Saturday, May 11, 2013

43 Dead in Turkey Car Bombings Near Syria



Comment:[Reyhanli is a town with a sunni majority]

In one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey in recent years, two car bombs exploded near the border with Syria on Saturday, killing 43 and wounding 140 others. Turkish officials blamed the attack on a group linked to Syria, and one called the neighboring country's intelligence service and military "the usual suspects."
The blasts, which were 15 minutes apart and hit the town of Reyhanli's busiest street, raised fears that Turkey could increasingly be drawn into Syria's brutal civil war.
Turkey already hosts Syria's political opposition and rebel commanders, has given shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and in the past retaliated against Syrian shells that landed in Turkey.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said the assailants were from Turkey, but were linked to Syria's intelligence service.
"We have to a great extent completed our work toward identifying the assailants," he told reporters. "We have established that the organization and assailants have links to the pro-regime mukhabarat (intelligence) organization."
He did not name the group.

Al-Jazeera Video: Talk to Al Jazeera - Moaz al-Khatib: The priority is to save Syria

Al-Jazeera Video: حديث الثورة/ الأسد والغارات الإسرائيلية

Israel’s Samson Complex

Netanyahu Again Rebuffs Peace with the Arab World

By Jonathan Cook
CounterPunch

"......Kerry, meanwhile, has proffered his own warning: there is a two-year deadline to finding a solution to the conflict. Then the Obama administration’s lame-duck period begins.
What follows next is left unstated. But presumably once the US formally abandons the peace process, the current status quo intensifies: a single state ruled over apartheid-style by Israel, with a Palestinian Authority consigned to irrelevance or oblivion.
Whatever his protestations, none of this will overly worry Mr Netanyahu. After all, this is a government that last week found grounds for complaint in Google’s decision to confer the status of “Palestine” on a search engine designation.
The reality is that another round of failed peacemaking will do far more damage to the Palestinians and Washington’s reputation than to an Israel that never intended to pick up the phone in the first place."

Carlos Latuff's Cartoon: Stephen Hawking boycotts Israel academic conference


Friday, May 10, 2013

With Father and Sister Imprisoned, Exiled Bahraini Activist Maryam Alkhawaja Condemns Ongoing Abuses

Democracy Now!


"The Bahraini government is continues its crackdown on opposition protesters, with demonstrations repressed and scores of dissidents held behind bars. We’re joined by Maryam Alkhawaja, a leading Bahraini human rights activist. Her family has been highly critical of the U.S.-backed monarchy and they have paid a heavy price. Maryam’s father, human rights attorney Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, is serving a life sentence in prison. He has already spent two years in jail. Her sister, Zainab Alkhawaja, is also imprisoned. A close friend of the family, Nabeel Rajab, is also in jail. Rajab had been the head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. “There has hardly been any real accountability of the Bahraini government of the human rights violations that have been going on in Bahrain for more than two years now,” says Alkhawaja, who is now the acting president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights....."

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Story: Boycotting Israel


"Stephen Hawking has become the latest high-profile figure to support an academic boycott of Israel. The world-renowned physicist has pulled out of a conference hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres."

Stephen Hawking's support for the boycott of Israel is a turning point

Boycotting Israel as a stance for justice is going mainstream – Israelis can no longer pretend theirs is in an enlightened country


The Guardian,

".....The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) aims to change this dynamic. It puts the initiative back in the hands of Palestinians. The goal is to build pressure on Israel to respect the rights of all Palestinians by ending its occupation and blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; respecting the rights of Palestinian refugees who are currently excluded from returning to their homes just because they are not Jews; and abolishing all forms of discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.
These demands are in line with universal human rights principles and would be unremarkable and uncontroversial in any other context, which is precisely why support for them is growing.
BDS builds on a long tradition of popular resistance around the world: from within Palestine itself to the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Historically, boycotts work.
During the 1980s opponents of sanctions against apartheid South Africa – including, notoriously, the late Margaret Thatcher – argued instead for "constructive engagement". They were on the wrong side of history. Today, Palestinians are lectured to drop BDS and return to empty talks that are the present-day equivalent of constructive engagement.
But there can be no going back to the days when Palestinians were silenced and only the strong were given a voice. There can be no going back to endless "dialogue" and fuzzy and toothless talk about "peace" that provides a cover for Israel to entrench its colonisation.
When we look back in a few years, Hawking's decision to respect BDS may be seen as a turning point – the moment when boycotting Israel as a stance for justice went mainstream.
What is clear today is that his action has forced Israelis – and the rest of the world – to understand that the status quo has a price. Israel cannot continue to pretend that it is a country of culture, technology and enlightenment while millions of Palestinians live invisibly under the brutal rule of bullets, bulldozers and armed settlers."

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Real News Video: Stephen Hawking Confirms Support of Israel Boycott

Phyllis Bennis: Hawking's boycott of Israel will shake Israeli public the way sports boycott affected South Africa  

More at The Real News

Former Syrian Rebel Chief: Islamists Should Be Included


Recently Resigned President Pushed for Nusra to Attend Meetings

COMMENT

The US plan, as was predicted on this blog months ago, is becoming clear. It is to keep a weakened Assad who is easy to control and poses no threat to Israel. Another objective is to draw in the Islamists (to later destroy them) and then to form the Syrian version of the Iraqi Sahwa mercenaries to fight the Islamists (not the regime). These mercenaries are now being trained in Jordan.

The illusions of all those who were naive enough to think that the US would intervene to topple Assad, should now be dispelled.

I hope that the Syrian opposition is wise enough to avoid being split up and to continue a united front against the despot's regime. 

"Former Syrian National Coalition (SNC) President Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned in March, is critical of efforts to split the rebels into two camps, a moderate and an Islamist camp, and insists the Islamists should be included in the rebellion.
“We refuse any radical thinking but this does not mean we can exclude them,” insisted Khatib. Aides to the former president added that he had invited Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda linked rebel faction, to attend SNC meetings and coordinate militarily with them.
Efforts by Khatib to invite Nusra to establish formal contacts were eventually vetoed by other SNC officials, and may well have played a role in Khatib’s sudden resignation, which he attributed to growing infighting and lack of international support.
The US has reportedly been pushing the secular rebels to focus primarily on fighting Jabhat al-Nusra, and the host for US trainers, Jordan, has cited undermining the Islamist rebels as a primary goal for hosting the training program. In the long run, however, the secular rebels don’t seem to be anywhere near capable of winning the war on their own, nor do they seem inclined to ditch the Islamists for promises of more Western aid."

ALSO, READ THIS:

US Asked Moderate Syrian Rebels to Fight Al-Nusra

"Much has been made of the Obama administration’s decision to set up shop in Jordan under the pretense of containing the Syrian conflict and of training so-called moderate elements in the Syrian rebel opposition. That is the pretense that has so far been publicized in the news media and is thus the pretense that critics have denounced as a matter of policy.
The popular refrain among those who oppose US intervention in Syria has been that the Obama administration is siding with Sunni jihadists to unseat the Assad regime. I’ve argued that is not what is happening, or at least that it is grossly oversimplified.
Another piece of the puzzle has been made public with a report from journalist Phil Sands who interviewed one of the Syrian rebel commanders that met with US officials in Jordan. According to him, “the Americans were more interested in talking about Jabhat Al Nusra, the Al Qaeda-affiliated group waging war on the Syrian regime, than they were in helping the rebels advance on Damascus.”
The Americans began discussing the possibility of drone strikes on Al Nusra camps inside Syria and tried to enlist the rebels to fight their fellow insurgents.
“The US intelligence officer said, ‘We can train 30 of your fighters a month, and we want you to fight Al Nusra’,” the rebel commander recalled.
Opposition forces should be uniting against Mr Al Assad’s more powerful and better-equipped army, not waging war among themselves, the rebel commander replied. The response from a senior US intelligence officer was blunt.
“I’m not going to lie to you. We’d prefer you fight Al Nusra now, and then fight Assad’s army. You should kill these Nusra people. We’ll do it if you don’t,” the rebel leader quoted the officer as saying.
What the commander says transpired in Jordan illustrates a dilemma that has preoccupied, even paralysed, Syria’s opposition and their international supporters – how to deal with the expanding role of Islamic extremists in the anti-Assad insurgency.
Other meetings with Western and Arab intelligence services have shown a similar obsession with Al Nusra, the commander said.
“All anyone wants is hard information about Al Nusra, it seems to be all they are really interested in. It’s the most valuable commodity you can have when dealing with these intelligence agencies,” he said.
According to this rebel commander, his goal of overthrowing the Assad regime was sidelined in favor of American plans to have the rebels fight among themselves. This falls in line with several other publicly available accounts of the US approach.
In describing Jordan’s role serving as a conduit for arms going to a select group of Syrian rebels, the Guardian reported last month that the US and its allies “have sharply increased their backing of some rebels to try to stop the advances of al-Qaeda-linked groups among them.”
“A push to defeat al-Qaeda, rather than an outright bid to oust Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, is Jordan’s driving force,” the Guardian added.
In addition to the clandestine effort in Jordan to fight the Nusra Front, the Obama administration has also sent the CIA back into Iraq to support Iraqi state militias (the Shiite regime in Baghdad is an ally of Assad, nominally at least) to fight al-Qaeda affiliates pouring into Syria to join the rebellion. The Obama administration even considered a request from the Iraqi government to use drones to bomb Islamist rebel forces along the Iraq-Syria border.
It’s true that Obama has sent non-lethal and (indirectly) lethal aid to the rebels, despite the fact that the great bulk of the fighters who actually matter are jihadists. But the truth is, Obama has ruled out sending decisive aid, lethal or non-lethal, to Syria’s rebels. He reportedly overruled the suggestions of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey – all of whom advocated arming the rebels. Instead, Obama made policy moves like designating the al-Qaeda in Iraq offshoot in Syria a terrorist organization and pressuring Saudi Arabia not to send heavier arms like anti-aircraft weapons.
As the State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said back in January, even as the US supports the Syrian opposition in some abstract way, it is of utmost importance to “maintain the functions of the state.” Syria may have been floated as a target for regime change by the Bush administration’s most fanciful neoconservatives, but Obama sees the chaos of Sunni jihadists taking control of Syria as a much worse outcome than Assad sticking around a while longer.
That said, this policy shift comes far too late. The Syrian war is now early in its third year and weapons from Washington’s Wahabi zealots in Saudi Arabia and in places like Qatar have undoubtedly made their way into the hands of jihadists. The protracted conflict, as Peter Harling and Sarah Birke write at The Middle East Research and Information Project, “never would have reached such cataclysmic proportions were it not for more than a little help from abroad.”
“The opposition would have thought twice about taking up arms had it not been convinced by shallow shows of Western outrage that it would not be left to face the consequences alone,” they argue.
US foreign policy is constantly remedying the catastrophes it has previously wrought. Bush’s war for regime change in Iraq gave rise to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Obama’s meddling (and that of his allies in the Gulf) in Syria’s civil conflict prompted AQI to move to Syria and fight Assad as Jabhat al-Nusra. Now the meddling continues to try and eliminate al-Nusra, which has quickly become the foremost element in Syria’s rebellion. It is an endless trail of failures, leading to more interventions, which lead to more failures."

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Guardian Poll: Is Stephen Hawking right to join the academic boycott of Israel?

Stephen Hawking has pulled out of a conference hosted by the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Is he right to do so?
Stephen Hawking

So far, 61% of the respondents said Yes!

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Rabbit is Planning His (No) Response to Repeated Israeli Attacks on His Regime's Forces.......

Any Decade Now!

Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Physicist pulls out of conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of Palestinians

Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem
The Guardian,

"Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday.
Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking's approval described it as "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there".
Hawking's decision marks another victory in the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli academic institutions.
In April the Teachers' Union of Ireland became the first lecturers' association in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel, and in the United States members of the Association for Asian American Studies voted to support a boycott, the first national academic group to do so......."

Real News Video: Israel's Syria Strategy to Weaken Hezbollah and Profit from Chaos

Shir Hever: Israel can take advantage of weakened Syrian state to attack arms shipments headed to Lebanon; long grinding civil war in Syria said to be in Israel's interests  

More at The Real News

Al-Jazeera Video: ما وراء الخبر- أثر الغارات على العلاقات السورية الإسرا

A GOOD VIDEO; WELL WORTH WATCHING!


"تستعرض الحلقة العلاقات السورية الإسرائيلية على ضوء الغارات على أهداف في دمشق والتي بررتها إسرائيل بأنها موجه لحزب الله وليس لنظام الأسد.فما المسارات المستقبلية لهذه العلاقة في ظل التطورات الميدانية على الساحة السورية."

The Syrian Regime's Response to Israeli Raids on it? More Slaughter of the Syrian People, of course!

by Emad Hajjaj

The Syrian Regime's Response to Israeli Raids on it? More Slaughter of the Syrian People, of course!

Monday, May 6, 2013

بشأن تكرار الاعتداءات الاسرائيلية الخطيرة ضد سورية


6 مايو 2013
عزمي بشارة
1. ثبت للمرة الألف أن إسرائيل تعمل من أجل إسرائيل، وليس من أجل أحد، لا نظام ولا ثورة. (نقول هذا لمن يهلل للقصف بعدمية وطنية وانحلال سياسي وأخلاقي، ولمن يوجه أصبع الاتهام للثورة ويمنح اسرائيل هدايا بسحب فرقه من حدودها ويعدها بأنه لن يستخدم الكيماوي ضدها في المستقبل أيضا).
2. اسرائيل تعمل لمنع وصول أسلحة لحزب الله، أو لتنظيمات جهادية عاملة في سورية. ولكن القصف الأخير على قاسيون يشير إلى أنها تعتبر الفوضى الحالية في المشرق العربي عموما مناسبةً للتخلص من أي قوة استراتيجية في سورية، بغض النظر عمن سوف يحكم هذا البلد مستقبلا.
3. نفذت اسرائيل عمليات قصف في سورية قبل الثورة، ولم ترد سورية على القصف؛ لا جديد من حيث المبدأ، ولكنها توسع حاليا قائمة الأهداف ضد كل ما تعتبره يشكل خطرا عليها حاليا أو مستقبلا، بغض النظر عن طبيعة النظام. وهذا خطير.
4. اسرائيل لا تريد ان تكون في سورية الحالية أو المستقبلية قوة عسكرية استراتيجية من اي نوع. وهي تعتبر الفرصة الحالية سانحة لتطبيق ذلك.

5. بعد أن سحب الجيش السوري فرقتين من مناطق حدودية مع إسرائيل، ووظّفها ضد الثورة، وبعد أن أعلن وزير الإعلام ان السلاح الكيماوي لن يستخدم حتى ضد إسرائيل، قام سلاح الجو الصهيوني بقصف تدميري لأهداف سورية مرتين. أهدى النظام السوري تنازلا للكيان الصهيوني والغرب بأن ما يخشاه وهو استخدام أسلحة كيماوية ضد إسرائيل لن يحصل، وأن عدوه الحقيقي هو عدو الغرب، وهو "الإرهاب الإسلامي".
6. قامت إسرائيل بهذا العدوان بعد أن أعلنت إيران رسميا عن وجودها في سورية، وأن هذا الوجود لمنع سقوط دمشق بأيدي اسرائيل وواشنطن، ولا يبدو أن هنالك رد إيراني على إسرائيل التي تعتدي مباشرة على الحلقة المهددة من قبل إسرائيل والني يفترض أن يحميها التحالف المعلن. ولكننا نشهد ردود متواصلة ومثابرة وعنيفة ضد الشعب السوري والعراقي... هذا هو كما يبدو الصراع الحقيقي بالنسبة لإيران في المرحلة الراهنة.
7. في سورية دولة فاشية أمنية تحكمها عصابات مافيوزية لا ترتدع عن ارتكاب أفظع المجازر، وفي المقابل ثمة مظاهر نشوء أمراء حرب في الثورة إلى جانب اختراقات إقليمية ودولية لا يجابهها اي حاجز سيادي ثوري، ويرافقها غياب المسؤولية المركزية لدى الواجهة السياسة للثورة. وهذه ظواهر سوف تمنع إعادة إنتاج كيان سياسي سوري منظم، فضلا عن جيش ودولة. هذا وضع خطير يحتاج إلى تفكير معمق وفعل حازم.
8. إذا لم يتم تدارك الأوضاع السياسية بحلول سياسية حقيقة تضمن انتقال السلطة في سورية بشكل منظم يحافظ على الدولة، يدخل المشرق العربي في وضع جديد، سوف يكون التناقض الرئيس فيه هو التناقض الطائفي. وتعلن إسرائيل بوقاحة أنها عازمة على الاستفادة من هذا الوضع عبر الاستفراد بالمنطقة كقوة عسكرية وحيدة في المشرق العربي تضرب من تشاء متى تشاء، وعبر تكريس الاستيطان بشكل لا يمكن بعده التعرف على القدس والمناطق المحتلة عام 1967. وتظهر التنازلات الفلسطينية الرسمية المعبر عنها عربيا، والتي تقابلها إسرائيل ببرود، مجرد تفاصيل باهتة في هذه الصورة.

تشييع عراقي في البصرة قتل اثناء الدفاع عن مقام السيدة زينب بدمشق

"البصرة- (ا ف ب): شيع العشرات في مدينة البصرة الجنوبية العراقية الاثنين جثمان عراقي قتل في سوريا اثناء “الدفاع″ عن مقام السيدة زينب قرب دمشق.

وفي مناسبة نادرة، سار نحو مئتي شخص يحملون اعلام العراق وصورة ضياء مطشر كاطع العيساوي وقد كتب عليها “قالت السيدة زينب عليها السلام: اللهم تقبل منها هذا القربان”.

وكتب على الصورة ايضا “استشهد في حرم السيدة زينب” الاحد، وفقا لمراسل وكالة فرانس برس.

وقال حيدر شقيق ضياء لفرانس برس ان “اخي ذهب للدفاع عن مقدساتنا ونتمنى من كل عراقي شهم وبطل ان يحذو حذوه للدفاع عن مرقد السيدة زينب”.

ومن النادر ان تقام في العراق مراسم دفن وتشييع علنية لاشخاص يقاتلون في سوريا.

وبحسب مصادر محلية، فان العيساوي (29 عاما) ينتمي الى مجموعة تطلق على نفسها اسم “كتائب سيد الشهداء” تاسست قبل عام في البصرة بهدف “حماية المقدسات الشيعية في سوريا”.

ولم تتبن اي جماعة عراقية ارسال مقاتلين الى سوريا التي تملك حدودا مشتركة مع العراق بطول نحو 600 كلم.

وينقسم العراق بين منتقدين لبشار الاسد جراء النزاع الدموي الدائر في سوريا منذ اذار/ مارس 2011 والذي قتل فيه عشرات الآلاف، ومسؤولين اخرين بينهم المالكي يؤكدون على اهمية “الحل السياسي” للازمة هناك."


Real News Video: Religious Fundamentalism Growing in Gaza

Hamas is under extreme pressure from small Salafi extremist groups to impose Islamic and Sharia law  

More at The Real News

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Story - Syria - exploding beyond its borders

Al-Jazeera Video:ما وراء الخبر - الغارات الإسرائيلية على سوريا

Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Usual Lies of the Syrian Regime



Earlier, the Syrian regime claimed that it downed an Israeli jet and that it had captured two Israeli pilots! Al-Manar (of Hizbullah) repeated that.

Israeli jet shot down over Damascus: Hezbollah TV

Later, when the lie became too transparent, the Syrian regime started backtracking, as seen below:

مصادر امنية للمنار: الدفاع الجوي السوري يصيب طائرة حربية اسرائيلية خلال اغارتها على دمشق

وزير الإعلام السوري بعد الإجتماع الطارئ لمجلس الوزراء السوري : ليس لدينا أدلة حول ما يقال عن سقوط طائرة حربية اسرائيلية في سوريا

Al Jazeera discusses the potential fall out from the Israeli airstrikes on Syria

Al-Jazeera Video: إسرائيل تغير على أهداف داخل سوريا

RT Video: New massive Israeli attack rocks Damascus army research site

Russian sources: Syria set for war with Israel. Iron Domes at Haifa and Safed

DEBKAfile Special Report May 5, 2013

"Russian and Iranian media Sunday, May 5, predicted full-scale Middle East hostilities involving Israel erupting in the coming hours, in the wake of Israel’s renewed strikes against Iranian missiles bound for Hizballah and other targets around Damascus. Russian sources reported rumors that President Bashar Assad was on the point of declaring war on Israel.
Russia Today claimed that an Israeli rocket strike Sunday caused heavy Syrian casualties – according to rumors, at least 300 members of the Syrian Army’s 501st Unit dead and hundreds filling four Damascus hospitals. debkafile: If this is confirmed, then the unit which operates the chemical weapon facility at the Barzeh district north of Damascus at the foot of Mt. Qassioun was hit.
 The same Russian source reported that Syrian security forces cordoned off the sites of the explosions against entry. Residents reported after the blasts that the ground moved with the force of a 4 magnitude earthquake.
Shortly after the Israel attacks in the Damascus area Sunday, the IDF posted additional Iron Dome anti-missile batteries in Haifa and Safed to defend those northern towns against incoming Syrian and Hizballah rockets.
Low-ranking Syrian and Iranian officials responded to the Israeli attacks on Syria: Deputy Information minister His Al-Yiftah commented by saying that “a new foreign element had entered the Syrian conflict overnight and this would cause war.”
 In Tehran, an Iranian foreign ministry official condemned “Israeli aggression on Syria and accused Israel of fomenting instability and ethnic discord in the region. The commander of the ground forces asked if the war was not about to burst out of Syria’s borders, without answering the question.
An Israeli official confirmed to AFP that Israeli had Sunday conducted a second round of strikes in three days on advanced weapons including Iranian F-110 weapons bound for Hizballah in transit at Damascus international airport. Syrian TV reported only an attack on the Jamraya military research center just north of Damascus. This was the same facility which Israeli planes attacked in January."

Might does not make Right


Maysaloon

"......Last night's Israeli attack against an Assad regime research facility in Damascus has brought out of the wood work all sorts of individuals who, silent in the face of the massacre in the coastal city of Banyas for the past three days, have suddenly found their voices. The similarity in the pictures we saw coming out of Banyas this past few days were truly horrific, and reminiscent of the images we saw from the Sabra and Chatilla massacres during the Lebanese civil war. Yet these self-styled anti-imperialists did not retweet and angrily condemn these murders. They chose silence and wilful ignorance instead.

Today they are trying to portray the Israeli air raids last night as an attack on Syrian sovereignty, as if that is not what Assad has been doing to Syrians for the past two and a half years. Apart from the evident hypocrisy of this position, there are also two fallacies underlying their argument. Firstly that the Syrian regime represents Syria, and that an attack on it is an attack on the country and its people, and the second is that Israel did this in support of the Syrian revolution.

With regards to the second point most Syrians, including those who support the revolution, are missing the fact that Israel hasn't got the slightest concern about the Syrian revolution or the Syrians who are dying. It is focused first and foremost in its battle with Iran and Hezbullah, and has consistently stated that it will not let the more advanced weaponry in Syria's arsenal falling into Hezbullah's arms. When it attacks Assad's bases and arsenals, it is doing so with a clear strategy.

Syrians supporting the revolution should neither cheer nor lament the involvement of Israel's attacks on Assad's arsenal. From a practical point of view it is very much an advantage to the revolution (armed as well as peaceful), as it is far better for the regime's arsenal and advanced divisions to be obliterated than that they be used against Syrian towns and villages. We have seen the piles of bodies in Banyas and countless Syrian villages and cities, on a week so close to the anniversary of the Houla massacre perpetrated by Assad regime thugs, and these images will forever be engraved in the collective memory of Syrians. Never again must we allow ourselves to be in such a position, that Syrians be slaughtered like sheep in an abattoir......."

محلل عسكري اسرائيلي: تفجير الصواريخ في دمشق يثبت قدرة على اختراق الملاجئ المحصنة

عرب48 +وكالات

"رجح المحلل العسكري في صحيفة "يديعوت احرونوت"، روني بن يشاي، ان الضربات الاسرائيلية لمخزون الصواريخ السورية ووقود هذه الصواريخ التي نفذت على دفعتين خلال اليومين الماضيين كانت منسقة مع الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.

وأضاف بن يشاي، ان الضربات لا تستهدف منع ايصال هذه الصواريخ الى ايدي حزب الله فقط، مع ما يمثله ذلك من تهديد لاسرائيل، بل ان اسرائيل تستغل اللحظة المناسبة لضرب مخزون الصواريخ السورية، مشيرا الى أن مثل هذه الضربات يحتاج تنفيذها الى اعداد ومعلومات استخبارية وقدرات هجومية يحتاج توفيرها اسابيع عديدة وصولا الى اللحظة المناسبة لتنفيذ الضربات.


وقال بن يشاي، ان هذه الضربات تشير الى امتلاك اسرائيل لصواريخ وقنابل قادرة على اختراف الملاجئ الواقعة تحت الأرض، حيث اثبتت قوة الانفجارات المرافقة للضربة أن الأهداف اصيبت بشكل مباشر ما يدل على قدرة لاختراق هذه الملاجئ المحصنة

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Israel launches more 'airstrikes' in Syria


Syria state media reports of Israeli airstrikes targeting several military positions.

"Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah group, officials and activists said.
Syria's state media on Sunday reported that Israeli missiles struck a military and scientific research centre near the Syrian capital and caused casualties.
The attack, the second in three days, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's civil war......"