Syria @ MindSay

 

 

Syrians Hold Funerals for people killed in U.S. raid

 

By ZEINA KARAM and HUSSEIN MALLA, Associated Press Writers Zeina Karam And Hussein Malla, Associated Press Writers 54 mins ago

SUKKARIYEH, Syria – Families in this village near the Iraqi border buried loved ones Monday who they said were killed when the U.S. military launched a rare attack in Syrian territory. During the funerals, angry residents shouted anti-American slogans and carried banners reading: "Down with Bush and the American enemy."

The Syrian government said four U.S. military helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown Sunday in Sukkariyeh about five miles inside the Syrian border.

The government statement said eight people were killed, including a man and his four children and a woman. However, local officials said seven men were killed and two other people were wounded, including a woman among the injured.

An Associated Press journalist at the funerals in the village's cemetery saw the bodies of seven men — none of them minors. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

A U.S. military official in Washington confirmed Sunday that special forces had conducted a raid in Syria that targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

The attack is another sign that the United States is aggressively launching military raids across the borders of Afghanistan and Iraq to destroy insurgent sanctuaries. In Pakistan, U.S. missile strikes have killed at least two senior al-Qaida operatives this year and ramped up the threat to groups suspected of plotting attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan and terror strikes in the West.

Sunday's attack also comes at a time when Syria appears to be making some amends with the United States. Though Syria has long been viewed by the U.S. as a destabilizing country in the Middle East, Damascus has been trying in recent months to change its image and end years of global seclusion.

Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, was in London on Monday and scrapped plans to hold a joint news conference with his British counterpart.

Jihad Makdissi, a spokesman at Syria's embassy in the British capital, accused the United States of "applying the law of the jungle."

The U.S. military in Iraq said it did not have any information about the incident. But the raid came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

In Sukkariyeh, villager Jumaa Ahmad al-Hamad told The Associated Press he was walking Sunday when he saw four helicopters, two of which landed.

"Shooting then started ringing for more than 10 minutes," al-Hamad said Monday. After the helicopters stopped firing and left the area, he and other villagers went to the site and discovered the bodies of his uncle, Dawoud al-Hamad, and four of his uncle's sons, who he said were killed in the raid.

Syria called the raid a "serious aggression," and its Foreign Ministry summoned the charges d'affaires of the United States and Iraq in protest.

Syrian parliament member Suleiman Hadad called the raid "a last-ditch hit by the defeated and desperate" Bush administration, which is trying to "restore some of its lost dignity in the region."

Government newspapers also published scathing criticisms in Monday's editions. Tishrin splashed its front pages with a headline denouncing the raid as a "U.S. war crime," while the Al-Baath newspaper described the attack in an editorial as a "stunning, shocking and unprecedented adventure."

"Even while it's preparing itself to leave the White House, the Bush administration seems determined to demonstrate its foolishness, and this is a dangerous indication of political madness and stupid arrogance," Al-Baath said.

Iran also condemned the attack, while Iraqi officials said they hoped the raid would not harm their relations with Syria.

"We are trying to contain the fallout from the incident," Iraqi Foreign Ministry undersecretary Labid Abbawi said. "It is regrettable and we are sorry it happened."

Some Iraqi officials warned that the U.S. military raid into Syria could be used by opponents of a security pact under negotiation with the United States.

"Now neighboring countries have a good reason to be concerned about the continued U.S. presence in Iraq," prominent Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman told The Associated Press.

Abbawi said he did not believe the Syrian raid would affect the security negotiations but acknowledged that "some will use the incident for the argument against the agreement."

Sunday's attack comes as the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has been declining. A senior U.S. military intelligence official told the AP in July that it had been cut to an estimated 20 a month. That's a 50 percent decline from six months ago, and just a fifth of the estimated 100 foreign fighters who were infiltrating Iraq a year ago, according to the official.

The area targeted Sunday is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money coming into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

Ninety percent of the foreign fighters enter through Syria, according to U.S. intelligence. Foreigners are some of the most deadly fighters in Iraq, trained in bomb-making and with small-arms expertise and more likely to be willing suicide bombers than Iraqis.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem accused the United States earlier this year of not giving his country the equipment needed to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq. He said Washington feared Syria could use such equipment against Israel.

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Karam reported from Damascus, Malla from Sukkariyeh. Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.

 

 

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Suspected U.S. strike kills up to 20 in Pakistan

 

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike killed up to 20 people in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, officials said, the latest salvo in an intensifying assault on militant hide-outs near the Afghan border.

The reported strike occurred in the South Waziristan region, part of Pakistan's wild border zone that is considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

In other violence in Pakistan's frontier zone, a car bomb killed two people in Quetta and a suicide attacker demolished a checkpoint, injuring eight police and troops.

Missile strikes into Pakistan's border region have escalated sharply amid complaints from American commanders that Pakistani forces are not putting enough pressure on militant strongholds on their territory.

U.S. military and CIA drones that patrol the frontier region are believed to have carried out at least 15 strikes since August. The United States rarely confirms or denies involvement.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to media on the record, said the targeted house in Mandata Raghzai village belonged to a lieutenant of local Taliban chief Maulvi Nazir.

The officials, citing reports from agents and informers in the area, said militants cordoned off the scene. The identities of the 20 bodies pulled from the rubble were not immediately known, they said.

The missile strikes have killed at least two senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan this year and ramped up the threat to groups suspected of plotting attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan and terror strikes in the West.

However, it has also put strain on the country's seven-year alliance with the U.S. in its war on terror, especially since stalwart U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf stepped down as Pakistan's army chief and president.

Pakistan's new leaders have protested the missile strikes — as well as a highly unusual raid by helicopter-borne commandos in September — as unacceptable violations of their sovereignty.

The attacks, they argue, are fueling the militancy destabilizing Pakistan and undermining the nuclear-armed nation's already faltering economy. Pakistan is seeking International Monetary Fund assistance to prevent it from defaulting on its foreign debt.

The car bomb in Quetta exploded in a parking lot near government buildings and the Iranian consulate, setting fire to a string of vehicles. Police said a rickshaw driver and another unidentified person died and that 10 others were injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Quetta is the capital of a region dogged for years by a low-level insurgency seeking greater autonomy. It is also considered a hub for Taliban militants operating in neighboring Afghanistan.

Farther north, a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a security post in the Mohmand tribal region late Sunday. The army said the blast killed one civilian and injured 13 other people, including 11 troops and police.

Pakistani troops are battling militants in two areas of the country's troubled northwest. In the Bajur region, for instance, it claims to have killed some 1,500 suspected insurgents in a two-month offensive.

Yet many Pakistani are weary of a war they believe is being fought at America's behest and the government has offered to negotiate with any militant group willing to renounced violence, regardless of their ideology.

"There is an increasing realization that the use of force alone cannot yield the desired results," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a gathering of Pakistani and Afghan tribal elders.

The meeting in Islamabad was part of a dialogue process begun last year in hopes that it could ease strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, both crucial allies of the U.S.

___

Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta and Stephen Graham in Islamabad contributed to this report.

 

Okay, I am reading my daily update from International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) and I am astounded to read that Prime Minister Olmert has offered a secret deal to Syria: an exchange of peace for the Golan Heights. If this is true, either Olmert is in a mental state of delusion or he is just plain moronically stupid.

 

Syria’s history of deception, making deals, breaking deals and aiding factions of terrorists and their enemies by constantly switching sides is the essence of Syria’s political nature. Assad will only keep a deal with Israel if there is a perceived huge benefit that will not hinder Syrian National Interests. Incidentally Syrian National Interests is more about money to be made for the Assad dynasty than any official political ideology or Islamist politico-theology publicly endorsed (or repudiated depending on the money).

 

Olmert is insane to deal unless he has a plan to offset Syrian duplicity. Olmert’s history does not suggest he is smart enough to have such a plan of action.

 

Israeli daily: Olmert willing to withdraw from Golan Heights

Olmert to Assad: Israel willing to pay "price of peace"

 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently relayed a secret message to Syrian President Bashar Assad saying Israel knows the price of peace and will be willing to pay it, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported today.

 

According to the report, Olmert told the Syrian leader that Israel would return the disputed Golan Heights in exchange for a comprehensive peace agreement and the severing of Damascus’ alliance with Iran and terror groups in the region.

 

 

The newspaper quoted a senior Israeli as saying that Assad has yet to respond to Israel’s offer.

The report alleged that US President George Bush gave Olmert the green light for negotiations with Syria in an hour-long phone conversation last month, and that the two leaders will further discuss the possibility of talks during their scheduled meeting at the White House on June 19.

 

A Syrian diplomat in London denied the report, saying that Damascus had not received any invitation from Israel to open negotiations, Israel Radio reported. (ICEJ email – 6/8/07)

This is a deal that the Israeli government has to know is insane! Olmert’s premiership absolutely needs to be terminated. Ironically the Assad government has publicly allowed plausible deniability for Olmert. Does “Land for Peace” sound like Olmert or not? Hello, Olmert’s Convergence plan: we pro-Israel people must be aware.

 

Mean while both Israel and Syria are overtly preparing for war.

 

Shi’ite Iran and Wahhabi Sunni Taliban have been fierce enemies in the past, so much so that Iran did not complain when America invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and it Stateless ally al-Qaeda.

Apparently the deep hatred Sunni and Shi’ites have had for centuries has transformed by mutual hatred of the United States. There have been major indicators that Iran has been supplying weapons and supplies to the Taliban hiding in the Afghan mountains enabling them to be a continuous threat to the anti-Taliban government and American/coalition forces trying to secure Afghanistan.

So here is the picture: Iran says that Israel will soon be wiped off the map; Iran trains and supplies terrorists Hamas (Sunnis in the Gaza), Islamic Jihad (Shi’ites in Gaza) and Hezbollah (Shi’ites in Lebanon); Iran has made mutual defense pacts with Syria and Sudan; Iran has trained and anti-American militant Shi’ites in Iraq; Iran as stated above is aiding the Taliban AND I would say it is a pretty good guess that NOW Iran is aiding al-Qaeda in some form or fashion. This is a bleak picture for Middle Eastern peace particularly as it affects the National Interests of America and Israel.

I must note that these Sunni/Shi’ite alliances are tenable. There mutual hatred could blow up into a division followed by unification due to a perceived American threat. It is quite complicated on who are enemies and friends at any given moment. The only thing that seems to be linear is both Wahhabi and Shi’ite schools of thought desiring a return to medieval harsh Sharia Law, it is only the interpretation that separates the sects and an American ideology of democratic Liberty and an American military presence that unites them.

 

Remember not too long ago that House Speaker Pelosi led a group of Democrats in tow to engage in the Democratic Party’s (Constitutionally dubious) foreign policy discussions with Bashar al-Assad of the rogue nation Syrian?

 

Well I just read a post that is an analysis of the Syrian regime governed by the Assad secularist dynasty written by Walid Phares. After reading the essay you have to ask yourself some questions.

 

Did Pelosi fall for one of the historical deceptive promises of playing enemies and allies against each other to keep the Assad dynasty in power? Indeed if Pelosi was taking this path it means she was given meaningless tokens of assurance. What would those treasonous tokens have been to entice Pelosi to go to Syria?

 

Another question: Is Pelosi a MORON for not reading dossiers on how the Assads have practiced politic business and just believed any promise Assad duped her with?

 

Another question: Was Pelosi a stooge delivering or parlaying with the Assads on behalf of an appeasement minded idiotic Democratic Party elite also duped into believing Assad can deliver on peace initiatives?

 

What is Taqiya? What is Khid’a (Do a page search for Khid’a)?