Israel launches air strikes on Syria

[Momble]

I've already received infractions because of you , you you , do you want to get me banned ? I go to hell if you want me too

stop it. you are not only disgracing yourself !!!!

 

[BeyondHeretic]

stop it. you are not only disgracing yourself !!!!

thank you for your advice brother

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

KSA calculate every step it takes very carefully, I find it hard to believe bro, that KSA funded an MB presidential campaign and yet the elected president turned to be sth else other than what was expected. I think @Yzd Khalifa would back me up on this.

Yes, we need to think million times before making any decision. Look what Al-Assad is doing! The Saudis built the SAA so we can guarantee the safety of the Syrian people.

Well, the MB is a F i l t h y rich organization already. They run and own business in every continent in this world. From the Arab World to Latin American ,and from Asia to Eurpoe. Their current net worth is above $225 Million. So, financially speaking I think the MB can take care of themselves. It doesn't really matter if some foreign body backed them up financially to run their campaign.

@Arabian Legend

I agree. I don't think Shafiq deserves to be president of Egypt. Don't worry about Morsi though ,he's not going to remain in power forever. But, tbqh I like him very much.

 

[Solomon2]

Michael J. Totten

Israel Bombs Syria, Syrians Blame Each Other

5 May 2013

An extraordinary mushroom cloud appeared atop Mount Qasioun overlooking Damascus this weekend when the Israeli Air Force bombed munitions depots believed to be storing chemical weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is not the first time since Syria’s civil war broke out that Israel has intervened to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and it probably won’t be the last.

Initially both Hezbollah and the Syrian government denied the attack even took place. That’s exactly what the regime did in 2007 when Israel bombed its nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor.

No one can know for sure why they decided to stop playing coy and pretend nothing happened, but I can guess. Take a look at this extraordinary video some Syrian rebels uploaded to YouTube.

That was one hell of a strike. And if the Israelis didn’t do it, that means the Syrian rebels would take the credit.

The Syrian rebels, of course, don’t have the ability to do anything of the sort. Bashar al-Assad would be in deadly serious trouble if they did. Nor can Assad afford to let anyone think they have that kind of firepower unless he can absorb even more defections and a loss of morale on his own side, which he can’t.

Whether for that reason or another, he and Hezbollah realized they had to admit the Israelis hit them and hit them hard where it counted.

But that’s not all they said. No, that would simply not do. Assad is also accusing the Israelis of coordinating their air strikes with terrorists from the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra. That’s how he rolls. It’s how much of the Middle East rolls and has for decades.

It’s a simple to understand formula: Always point the finger at Israel. If a different enemy deserves blame instead, accuse them of collaboration with Israel. When Israel is clearly responsible (as it was in this case), accuse your enemies of collaboration with Israel just because and for extra credit.

The Syrian rebels are doing it, too. They condemned the Israeli strike. I’m guessing they’re secretly grateful, but they did issue a formal condemnation for public consumption, most likely to inoculate themselves from the accusation from Assad they knew for certain was coming. They couldn’t leave the extra credit there on the table, so they’re saying the Assad regime was complicit in Israel’s strike.

It’s complete nonsense, of course, but that’s how it works over there.

Assad is especially adept at this game. Everyone, especially journalists who quote people for a living, needs to understand that. Yet they don’t. The BBC let Assad write their headline. Israeli strikes on Syria 'co-ordinated with terrorists' it says. That’s the actual headline. It was literally written by Assad’s foreign ministry.

Of course the words “co-ordinated with terrorists” are inside quotation marks, and the article makes it clear that this accusation comes from the Syrian government, but most people who see the headline won’t read the article. Casual readers of the BBC Web site won’t even notice the quote marks. Israel is coordinating with Al Qaeda in Syria? Really, BBC? You’re broadcasting that ludicrous accusation with a straight face?

Look. Nothing Assad says in public has a damn thing to do with reality except occasionally by sheer chance. Every single one of his speeches is part of a well-crafted disinformation campaign. Even his silences are part of a well-crafted disinformation campaign. His is a government that “leaks” its own fabrications to Western journalists, then quotes the articles to make its ridiculous narrative look almost plausible. Even the regime’s grudging acknowledgement that Israel really did just bomb Damascus includes a lie in the very same sentence.

If there’s a more absurd place in the world than the Middle East, I’m not aware of it. Soviet propaganda was no less outlandish back in the day, but the Middle Eastern variety is somehow more transparently clownish and needs to be treated accordingly.

 

[Lone]

I heard that one IAF fighter is down and two israeli pilot has been detained. Is it true? any credible sources guys?

 

[Sam1980]

Lol... why is everyone silent about F$A use of chemical weapons?

UN investigator suggests it was Syria's rebels who used chemical weapons

and

@Yzd Khalifa OMG 708 posts?!

 

[Syrian Lion]

haha

Thank you for admitting the west supports Alqaeda, and that they started

 

[Natan]

I heard that one IAF fighter is down and two israeli pilot has been detained. Is it true? any credible sources guys?

No, it is not true.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

I looked into the UN reports. I don't believe the F$A has used Chemos. They could have been used by Al-Nusrah. Don't you think? @Syrian Lion

Lol... why is everyone silent about F$A use of chemical weapons?

UN investigator suggests it was Syria's rebels who used chemical weapons

and

@Yzd Khalifa OMG 708 posts?!

 

[500]

Thank you for admitting the west supports Alqaeda, and that they started

Thats your beloved Robert Fisk. Who was always a big fan of Hezbollah. Since when he became a representative of the "West"?

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

@Yzd Khalifa OMG 708 posts?!

I looked into the UN reports. I don't believe the F$A has used Chemos. They could have been used by Al-Nusrah. Don't you think? @Syrian Lion

708 precious posts . Glad to have you here.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

708 precious posts . Glad to have you here.

Thats your beloved Robert Fisk. Who was always a big fan of Hezbollah. Since when he became a representative of the "West"?

 

[Solomon2]

Two Syrian Women, Two Very Different Perspectives On War

May 06, 2013 3:00 PM

Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

To Syria now and two views of the war that has claimed more than 70,000 lives over the past two years. Among the latest developments: Airstrikes over the weekend on a military complex outside the capital city, Damascus. Those strikes are presumed to have come from Israel, aimed at stopping weapon shipments to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Today, I spoke with a spokeswoman for the Revolution Command Council, rebel forces in the northern Damascus suburbs. Out of safety concerns, she goes by a pseudonym, Susan Ahmad. And she felt those airstrikes very early yesterday morning.

SUSAN AHAMD: It was a very huge explosion. All the windows and doors burst open. Glass fall apart and they broke. It was...

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)

AHAMD: Sorry. You heard that?

BLOCK: I did hear that. What was that?

AHAMD: That was explosion. I think they are going to shell us today because they sent us - warned that they will shell us.

BLOCK: And when you say they, you're referring to the Syrian military in this case.

AHAMD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is right because they have tanks here at checkpoints and they shell us. In my area, which is under the control of the regime, actually we get shelled every few days. But in the areas after the control of a Christian army, they got shelled everyday.

BLOCK: Well, let's go back to the attacks that you were talking about yesterday. The big explosion that you heard. Could you pinpoint exactly what the targets were from those Israeli airstrikes?

AHAMD: They were to the weapons store between Maraba and Ed Draij. They put many weapons, they stored many weapons there.

BLOCK: Do you have any sense of how much of that airstrike might degrade Syria's military capability?

AHAMD: Oh, God. I can't tell, like, precisely. But I know that it will harm it very, very much. So it's not really good. Maybe if you want to be optimistic, we can think that it's OK that we got rid of these weapons, so Assad won't use them against us. But at the same time, Syria's losing because we paid for these weapons. And now we have two enemies. We have to face Assad inside Syria and Israel is going to attack us.

BLOCK: So, you now see Israel as the enemy even though Israel was targeting the Syrian regime that you're fighting against.

AHAMD: It is an enemy actually. Let me tell you something. I don't think that Israel is going to do us a favor. We have been like fighting the regime for two years, and this is the first time Israel do such a thing. So it is not for the sake of the Syrian people.

And something else, for many years we thought that Assad regime is, let's say, the enemy of Israel or the first one who resist the occupation (unintelligible) and so-and-so. We were like fool - actually they were just fooling us. It seems though that Assad is the best ally of Israel, because he always kept the Israeli borders safe.

BLOCK: Wait a minute, Ms. Ahmad, let me stop you there. Are you saying that the Israelis colluded with President Assad to bomb his own military?

AHAMD: It is one of the options actually, yes.

BLOCK: Let me ask you this, Ms. Ahmad, if the Israeli attack degrade Syria's military capability, why would that not be a good thing for the rebel side, for your cause?

AHAMD: Because when I am thinking, actually, I think like a Syrian, I don't think like an opposite person or from the rebels or whatever. Assad is not going to live forever. We are going to get rid of him. So after that, we need to rebuild the whole country. So having a very, very big country so (unintelligible) just to protect our country against anyone who wants to come and take part of this cake, because they see Syria now as a cake, you know. Like Iran is ready to take its parts. Iraq as well. We know don't know other.

BLOCK: Well, Ms. Ahmad, thank you for talking with us today.

AHAMD: Thank you.

BLOCK: That's Susan Ahmad, a pseudonym. She's spokeswoman for the Revolution Command Council outside Damascus.

For a very different view of the war in Syria, we turn to the city of Latakia on the Mediterranean Coast. It's an area that's been relatively untouched by the war, aside from a flood of refugees. That's where we reached the Reem Dagman. She's an Alawite, the same minority group as President Bashar al-Assad. She says she fears a new Islamic state if Assad's regime were to fall.

REEM DAGMAN: As a member of a minority and as a woman, we have so much fear here. You know, here we are living in Latakia and in other places. For me, as an Alawite and as a woman, we live here. We can go to the beach and swim. We can drink. But if the Islamists and the extremes came to here, all of this will be gone - we can't live here. We can't impose what it's like in Egypt, it's the Islamic Brotherhood is ruling there. You can't impose this in Syria.

BLOCK: Apart from the extremists, I wonder, as an Alawite, if you share the concerns that have been expressed by people say that that because the Alawite are associated with the Assad regime, that if the Sunni majority were to take power that there would be reprisals. There would be - you would be held responsible for the crimes of the regime.

DAGMAN: No. No, I don't think so that's our main concern. Our main concern is from the Islams.

BLOCK: Would you describe yourself, Ms. Dagman, as a supporter of the Assad regime?

DAGMAN: I'm supporting the country. I'm supporting to save the law - the enforcement of the law in the country. I don't support chaos. I don't support violence. I'm against violence. I'm with dialogue.

BLOCK: And how do you process what has been going on in your country over the last couple of years, and the tens of thousands - 70,000 people - who have been killed? What do you make of that?

DAGMAN: It's a conflict. It's a conflict between armed opposition and the Syrian army.

BLOCK: And when you hear of Sunni villages that have been wiped out, massacres carried out by the Assad regime or by the Shabiha, do you believe those reports when you hear them?

DAGMAN: You know, if you see these villages - if you say there have been massacres in these villages, there's no civilians in these villages. They're the fight between two sides.

BLOCK: And the women and children whose images we've seen who've been killed, who are they, do you think?

DAGMAN: I have no idea.

BLOCK: What to you would be a positive outcome at the end of this fighting? What would you want to see in Syria?

DAGMAN: What I want as an outcome of this fight, to stop this violence; and everybody come on the table and talk.

BLOCK: And Bashar al-Assad to remain in power?

DAGMAN: Let's go to the boxes - to the election boxes.

BLOCK: Go to the election boxes. In other words, have a vote.

DAGMAN: Yes. Yes.

BLOCK: Ms. Dagman, thank you very much for talking with us today.

DAGMAN: Thank you very much for having me.

BLOCK: That's Reem Dagman. She is an Alawite living in Latakia, Syria.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CORNISH: This is NPR News.
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[Pak47]

@Syrian Lion

Real reasons behind the attack.

 

[Syrian Lion]

I looked into the UN reports. I don't believe the F$A has used Chemos. They could have been used by Al-Nusrah. Don't you think? @Syrian Lion

Alnusrah=F$A=Alqaeda... they all are the same TERRORISTS... so yes Alnusrah used them which also means F$A used them..

@Syrian Lion

Real reasons behind the attack.

of course, Israel and the west failed to topple the Syrian government , thus they want to drag Syria into a full scale war...