dagblog - Comments for "Syria Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs"

It's complicated: The Case of

artappraiser — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:21:17 +0000

It's complicated:

The Case of Agent 15: Did Syria Use a Nerve Agent?
Posted by Raffi Khatchadourian, News Desk @ newyorker.com, Jan. 16, 2012

Fierce fighting rages across

artappraiser — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:09:51 +0000

In reply to Syria Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs

Fierce fighting rages across Syria
Battles follow a massacre in Homs and an attack on a university in Aleppo, which together left 200 dead.
Al Jazeera, 17 Jan 2013 16:53

Syrian warplanes and troops pursued a countrywide offensive, activists and state media have said, bombing rebel-held areas and clashing with armed gfroups who have pushed into cities.

Government forces clashed on Thursday with rebels in the cities of Deraa, Hama, Homs, Aleppo, Damascus and east of Deir al-Zor, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Only the coastal government strongholds of Latakia and Tartous were spared violence [....]

Exclusive: Secret State

artappraiser — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 06:49:36 +0000

In reply to Syria Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs

Exclusive: Secret State Department cable: Chemical weapons used in Syria
By Josh Rogin, The Cable @ ForeignPolicy.com, Jan. 15, 2013 - 5:45 PM

A secret State Department cable has concluded that the Syrian military likely used chemical weapons against its own people in a deadly attack last month, The Cable has learned

United States diplomats in Turkey conducted a previously undisclosed, intensive investigation into claims that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, and made what an Obama administration official who reviewed the cable called a "compelling case" that Assad's military forces had used a deadly form of poison gas.

The cable, signed by the U.S. consul general in Istanbul, Scott Frederic Kilner, and sent to State Department headquarters in Washington last week, outlined the results of the consulate's investigation into reports from inside Syria that chemical weapons had been used in the city of Homs on Dec. 23 [....]

Top U.S. General Says

artappraiser — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:43:00 +0000

In reply to Syria Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs

Top U.S. General Says Stopping a Syrian Chemical Attack Is ‘Almost Unachievable’
By Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman, Danger Room @ wired.com, Jan. 10, 2013

If Syrian dictator Bashar Assad decides to use his chemical weapons, there won’t be a thing the U.S. military can do to stop him, America’s top military officer conceded on Thursday. Nor will the U.S. step into a “hostile” atmosphere, with or without Assad, to keep those chemicals under control.

It’s been a month since U.S. intelligence learned that Assad’s forces were mixing some of their precursor chemicals for sarin gas, as Danger Room first reported. The Syrian military even loaded aerial bombs with the deadly agent. Assad hasn’t used the weapons — yet. Should he change his mind, there’s little chance the U.S. would know it before it’s too late to stop the first chemical attack in the Mideast in over 20 years.

“The act of preventing the use of chemical weapons would be almost unachievable,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon. “You would have to have such clarity of intelligence, persistent surveillance, you’d have to actually see it before it happened. And that’s unlikely, to be sure.”

That explains the emphasis the Obama administration has given, from President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on down, to publicly warning Assad that using his chemical weapons would cross a “red line.[....]

Pilgrim's tale: identity of

artappraiser — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:32:08 +0000

In reply to Syria Launches Deadly Airstrikes in Damascus Suburbs

Pilgrim's tale: identity of Iranians kidnapped in Syria begins to emerge
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Iran Blog @ guardian.co.uk , 14 Jan 2013

Revolutionary Guards likely to be among the 48 Iranians released by rebels, though Tehran says otherwise

So, who were they at last? Pilgrims or members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards? The identities of 48 Iranian nationals who were released from Syria after a prisoner swap, brokered by Turkish aid workers and Qatar, are gradually emerging.

Syrian rebels behind the kidnapping of the Iranians from a bus in the suburbs of Damascus alleged that their captives were sent to help the Assad regime crush its opponents. Iran denied this but said some were retired Revolutionary Guards. According to Tehran, the Iranian nationals were pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Hazrat Zainab, a popular destination in Syria for devout Shia Iranians.

Last week, more than 2,100 opposition prisoners, including Turkish nationals, were exchanged for the 48 Iranians who were held captive for five months [....]