Target Syria NWO's next acquisition The Middle East- WW III - Muslim Civil War

[Kilika]

“If Assad goes today, a political vacuum emerges – who will fill it?

Ask the CIA! 

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-subs-military-civilians-syrian-132619198.html
6/27/13
Russia subs military with civilians at Syrian base

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has withdrawn all military personnel from its naval base in Syria and replaced them with civilian workers, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry did not say when the switch at the base at Tartus took place or how many personnel were deployed there. The minor facility is Russia's only naval outpost outside the former Soviet Union. It consists of several barracks and depots used to service Russian navy ships in the Mediterranean.

The ministry statement said that Tartus has continued to service the Russian navy ships.

"They are continuing to work in a regular mode, and there is no talk about their evacuation from Tartus," the statement said. "Tartus remains the official base and repair facility for the Russian ships in the Mediterranean and is continuing to fulfill its mission."

The ministry didn't explain why it was replacing military personnel with civilians, but the move could be part of efforts by Moscow to pose as an objective mediator trying to broker Syria peace talks.

Moscow, however, also has an unknown number of military advisers in Syria who help its military operate and maintain Soviet- and Russian-built weapons that make up the core of its arsenals.

Russia has been the main ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, shielding his regime from the U.N. Security Council's sanctions and continuing to provide it with weapons despite the two-year civil war that has killed more than 93,000 Syrians, according to the U.N. estimates.

The ministry's statement followed Wednesday's reports on the pullout in the Al Hayat newspaper and Russia's business daily Vedomosti, which claimed that Moscow had withdrawn all of its military and civilian personnel from Tartus along with all military advisers.

Vedomosti quoted an unidentified Russian Defense Ministry source as saying that the decision to evacuate the military from Tartus was made to avoid negative publicity in case of any incident involving the Russian military there.

Russia announced earlier this month that it will keep a fleet of about dozen navy ships in the Mediterranean, a move seen as an attempt to project power and protect its interests in the region. Russian navy ships have been making regular visits to the Mediterranean in recent months, but the latest announcements by President Vladimir Putin and other officials mark an attempt to revive a Soviet-era practice, when Moscow had a permanent navy presence in the area.

But experts say the current plan will stretch the Russian fleet capability and note that the base in Tartus can't provide a sufficient backup for a permanent navy presence in the region. The base is also too small for big ships.

Military officials have said in the past that Russian navy ships in the Mediterranean could be used to evacuate equipment and personnel from Tartus. Previous Russian deployments in the area have invariably included amphibious landing vessels, which could serve the purpose.

[Mark]

Large US Marine force lands in Aqaba for Syrian border

http://www.debka.com/article/23019


US troop buildup in Jordan after Turkey shuts US-NATO arms corridor to Syrian rebels

http://www.debka.com/article/23066/US-troop-buildup-in-Jordan-after-Turkey-shuts-US-NATO-arms-corridor-to-Syrian-rebels-



First European & NATO heavy arms for Syrian rebels. Russian reprisal expected
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report Jun 18, 2013, 9:55 AM (IDT)

debkafile exclusive: In the last 48 hours, Europeans and NATO have delivered to the Syrian rebels shipments of the long-demanded anti-air and tank missiles as well as recoilless 120 mm cannons.They landed in Turkey and Jordan and were transferred to southern Syria and Aleppo, where Syrian rebels are poised to fend off a major Syrian army offensive backed by 2,000 Hizballah troops. Accordingly, the Obama-Putin meeting went badly at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. Widely expected Russian reprisals portend a longer Syrian war.
More... http://www.debka.com/article/23054/First-European-NATO-heavy-arms-for-Syrian-rebels-Russian-reprisal-expected



Lavrov: Russia will honor its S-300 missile contract with Damascus. Two Russian warships head for Syria
DEBKAfile Special Report Jun 21, 2013, 9:47 AM (IDT)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday, June 20, that Moscow will honor its controversial contract to deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Syria. He spoke the day after the announcement that two warships carrying 600 Russian marines were heading for Syria "to protect the Russian citizens there” along, with air force cover “as needed.” debkafile: Russia and the West are pumping more arms into Syria ahead of the decisive battle for Aleppo between the HIzballah-backed Syrian army and heavily mobilized rebel forces.
More... http://www.debka.com/article/23058/Lavrov-Russia-will-honor-its-S-300-missile-contract-with-Damascus-Two-Russian-warships-head-for-Syria


Moscow sets up Russian Golan brigade, warns Israel Sunnis plus al Qaeda are bigger threat than Assad
DEBKAfile Special Report June 10, 2013, 7:54 PM (IDT)

Moscow is not ready to give up on getting Russian troops posted on the divided Golan as part of the UN force policing the Israeli-Syrian separation sector, even after rejections by the UN and Israel. Monday, June 10, the Russian lawmaker Aleksey Pushkov, an influential foreign relations policy adviser to the Kremlin, said: “The issue has not been yet solved, it is being considered. We must take some real action because we cannot exclude that the Syrian-Israeli topic would be involved in large-scale military action.”

Shortly before he spoke, the military announced in Moscow that the Russian Airborne Troops had formed a separate brigade especially designed to serve as peacekeepers “under the aegis of the United Nations or as part of the force set up by the Russian-led CSTO (Russian-Asian) security bloc for combating

terrorism. Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan contribute special units.

Vladimir Shamanov, commander of Russian Airborne troops, said the new brigade had been awarded the status of “a peacekeeping unit” on June 1.  He did not say by whom. debkafile’s military sources disclose the Moscow proposes to give the “peacekeeping” brigade from the Russian Airborne Troops “teeth” in the form of of MI-24 combat helicopters.

The idea of placing Russian peacekeepers on the Golan was first voiced by President Vladimir Putin on June 7, after Austria decided to withdraw its 377-strong contingent from the area over an outbreak of fighting there between Syrian troops and rebels.

The idea was quickly shot down by the United Nations and Israel on the grounds that the Israeli-Syrian 1974 ceasefire accord barred veto-wielding UN Security Council members from participation in the peacekeeping force.

On June 8, debkafile reported exclusively that  Putin was determined to override Israeli and UN objections and get Russian troops deployed on the Syrian Golan by hook or by crook.

On June 9, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the Putin offer, saying Israel could not afford to place its security in the hands of international forces.

Speaking at a Moscow press conference on Monday, MP Pushkov went on to say that it was too early to say that Vladimir Putin’s suggestion of placing Russian peacekeepers on the Golan Heights lacked perspectives or could not be implemented.

As though on cue, the Hizballah-controlled Lebanese Al Akhbar Monday quoted President Bashar Assad as warning that, for him, opening a front on the Golan against Israel was “a serious matter” and would not just consist of firing a few improvised rockets from time to time.

This gave Pushkov the opening for his warning to Israel: That Israeli authorities would oppose this step (Putin’s offer) was not surprising, he said, but he warned about possible consequences: “Assad could be replaced by radical Islamists in comparison with whom Assad would seem an angel from heaven,” said the Russian lawmaker.

“The people who are now offering friendship to Israel would not necessarily see Israel as their partner when they come to power, rather they would see it as an enemy,” the Russian MP said, hinting at the references made by Hizballah and Syrian government spokesmen to the relations Israel had purportedly formed with certain Syrian rebel groups. Hizballah broadcasts even depicted outdated Israeli tanks and other equipment, booty captured in its 2006 war with Israel, to prove its point.

Therefore, Pushkov advised Israeli leaders to pay more attention to the possible future scenarios in Syria and take into account that Russia could play a positive and stabilizing role in the region.

debkafile notes that this was the first time any Russian official had mentioned the unmentionable: a possible future turn in the wheel of the Syrian conflict that would oust Assad and bring his foes, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, to power in Damascus.

http://www.debka.com/article/23034/

[Christian40]

This was uploaded 11 days ago to youtube

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/failed-saudi-russian-talks-desperate-diplomacy-syria-implodes-204300467.html
The Failed Saudi-Russian Talks: Desperate Diplomacy as Syria Implodes
8/9/13

You could call it the Hail Mary pass of diplomatic relations. In a desperate attempt to find some solution to the ongoing Syria crisis, now in its third year with no end in sight, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan reportedly offered Russian President Vladimir Putin a multi-billion dollar arms deal to curb Moscow’s support for the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad when they met in Moscow last week. The deal was rebuffed; on Friday the Kremlin responded to news accounts about the proposal with a terse rebuttal, telling Reuters that no deal had been discussed in detail. Earlier news accounts, including Reuters, quoted unnamed Arab and Western diplomats describing a deal in which Saudi Arabia would buy some $15 billion worth of Russian weapons in addition to offering assurances that Gulf countries wouldn’t threaten Russia’s dominance of the European gas market in exchange for a commitment that Moscow would not block future United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria. The threat of a Russian veto has been the major obstacle to any UN actions in Syria.

But the idea that Russia could be turned from supporting Assad in exchange for a couple of arms deals and gas distribution guarantees is laughable. “This is not a situation in which the Saudis can simply buy their way,” says Yezid Sayigh, a Syria scholar and senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center based in Beirut. The Russians aren’t supporting Syria simply to maintain a market for their prolific arms industry, nor do they fear Gulf competition in Europe. Russia’s biggest fear, not unlike that of the U.S., is of the Syrian state falling and leaving a dangerous vacuum in its wake. And Moscow believes that the integrity of Assad’s regime is still the greatest guarantor against such chaos. Surely much more was discussed in the four-hour conversation between Putin and Prince Bandar than the mooted arms deal. But the fact that it was brought up at all, even if only in passing, indicates how intractable the situation has become.

Russia’s direct material interests in Syria are modest—an ally with a warm water port on the Mediterranean, a foothold in the Middle East. Neither of those warrants the diplomatic cover Russia has extended to Syria so far. Russia felt betrayed after it backed the UN resolution against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, only to see NATO military intervention a few months later. Syria, as then President Dmitry Medvedev told Russia Today last year, became a chance to draw a line in the sand. Russia, for its own internal political reasons, is allergic to the idea of regime change imposed by outsiders.

Even if Russia, for some reason, did suspend support for the Assad regime, it’s not entirely certain that it would have much of an impact. Iran has far more influence over Syria and even with the more moderate Hassan Rouhani as its new President, Iran’s strategic interests in Syria—which it sees as its bulwark in the Arab world—preclude any shifts in that relationship.

Despite the sometimes heated rhetoric against Assad’s regime, it is unlikely that the U.S. or European countries will take any significant steps to forcibly back the Syrian rebels, points out Sayigh of the Carnegie center. The risks of backlash are simply too high. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey illustrated well the U.S.’s reservations about getting too involved in Syria in a letter to the Senate Armed Forces Committee last month. “We have learned from the past 10 years … that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without careful consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state,” Dempsey wrote. “Should the regime’s institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control.”

The irony is that for all the outside parties currently dabbling in the Syrian crisis, only Iran has enough of a stake in its outcome to invest more in it, says Sayigh. “Syria’s curse is that its not important for outsiders to do much more than what they have already done.” So for all the hand wringing, and far-fetched solutions, don’t expect to see the Syrian conflict come to an end any time soon. Former US Ambassador to Syria Ryan Crocker summed international options up best when he compared the situation in Syria to a massive forest fire in a recent interview: “You can’t put them out. All you can do is contain them … Let them burn themselves out. That’s kind of like Syria. We can’t stop that war. What we can do, or should do, is everything possible that we can to keep it from spreading.” That, and prepare for the consequences of a drawn out civil war.

[Mark]

2 youths from Shi'ite villages in northern Syria executed by members of al-Qaida-linked Islamist rebel group, monitoring group reports - @Reuters

http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/syria-uprising

Exclusive: John McCain Slips Across Border Into Syria, Meets With Rebels

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/27/exclusive-john-mccain-slips-across-border-into-syria-meets-with-rebels.html

Just saying

[Psalm 51:17]

And remember John McCain played a large role in 2008 by helping Obama getting elected.

Yes, elections are rigged, but nonetheless he did everything he possibly could to make himself look bad, and Obama look good.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-thousands-syrians-fleeing-iraq-105254010.html
8/19/13
UN says thousands of Syrians fleeing to Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — In a mass exodus, around 30,000 Syrians have fled their homeland's bloody civil war over the past five days and streamed across the border into neighboring Iraq's northern self-ruled Kurdish region, the U.N. refugee agency said Monday.

The huge influx of people, many of whom are Syrian Kurds escaping escalating violence in northeastern Syria, has left aid agencies as well as Iraqi Kurdistan's regional government scrambling to accommodate them all. The men, women and children who made the trek join some 1.9 million Syrians who already have found refuge abroad in what has become a massive strain on neighboring countries.

"Syrian refugees are still pouring into Iraq's northern Kurdish region in huge numbers and most of them are women and children. The reason behind this sudden flow is still not clear," said Youssef Mahmoud, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency in Iraq's Kurdish region.

"Today, some 3,000 Syrian refugees crossed the borders and that has brought the number to around 30,000 refugees since Thursday," he said. The latest wave has brought the number of Syrian refugees in the Kurdish region to around 195,000, he added.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has set up an emergency transit camp in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region, to house some of the new arrivals. Some of the refugees were reportedly staying in mosques or with family or friends who live in the area, according to the agency.

At one camp near Irbil, dozens of refugees carrying their bags, belongings and babies roamed through rows of tents, footage shot by AP Television News showed. Some men lined up to get blocks of ice from a pickup truck. Nearby, children huddled around a truck to get watermelon distributed by the regional security forces.

UNHCR said it is sending 15 truckloads of supplies — 3,100 tents, two pre-fabricated warehouses and thousands of jerry cans to carry water — from its regional stockpile in Jordan. It said the shipment is already on the way and should arrive by the end of the week.

Kurds are Syria's largest ethnic minority, making up more than 10 percent of the country's 23 million people. They are centered in the poor northeastern regions of Hassakeh and Qamishli, wedged between the borders of Turkey and Iraq. There are also several predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods in the capital, Damascus, and Syria's largest city, Aleppo.

Those Kurdish areas have been engulfed by fighting in recent months between Kurdish militias and Islamic extremist rebel factions with links to al-Qaida. Dozens have been killed on both sides. Following the assassination of a prominent Kurdish leader late last month, a powerful Kurdish militia said it was mobilizing to expel Islamic extremists.

Earlier this month, the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, vowed to defend Syria's Kurds. He did not offer details on how he would do so, but Iraqi Kurdistan boasts a powerful and experienced armed force known as the peshmerga.

An armed intervention would carry enormous risks, and appears unlikely. Still, the pledge along with the fighting shows the potential of Syria's conflict to spread to neighboring countries and shift into a full-blown regional war.

The Kurdish-rebel rift is just one layer in Syria's increasingly complex and bloody civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people, ripped apart the country's delicate sectarian fabric and destroyed the nations' cities and towns. President Bashar Assad's regime has used warplanes, tanks and ballistic missiles to try to pound rebellious areas into submission.

The rebels, along with the U.S. and other Western powers, say the Assad regime also has used chemical weapons in the conflict. The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, both blame the opposition for the alleged chemical attacks.

On Monday, a team of U.N. experts began their long-awaited investigation into the purported used of chemical arms in the conflict.

The U.N. team is tasked with determining whether chemical weapons have been used, and if so which ones. The mission's mandate does not extend to establishing who was responsible for an attack, which has led some observers to question the overall value of the probe.

The investigators are expected to visit three sites where chemical weapons attacks allegedly occurred: the village of Khan al-Assal, just west of the embattled northern city of Aleppo, and two other locations that have not been disclosed.

The fighting inside Syria, meanwhile, continues unabated.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime forces in the coastal province of Latakia recaptured nine villages as well as all of the hilltop military observation posts that rebels seized two weeks ago.

Anti-Assad fighters, most of them from al-Qaida-linked rebel factions, swept through a string of villages in Latakia, a mountainous province along the Mediterranean coast and the heartland of President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect. Those advances were some of the most significant rebel gains in months against government forces, which have been on the offensive in central Syria and around Damascus.

The rebel gains have not shifted the strategic balance in the area, but they did embarrass the regime in a region that has been under tight government control since the Syrian revolt began more than two years ago.

Assad's forces have launched a counteroffensive to try to dislodge the rebels, and activists say fighting continues to rage in several villages still held by the rebels in the mountainous region.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/171095#.UhOcdWwo5jp
Prosor: Israel Won't Stand By as Assad Fires Mortars

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations says Israel is losing its patience with the repeated Syrian violations of the ceasefire.
8/20/13

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, hinted on Monday that Israel was losing its patience with the repeated Syrian violations of the 1974 ceasefire between the two countries.

Prosor sent a letter of complaint to the Security Council after the latest incident on Saturday, when the Israeli army fired into Syria after shells from the neighboring country hit the Israeli side of the Golan Heights. The Israeli attack demolished a Syrian military position.

Israel, wrote Prosor in his letter, will not stand idly by while "Assad’s terrorist regime fires mortars at Israeli citizens."

Prosor stressed in the complaint the "blatant violation on Syria’s part of the disengagement agreement of 1974." He added, "Israel has sent repeated warnings and warned the Security Council that such provocations will not be accepted by Israel. It should not be expected Israel will stand by while the terrorist regime of Assad rains down mortar shells on Israeli citizens."

The Golan has been tense since the beginning of the civil war in Syria more than two years ago, but so far there have only been minor flare-ups as Syrian small arms fire or mortar rounds hit the Israeli side, prompting an occasional Israeli response.

Earlier this month, gunfire from the Syrian side of the border hit close to an IDF patrol in the northern Golan Heights. There were no injuries or damages.

Two weeks before this incident, fire was opened at an IDF patrol near Tel Fares in the southern Golan Heights, after the troops identified two Syrians who entered an abandoned military outpost located east of the border fence.

The troops were searching the area when they were fired upon. None of the soldiers was hurt and no damage was caused. The soldiers returned fire.

Prosor recently told the Security Council that it was time to condemn the constant spillover of the conflict in Syria into Israel.

“Unequivocally condemn the firing,” he urged the Council. “The Syrian government systematically violates the separation of forces agreement, which could bring the region to instability."

Meanwhile, Israel continues to receive wounded Syrians from the country’s civil war. On Monday night, two more wounded Syrians were brought to the Ziv Medical Center in the city of Tzfat.

One of the victims brought to the hospital is a 24-year-old man whose condition was serious after suffering gunshot wounds to his pelvis. The second victim, 39, was listed in moderate condition.

On Sunday night, two wounded Syrians were brought by IDF soldiers to the Ziv Medical Center. The two were listed in moderate condition, with one suffering from a bullet wound to his stomach and the other from a fractured hand.

More than 140 wounded Syrians have so far been treated at Israeli hospitals, 25 of them in the last week alone, according to figures published by Kol Yisrael radio.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/uk-syria-crisis-idUKBRE97K0AJ20130821
8/21/13
Opposition says as many as 1,300 killed in gas attack near Damascus

Reuters) - Syria's opposition accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of gassing many hundreds of people - by one report as many as 1,300 - on Wednesday in what would, if confirmed, be the world's worst chemical weapons attack in decades.

Western and regional countries called for U.N. chemical weapons investigators - who arrived in Damascus just three days ago - to be urgently dispatched to the scene of one of the deadliest incidents of the two-year-old civil war.

Russia, too, urged an "objective" investigation but Assad's biggest foreign ally also heaped scepticism on his enemies' claims. A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said the release of gas after U.N. inspectors arrived suggested that it was a rebel "provocation" to discredit Syria's government.

Images, including some by freelance photographers supplied to Reuters, showed scores of bodies including of small children, laid on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injuries.

Reuters was not able to verify the cause of their deaths. The Syrian government denied that it had used chemical arms.

Noting the "criminal act" took place as the U.N. team got to work, the Russian spokesman said: "This cannot but suggest that once again we are dealing with a pre-planned provocation... We call on all those who can influence the armed extremists make every effort to end provocations with chemical agents."

George Sabra, one of the leading opponents of Assad, said the death toll was 1,300 killed by poison gas released over suburbs east of Damascus.

"Today's crimes are ... not the first time the regime has used chemical weapons. But they constitute a turning point in the regime's operations," he told a news conference in Istanbul. "This time it was for annihilation rather than terror."

An opposition monitoring group, citing figures compiled from medical clinics in the Damascus suburbs, put the death toll at 494 - 90 percent of them killed by gas, the rest by bombing and conventional arms. The rebel Syrian National Coalition said 650 people had been killed.

If the cause of death and the scale of the killing were confirmed, it would be the worst known use of chemical weapons since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988.

Activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar during fierce pre-dawn bombardment by government forces.

The Damascus Media Office monitoring centre said 150 bodies were counted in Hammouriya, 100 in Kfar Batna, 67 in Saqba, 61 in Douma, 76 in Mouadamiya and 40 in Irbib.

Residents of the capital said mortars later hit government-held areas in Faris Khoury Street and the Malki district, where Assad has a residence. There were no reports of injuries.

Heavy air strikes continued throughout the day against the rebel suburbs of Mouadamiya and Jobar.

SYMPTOMS

A nurse at Douma Emergency Collection facility, Bayan Baker, earlier told Reuters the death toll collated from medical centres was at least 213.

"Many of the casualties are women and children. They arrived with their pupils constricted, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve gas victims," the nurse said. Exposure to sarin gas causes pupils in the eyes to shrink to pinpoint sizes and foaming at the lips.

The U.N. team is in Syria investigating allegations that both rebels and army forces used chemical weapons in the past, one of the main disputes in international diplomacy over Syria.

The Swedish scientist leading the team, Ake Sellstrom, said the reports should be looked into, but doing so would require a request from a U.N. member state.

France and Sweden said the mission must be sent to the site to investigate without delay. "They need to immediately get access to this site - it's 15-20 minutes from where they are currently," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia made similar calls. Britain said it was deeply concerned and would raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council, adding the attacks would be "a shocking escalation" if confirmed.

Extensive amateur video and photographs appeared on the Internet showing countless bodies, with victims choking, some of them foaming at the mouth, and no sign of outward injury.

A video purportedly shot in the Kafr Batna neighbourhood showed a room filled with more than 90 bodies, many of them children and a few women and elderly men. Most of the bodies appeared ashen or pale but with no visible injuries. About a dozen were wrapped in blankets.

Other footage showed doctors treating people in makeshift clinics. One video showed the bodies of a dozen people lying on the floor of a clinic, with no visible wounds. The narrator in the video said they were all members of a single family. In a corridor outside lay another five bodies.

A Syrian military officer appeared on state television and said the allegations were untrue and a sign of "hysteria and floundering" by Assad's opponents. Information Minister Omran Zoabi said the allegations were "illogical and fabricated".

The head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition said Assad's forces had carried out a massacre: "This is a chance for the (U.N. inspectors) to see with their own eyes this massacre and know that this regime is a criminal one," Ahmed Jarba said.

ACCUSATIONS

Syria is one of just a handful of countries that are not parties to the international treaty that bans chemical weapons, and Western nations believe it has caches of undeclared mustard gas, sarin and VX nerve agents.

Assad's officials have said they would never use poison gas - if they had it - against Syrians. The United States and European allies believe Assad's forces used small amounts of sarin gas in attacks in the past, which Washington called a "red line" that justified international military aid for the rebels.

Assad's government has responded in the past by accusing the rebels of using chemical weapons, which they deny. Western countries say they do not believe the rebels have access to poison gas. Assad's main global ally Moscow says accusations on both sides must be investigated.

Khaled Omar of the opposition Local Council in Ain Tarma said he saw at least 80 bodies at the Hajjah Hospital in Ain Tarma and at a makeshift clinic at Tatbiqiya School in the nearby district of Saqba.

"The attack took place at around 3:00 a.m. (0000 GMT). Most of those killed were in their homes," Omar said.

An activist working with Ahrar al-Sham rebel unit in the Erbin district east of the capital who used the name Abu Nidal said many of those who died were rescuers who were overcome with poison when they arrived at the scene.

"We believe there was a group of initial responders who died or were wounded, because when we went in later, we saw men collapsed on staircases or inside doorways and it looks like they were trying to go in to help the wounded and then were hurt themselves," he told Reuters by Skype.

"At first none of us knew there were chemical agents because it seemed like just another night of air strikes, and no one was anticipating chemical weapons use, especially with U.N. monitors in town."

The timing of the allegations - just three days after the U.N. experts checked in to a Damascus hotel a few kilometres to the east at the start of their mission - was surprising.

"It would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into the country," said Rolf Ekeus, a retired Swedish diplomat who headed a team of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s.

"At the least, it wouldn't be very clever."

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm and Thomas Grove in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff and Dominic Evans; Editing by Will Waterman and Alastair Macdonald)

[Psalm 51:17]

Apparently, Syria using chemical weapons on its own people hasn't been verified. Only watched a couple of minutes of this 7 minute news report...

Video: Did Syria Use Chemical Weapons on Its People?
8/22/13
Syrian opposition claims hundreds have died in a chemical weapons attack in Damascus.


http://news.yahoo.com/france-says-force-needed-syrian-chemical-attack-proved-071912540.html
France says force needed if Syrian chemical attack proved true
8/22/13

PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Thursday that the international community would need to respond with force if allegations that the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical attack on civilians proved true.

"There would have to be reaction with force in Syria from the international community, but there is no question of sending troops on the ground," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French television network BFM.

If the U.N. Security Council could not make a decision, one would have to be taken "in other ways," he said, without elaborating.

Opposition activists accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces of gassing hundreds, including women and children, in Wednesday's attack.


What would be the world's most lethal chemical weapons attack since the 1980s led to an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York.

The council did not explicitly demand a U.N. investigation of the incident, although it said "clarity" was needed and welcomed U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's calls for a prompt investigation by a U.N. inspection team already in Syria.

The council's statement was watered down to accommodate objections from Russia and China, diplomats said. Moscow and Beijing have vetoed previous Western efforts to impose U.N. penalties on Assad.

Fabius, who had a working dinner with his British counterpart William Hague in Paris on Wednesday night to discuss Syria, said the alleged attack had come almost exactly a year after U.S. President Barack Obama warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a red line.

The attack highlighted the sense of impunity within Assad's government, he said.

Fabius said that if Assad refused to let the U.N. inspection team investigate the site, he would have been caught with "his hand in the till."

[Psalm 51:17]

Video: http://news.yahoo.com/video/syria-records-millionth-child-refugee-095109027.html

Syria records its millionth child refugee
8/23/13
UN agencies say that one million children have been forced to flee the violence in Syria. Sarah Toms reports.

[Psalm 51:17]

First off, it's not even confirmed if it was Assad that used a chemical attack on Syrian citizens - with that being said, sounds eerily similar to the run up to the 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars(1991 and then Iraq in 2003).

UK says time running out for Syrian chemical attack inspection
8/23/13
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/23/syria-crisis-britain-idUSL6N0GO1I620130823?feedType=RSS&feedName=basicMaterialsSector&rpc=43

Aug 23 (Reuters) - Britain warned on Friday that U.N. inspectors needed urgent access to the site of a reported chemical weapons attack in Syria because evidence could deteriorate or be concealed by those responsible.

"Time is of the essence," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on his official Twitter feed. "Every day without U.N. access is a day in which evidence can deteriorate or be hidden by those responsible."

Hague said Britain planned to hold urgent talks on Friday with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah.

"We are pressing for immediate access for the U.N. team and consulting allies on response to this terrible atrocity," Hague wrote.

[Psalm 51:17]

Initial Western intelligence finds Syrian forces used chemical weapons
8/23/13
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-says-concerned-syria-cautious-costs-105448248.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have made a preliminary assessment that chemical weapons were used by Syrian forces in an attack near Damascus this week, likely with high-level approval from the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to American and European security sources.

The early intelligence finding could increase pressure for action by President Barack Obama, who made clear that he planned to tread cautiously even as his aides sought to narrow their differences in debate over possible military responses to the Syrian government.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, cautioned that the assessment was preliminary and, at this stage, they were still seeking conclusive proof, which could take days, weeks or even longer to gather.

But with a mounting international outcry over the apparent mass poisoning of hundreds of people, the issue appeared to have taken on a sense of urgency for the Obama administration.

In his first public comments since Wednesday's attack in the Damascus suburbs, Obama called the incident a "big event of grave concern" and one that demanded U.S. attention, but said he was in no rush to get war-weary Americans "mired" in another Middle East conflict.

Obama's wary response, which underscored a deep reluctance by Washington to intervene in Syria's 2-1/2-year-old civil war, came as senior U.S. officials weighed choices ranging from increased international sanctions to the use of force, including possible air strikes on Assad's forces, administration sources said.

A meeting of members of Obama's National Security Council, the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence agencies was held at the White House late on Thursday, but made no decisions on what to recommend, officials said.

With further talks planned as early as this weekend, a senior U.S. defense official said a decision on a course of action could come soon. But it appeared unlikely any military response would take place without extensive consultation with allies and further review of U.S. intelligence about the attack.

One U.S. official acknowledged that the participants aired "differing viewpoints," but pushed back against the notion that the administration, whose Syria policymaking has been marked by internal dissent in the past, was sharply divided on a response.

"It's not like people were screaming at each other," the official said.

International powers - including Russia, which has long shielded Assad from U.N. action - have urged Assad to cooperate with a U.N. inspection team that arrived on Sunday to pursue earlier allegations of chemical weapons attacks.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said there was "some evidence" of chemical weapons use in the latest incident, but stopped short of saying an official conclusion was reached.

The Syrian government denies being responsible and has in the past accused rebels of using chemical weapons, an allegation that Western officials have dismissed.

more

[Kilika]

I know the deal, but I still must ask, why does Obama or any western nation have any say about a "response"? Who are they kidding?

What about the western world's response to the massive murder rate in Mexico by alleged "drug lords"? Or do we need to address their lack of response to the genocide in Africa?

The response so far? "Immigration reform"! 

As already alluded to, this is the run up to the Iraq war all over again.

[Mark]

Hagel: Obama asks for Syria military options

http://www.komonews.com/news/national/Hagel-Obama-asks-for-Syria-military-options--220896831.html


BREAKING: CBS Learns Pentagon Making Initial Preparations For A Cruise Missile Attack On Syrian Gov’t Forces!

http://investmentwatchblog.com/breaking-cbs-learns-pentagon-making-initial-preparations-for-a-cruise-missile-attack-on-syrian-govt-forces/

This whole chemical weapons attack seems just like a false flag by the REBELS that Obama and McCain support. This whole middle east civil wars is nothing but a massive muslim civil war of Shia vs Sunni, and the coming of the 12th Iman

[Mark]

The Damascus Deception: Video of Chemical Attack Posted the Day Before "Massacre"

WEB Notes: Use the children for a shock factor of course. Again, if hundreds and hundreds of people were killed where are the bodies? The organ eating rebels would have taken complete advantage of this incident and showed you all the corpses, not a select few "dead" children. These people could simply be drugged for all we know. Isaiah 17:1 is literally knocking on the door.

(Video, Voice of Russia) - The Islamic politics and cultural website Islamic Invitation Turkey claims that several videos were uploaded one day before the reports on chemical weapons use near Damascus in Syria. This evidence shows that the terrorists massacred people then recorded the scenes to deceive the world, but they gave themselves away. Terrorists in Syria uploaded the video of their crimes in East Ghouta, Damascus on August 20, 2013 and then blamed the Syrian government for the attack early on August 21, 2013, says the IIT website.

This evidence supposedly shows the massacre by terrorists in Syria and their struggle to convince the public that the Syrian regime is behind the massacre. You will see that the terrorists uploaded the videos before the massacre and their so-called allegation of the time when the chemical weapons attack by the Syrian Army occurred.

Even if we regard the chemical attack as taking place at 03:30, it is impossible to take the film of the scene and uploading those tens of videos… this shows that terrorists prepared and organized all of the scenes beforehand then accused the Syrian regime of a massacre that terrorists carried out.

pics and vids: http://brandontward.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-damascus-deception-video-of.html#.Uhike3_hfMp

[Mark]

REPORT: 3,600 Syrians Treated For 'Neurotoxic Symptoms'...
http://news.sky.com/story/1132776/3600-syrians-treated-for-neurotoxic-symptoms

UN Blocking Own Investigation...
http://news.sky.com/story/1132776/3600-syrians-treated-for-neurotoxic-symptoms

Gov't Claims Chemical Agents Found in Rebel Tunnels...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/24/syrian-chemical-weapons-rebel

WARSHIPS MOVE TOWARD SYRIA
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNITED_STATES_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-08-24-07-37-32

[Mark]

Aid group: 355 dead after Syria 'chemical' attack

Syrian state media accused rebels of using chemical arms against government troops in clashes Saturday near Damascus, while an international aid group said it has tallied 355 deaths from the purported chemical weapons attack earlier this week.

Doctors Without Borders said three hospitals it supports in the eastern Damascus region reported receiving roughly 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms" over less than three hours on Wednesday morning, when the attack in the eastern Ghouta area took place.

Of those, 355 died, said the Paris-based group. Death tolls have varied over the alleged attack, with Syrian anti-government activists reporting between 136 and 1,300 being killed.

rest: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-08-24/un-official-in-syria-to-press-for-chemical-inquiry

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/24/syria-cameron-obama-intervention
8/24/13
Syria: Cameron and Obama move west closer to intervention

British prime minister and US president agree that alleged chemical attack 'requires a response'

David Cameron and Barack Obama moved the west closer to military intervention in Syria on Saturday as they agreed that last week's alleged chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime had taken the crisis into a new phase that merited a "serious response".

In a phone call that lasted 40 minutes, the two leaders are understood to have concluded that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was almost certainly responsible for the assault that is believed to have killed as many as 1,400 people in Damascus in the middle of last week. Cameron was speaking from his holiday in Cornwall.

The prime minister and US president said time was running out for Assad to allow UN weapons inspectors into the areas where the attack took place. Government sources said the two leaders agreed that all options should be kept open, both to end the suffering of the Syrian people and to make clear that the west could not stand by as chemical weapons were used on innocent civilians.

A spokesman for No 10 said: "The prime minister and President Obama are both gravely concerned by the attack that took place in Damascus on Wednesday and the increasing signs that this was a significant chemical weapons attack carried out by the Syrian regime against its own people. The UN security council has called for immediate access for UN investigators on the ground in Damascus. The fact that President Assad has failed to co-operate with the UN suggests that the regime has something to hide.

"They reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options. They agreed that it is vital that the world upholds the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons and deters further outrages. They agreed to keep in close contact on the issue."

The dramatic upping of the stakes came after the international medical charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) reported that three hospitals in Damascus had received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, 21 August. Of those patients, 355 are reported to have died.

Dr Bart Janssens, MSF's director of operations, said: "Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress."

He said the reported symptoms strongly indicated "mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent. This would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons."

France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said on Saturday that "all the information at our disposal converges to indicate that there was a chemical massacre near Damascus and that the [regime of Bashar al-Assad] is responsible".

The foreign secretary, William Hague, said last week that "this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime" and "not something that a humane or civilised world can ignore".

Obama has been reluctant to commit American forces to what has become a bitter and protracted civil war. However, he said last year that use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" triggering a more robust US response. It was confirmed yesterday that the US navy is deploying an extra missile warship to the eastern Mediterranean ahead of a summit to debate the massacre.

The summit will be held in Jordan's capital, Amman, in the first half of the week as a consensus hardens that the nerve agent sarin was used in the attack in rebel-held east Damascus early on Thursday. Biological samples taken from victims of the attack have been passed to western officials in Jordan after having been smuggled out of Syria over the past 72 hours. Questionnaires have been distributed to officials in the three most affected communities, asking for scientific and environmental details, as well as for organ tissue and clothing worn by victims.

Officials, who have not identified themselves but claim to be part of an international response, have also made phone contact with rebel officials, seeking photographs of the rockets that are thought to have carried the gas.

France, Britain and Turkey have blamed the Syrian regime for the attack, which came as its military forces were advancing into the area.

Syria has continued to deny responsibility as the UN's disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in Damascus to try to negotiate access to the site of the attack for an inspection team that was sent to investigate three earlier alleged attacks. The team has been in the capital for the past six days and has been pressing for permission to make the journey – only a short distance from its hotel.

Rebel groups in the area say that they will guarantee safe passage. However, the Syrian government has not agreed and the UN fears that the journey is unsafe without a negotiated agreement.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, spoke to Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, on Thursday, the State Department revealed on Saturday. Kerry told him the Damascus government should have let UN inspectors have access to the site of the alleged gas attack, the department said.

Kerry called "to make clear that if, as they claimed, the Syrian regime has nothing to hide, it should have allowed immediate and unimpeded access to the site rather than continuing to attack the affected area to block access and destroy evidence," a State Department official said.

The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, will travel to Jordan along with the head of the US central command, General Lloyd Austin, and chiefs of staff from Turkey, Britain, France, Qatar, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Italy and Canada.

The addition of a US destroyer takes to four the US Mediterranean flotilla, one more than normal. US defence secretary Chuck Hagel said no decision has been made to use the warships in operations against Syria. Speaking on Friday, officials in Washington said no response to Syria would involve sending troops into the country.

Two of Syria's three main allies, Russia and Iran, have supported calls for a transparent and credible inquiry into the attack. Both accuse rebel groups of having carried out the atrocity. Syrian state television said on Saturday that its forces had found tunnels in rebel areas in which chemicals were stored.

The Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, has remained silent since Thursday. Hezbollah leaders roundly condemned car-bombings of two mosques in Lebanon's second city, Tripoli, one day later, which killed 42 and wounded hundreds. The mosques had been focal points of anti-Assad rhetoric in the largely Sunni north.

Lebanon, an unstable multi-confessional state, has been perennially on edge since the start of the Syrian uprising with occasional flare-ups in violence that threaten to drag it into the chaos consuming its powerful neighbour. The remains of 20 such rockets have been found in the affected areas, activists and local residents say. Many remain mostly intact, suggesting that they did not detonate on impact and potentially dispersed gas before hitting the ground.

[Mark]

WH Official: 'Very Little Doubt' Assad Regime Behind Chemical Attack...
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/senior-administration-official-very-little-doubt-assad-regime-behind-alleged-chemical-attack/

Sets Stage for Bigger Role...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579034633663263254.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Sharp Shift in Tone...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/world/middleeast/syria-says-un-will-get-access-to-site-of-possible-chemical-attack.html?hp

Syria Agrees to UN Inspection...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579034633663263254.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

HAGEL: US PREPARED FOR 'ALL CONTINGENCIES'...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/25/us-naval-forces-move-closer-to-syria-hagel-suggests/

Iran warns 'harsh consequences'...
http://www.france24.com/en/20130825-iran-army-warns-us-harsh-consequences-over-syria

Chemical attack evidence 'may have been destroyed'...
http://www.france24.com/en/20130825-syria-chemical-attack-evidence-may-have-been-destroyed-hague

Russia Warns Not to Repeat Past Mistakes...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-us-russia-idUSBRE97O09W20130825

Iraq-style 'adventure'...
http://www.france24.com/en/20130825-moscow-warns-against-iraq-style-adventure-syria

BOMBING 'IN DAYS'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10265765/Navy-ready-to-launch-first-strike-on-Syria.html

[Christian40]

Syria Agrees to UN Inspection...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579034633663263254.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

why on earth would they allow an UN inspection if they had released chemical weapons? it is hard to believe that Assad has used chemical weapons, has he used them in the past? sorry but it seems there is no proof that he has.

[Mark]

why on earth would they allow an UN inspection if they had released chemical weapons? it is hard to believe that Assad has used chemical weapons, has he used them in the past? sorry but it seems there is no proof that he has.

exactly, IF chem weapons were used, its clearly a false flag attack. I have real doubts they were used as they are pushing the "evidence" may have been destroyed. Uhm, youd have all those dead bodies they "claim" to have. Im just not buying it.

also this just happens? come on man...

UN says vehicle in Syrian inspection team convoy shot at by snipers, now unusable; team returned to government checkpoint to replace vehicle - @mbesheer

Syrian state TV says 'terrorists' fired at UN chemical weapons inspectors near Damascus - @Reuters

Looks like John McCain's buddies are behind this

[Mark]

Syria's Assad says U.S. military will fail if it intervenes


Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned Washington in an interview published on Monday in Russia that any U.S. military intervention in Syria would fail and denied that his forces had used chemical weapons.
 
"Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day," he told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper in an interview which the Russian daily said was conducted in Damascus.

Assad said Syrian government forces had been close to the area, in suburbs of Damascus, where rebel forces accused his troops of firing poison gas projectiles last week, and there was no clear front line there.

"Would any state use chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic," Assad told Izvestia.

"So, accusations of this kind are entirely political and the reason for them is the government forces' series of victories over the terrorists," he said, referring to rebels fighting in the two-year-old civil war.

Dismissing the chemical weapons accusations as "nonsense" and "unsubstantiated", he said the United States, Britain and France had long sought to justify a military intervention in Syria.

Russia has been Assad's most important international ally during the conflict, supplying his troops with arms and resisting pressure at the United Nations for tighter sanctions on Damascus.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by telephone on Sunday that Moscow was deeply concerned about the possibility of any U.S. military intervention in Syria, a ministry statement said.

Washington has faced growing calls for action in response to Wednesday's gas attack. President Barack Obama previously declared that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "red line" which would require a firm response.

U.N. inspectors left central Damascus on Monday to examine sites of the chemical attack, a Reuters witness said, after calls from Western powers for military action to punish what may be the world's worst poison gas strike in 25 years. Opposition activists estimate that from 500 to well over 1,000 people died in the gassing.

Assad said Russia's military support had helped Syria cope with international economic sanctions and cited unspecified contracts with Russian companies which he said were helping Damascus. He gave no details except to say that such contracts helped Syrians get "basic products" needed for survival.

Asked about the arms deliveries, Assad said: "I want to say that all contracts that have been concluded with Russia are being fulfilled."

He gave no details and did not say whether Damascus had taken delivery of advanced S-300 air defense systems from Russia which could vastly enhance its defensive capabilities.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/us-syria-crisis-russia-assad-idUSBRE97P02R20130826

[Mark]

UN inspectors enter Damascus suburb of Mouadamiya, site of alleged chemical attack, activists say - @Reuters

US Defense Sec. Hagel to reach out to British, French counterparts on Syria, timing uncertain, senior US official says - @Reuters

Report: UN inspectors meeting with wounded from alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, taking samples, doctor in rebel area says - @Reuters

Arab League calls for emergency meeting in Cairo Tuesday to 'discuss the dangerous situation in Syria' - @aawsat_eng

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says no evidence has yet been produced yet about the use of chemical weapons in Syria - @NBCNews

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says military intervention in Syria without UN mandate would be grave violation of international law - @Reuters

Germany suggests for 1st time it would support international military response against Syria if chemical attack confirmed - @AP

[Mark]

15 Signs That Obama Has Already Made The Decision To Go To War With Syria

The Obama administration seems absolutely determined to help radical Islamic jihadists that have beheaded Christians, that have massacred entire Christian villages, and that have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda topple the Assad regime and take over Syria.  Yes, the Assad regime is horrible, but if these jihadist lunatics take control it will destabilize the entire region, make the prospect of a major regional war much more probable, and plunge the entire nation of Syria into a complete and utter nightmare.  It has been estimated that somewhere around 100,000 people have already been killed in the civil war in Syria, and now it looks like the U.S. military and the rest of NATO plan to become directly involved in the conflict.  The Obama administration is actually considering an attack on Syria even though the American people are overwhelmingly against it, Obama does not have Congressional approval to start a war, and he will never get approval for military action from the UN because it will be blocked by Russia.  This is setting up to become a colossal foreign policy disaster for the United States.
 
A potential war with Syria has been brought to the forefront because of a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week that killed as many as 1,400 people.  The Obama administration and several other western nations are blaming this attack on the Assad regime.
 
But others are pointing out that it would make absolutely no sense for the Assad regime to do such a thing.  They appear to be winning the civil war, and Assad knows that Obama has previously said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "red line" for the United States.
 
So why would the Assad regime launch a brutal chemical weapons attack against women and children just miles from where UN inspectors were staying?
 
Why would Assad risk war with the United States and the rest of NATO?
 
Assad would have to be extremely stupid or extremely suicidal to do such a thing.
 
The ones that benefit from this chemical weapons attack are the jihadist rebels.  The odds of foreign intervention in the conflict just went way, way up.
 
We will probably never learn the real truth about who was actually behind that attack.  And even if it had not happened, the U.S. and the rest of NATO would have probably come up with another justification to go to war anyway.  They appear absolutely obsessed with getting rid of Assad, but they have not really thought through the consequences.
 
The following are 15 signs that Obama has already made the decision to go to war with Syria...
 
#1 Syria has agreed to allow UN officials to inspect the site of the recent chemical weapons attack that killed up to 1,400 people, but a "senior U.S. official" says that such an inspection would be "too late to be credible".
 
#2 According to ABC News, the White House is saying that there is "very little doubt" that the Assad regime was behind the deadly chemical weapons attack last week.
 
#3 Four U.S. warships with ballistic missiles are moving into position in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. If the command is given, they will be able to rain Tomahawk cruise missiles down on targets inside Syria within minutes...
 

U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria.
 
U.S. Navy ships are capable of a variety of military actions, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government.
 
#4 CBS News is reporting that "the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a Cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces".
 
#5 On Saturday, Barack Obama met with his national security team to discuss what actions should be taken in Syria.
 
#6 U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says that Barack Obama has asked him to "prepare options for all contingencies" as far as a conflict with Syria is concerned.
 
#7 After a phone conversation with British Prime Minister David Cameron about the situation in Syria, the White House announced that both leaders expressed "grave concern" about the chemical weapons attack that took place last week.
 
#8 Military commanders from the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Italy and Canada are meeting in Amman, Jordan on Sunday to coordinate plans for upcoming attacks on Syria.
 
#9 According to France’s second largest newspaper, rebel forces that have been trained by the CIA have been pouring toward Damascus "since mid-August"...
 

According to our information, the regime's opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.
 
According to information obtained by Le Figaro , the first trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan Syrian troops reportedly entered into action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as men of the CIA, had crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined the 19. According to military sources, the Americans, who do not want to put troops on the Syrian soil or arming rebels in part controlled by radical Islamists form quietly for several months in a training camp set up at the border Jordanian- Syrian fighters ASL, the Free Syrian Army, handpicked.
 
#10 The U.S. military moved a significant number of F-16 fighter jets to Jordan earlier this year for military exercises, and kept them there afterward "at the request of the Jordanian government".
 
#11 According to a government document that Wikileaks released back in March 2012, NATO personnel have been on the ground inside Syria preparing for regime change since 2011.
 
#12 The Times of Israel is reporting that an internal military assessment has concluded that "Washington is seriously considering a limited yet effective attack that will make it clear to the regime in Damascus that the international community will not tolerate the use of weapons of mass destruction against Syrian civilians or any other elements".
 
#13 U.S. Senator John McCain recently said that if the U.S. military does not hit Syria, it will be like "writing a blank check to other brutal dictators around the world if they want to use chemical weapons".
 
#14 According to the New York Times, "the NATO air war in Kosovo" is being studied "as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations".
 
#15 The White House has released a statement that says that the Obama administration has no plans to put "boots on the ground", but it did not rule out any other types of military action.
 
This is not a conflict that the U.S. military should be involved in.
 
And we should especially not be on the side of the rabidly anti-Christian, rabidly anti-Israel and rabidly anti-western forces that are attempting to take control of Syria.
 
The terrorists that the Obama administration is backing are absolutely psychotic.  Just check out the following example from a recent article posted on the Blaze...
 

New video posted on YouTube purports to show the graphic murder – execution style – of three Syrian truck drivers who did nothing more than belong  to a minority faith the local Al Qaeda affiliate does not like.
 
In the video, a small band of Islamist radicals with the Al Qaeda-linked ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) group is seen waving the tractor trailers off the side of an Iraqi road and then proceeds to interrogate the unsuspecting drivers about their prayer habits, trying to discover if they are Sunnis or members of the Alawite minority in Syria.
 
When they “fail” the Sunni jihadis’ pop roadside quiz, the truck drivers are seated in a line in the median of the road and shot in the back of their heads firing squad style by the self-appointed law enforcers, jury, judge and executioner.
 
Why in the world would the United States want to arm such people?
 
Why in the world would the United States want to go to war to help such people take power?
 
It is utter insanity.
 
And as I mentioned earlier, most Americans are totally against getting involved.  According to a stunning new poll, 60 percent of all Americans are against U.S. military intervention in Syria, and only 9 percent are in favor of it.
 
So in light of all that you have just read, why is the Obama administration so determined to help the rebels in Syria?
 
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/15-signs-that-obama-has-already-made-the-decision-to-go-to-war-with-syria

[Mark]

Russian news agencies: President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed reports of chemical weapons use in Syria by telephone - @AJELive

That is the heads up call.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed reports of chemical weapons use in Syria by telephone Monday, Russian news agencies said.

The conversation "focused mainly on the situation in Syria against the backdrop of media reports on the possible use of chemical weapons near Damascus," the Ria-Novosti agency said, quoting the Kremlin press office.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/syria/putin-cameron-discuss-syria-phone-russian-media

US Secretary of State John Kerry to make a statement on the situation in Syria at 2 pm ET - @nbcnightlynews

 

UN Chief Ban confident UN chemical experts can get evidence of alleged Syria gas attack despite passage of time, spokesman says - @Reuters

I bet they will, probably had it the whole time.  

[Mark]

Kerrys announcment has been pushed back to 14:30 est, they are reporting that Obama hasnt called Boehner yet, to give him th eheads up. So we could be attacking here at any minute. 

Obama hasn't yet called House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, to discuss Syria, Boehner spokesman says - @rollcall

Update: US Secretary of State John Kerry's statement on Syria pushed back to 2:30 pm ET - @ZekeJMiller, @BuzzFeedAndrew

Why mention that stuff, that is only for when we attack other countries.

Live video: US Secretary of State John Kerry makes a statement on Syria from the State Department Press Briefing Room - @NBCNews
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbcnews.com/52847517

[Psalm 51:17]

Yeah, this is getting interesting now...

[Psalm 51:17]

Well, it's almost 1:50pm(central time), any announcement yet?