Report Claims Evidence of Organ Harvesting in Syria Free Syrian Army tells Al-Arabiya that Assad's regime forces are harvesting prisoners' organs and selling them.

If true, it's a seriousaccusation. 

Al-Arabiya quoted Free Syrian Army sources Friday in a report stating that the regime forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad are operating a network of doctors and military officials, responsible for illegally harvesting organs and selling them for highly inflated prices. 

According to the report, physicians across Syria are collaborating with military officials to harvest the organs of severely wounded patients and political prisoners and deliver them for sale. Each victim is announced dead after excruciating torture in prisons, then whisked away while still alive to a secret location for organ harvesting. 

The most sought after organs are allegedly the heart, eyes, kidneys, vertebrae, cartilage, joints and muscle tissue. All are flown to Russia for sale through the Russian mafia to Iran and India.

The report claims that prices for the organs are high: $20,000 per heart, $25,000 per eye, $15,000 per kidney and $10,000 for other organs, depending on the age of the person from whom they were harvested. 

A Saga of Syrian War Crimes

The report remains unconfirmed, and similar rumors have been flying around the web for days, even several months. 

If true, however, the report corroborates confirmed evidence that Assad's forces are guilty of horrific war crimes against the Syrian people, including the usage of starvation as a political ploy, cruel and unusual punishment, chemical weapons, and torture. 

A January intelligence report revealed that the regime forces had been systematically killing Syrians in methods similar to the organ harvesting report - by faking their deaths and keeping their torture carefully logged. 

"This report is extremely alarming, and the alleged scale of the deaths in detention, if verified, is truly horrifying," Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN rights chief Navi Pillay, told AFP in an email at the time. "Allegations this serious cannot be ignored and further investigation is clearly necessary." 

Both Pillay's office and an independent commission of inquiry on Syria, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2011, have already documented a number of cases of torture similar to those described in the report, but not on such a large scale. UN and US officials noted that photos of the torture were "horrific" and "horrible to look at." 

In December, Pillay said for the first time that war crimes by pro-regime forces in Syria were authorized "at the highest level," including by Assad.

So far, over 130,000 people are estimated to have died in the Civil War since 

Arutz Sheva

Hamas and Hezbollah agreed to disagree over Syria

Terrorism amongst terrorism, but, whatever their differences, Israel they all agree on, is their enemy.

Born of a common struggle against Israel and nourished by common benefactors in Syria and Iran, Sunni Hamas and Shiite Hezbollah have long been natural allies despite their sectarian differences.

Ever since the early 1990s, when Israel exiled Hamas’ leadership to Lebanon, the two groups have cultivated an alliance that has shaped the Middle East’s balance of power for decades. But the crisis in Syria has ruptured the old “axis of resistance,” with regional forces giving the two organizations opposing stakes in the conflict and bringing unprecedented tension to their relationship. While Hezbollah fighters have fought and died for Bashar al-Assad in some of the civil war’s fiercest battles, Hamas has thrown in its lot with the rebels and retreated deeper into the embrace of Sunni Islamist powers in the region.

For a time, it appeared that the partnership might be over, with Hamas calling on Hezbollah to extricate itself from Syria and Hezbollah accusing Hamas of funneling weapons and technology to Sunni jihadists. Yet the two groups appear to have looked beyond Syria’s civil warand calculated that more is to be lost than gained from a total divorce. Despite outbursts of inflammatory rhetoric, Hamas and Hezbollah have apparently agreed to disagree on Syria while maintaining a strategic partnership against Israel.

Feet in the Fire

Wary of alienating either their patrons or the Arab street, Hamas and Hezbollah cautiously avoided taking any strong position during the Syrian conflict’s earliest stages in 2011. But even then there were hints that their studied neutrality could not last. For example, like Hamas, Hezbollah urged the Damascus regime to enter a dialogue with the opposition. But unlike Hamas, Hezbollah soon rescinded this suggestion, most likely under pressure from Tehran. As international powers became increasingly involved, Hamas and Hezbollah were also pressured to take a stance that would define their attitudes towards the conflict.

In December 2011, Hamas made a bold move to transfer its political bureau from Syria — where it had been based since 1999 — to Qatar, a main sponsor of the Syrian rebels and post-Mubarak Egypt. “We supported the Syrian regime as long as it was fighting the Israeli enemy,” said Hamas deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad, “but when it oppressed its people we decided to part ways with it, despite the fact that this is considered a big loss for Hamas.” Although the group tried to project a veneer of neutrality after leaving Damascus, high-ranking leaders appeared to tip their hands. In February 2012, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh delivered an emotional speech at al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, where he lauded “the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy, and reform” as worshipers chanted, “No Hezbollah and no Iran.”

Hezbollah, seeking to avoid a public rupture with Hamas, refused to condemn the group’s decision to leave Syria and issued an internal order preventing Hezbollah spokesmen from criticizing their Palestinian counterparts. But Hezbollah increasingly characterized the Syrian uprising as a foreign-orchestrated plot to weaken resistance to Israel.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was quick to remind Palestinians that during the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza (2008-2009), Syria had provided both organizations with arms like no other Arab state. He went on to mock the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states by requesting that they send arms into Gaza. Nasrallah’s ultimate aim was to highlight the Gulf monarchies’ de facto neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict while challenging Doha and Riyadh’s pan-Arab credentials.

Despite these pleas for solidarity, Hamas and Hezbollah’s tension over Syria worsened throughout 2012 and 2013. In the spring of 2013, Hezbollah sent its own fighters into Syria to dislodge the rebels from Qusayr, a strategically vital town along the Syrian-Lebanese border that had been under rebel control since July 2012. Following seventeen days of fierce fighting, the rebels were finally expelled from the city, a victory largely attributed to Hezbollah’s direct intervention. In response, an Egypt-based Hamas leader publicly urged Hezbollah “to take its forces out of Syria and to keep their weapons directed against the Zionist enemy.”

In turn, Hezbollah sources claimed that Hamas operatives had assisted Sunni jihadists in Qusayr after discovering tunnels dug with Iranian devices that Hezbollah had transferred to Hamas for use in Gaza. This was a particularly grim accusation, since Hezbollah reported losing many soldiers to booby-trapped tunnels during the siege. Hamas authorities have continuously denied these claims, but other rumors have persisted, including that Hamas members fought against the Syrian regime at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

Rapprochement?

With tensions coming to a head, Hamas and Hezbollah officials met in Beirut last summer in an attempt to restore the relationship. Since then, spokesmen for each group have taken pains to insist on their agreement to disagree on Syria and to continue their cooperation on other fronts.

From Beirut, some representatives of Hamas reportedly continued on to Iran, which is said to have cut its support for Hamas in the wake of the group’s flight from Syria. This development particularly alarmed members of Hamas’ military wing, which is heavily dependent on the arms it receives from Tehran. Reflecting divisions within Hamas about how to approach the Syrian conflict, Hamas military commander Marwan Issa reportedly urged political leader Khaled Mashal to keep a line open to Iran, a call that was supported by Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar.

While negotiators worked to rebuild ties, regional events recast the field. As the war in Syria dragged on and rival rebel factions began to turn on each other, a military coup rocked Egypt, expelling the elected Muslim Brotherhood government, restoring the secular military to power, and resealing the border between Gaza and Egypt. Gone was Hamas’ dream of a new regional balance of power with Muslim Brotherhood franchises holding power in Egypt, Gaza, and Syria. Meanwhile, Qatar continued to offer Hamas a political home in Doha and generously supported development projects in Gaza, but the small Gulf state proved unwilling to provide the military assistance that Hamas had relied on from Iran.

These developments paved the way for Hamas’ rapprochement with Iran after two years of deteriorated ties, which in turn eased the way for the normalization of its ties with Hezbollah. In September 2013, following several weeks of meetings, Hamas and Hezbollah announced that they had formed a stronger pact with Iran to fortify the tottering “axis of resistance.”

Remembering the Stakes

Even as Hamas gradually restores its relationship with Iran and Hezbollah, some of its officials still wave the Free Syrian Army (FSA) flag. “Hamas does not flirt nor does it plead with anyone,” said Haniyeh in a defiant speech last October. “It does not regret nor does it apologize for honorable positions, just to placate others. It does not feel that it is in the type of trouble necessitating that others be paid to save it from.” But in light of Assad’s strengthened hand in Syria, a proliferation of hostile al-Qaeda-linked forces in the Syrian opposition, and a narrowingregional pool of useful allies, realism may compel Hamas to agree to disagree with its allies in Lebanon and Iran.

Hezbollah is unlikely to abandon Assad anytime soon. Its concerns about anti-Shiite jihadists, or Takfiris, gaining influence in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria naturally pit the Party of God against the Sunni-dominated Syrian rebellion — a dynamic that may be encouraged by an ongoing spate of car bombs and other jihadist attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. Even if Hezbollah quietly begins to reconsider its role in Syria, its patrons in Iran — with whom Hezbollah is much more intricately tied than Hamas — will lean hard on the Lebanese force to hold the line.

In this context, tension between the Palestinian and Lebanese groups will probably continue as long as the Syrian stalemate does. But by the same token, in the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty and an end to tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border, Hamas and Hezbollah will continue to view their respective struggles against Israel as a common denominator that justifies a strong alliance despite their opposing stakes in Syria

This article was originally published in the The Huffington Post

http://www.yalibnan.com

The End of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Syrian Scam

The Free Syrian Army had one purpose. To fool America. Now the con is over.

In the deserts of the Middle East, political mirages appear easily and disappear just as easily. There are countries and armies that exist only on paper. And there are invisible tribal nations that have no flag and never appear on a map, but that have their own militias and govern themselves.

The Middle East as it exists neatly laid out in the pages of the New York Timesor the Washington Post has little relationship to the messy realities of a region with few clean borders, only messy collections of tribes, families, ethnic groups and quarreling variations of Islam clinging to a few miles of dusty land, a handful of olive groves, some oil wells and their children and machine guns.

Out in Syria, the mirage of the Free Syrian Army, its camps full of soldiers defecting from the military to form a secular liberation force, has dissipated, vanishing into the sand. And all it took to knock down the Potemkin villages of the FSA that never existed was an attack on the only part of the Free Syrian Army that did exist—its warehouses full of American and European military aid.

The Free Syrian Army never existed. What did exist was neither free, nor Syrian, nor an army. The FSA was sold as an army of Syrian soldiers who had banded together under defecting officers to fight against the Assad government. The real FSA mostly consisted of Islamic brigades, indistinguishable for the most part from the other Salafist brigades in the war.  Some of these brigades were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood whose local allies, Turkey and Qatar, were the war’s biggest backers.

Perhaps even the war’s inventors.

And yet even this FSA, the one that was later being described as a collection of “moderate” Islamic militias, was just as much of an illusion. Like the attempt to draw lines around tribal encampments and call the whole thing a country, the Free Syrian Army was really a collection of militias with little in the way of an organizing structure except a willingness to identify casually with the FSA in the hopes of scoring some loot from those warehouses of American aid … and the promised American air support.

The units in the Free Syrian Army were not monogamous. They operated with the Al Nusra Front, one of the Al Qaeda groups in Syria, and any of the wannabe Caliphs and Emirs of the other Islamist militias. Their commanders and their men were out for themselves, switching team alliances as easily as reality show contestants, but with much bloodier results.

The FSA’s real purpose was to fool America by propping up a fake military for the real governments that were assembled by the Muslim Brotherhood’s activists in places like Doha and Istanbul. These interim “governments” won official recognition and received money and weapons that they could distribute to the Islamist militias in exchange for their support. Once Assad was defeated, their internationally recognized ”government” representing the patchwork of militia-controlled territories would be able to stage phony elections and control the billions in foreign aid which would be donated to rebuild Syria.

The FSA con existed for and depended on American support. Without American weapons and American military intervention, the Free Syrian Army no longer had a reason to exist.

And the air support and weapons weren’t coming.

Benghazi had made the United States nervous and the secret negotiations with Iran were overriding the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda in Syria. When Russia pressured Obama and Kerry into the Syrian chemical weapons deal, any hope of American military intervention in Syria ended.

And so did the Free Syrian Army.

Some of the militias that had been pretending to be the FSA joined other Islamist alliances. And those Islamist alliances went after the only real asset that the FSA had; its trucks and warehouses of foreign aid. The FSA’s warehouses full of foreign aid fell to the Islamic Front with only five casualties. Its leader, General Salim Idriss, fled to his masters in Turkey and Qatar.

Shortly thereafter a correction was issued.

General Idriss had never fled Syria because he hadn’t been in Syria. Idriss, who commands nothing except the attention of gullible Westerners, sets foot in Syria when he needs to accompany a VIP like Senator McCain for some photo ops. Idriss’s Islamist “deputies,” who command actual militias, have power. Their job is to fight the actual war. Idriss’s job is to tell American senators that if the imaginary moderate legions of the Free Syrian Army don’t receive more American aid, then Al Qaeda will win.

Unfortunately quite a few of his men actually are Al Qaeda. The rest make very poor warehouse guards.

In the wake of the warehouse debacle, the media is echoing the same warnings that if we don’t throw our weight behind the FSA, then Al Qaeda will win. But Al Qaeda has already won. And lost.

Al Qaeda dominates the Sunni opposition. Its foreign fighters have the best weapons and gear. The media tells us this all the time … but never bothers explaining where the weapons and gear come from.

They come from the same countries that are warning us that we must support the Free Syrian Army.

Al Qaeda’s arms dealers are warning us to arm the Free Syrian Army or Al Qaeda will win. But if they really didn’t want Al Qaeda to win, they wouldn’t be arming it. Al Qaeda in Pakistan or Mali isn’t nearly as well equipped as it is in Syria. They were arming Al Qaeda while setting up the Free Syrian Army as the moderate opposition so that we would be dragged into the war and overthrow Assad for them.

They had every reason to expect the plan to work. It worked in Libya.

But now the plan is shot to hell. The United States isn’t joining the war. The Shiite axis has thrown enough resources into Syria that it’s likely to win. Qatar and Turkey are facing a backlash in Sunni countries like Egypt where their Arab Spring plots failed to hand over rule to the Muslim Brotherhood.

As long as the United States keeps sending some foreign aid, the FSA scam will be kept alive. But the scam will consist of warehouses with a handful of men paid with proceeds from the sale of that foreign aid. And those warehouses will fall the moment that ISIS or the Al Nusra Front or the Islamic Front or anyone with enough fighters and guns rolls up in their dusty Japanese pickup trucks and takes it all.

The scam is over. So is the Free Syrian Army.

source

-----------

So this is why Obama armed the rebels? To get get another one over Israel? x-army chief Halutz: Israel prefers Assad over Islamists in Syria

Halutz is quoted by Maariv as saying prospect of Al-Qaida affiliated elements ruling Damascus would be more problematic.

ar Assad to remain in power rather than see radical Islamist forces take control in Syria, the former army chief of staff is quoted in Wednesday editions of the daily tabloid Maariv as saying.

Dan Halutz, who served as IDF chief of staff during the 2006 military campaign in Lebanon, told a gathering in Moscow that the prospect of Al-Qaida affiliated elements ruling Damascus in place of the Assad regime would be more problematic from Jerusalem’s standpoint.

It is worth noting that the Israeli government’s official position is that it is not intervening on behalf of any of the warring parties in Syria, where the civil war has reportedly claimed the lives of over 100,000 people. While Halutz does not hold a formal government title, his statement is considered unusual given his access to – and familiarity with - the highest levels of Israel’s political and military establishment.“The regime in Syria is killing its citizens on a daily basis, but we need to admit that the opposition in Syria is comprised primarily of very extremist Muslims like Al-Qaida,” the former IDF chief is quoted as saying in Maariv. “The question that needs to be asked is, ‘What is good for Israel?’ It’s an important question, because we need to ask ourselves if we want to replace this bad regime with a very bad regime which we don’t know. And this is something that we need to seriously consider.”

Speaking at a fundraising event held in Moscow for the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, Halutz mentioned last Saturday’s roadside bomb attack which caused damage to an IDF patrol jeep in the northern Golan Heights, the first such incident to take place in 40 years.

“That’s just a small indication of what will happen if these extremists come to power,” the former IDF chief said. “As of now, it appears that the international community understands that they cannot unseat the Assad regime as long as they do not know what will follow. Right now, it looks as if the alternative [to Assad] is a regime that would destabilize regional security.”

Halutz's statements seem to contradict those made by Israel's former ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, who told The Jerusalem Post earlier this year that “bad guys” backed by Iran are worse for Israel than “bad guys” who are not supported by the Islamic Republic.

In a parting interview with the Post, Oren traced the evolution of Israel’s message on Syria during the three weeks of the chemical weapons crisis.

“The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran,” he said.

This was the case, he said, even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated to al-Qaida.

“We understand that they are pretty bad guys,” he said, adding that this designation did not apply to everyone in the Syrian opposition. “Still, the greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc. That is a position we had well before the outbreak of hostilities in Syria. With the outbreak of hostilities we continued to want Assad to go.”

Oren reiterated Israel’s position that it would not tolerate attempts to transfer chemical arms -which are currently in the process of being dismantled by the OPCW – to Hezbollah.

“The chemical weapons were an American red line, it wasn’t an Israel red line,” Oren said. “Our red line was that if Iran and Syria try to convey chemical weapons or game changing weaponry to Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations, that Israel would not remain passive. We were prepared to stand by the red line, and still are.”

Jeruselam post 

Israel-Syria Border a Tinderbox says IDF

Israeli military planners say the Syrian arena has become intrinsically linked to Lebanon.
Commanders are telling their units that war could erupt -- swiftly and unpredictably -- tomorrow, and to make all necessary preparations.
Counteracting the explosive situation, no side in Syria is keen on opening a front with Israel and facing the IDF's firepower.

Three instances of cross-border fire have occurred along Israel's frontier with Syria in the past week, reinforcing the Israel Defense Force's assessment that this border is set to present a mass of security threats in the near future.

In the most recent incident, a bomb planted by unknown attackers along the border fence, detonated as an IDF patrol passed by, damaging the vehicle. It represents just the sort of incident that, if repeated, could escalate into a potential kidnapping or deadly attack on soldiers, precipitating an Israeli response -- which in turn could lead to a wider escalation.

The IDF's Northern Command has, in fact, been preparing intensively for this scenario, training patrol units to respond quickly to attacks, and constructing a missile-proof border fence with hi-tech sensors and an early warning system to provide some cover.

The Israeli military has not yet been able to determine who carried out the recent border bombing, but foremost among the suspects are Syrian jihadi elements that form part of the armed opposition to the Assad regime.

Extremist jihadi factions, such as the Al Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda's official branch in Syria), and The Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria maintain a continuous presence in southern Syria along sections of the Israeli border, taking part in daily armed clashes with Assad loyalist forces for control of villages in the area.

The jihadis may be busy with Assad's army, but in line with their radical ideology, could still choose to strike out at Israel. Such groups are difficult to deter: they are not sovereign rulers of clearly demarcated territory, meaning that there is no clear "return address" for an Israeli retaliation, and they have not experienced Israeli counter-terrorism action.

The opposite is true of both Hezbollah in south Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, which have their own territory and, despite being heavily armed, are, for the time being, deterred by previous Israeli operations against them.

The Syrian army too poses a danger, as demonstrated last week, when a Syrian soldier decided to open fire on Israeli paratroopers along the border. The paratroopers wasted little time in returning fire, striking their attacker. According to the IDF's evaluation, the Syrian soldier acted alone, and his decision to fire was spontaneous. But in the chaotic border region, this type of incident could also act as a spark, setting off a chain reaction of clashes that might escalate into a wider conflict.

On the same day, a mortar shell fired from Syria hurtled over the Israeli border, and exploded near the Druse town of Majdal Shams. The mortar was a stray shot fired in the midst of the Syrian civil war, but had it landed inside a populated area of the Golan Heights and caused casualties, an Israeli response would be a certainty.

Stray fire is also a possible trigger for escalation .

Israeli military planners say that the Syrian arena has become intrinsically linked to Lebanon.

With many thousands of Hezbollah operatives fighting in Syria, and with Syrian jihadi organizations branching out into Lebanon, an incident that begins as an attack on Israel from Syria could quickly end up spreading to the Lebanese border.

Counteracting the explosiveness of the situation are a few stabilizing factors. No side in Syria is keen on opening a front with Israel and facing the IDF's firepower when it is neck-deep in a fight to the death in the Syrian civil war. Additionally, localized incidents, as again demonstrated last week, can, through a careful combination of firm responses and restraint, be contained by Israel.

In today's chaotic and unpredictable regional reality, however, Israel is not relying on these factors.
Senior Israeli military commanders are telling their units to assume that war could erupt -- swiftly and unpredictably -- tomorrow, and to make all necessary preparations.

Gladstone institute 

Ya'alon: Israel transferring food, water to besieged Syrian villages

Defense Minister praises IDF's Northern Command and the Golan Division for work to secure border, providing humanitarian aid.

Israel is sending water and food to desperate Syrian civilians near the Israeli border who have been trapped by the civil war, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Tuesday, during a tour of the Golan Heights.

"We've transferred water, and food – including baby food. The villages here are locked in have no access to anywhere else," Ya'alon said.

"We're supplying humanitarian help to residents over the border here, and are evacuating them to our hospitals. We don't see the situation stabilizing in the near future," Ya'alon added.

During his tour, Ya'alon was accompanied by Northern Command chief Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan and other senior officers, and received a security briefing.

"We're seeing daily fighting by opposition elements against the Syrian army, with the opposition pushing the Syrian army eastwards, and we're monitoring developments in the rest of Syrian territory where there is daily fighting. The world is focusing on the disbandment of chemical weapons, but there are hundreds of casualties per week in this fighting," the defense minister stated.

He praised the IDF's Northern Command and the Golan Division for its work to secure the border, adding that Israel won't allow a violation of its sovereignty on the Golan Heights, andwon't accept attacks by various elements in Syria against it.

Addressing the situation in the Gaza Strip, Ya'alon stated that Hamas is the sovereign ruler of the enclave, which he called "Hamastan." Hamas could have "decided to grow and export strawberries and not produce and export rockets and missiles. If it wasn't for this situation, we would not prevent the entry of pipes used to manufacture missiles, and would not prevent the entry of concrete, recently used to dig and build attack tunnels."

He added, "There is no siege. We're the only party that cares about the residents of Gaza apparently, as Egypt blocked the border, and the PA isn't interested - it has other considerations."

Israel is the only party that supplies Gaza with most of its electricity and water needs, and allows in goods daily through the Kerem Hashalom crossing, with the exception of concrete and dual-use products that can be used to manufacture rockets and missiles, he added.

"The interesting thing is that the world turns to us, not to our neighbors or anyone else, but turns to us, and says we're sovereign [over Gaza]," Ya'alon said.

He revealed that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon turned to him in recent days with a request to allow concrete into Gaza for the construction of UN schools.

Ya'alon said he agreed to the request, on two conditions: "That the UN condemns the use of concrete by Hamas for attack tunnels," and that a UN representative tells Israel how much concrete is needed exactly for the project, while committing the organization to ensuring that the concrete does not reach Hamas for terrorist uses.

Asked to comment on strained relations with the US, Ya'alon said, "Relations between us are excellent, and are based on common values and interests… among friends with common interests there can be divisions. On the Iranian issue, there is undoubtedly an argument between us and the American administration, and we have expressed our opinion accordingly."

Nevertheless, he continued, bilateral relations have not been harmed by the dispute over Iran, and open channels exist between the defense establishments and governments of the two countries.

"Unfortunately, the Iranians left Geneva… with an easing of sanctions and an open nuclear-military option. We argued that an easing of sanctions will lead to a flood [of business with Iran] and to an opening of the dam, and that is what we're seeing before us. For the Iranians, this can continue for a long period, and we find that regrettable," Ya'alon said.

He noted that the Iranian regime activates terrorism "not only against Israel, but in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon through Hezbollah, Gaza through Islamic Jihad, and perhaps will return to supporting Hamas."

Jeruselam post

Army source to 'Post': Syrian cross-border shooting 'was not stray fire'

Last Monday's gun attack on IDF patrol resulted from one Syrian soldier's decision to shoot at us, source says.

The cross-border gun attack from Syria on an IDF patrol on the Golan Heights on Monday was a deliberate attack launched by a lone Syrian soldier, and not stay fire, an army source toldThe Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

After identifying the source of the fire and seeing that they were being targeted on purpose, an IDF infantry unit returned fire, striking the attacker's position. It remains unclear if the Syrian shooter was killed or injured in the return fire.

However, concern remains among military brass that such localized incidents carry the potential of escalation, and might inadvertently turn into a wider confrontation. The scenario remains unlikely, but decidedly possible in the chaotic conditions of Syria, and the IDF has been drilling robust responses to a sudden deterioration sparked by unforeseeable triggers.The incident is not being viewed as extraordinary by the IDF's Northern Command, which has dealt with similar pinpoint instances of gunfire directed at soldiers since battles between the Assad regime and rebels spread right up to the border with Israel.

Meanwhile, in southern Syria near the border with Israel, rebels and the Syrian army have been clashing on a daily basis, with rebel forces defending a strip of villages under their control from a regime push to retake them. Some of the border regions are under the control of the Syrian army.

IDF officials report witnessing a basic pattern in which the Syrian army gathers its forces near a village under rebel control, prompting civilians to flee. A battle then ensues, and civilians return to their homes when it ends.

"There have been no strategic changes here," the army source said, adding "This pattern has been repeating itself."

This week, intense fighting between Assad's army and rebels erupted in the Kuneitra area. On Sunday, a Syrian mortar shell crossed into Israel and exploded near
the Druse village of Majdal Shams. There were no injuries in the incident, and the IDF did not return fire.

In October, two soldiers were lightly injured in the area by shrapnel from a Syrian mortar. The Syrian artillery post that fired the projectile was destroyed by the IDF soon after.

During the same month, the IDF tested a barrier being built on the border with Syria and found it to be missile proof. 

Earlier this year, the army fired a Tamuz guided surface-to-surface missile at a Syrian army post following two incidents of gunfire directed at Israeli soldiers.

Jeruselam post

Syrian Rebels Capture Christian Town, Kidnap Nuns Syrian rebels, including jihadist groups, capture the historic Christian town of Maalula north of Damascus.

Rebels clash with Syrian government forces

AFP photo

Syrian rebels, including jihadist groups, captured the historicChristian town of Maalula north of Damascus on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.

Rebels assaulted the town by rolling explosive-filled tires downthe hills onto regime forces and were able to reach the city center after three days of intense fighting, with clashes still raging in the surrounding areas, reported the organization. The town is considered a symbol of the ancient Christian presence in Syria.

The fighting came as the regime has been battling to gain control of a string of nearby towns and villages along the strategic Damascus-Homs highway north of the capital.

The Observatory told AFP that several groups, including the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, had taken part in the capture of the town.

The rebels abducted 12 Syrian and Lebanese Orthodox nuns from their convent after moving into the town, Vatican Radio reported.

Syrian state news agency SANA had earlier said the rebels had entered the Mar Takla convent, in the middle of the city, which had previously been controlled by the army.

The convent is home to some 40 nuns and orphans, some of the few residents of the town who remained after rebels first entered in September, prompting fierce fighting with the army.

Jihadist rebel groups have carried out atrocities throughout the civil war, including publicly beheading a Catholic priest in Idlib in July. The priest was executed because he was accused of collaborating with President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

In Aleppo, several Islamist groups split off from the Western-backed Syrian National Council declared the region to be an independent Islamist state. The jihadists in Aleppo have set up a court based on Sharia (Islamic law) which is authorized to issue execution orders for serious offenses.

Rebels, however, are not the only ones to have carried out atrocities. Assad’s troops have also carried out war crimes and on Monday, for the first time, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that these war crimes were authorized "at the highest level," including by Assad himself.

It is the first time Navi Pillay has directly accused Assad of crimes against humanity, and could pave the way to an international prosecution - although with western states and Russia pinning their hopes on an upcoming "peace conference" in Geneva, that seems an unlikely prospect.

Pillay made the statements based on the findings of a special inquiry into abuses by both sides in the Syrian civil war, and added that "the scale and viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by elements on both sides almost defies belief."

Arutz 7

Dangerous Alliance of evil : Assad to Rouhani: Iran nuclear deal boosts Tehran's position in region, world

Syrian president says his Iranian counterpart has succeeded in enshrining the rights of developing countries to pursue nuclear energy; claims legitimacy that deal gives Tehran will also strengthen Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar Assad called his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday, congratulating him on the interim agreementTehran signed with the West over the weekend in regard to its nuclear program.

According to Syria's official news agency, SANA, Assad hailed Rouhani's achievement as enshrining the rights of developing countries to pursue peaceful nuclear energy. He added that the deal boosts Iran's position both in the region and internationally.

According to SANA, Rouhani reaffirmed to Assad his support in Syria's "war against terrorism."Assad posited that the agreement would also positively affect Syria because of the close strategic ties between Damascus and Tehran.

Rouhani met with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Wednesday, saying that the Syria conflict “has no military solution, and the country’s crisis should be ended through serious negotiations,” according to Iranian news agency, Tasnim.

In Syria, Iran is supporting the regime of Assad, while the Turkish government, led by the Islamist AK Party, is supporting the Islamist opposition.

However, Davutoglu said during his visit to Tehran Wednesday that Rouhani would be visiting Turkey in January.

The Turkish foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Javad Zarif issued a joint call Wednesday for for a cease-fire in Syria ahead of peace talks between the factions in its civil war that are scheduled for January 22 in Geneva.

Jerusalem post

West Ignores 'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria'

One of the worst Christian massacres—complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches—recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi “rebels”; and the U.S. government and its “mainstream media” mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters).

The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region’s inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria’s Christians could feel secure; 600 Christian families had earlier fled there for sanctuary from the jihad, only to be followed by it).

In late October, the U.S-supported “opposition” invaded and occupied Sadad for over a week, till ousted by the nation’s military. Among other atrocities, 45 Christians—including women and children—were killed, several tortured to death; Sadat’s 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for “subhuman” Christians).

The jihadis even made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam’s victory-cry, “Allahu Akbar” (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying “thank God”). Another video, made after Sadad was liberated shows more graphic atrocities.

Here are the words of Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama (another detailed account, with pictures, appears here):

”What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half… 45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women…. All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated, deprived of old books and precious furniture… What happened in Sadad is the largest massacre of Christians in Syria and the second in the Middle East, after the one in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Iraq, in 2010.”

In the Iraqi attack of 2010, al-Qaeda linked jihadis stormed the church during service killing some 60 Christian worshippers (see here for graphic images of the aftermath).

While the archbishop is correct that this is the “largest massacre of Christians in Syria,” it is but the tip of the iceberg of the persecution the nation’s Christian minority has suffered—including beheadings, church bombings, kidnappings, rapes, and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of Christians—since the war broke out (see Syria entries in monthly persecution series).

A month before Sadad, another ancient Christian region, Ma‘loula, one of the world’s very few regions that still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus, was besieged by the jihadis, its churches bombarded and plundered, its inhabitants forced to convert to Islam or die. The last words of one man who refused were: "I am a Christian, and if you want to kill me for this, I do not object to it."

The archbishop concluded his statement concerning Sadad by asking: "We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers? I think of all those who are suffering today in mourning and discomfort: We ask everyone to pray for us.”

Serge Trifkovic—who hails from a European region especially acquainted with Islamic jihad—responds to the archbishop as follows:

_”That no “human consciousness” is to be found in the White House, or in the editorial offices of the leading Western media, is now a matter of well-established record. Just try searching for “Sadad” (or alternatively “Saddad”) on the websites of the Department of State or The New York Times. Ditto the leading European dailies, the CNN/BBC/RTF, the human-rights defending “NGOs” et al.

“The problem, of which Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh appears unaware, is no longer in the Western elite’s mere indifference to the impending demise of Christianity in the lands of its birth, but in its active, ongoing, and open contribution to that demise. Cyprus (1974) and the Balkans (1991-9) provided the test, Iraq (2003-today) the conclusive proof. In Syria the Obama administration remains committed to supporting the rebels—ah, yes, only the “moderate” ones, like the Christian-murdering “Free Syrian Army” (discretion advised again), not “even though” the result will be the same, but precisely because it will be.”_

In one of the Arabic videos documenting the aftermath of the Sadad massacre, as the mutilated bodies of one family are drawn from a well (around :30 second mark), a middle-aged male relative, in tears, says:

”The most precious in the whole universe [his family], are now gone, leaving me alone, but thank God I am still surrounded by these loving people who remain. I want to say, let people [the jihadis] return to their minds. The problems of the world can only be solved by knowledge and brains. Enough insanity, the nerves of the people are shredded. Enough, enough—return to your minds; you people, you humans—return to your humanity, enough crimes.”

As a sign of the times, here is a Syrian, an “easterner,” evoking rationalism and humanity, products of the Christian West, at a time when the post-Christian West is governed by anything and everything—propaganda, emotionalism, mindless indoctrination—but the twain.

Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians _