France, Portugal, Germany and the United States said they would begin drafting a Security Council sanctions resolution on Syria. "We believe that the time has come for the council to take further action," Britain's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Philip Parham told reporters. Continued...

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