Israeli jets devastated Syrian targets near Damascus on Sunday in a heavy overnight air raid that Western and Israeli officials called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
As Syria’s two-year-old civil war veered into the potentially atomic arena of Iran’s confrontation with Israel and the West over its nuclear program, people were woken in the Syrian capital by explosions that shook the ground like an earthquake and sent pillars of flame high into the night sky.
“Night turned into day,” one man told Reuters from his home at Hameh, near one of the targets, the Jamraya military base.
Source: Reuters – Israel strikes Syria, says targeting Hezbollah arms
In light of reports that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on civilians and that military troops are carrying out summary executions of suspected rebels without trial, the U.S. is considering supplying arms to the Syrian rebels.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters that for the first time the U.S. is no longer ruling out the possibility of arming the rebels. Last year, President Obama had rejected a similar proposal from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Arming the rebels, that’s an option,” Hagel said during a press conference. “You look at and rethink all options. It doesn’t mean you do or you will. These are options that must be considered with the international community.”
A European Union ban on arming the rebels expires in a few weeks and Hagel’s British counterpart, Philip Hammond, said Britain would be looking at their options after the ban’s expiration.
Sources within the defense department told a BBC reporter that because the U.S. does not want to directly get involved militarily in Syria, arming the rebels is now considered the “least worst option.”
Both Hagel and Hammond stated that despite multiple reports and photographic proof of the Syrian government using chemical weapons, there is still not enough hard evidence to act. Hammond said that because much of the public clearly remembers the weapons of mass destruction claims in 2003 which led to the Iraq invasion, any evidence of chemical weapons would have to come from “very clear, very high quality evidence.”
More than 70,000 have died in the Syrian civil war.
Civilians and security personnel are among the dead after a terrorist bombing in Syria’s capital.
The bombing comes one day after Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived a car bomb attack in Damascus. Continue reading →
In the midst of the Syrian Civil War, intelligence officials around the world are concerned that Syria’s chemical weapons facility could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda.
The factory outside al-Safira is in the midst of intense fighting between rebels and government forces. The plant is located inside one of the government’s most fortified military bases. Continue reading →
On the heels of Secretary of State John Kerry saying that Israel had not provided evidence that Syria used chemical weapons against rebels, U.S. intelligence officials admitted they believe with “varying degrees of confidence” that Syria has used chemical weapons.
The White House said that the sarin nerve agent had been used on what they termed a “small scale”. The announcement was in a letter to members of Congress. Continue reading →
The head of anti-terrorism in the European Union is sounding concern regarding the number of Europeans fighting with extremists in Syria.
Gilles de Kerchove estimated the number of Europeans involved directly in the fighting at 500. He showed concern that these people would become radicalized during their time with Islamic rebels and then would pose a threat to Europe upon their return. Continue reading →
Israeli military officials have stated that Syrian troops have used chemical weapons multiple times against the rebels seeking to overthrow the government of President al-Bashir.
Brigadier General Itai Brun said that military intelligence believes that the chemical weapon used was the deadly nerve gas sarin. Continue reading →
The Syrian Army was able to take control of a town in Damascus by killing at least 80 people including women and children.
The army captured Jdaidet al-Fadl after five days of intensive shelling and fighting. The state news agency said the troops inflicted “heavy losses upon terrorists” in the town but observer groups said that most of the dead were women and children, not rebel fighters. Continue reading →
The al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group fighting to overthrow the Syrian government, has pledged their support and vowed allegiance to al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq announced a merger with al-Nusra. Continue reading →
A Phoenix, Arizona man who served in the Army has been arrested charged with fighting as part of Al Qaeda in Syria.
Eric Harroun, who left the Army on diability after a truck accident in 2003, faces charges of conspiring to use a rocked-propelled grenade while fighting with Al-Qaeda. Harroun had admitted to being a “Muslim freedom fighter” during a Skype interview with Fox News on March 11th. Continue reading →
