Category Archives: News

ISIS’s ‘most potent’ crew is now in Sinai — and says it bombed Russia’s jet

The Daily Beast reports: Soon after Russian planes began dropping bombs on Islamic militants in Syria a month ago, in an effort to prop up the country’s embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad, ISIS vowed that Russia, and by extension its citizens, would be a target. Last Saturday, Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 departed Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and flew directly over the homebase of an ISIS affiliate with the ambition, and perhaps the capability, to make good on that threat.

The growing fears that an explosive device may have brought down the airplane, killing all 224 on board, stems in part from the rise of the ISIS affiliate in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula.

Over the past four years, the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s branch in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula has grown into a formidable threat. It “is one of the group’s most active and potent ISIL affiliates,” a U.S. counterterrorism official told The Daily Beast, using an alternative acronym for the group.

The branch, which calls itself the Islamic State of the Sinai, or Wilayat al Sinai, has twice claimed responsibility for taking down the Russian airliner, most recently on Wednesday. But it hasn’t offered any of ISIS’ trademark evidence, such as martyr statements or videos of the plane crashing. Rather, the group said essentially: “Trust us, we did it.” And that only added to the mystery about how the plane came down.

U.S. officials said this week that some intelligence points to ISIS or its affiliate in Sinai as having detonated bomb on the Russian airliner, though the Obama administration has yet to publicly make that claim, and scant evidence has been put forward.

If Wilayat al Sinai turned its sights on foreign citizens, it would mark a significant evolution in ISIS’ regional strategy, from gobbling up territory to launching attacks on civilians beyond its holdouts in Iraq and Syria. It would also stand as one of the deadliest attack by a terror group since 9/11, and the first successful attack since then against civilian aviation. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS suspected of using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq

Reuters reports: Chemical weapons experts have determined that mustard gas was used in a Syrian town where Islamic State insurgents were battling another group, according to a report by an international watchdog seen by Reuters.

A confidential Oct. 29 report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a summary of which was shown to Reuters, concluded “with the utmost confidence that at least two people were exposed to sulphur mustard” in the town of Marea, north of Aleppo, on Aug. 21.

“It is very likely that the effects of sulphur mustard resulted in the death of a baby,” it said.

The findings provide the first official confirmation of use of sulphur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, in Syria since it agreed to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, which included sulphur mustard.

The report did not mention Islamic State, as the fact-finding mission was not mandated to assign blame, but diplomatic sources said the chemical had been used in the clashes between Islamic State and another rebel group taking place in the town at the time.

“It raises the major question of where the sulphur mustard came from,” one source said. “Either they (IS) gained the ability to make it themselves, or it may have come from an undeclared stockpile overtaken by IS. Both are worrying options.”

Syria is supposed to have completely surrendered the toxic chemicals 18 months ago. Their use violates U.N. Security Council resolutions and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

The findings were part of three reports released to members of the OPCW last week. They add to a growing body of evidence that the Islamic State group has obtained, and is using, chemical weapons in both Iraq and Syria. [Continue reading…]

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In last interview, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander described role in Syria

Pandagulu draws out some of the salient points from the last interview given by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps(IRGC) top commander, Hossein Hamadani, before his recent death in Syria:

[T]he Supreme Leader told us that Syria is like a patient that is not aware of his ailment. Therefore, he doesn’t want to go to Doctor, but you need to take him anyway. When he goes to Doctor he will tell you that he doesn’t want any medication. You need to prescribe and get the medication for him. He won’t take the medication, but you need to make him take it, Hamadani asserted. “That was the recipe for us to stay,” he added.

Accoding to Hamadani, the opening for Iran in Syria came when the opponents reached to the close vicinity of Assad’s palace. “Everyone fled, even the Russians,” Hamadani claimed, adding that Iranians were the only one that stayed. They came to believe that we would stay next to them “up to the last moment.” As a result, they started to trust us, the IRGC commander said.

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ISIS has a new favorite social media network: Telegram

The Fiscal Times reports: Terror Jihadi groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda are now shifting much of their social media propaganda, recruiting and fund transferring from mainstream social media sites like Twitter to a service called Telegram, according to a new report by the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC).

ISIS and other militant groups have been jumping from one social media service to another in their attempts to avoid anti-terrorism programs by governments and corporations. They appear to have settled on Telegram. “The Jihadis’ struggle to keep up with the relentless suspensions and removal of jihadi social media content may have finally run its course,” says Veryan Khan, the Editorial Director at TRAC. “The new frontier of jihadi communication is taking place on a recently launched tool, in a messaging platform that has revolutionized the social media sphere.”

Telegram was launched in August 2013 by the two Russian brothers, Nicolay and Pavel Durov, as a free encrypted instant messaging service. While reports of terror groups using Telegram surfaced months ago, a new feature called “Channels” was launched in September to let users broadcast to other members of the service. It quickly turned Telegram into the favorite social media hub of ISIS and other terror groups.

“It is this new feature that has been enthusiastically embraced by many militant groups, becoming an underground railroad for distributing and archiving jihadi propaganda materials,” the TRAC report says.

As of Nov. 2, TRAC has recorded more than 200 major jihadi channels. Half of them belong to ISIS. Other major players in the jihadi world, from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to Jabhat al-Nusra to Ansar al-Sharia in Libya to Jaysh al-Islam, are increasingly creating their own channels. The rate of membership growth for the channels has been staggering, quickly climbing to about 150,000 total members, the report concludes.

“The sheer scale and momentum of the Telegram migration is hard to fathom,” says Brian Watts, an author of the TRAC report. “The force of the numbers using Telegram channels is staggering, watching hundreds of new members in an hours’ time; thousands coming on in over a few days is commonplace for many channels.” [Continue reading…]

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UAE threatened UK: Crack down on Muslim Brotherhood or lose arms deals

The Guardian reports: The United Arab Emirates threatened to block billion-pound arms deals with the UK, stop inward investment and cut intelligence cooperation if David Cameron did not act against the Muslim Brotherhood, the Guardian has learned.

Internal UAE government documents seen by the Guardian show that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi was briefed to complain to the prime minister about the Muslim Brotherhood in June 2012, when one of its leading members, Mohamed Morsi, became Egyptian president.

In the briefing notes it was suggested that the crown prince demand Cameron rein in BBC coverage.

In return, Cameron was to be offered lucrative arms and oil deals for British business which would have generated billions of pounds for the jet divisions of BAE Systems and allowed BP to bid to drill for hydrocarbons in the Gulf.

A second set of papers from 2014 reveal that the UK’s ambassador to the UAE was warned by Khaldoon al-Mubarak – best known in Britain as chairman of Manchester City football club but also the right-hand man of the crown prince – that the UAE was still unhappy and that a “red flag” had been raised about the British government’s indifference to the Brotherhood’s operation.

The warning delivered to Dominic Jermey said the trust between the two nations “has been challenged due to the UK position towards the Muslim Brotherhood” because “our ally is not seeing it as we do: an existential threat not just to the UAE but to the region”. [Continue reading…]

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India’s war on Greenpeace

The New York Times reports: Greenpeace India said in a statement on Friday that its permit to operate in India had been revoked on the grounds that it had falsified financial documents, the latest in a series of government actions taken against the environmental organization.

The move against the group is one of many “clumsy tactics to suppress free speech and dissenting voices” by the government, Vinuta Gopal, the interim executive director of Greenpeace India, said in the statement.

The organization will fight the authorities’ cancellation of the permit in court, she said in a telephone interview. [Continue reading…]

Samanth Subramanian wrote in August: After deciding not to sleep at all before her 6.50am flight out of Delhi, Priya Pillai felt slow and drowsy as she handed her passport over the immigration counter. It was a few hours past midnight on 11 January 2015; Pillai, a campaigner with Greenpeace India, knew that two full weeks of work awaited her in London. At check-in, she had secured an aisle seat, which made her happy. Now, as the official scanned her passport, Pillai sent idle texts to a colleague in Boston and pondered a plan to visit a friend in the north of England for the weekend.

Behind the counter, the official reached for a square of paper and began taking notes. His name was VK Ojha, Pillai remembers, and he looked fresh and alert. He had a neat moustache and wore a white shirt and navy blue trousers. Minutes went by, and Ojha scribbled on.

“Is there a problem?” Pillai asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Please wait here.”

Ojha vanished. From the next counter, a curious official asked for Pillai’s name and, after typing it into his computer, said: “Greenpeace?” Pillai nodded. When Ojha returned, he led Pillai to an office run by the immigration authority. There, he asked Pillai for her passport and told her – most politely, Pillai remembers – that she couldn’t leave the country.

Pillai is a voluble person, and she spent the next four hours demanding explanations from immigration officials. She got none. When an Air India employee came by, he was asked to take Pillai’s luggage off the plane, which terrified her. She thought: “They’ll put drugs in my bags, and they’ll say: ‘This is why we’re arresting you.’”

Pillai was sure that the state was not beyond framing her. Since 2010, she had been part of a Greenpeace group that was protesting the government’s decision to commission new coal mines in the woods of Mahan in central India. She was travelling to London, in fact, to talk to an informal group of British MPs about Mahan and about Essar Energy, an Indian power and fossil fuel giant incorporated in the UK in 2009 and listed briefly on the London Stock Exchange. Essar Energy was one of two companies licensed to mine in Mahan; Greenpeace argued that the filthy process of mining coal would pulverise acres of forest and displace thousands who lived in the area.

The government took a dim view of these protests. Some of Pillai’s colleagues had been arrested in Mahan on flimsy charges that never stuck. Police and intelligence agencies monitored the activists closely; Pillai was sure they were aware of her London trip. “I know my phone has been tapped for years,” she said. “I’ve had experiences [such as] getting on to a train from Delhi to go to Mahan, and even the people there don’t know I’m coming, but the police or the local intelligence people there will call these people in Mahan and say: ‘Priya’s coming, right?’ I’ve had bureaucrats tell me: ‘You should be careful. You’re under surveillance.’” [Continue reading…]

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Israeli border officer threatens Palestinians: ‘We will gas you all until you die’

Muftah reports: An Israeli border officer threatened to “gas you all until you die,” while speaking to the residents of Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. While the mentality behind the officer’s threat is nothing new to Palestinians, the candor with which he spoke is.

In a one minute video recorded by a camp resident on Thursday, October 29, the officer used the loud speaker on an Israeli jeep crawling down a street in the camp and announced in Arabic: “People of Aida refugee camp, we are the occupation forces. You throw stones, and we will hit you with gas until you all die. The children, the youth, the old people – you will all die. We won’t leave any of you alive.”

“We have arrested one of you,” the officer continued, referring to a twenty-five-year old Palestinian man who was arrested earlier that day. “He is with us now. We took him from his home, and we will slaughter and kill him while you watch if you keep throwing stones. Go home or we will gas you all until you die. Your families, your children, everyone – we will kill you.” [Continue reading…]

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Enforced disappearances: The Syrian government’s organized attack in which more than 58,000 civilians have gone missing

Amnesty International: The vast scale and chillingly orchestrated nature of tens of thousands of enforced disappearances by the Syrian government over the past four years is exposed in a new report by Amnesty International published today.

Between prison and the grave: Enforced disappearances in Syria reveals that the state is profiting from widespread and systematic enforced disappearances amounting to crimes against humanity, through an insidious black market in which family members desperate to find out the fates of their disappeared relatives are ruthlessly exploited for cash.

“This report describes in heart-breaking detail the devastation and trauma of the families of the tens of thousands of people who have vanished without trace in Syria, and their cruel exploitation for financial gain.”

The scale of the disappearances is harrowing. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented at least 65,000 disappearances since 2011 – 58,000 of them civilians. Those taken are usually held in overcrowded detention cells in appalling conditions and cut off from the outside world. Many die as a result of rampant disease, torture and extrajudicial execution. [Continue reading…]

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Afghan refugees in Iran being sent to fight and die for Assad in Syria

The Guardian reports: Iran is recruiting Afghan refugees to fight in Syria, promising a monthly salary and residence permits in exchange for what it claims to be a sacred endeavour to save Shia shrines in Damascus.

The Fatemioun military division of Afghan refugees living in Iran and Syria is now the second largest foreign military contingent fighting in support of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, after the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Iranian state-affiliated agencies reported in May that at least 200 Fatemioun members had been killed in Syria since the beginning of the war. How many more have died since is not clear.

Iran has always claimed it is participating in an advisory capacity in Syria, dispatching senior commanders to plan and oversee operations, but the Afghan involvement shows it is using other methods.

Recruitment is taking place on a daily basis in Mashhad and Qom, two Iranian cities with the largest population of Afghan refugees. Mashhad, the second most populous city in Iran, is only three hours’ drive from the country’s border with Afghanistan.

Iran is also accepting Afghans below the age of 18 provided they have written permission from their parents, the Guardian has learned. At least one 16-year-old Iran-based Afghan refugee was killed in Syria earlier this autumn. The rising number of funerals in Iran is a tangible sign revealing a greater involvement in the Syrian conflict in the wake of the Russian airstrikes. [Continue reading…]

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Refugees: ‘No one puts children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land’

The New York Times reports: The rubber dinghy rolled perilously on the waves and twisted sideways, nearly flipping, as more than three dozen passengers wrapped in orange life vests screamed, wept and cried frantically to God and the volunteers waiting on the rocky beach.

Khalid Ahmed, 35, slipped over the side into the numbing waist-high water, struggled to shore and fell to his knees, bowing toward the eastern horizon and praying while tears poured into his salt-stiff beard.

“I know it is almost winter,” he said. “We knew the seas would be rough. But please, you must believe me, whatever will happen to us, it will be better than what we left behind.”

The great flood of humanity pouring out of Turkey from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other roiling nations shows little sign of stopping, despite the plummeting temperatures, the increasingly turbulent seas and the rising number of drownings along the coast.

If anything, there has been a greater gush of people in recent weeks, driven by increased fighting in their homelands — including the arrival of Russian airstrikes in Syria — and the gnawing fear that the path into the heart of Europe will snap shut as bickering governments tighten their borders.

“Coming in the winter like this is unprecedented,” said Alessandra Morelli, the director of emergency operations in Greece for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “But it makes sense if you understand the logic of ‘now or never.’ That is the logic that has taken hold among these people. They believe this opportunity will not come again, so they must risk it, despite the dangers.”

The surge means that countries throughout the Balkans and Central Europe already under intense logistical and political strain will not find relief — especially Germany, the destination of choice for many of the refugees.

Hopes that weather and diplomacy would ease the emergency are unfounded so far, putting more pressure on financially strapped and emotionally overwhelmed governments to quickly find more winterized shelter.

The influx also underscores the European Union’s failure to reach a unified solution to the crisis, leaving places like this, on the Greek island of Lesbos in the northern Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey, struggling to deal with huge numbers of desperate people and raising questions about what will happen not just this winter, but in the spring and beyond. [Continue reading…]

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Diaspora Jews value communities’ unity more than connection to Israel, poll indicates

Ynet reports: The world’s Jews feel secure in their countries, including in Europe: In a survey conducted among Jewish community leaders in different places around the world, 77 percent reported that their members do not feel threatened in their places of residence, including 56 percent of European Jews.

Only 21 percent said their community members felt unsafe – about half of them due to the growth in anti-Semitism, and others because of the anger towards Israel, local criminal crime, the economic situation, the immigration problem in Europe, etc.

Ahead of the 9th World Conference of Jewish Community Centers (JCC Global), which is being held in Jerusalem this week, JCC leaders were asked whether the current situation in Israel affected them. The findings were surprising: Forty-six percent said the community’s sense of security was unaffected by the current round of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, while 35% said they felt less secure. Ten percent even reported a higher sense of personal safety recently.

The interviewees were also asked to rank the Diaspora Jewry’s challenges. They revealed that the communities’ unity is more important to them than the connection with Israel, preventing assimilation and fighting anti-Semitism. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS suspected of bombing Russian jet, but little evidence cited in support of this claim

The Daily Beast reports: Wittingly or unwittingly, British authorities have triggered a sudden blizzard of assertions that the Russian Airbus A321 that crashed in Egypt was brought down by a bomb on board. Until 10 Downing Street, apparently acting on their own initiative, decided to send their own aviation security experts to the airport at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh to “assess” the level of security, British and American intelligence agencies were limiting the chance of a bomb being the cause to a “possibility.”

The Brits have provoked, within hours, a chorus of endorsements that terrorism was involved, but without any single piece of definitive evidence to prove it.

Stopping prudently just short of such evidential confidence, 10 Downing Street said “we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed. But as more information has come to light we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device.”

Reports by CNN, NBC News, and the Associated Press originally cited a single, anonymous U.S. intelligence official who said that ISIS was involved.

Multiple U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that it was too soon to say definitively that a bomb aboard the airplane was responsible for the crash. But none of them would rule out that possibility, either, and acknowledged that a bomb is one scenario that intelligence agencies have been considering since the day of the crash.

“Intelligence officials are starting to lean that way,” a U.S. official told The Daily Beast of the bomb scenario.

Notably, the intelligence so far that tends to support the theory of a bomb has been technical in nature, including intercepted communications from within terrorist groups and indications from satellites of some intense heat signature at the time of the crash — possibly from an explosion. [Continue reading…]

The Independent reports: An “engine explosion” is thought to be the most likely cause of the Russian plane crash in Sinai on Saturday which killed 224 people, according to Egyptian and Russian media reports.

Investigators have been carrying out preliminary analyses of the Metrojet Airbus 321’s two “black box” flight recorders since Tuesday morning, though damage to the equipment has slowed their progress.

But while an initial assessment of the evidence on the cockpit voice recorder seemed to show noises “uncharacteristic of a standard flights” just before the plane disappeared off radar screens, a first look at the other recorder has thrown up an explosion of the engine as the main lead.

That’s according to a source close to the investigation, the Egyptian Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported. The source also said that the possibility of a catastrophic blast on the engine was first thrown up by an analysis of debris at the crash site. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. detects flurry of Iranian hacking

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard military force hacked email and social-media accounts of Obama administration officials in recent weeks in attacks believed to be tied to the arrest in Tehran of an Iranian-American businessman, U.S. officials said.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, has routinely conducted cyberwarfare against American government agencies for years. But the U.S. officials said there has been a surge in such attacks coinciding with the arrest last month of Siamak Namazi, an energy industry executive and business consultant who has pushed for stronger U.S.-Iranian economic and diplomatic ties.

Obama administration personnel are among a larger group of people who have had their computer systems hacked in recent weeks, including journalists and academics, the officials said. Those attacked in the administration included officials working at the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs and its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

“U.S. officials were among many who were targeted by recent cyberattacks,” said an administration official, adding that the U.S. is still investigating possible links to the Namazi case. “U.S. officials believe some of the more recent attacks may be linked to reports of detained dual citizens and others.”

Friends and business associates of Mr. Namazi said the intelligence arm of the IRGC confiscated his computer after ransacking his family’s home in Tehran. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey: PKK announce their ceasefire is over

Reuters reports: Kurdish militants ended a month-old ceasefire in Turkey on Thursday, a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to “liquidate” them, dashing hopes of any let-up in violence in the wake of a national election.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group said the ruling AK Party, which won back its parliamentary majority in Sunday’s election, was on a war footing.

“The unilateral halt to hostilities has come to an end with the AKP’s war policy and the latest attacks,” it said in a statement carried by the Firat news agency, which is close to the militant group. [Continue reading…]

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Médecins Sans Frontières releases internal review of Kunduz hospital attack

Médecins Sans Frontières reports: The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today released an internal document reviewing the October 3 airstrikes by US forces on its hospital in northern Afghanistan. The chronological review of the events leading up to, during, and immediately following the airstrikes reveal no reason why the hospital should have come under attack. There were no armed combatants or fighting within or from the hospital grounds.

The document, part of an ongoing review of events undertaken by MSF, is based upon sixty debriefings of MSF national and international employees who worked at the 140-bed trauma center, internal and public information, before and after photographs of the hospital, email correspondence, and telephone call records. At least thirty people were killed in the airstrikes, including 13 staff members, 10 patients and 7 unrecognizable bodies yet to be identified.

“The view from inside the hospital is that this attack was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy,” said Christopher Stokes, MSF general director. “But we don’t know why. We neither have the view from the cockpit, nor the knowledge of what happened within the US and Afghan military chains of command.”

The initial findings of the MSF review firmly establish the facts from inside the hospital in the days leading up to and during the attack. The review includes the details of the provision of the GPS coordinates and the log of phone calls from MSF to military authorities in attempt to stop the airstrikes. MSF had reached an agreement with all parties to the conflict to respect the neutrality of the hospital, based on international humanitarian law.

“We held up our end of the agreement — the MSF trauma center in Kunduz was fully functioning as a hospital with surgeries ongoing at the time of the US airstrikes,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of MSF. “MSF’s no-weapons policy was respected and hospital staff were in full control of the facility prior to and at the time of the airstrikes.”

Among the 105 patients at the time of the airstrikes, MSF was treating wounded combatants from both sides of the conflict in Kunduz, as well as women and children.

“Some public reports are circulating that the attack on our hospital could be justified because we were treating Taliban,” said Stokes. “Wounded combatants are patients under international law, and must be free from attack and treated without discrimination. Medical staff should never be punished or attacked for providing treatment to wounded combatants.”

The MSF internal review describes patients burning in their beds, medical staff that were decapitated and had lost limbs, and others who were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.

“The attack destroyed our ability to treat patients at a time of their greatest need,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of MSF. “A functioning hospital caring for patients cannot simply lose its protected status and be attacked.”

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Lawmakers get $83,000 from pipeline company, then rush a bill favoring pipeline construction

David Sirota writes: The fossil fuel industry had already managed to shape a bill moving rapidly through Congress last summer, gaining provisions to ease its ability to export natural gas. But one key objective remained elusive: a measure limiting the authority of local communities to slow the construction of pipelines because of environmental concerns.

Then, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who chaired the House Energy Committee, gave the industry an opportunity to amplify its influence. Joining forces with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who chaired the Senate Energy Committee, he launched a so-called joint fundraising committee, a campaign war chest that would accept donations from a range of contributors, with the proceeds divided between the two lawmakers.

Executives at one of the nation’s largest natural gas pipeline companies soon deposited more than $83,000 into the joint fund’s coffers. The very next day, Upton delivered on the industry’s aspirations: He rushed a bill through his legislative panel that would not only streamline the approval process for new pipelines but also empower federal officials to impose tight deadlines on state and local governments seeking to review their potential environmental impacts. [Continue reading…]

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Syria: Is Putin preparing to dump Assad?

By Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham

The answer from Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was blunt. Asked on November 3 if saving Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, was a matter of principle for the Russians, Zakharova replied: “Absolutely not, we never said that.”

Driving home the point, she added: “We are not saying that Assad should leave or stay”, declaring that it was up to the Syrian people to decide his fate.

In October, Russia began bombing rebel positions inside Syria, as well as the Islamic State, to prop up an Assad regime facing military defeat. At the end of the month, Moscow’s efforts for an international conference to confirm Assad’s short-term hold on power produced a meeting in Vienna.

But is it now reconsidering that situation and preparing to ditch the Syrian leader? The question deserves more than a yes or no answer. Russia is having to rethink its approach because its political-military strategy to prop up the Assad regime, if not the president, has not been successful. It has also led Moscow to diverge from Assad’s other main ally, Iran.

Assad supporters, both inside and outside Syria, quickly rallied to say that Zakharova’s statement was merely a reiteration of a long-standing Russian position. They cited declarations from Russian president, Vladimir Putin and his officials, throughout 2012, such as: “We aren’t concerned about Assad’s fate, we understand that the same family has been in power for 40 years and changes are obviously needed.”

The line – similar to yesterday’s statement – was that: “this issue has to be settled by the Syrians themselves”.

But then Russia regularly has changed its Syria policy. After Iran and Hezbollah stepped up political, economic, and military intervention for the Assad regime in early 2013, for example, Russia pulled back from that earlier “he can go” rhetoric and began contributing strategic support themselves.

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Iran said to have lost 60 generals fighting on behalf of Assad regime

NOW reports: In the past month, at least 20 Iranian officers and soldiers have been killed in Syria, where Tehran has reportedly deployed hundreds of troops to fight alongside regime forces against rebels in the northwest of the country.

Last Monday, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps deputy chief Hossein Salami admitted that that his country was sending additional advisors to Syria, which was leading to increased casualties.

However, the IRGC official did not provide a death toll and insisted that Tehran was only sending advisors, and not combat troops.

An Italian news agency on Monday reported that Iran has lost 60 generals fighting on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime since the start of the Syrian civil war.

Adnkronos news on Monday cited “leading media sources in Hezbollah” as saying that only the names of 18 killed generals close to Tehran’s ruling authorities have been publicly disclosed.

“Human losses in Syria are suppressed,” the sources said, adding that “60 Iranian generals have been killed in Syria while supporting the Syrian army as advisors or military planners.”

The unnamed sources also claimed that the high number of casualties was due to “the weakness of the Syrian army, the large number of militias and their failure to keep to the plans drawn up by the Iranians in cooperation with the Syrian army’s most important officers.” [Continue reading…]

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