THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting

Thursday, August 30, 2012

U.S. Ambassador to Syria in charge of recruiting Arab/Muslim death squads


U.S. Ambassador to Syria in charge of recruiting Arab/Muslim death squads
12. Sep, 2011 by Wayne Madsen
WMR has been informed by reliable sources that the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, is the key State Department official who has been responsible for recruiting Arab "death squads" from Al Qaeda-affiliated units in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Chechnya to fight against Syrian military and police forces in embattled Syria. Ford served as the Political Officer at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad from 2004 to 2006 under Ambassador John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. Negroponte was a key figure in the covert U.S. program to arm the Nicaraguan contras and his support for vicious paramilitary units in El Salvador and Honduras earned him the nickname of "Mr. Death Squad."
Negroponte tasked Ford with implementing the "El Salvador option" in Iraq, the use of Iraqi Shi'a irregulars and Kurdish Pesh Merga paramilitary forces to target for assassination and kidnapping/torture Iraqi insurgency leaders in Iraq and across the border in Syria. The operation was named for Negroponte's death squad operation in Central America in the 1980s.
Ford has become the point man in the recruitment of Arabs and Muslims from the Middle East and beyond to battle against the security forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. The U.S.-backed terrorists have not only carried out attacks on Syrian security forces but have also massacred civilians in "false flag" operations later blamed on Syrian government forces. WMR has been informed that Ford's operations in Syria are being carried out with the assistance of Israel's Mossad.
The "El Salvador" option has also been used in Libya, where Al Qaeda irregulars, drawn from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, have been carrying out murders of Libyan civilians, especially black Libyans and African guest workers, on behalf of the Libyan rebel government. Some of the murders of civilians have been blamed on pro-Muammar Qaddafi forces but they have, in fact, been carried out by Al Qaeda units fighting with the rebels and which are being directed by CIA and MI-6 advisers. Ford has been providing advice to the Libyan rebels on how to carry out their death squad attacks.
From 2006 to 2008, Ford served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria, a nation that opposes the Libyan rebel government and a nation that has begun to see a re-surgence of "Al Qaeda" terrorist attacks against Algerian government targets. In fact, Algeria is viewed as the next domino to fall as the U.S. seeks to establish total military and political hegemony over North Africa.
WMR has learned from a source who was recently in Libya that the Libyan rebel transitional government has agreed to allow the U.S. to establish permanent military bases in Libya, including on the Algerian border. The rebels have also agreed to permit an American to serve as the chief political officer for the planned Libyan transitional advisory body due to be organized by NATO and the United Nations. The body will be modeled on the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"

THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
Detailed Investigation
   
Global Research, June 1, 2012
 
Global Research Editor's Note
This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media. 

The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts.  Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists integrated by professional mercenaries were not pro-government militia as conveyed in chorus by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA):

"When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children.

Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the Abdul Razak.

The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something
that was not verified by any marks on their bodies."
We call on our readers to forward this report far and wide. The massacre in Houla is being blamed on the Syrian government without a shred of evidence. The objective is not only to isolate Syria but to develop a pretext and a justification for waging an R2P humanitarian war on Syria.

It is essential to reverse the tide of war propaganda which uses civilian deaths as a pretext to wage war, when those civilians deaths were carried out not by the government but by professional terrorists operating under the helm of the US-NATO supported Free Syrian Army.


Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Montreal, June 1, 2012



In the weekend of May 25, 2012, at about 2 PM, big groups of fighters attacked and captured the town of Al – Hula of the Homs province. Al-Hula is made up of three regions: the village of Taldou, Kafr Laha and Taldahab, each of which had previously been home for 25-30 thousand people.
The town was attacked from the north-east by groups of bandits and mercenaries, numbering up to 700 people. The militants came from Ar-Rastan (the Brigade of al-Farouk from the Free Syrian Army led by the terrorist Abdul Razak Tlass and numbering 250), from the village of Akraba (led by the terrorist Yahya Al-Yousef), from the village Farlaha, joined by local gangsters, and from Al Hula.
The city of Ar-Rastan has long been abandoned by most civilians. Now Wahhabis from Lebanon dominate the scene, fueled with money and weapons by one of the main orchestrators of international terrorism, Saad Hariri, who heads the anti-Syrian political movement “Tayyar Al-Mustaqbal” (“Future Movement”). The road from Ar-Rastan to Al-Hula runs through Bedouin areas that remain mostly out of control of government troops, which made the militant attacks on Al Hula a complete surprise for the Syrian authorities.
When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children. Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the Abdul Razak. Many of those killed were “guilty” of the fact that they dared to change from Sunnis to Shiites. The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something that was not verified by any marks on their bodies.
The idea that the UN observers had heard artillery fire against Al-Houla in the Safir Hotel in Homs at night I consider nothing short of a bad joke. 50 kilometers lie between Homs and Al-Houla. What kind of tanks or guns has this range? Yes, there was intensive gunfire in Homs until 3 am, including heavy weapons. But, to give an example, on the night of Monday to Tuesday shooting was due to an attempt by law enforcement to regain control for a security corridor along the road to Damascus, Tarik Al-Sham.
After a visual inspection of Al Hula it is impossible to find traces of any of fresh destruction, bombing and shelling. During the day, several attacks by gunmen are made on the last remaining soldiers at the Taldou checkpoint. Militants used heavy weapons and snipers made up of professional mercenaries were active.
Note that once, the exactly same provocation failed at Shumar (Homs) and 49 militants and women and children were killed, when it was organized just before a visit of Kofi Annan. The last provocation was immediately exposed as soon as it became known that the bodies of the previously kidnapped belonged to Alawites. This provocation also contained serious inconsistencies – the names of those killed were from people loyal to the authorities, there were no traces of bombings, etc.
However, the provocation machine is running all the same. Today, the NATO countries directly threat to bomb Syria, and a simultaneous expulsion of Syrian diplomats has begun As of today, there are no troops within the city of Al Hula, but there are regularly heard bursts of automatic fire, nonetheless. Moreover, it is unclear whether the militants are fighting with each other, or whether supporters of Bashar al-Assad are being cleaned out.

Militants opened fire on virtually everyone who tries to get closer to the border town. Before us a UN convoy was fired upon and two armored jeeps of the UN observers were damaged, when they tried to drive up to an army checkpoint in Tal Dow.
In the attack on the convoy a twenty-year-old terrorist was spotted. The fire was directed on the unprotected slopes of the first jeep, the back door of the second armored car was hooked by a fragment. There are wounded among those accompanying.

According to a wounded soldier:

“The next day, UN observers came to us at the checkpoint and as soon as they arrived, gunmen opened fire on them. And three of us were injured. One was wounded in the leg, the second – in the back, and I was hit in the hip.
When the observers came, they could hear a woman who was standing next to them and cried, the woman stood and pleaded the observers’ help – to protect her from the bandits. When I was wounded, the observers watched as I fell, but none of them tried to help. Our checkpoint no longer exists. There are no civilians any longer in Taldou, only militants remain. Our relationship to the locals was excellent. They are very good to us; they called on the army to enter Taldou. We were attacked by snipers.”
Unfortunately, many of the militants are professional snipers. 100-200 meters from our group TV-crew, militants attacked a BMP that went to replace soldiers at the checkpoint. During this a soldier – draftee got a concussion and slight tangential wound in the head by a sniper bullet. Looking at the pierced Kevlar helmet, it seems he did not even realize that he survived by a miracle.
Snipers kill up to 10 soldiers and policemen at checkpoints each day. It is true, that the daily casualties of law enforcement agencies in Homs were dozens of victims daily. But, unfortunately, at 10 am, six dead soldiers were taken to the morgue. Most were killed by a shot in the head. And the day had just begun
So, these are the names of those were killed by snipers in the early morning hours of May 29:
1. Sergeant Ibrahim Halyuf
2. Sergeant Salman Ibrahim
3. Policeman Mahmoud Danaver
4. Conscript Ali Daher
5. Sergeant Wisam Haidar
6. the dead soldier’s family name could not be clarified
The bandits even fired an automatic burst on our group of journalists, although it was clear that this is a normal filming crew, consisting of unarmed civilians.

HOW THE ATTACK BEGAN

After Friday prayers at about 2 PM on May, 25th a group from the Al Aksh clan started firing on a checkpoint of law enforcement officers from mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Returning fire from a BRDM hit the mosque, and this was the very aim to lead to a bigger provocation.
Then, two groups of militants led by the terrorist Nidal Bakkour and Al-Hassan from the Al Hallak clan, supported by a unit of mercenaries, attacked the upper checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of the city. At 15.30 the upper checkpoint was taken, and all the prisoners executed: a Sunni conscript had his throat cut, while Abdullah Shaui (Bedouin) of Deir-Zor was burned alive.
During the attack on the upper checkpoint in the east the armed men lost 25 people, which were then submitted to the UN observers, together with the 108 dead civilians – “victims of the regime”, allegedly killed by bombing and shelling of the Syrian army. As for the remaining 83 bodies, including 38 young children, they were from the families that were executed by militants. These families were all loyal to the government of Syria.
Interviews:

with a law enforcement officer: 

“My name is Al Khosam, I am a law enforcement officer. I served in the village of Taldou, the district of Al-Hula, a province of Homs. On Friday, our checkpoint was attacked by a large group of militants. There were thousands.
Q: How do you protect yourself?

Answer: A simple weapon. We had 20 people, we called support, and when they were coming for us, I was wounded, and regained consciousness in the hospital. The attackers were from Ar-Rastan and Al-Hula. Insurgents control Taldou. They burned houses and killed people by the families, because they were loyal to the government. Raped the women and killed the children.”

Interview with a wounded soldier: 
“I am Ahmed Mahmoud al Khali. I’m from the city Manbej. Was wounded in Taldou. I come from a support group that came to the aid of our comrades, who were stationed at the checkpoint.
Militants destroyed two infantry fighting vehicles and one BRDM standing at our checkpoint. We moved out to Taldou in a BMP, to pick up our wounded comrades from the checkpoint within the city. We drove them back in the BMP, and I filled in their place.
And after a while the UN observers came. They came to us, we led them to the homes of families who were cut by thugs.
I saw a family of three brothers and their father in the same room. In another room we found dead young children and their mother. And another one- an old man killed in this house. Only five men, women and children. The woman raped and shot in the head, I covered her with a blanket. And the commission had seen them all. They put them in the car and drove away. I do not know where they took them, probably for burial.”

A resident of Taldou on the roof of the police department:
“On Friday afternoon I was home. Hearing the shots, I came out to watch what was happening and saw that the fire came from the north side, towards the location of army checkpoint. As the army did not respond, they started to approach the homes, were subsequently the family was killed. When the army started to return fire, they used the women and children as human shields and continued firing at the checkpoint. When the army began answered, they fled. After that, the army took the surviving women and children and brought them into safety. At this time, Al Jazeera aired pictures and said that the Army committed the massacre at Al Hula.
In fact, they killed the civilians and children in Al-Hula. The bandits did not allow anyone to carry out their work. They steal everything that they can get their hands on: wheat, flour, oil and gas. Most of the fighters are from the city of Ar Rastan.”
After they captured the city, they carried the bodies of their dead comrades, as well as the bodies of people and the children they killed to the mosque. They carried the bodies in KIA pickups. On May, 25th, at around 8 PM, the corpses were already in the mosque. The next day at 11 o’clock in the morning the UN observers arrived at the mosque.

Media Disinformation
To exert pressure on public opinion and change the positions of Russia and China, texts and subtitles in Russian and Chinese languages were prepared in advance, reading: “Syria – Homs – the city of Hula. A terrible massacre perpetrated by the armed forces of the Syrian regime against civilians in the town of Hula. Dozens of victims and their number is growing, mainly women and children, brutally killed by indiscriminate bombing of the CITY.”
Two days later, on May 27, after the residents’ stories and video recordings made showed that the facts do not support the allegation of shelling and bombing, the bandits’ videos had undergone significant changes. At the end of the text appeared this postscript: “And some were killed with knives.”
Marat Musin, Olga Kulygina, Al-Hula, Syria

British intelligence enabled Syrian rebels to launch devastating attacks on President Assad's regime


British intelligence enabled Syrian rebels to launch devastating attacks on President Assad's regime, official says

  • Disclosure is first indication of Britain playing a covert role in the civil war
  • Intelligence from Cyprus 'being passed through Turkey to the rebels'
British intelligence on Syrian troop movements is helping rebels in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, it was revealed today.
The disclosure by a Syrian opposition official is the first indication of British intelligence playing a covert role in the civil war.
The official told The Sunday Times the British authorities 'know about and approve 100 per cent' signals intelligence from their Cyprus bases being passed through Turkey to the rebel troops of the Free Syrian Army.
 
The Free Syrian Army fighters have been aided by British intelligence in their fight again President Bashar al-Assad's regime, it was claimed
The Free Syrian Army fighters have been aided by British intelligence in their fight again President Bashar al-Assad's regime, it was claimed
 
 
'British intelligence is observing things closely from Cyprus. It's very useful because they find out a great deal,' the official said.
'The British are giving the information to the Turks and the Americans and we are getting it from the Turks.'
According to the official, the most valuable intelligence so far has been about the movements of troops loyal to President Assad towards the stricken second city of Aleppo, which is partly controlled by rebels.
Early this month FSA fighters had reported that two large columns of government troops were heading towards Aleppo.
One was from Latakia on the Mediterranean coast and the other from Damascus, the capital. The fighters did not reveal the source of their intelligence at the time.
The official said rebels ambushed troops and a column of more than 40 tanks in a valley near Saraqib, cut them off and destroyed many of them with repeat attacks with rocket-propelled grenades.
Smoke rises over the Salaheddine neighbourhood in central Aleppo during clashes between Free Syrian Army fighters and Syrian Army soldiers yesterday
Smoke rises over the Salaheddine neighbourhood in central Aleppo during clashes between Free Syrian Army fighters and Syrian Army soldiers yesterday
 
 
Civil war: Smoke billowing from the scene of a bomb explosion in central Damascus
Civil war: Smoke billowing from the scene of a bomb explosion in central Damascus
Britain has two sovereign military bases in Cyprus at Dhekelia and Akrotiri. They draw intelligence from the airwaves for GCHQ, Britain's listening post in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
The opposition official said rebel forces in Aleppo had also received US satellite imagery, which the Turks had passed on from the CIA.
MI6 and the CIA are understood to be tacitly condoning the supply of heavy machineguns from Gulf countries to the rebels.
The rebels claim to have shot down at least two helicopters, part of a fleet used by Assad's regime to try and crush the growing rebellion. But they do not have enough to be effective.
 
One diplomat denied that the British were 'facilitating' the supply of heavy machineguns. But he said he could not rule out the possibility that private contractors financed by countries such as Qatar were involved in providing arms. Wealthy families in Qatar and Saudi Arabia are understood to be providing substantial financial support to the rebel forces.
 
Opposition fighters also benefit from the monitoring by British bases of ships along the Syrian coast from countries friendly towards Assad.
 
Britain has officially ruled out giving any covert help to the rebels. It is understood that William Hague, the foreign secretary, has been advised that it would be illegal under international law for Britain to supply weapons directly to any group in Syria, which is covered by a European Union arms embargo.