Friends of Syrian Jihad..

[revelarts]

http://www.atimes.com/images/f_images/spacer15.gif THE ROVING EYE
Meet the 'Friends of Jihad'
By Pepe Escobar

Western politicos love to shed swamps of crocodile tears about "the Syrian people" and congratulate themselves within the "Friends of Syria" framework for defending them from "tyranny".

Well, the "Syrian people" have spoken. Roughly 70% support the government of Bashar al-Assad. Another 20% are neutral. And only 10% are aligned with the Western-supported "rebels", including those of the kidnapping, lung-eating, beheading jihadi kind.

The data was provided mostly by independent relief organizations working in Syria. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) received a detailed report in late May - but, predictably, was not

http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=2083&campaignid=859&zoneid=36&loc=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atimes.com%2Fatimes%2FMid dle_East%2FMID-03-050613.html&cb=6b7c5affc2


too keen on releasing it.

As Asia Times Online has been stressing for months, the Sunni business classes in Damascus and Aleppo are either neutral or pro-Assad. And most Sunnis now regard the gangs of foreign mercenaries weaponized by Qatar and the House of Saud as way more repellent than Assad.

Meanwhile, in Britain - where David of Arabia Cameron remains gung ho on a no-fly zone to protect the "Syrian people" - only 24% of Britons are in favor of further weaponizing the "rebels" (although 58% support humanitarian aid).

And at a rally in Doha, perennial al-Jazeera star and Muslim Brotherhood icon Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi - now pontificating at Al-Azhar in Cairo - has called for a jihad of all Sunni Muslims against Damascus. As he also branded Hezbollah as "the party of Satan" and condemned Iran for "pushing forward arms and men to back the Syrian regime". He has in fact condoned a jihad of Muslims against Muslims, even though he insisted his call to fight Hezbollah is "not against all Shi'ites".

Still al-Qaradawi also said, "How could 100 million Shi'ites defeat 1.7 billion [Sunnis]?" Only because [Sunni] Muslims are weak". It's more than implied that Shi'ites are the enemy.

So who cares what the "Syrian people" might think? The Western "Friends of Syria" could not have found a more willing golden patsy to promote their usual, self-fulfilling Divide and Rule gambit - the Sunni-Shi'ite divide. It's always handy to have dysfunctional GCC petro-monarchies posing as "liberators" (http://news.yahoo.com/insight-saudi-edges-qatar-control-syrian-rebel-support-165943953.html) so the West once again may conduct a proxy war "leading from behind".

In other news, where's Evelyn Waugh when you need him? It's Scoop all over again, with Syria replacing a "promising" war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia and every hack in the Western world doing a remix of the Daily Beast, proclaiming Assad's imminent demise because, well, we're with the rebels and we have decided they are going to win.

Those infidel missiles
As it stands, the Geneva II negotiations promoted by Washington and Moscow seem to be as good as six feet under (although they are getting together today to define the framework).

The European Union has lifted its arms embargo on Syria - a move that was essentially a Franco-British delirium that went over the heads of reluctant EU members. It had to be Britain and France, of course, the two former imperial powers that almost a century ago carved up a line in the sand dividing the Levant and now want a redesign.

This would mean, in practice, that the EU has declared war on Damascus. Well, sort of. Under the EU agreement, no weaponizing will go on before autumn. And the belligerent Franco-British duo has to make sure any weapons are used only to protect civilians. Who will supervise this - a bunch of Brussels bureaucrats in army fatigues? Well, they can always revert to default - ask for American help. Every grain of sand in the Levant knows the CIA is "assisting" Qatar and Saudi Arabia to weaponize the "rebels".

And then there's the distinct possibility that Britain may have acted, once again, as an American Fifth Column inside the EU, paving the road for a possible Obama administration "all options are on the table" intervention.

Russian President Vladimir Putin checkmated the EU - and the US - in no time. Yes, those famous S-300 missile systems are coming to Damascus, and soon. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the missiles were a stabilizing factor in Syria that would dissuade schemes by "hotheads". He also stressed - correctly - that the EU may just have bombed the planned Geneva talks.

Former Russian Air Force General Anatoliy Kornukov told Interfax-AVN Online that Damascus would need at least 10 battalions of S-300 air defense missile systems to fully protect its territory from a possible NATO attack. [1] In this case, there's no way a no-fly zone - a Franco-British wet dream - can be imposed.

Each S-300 surface-to-air missile system consists of a radar-equipped command post and up to six 5Zh15 missiles. It would take only a month to train Syrians to operate them. Kornukov observed, "Our systems can be deployed within five minutes." And they're almost impossible to jam.

What are the "Friends of Syria" going to do about that? Call another meeting? Time for al-Qaradawi to go on al-Jazeera and upgrade his jihad to include Russian missiles (after all these are infidel weapons). Why not set an example and volunteer himself to the front line?

Note:
1. See here (http://www.militarynews.ru).

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He also wrote Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-03-050613.html

[jafar00]

And 99% supported Saddam Hussein or Hosni Mubarak.

Do you realise that maybe 1% of that 70% actually support Assad and the rest only say they do out of fear?

[revelarts]

Syria opposition seeks to unify as momentum for talks builds




By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
ISTANBUL | Fri May 24, 2013 3:00pm EDT

(Reuters) - Syria's fractious opposition scrambled to agree a new leadership on Friday in a bid to present a coherent front at peace talks which the United States and Russia (http://www.reuters.com/places/russia) are convening to seek an end to more than two years of civil war.
A major assault by President Bashar al-Assad's forces on a rebel held town over the past week is shaping into a pivotal battle. It has drawn in fighters from Assad's Lebanese allies Hezbollah, justifying fears that a war that has killed 80,000 people would cross borders at the heart of the Middle East.
Washington and Moscow have been compelled to revive diplomacy by developments in recent months, which include new reports of atrocities, accusations chemical weapons were used and the rise of al Qaeda-linked fighters among rebels.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet privately in Paris on Monday to discuss their efforts to bring Syria's warring parties together, U.S. and Russian officials said.
Russia said the Syrian government had agreed in principle to attend the planned peace conference, which could take part in Geneva in the coming weeks, and had "expressed readiness" to find a political solution.
Under intense international pressure to resolve internal divisions so it can play a meaningful role in the talks, Syria's Western-backed opposition National Coalition met in Istanbul to elect new leaders and broaden its membership.
Senior opposition figures said the coalition was likely to attend the conference, but doubted it would produce any immediate deal for Assad to leave power - their central demand.
"We are faced with a situation where everyone thinks there will be a marriage when the bride is refusing. The regime has to show a minimum of will that it is ready to stop the bloodshed," said Haitham al-Maleh, an elder statesman of the coalition.
Coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh said the coalition wanted to avoid taking part in an indefinite peace process without Assad ceding any power.
"Moscow wants the Syrian opposition to go to Geneva without preconditions. If we go there and... sit for months it will be a waste of time and more Syrian martyrs," Saleh said.
There was more heavy fighting on Friday in Qusair, a town controlling access to the coast which Assad's forces and Hezbollah allies have tried to take in a battle that could prove an important test of Assad's ability to withstand the revolt.
Assad wants to secure the coastal region which is the homeland of his Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. He is backed by Shi'ite Iran (http://www.reuters.com/places/iran) and Hezbollah against mainly Sunni rebels supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition London-based monitoring group, said Syrian army and Hezbollah forces at Qusair were trying to cut off rebels in the nearby village of Hamidiya. State media said the army had destroyed "terrorist dens" in Hamidiya and also killed eight "terrorists" in another village, Daba, close to Qusair.
COALITION STRUGGLES TO AGREE
Much to the frustration of its backers, the coalition has struggled to agree on a leader since the resignation in March of respected cleric Moaz Alkhatib, who had floated two initiatives for Assad to leave power peacefully.
Alkhatib's latest proposal - a 16-point plan which foresees Assad handing power to his deputy or prime minister then going abroad with 500 members of his entourage - won little support in Istanbul, highlighting the obstacles to wider negotiations.
"He has the right to submit papers to the meeting like any other member but his paper is heading directly to the dustbin of history. It is a repeat of his previous initiative which went nowhere," a senior coalition official said.
Washington threatened on Wednesday to increase support for the rebels if Assad refused to discuss a political end to the violence, a sentiment echoed on Friday by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who has been pressing the European Union to amend a weapons embargo to allow arming the rebels.
"We do think it is important ahead of any negotiations ... for the Assad regime to understand that the pressure on it will intensify in the absence of successful negotiations," he told a news conference in Jerusalem.
Concerned by the rising influence of Islamists in the rebel ranks, Washington has pressured the opposition coalition to resolve its divisions and to expand to include more liberals.
"The international community is walking a little faster than the opposition. It wants to see a complete list of participants from the Syrian side for Geneva and this means that the coalition has to sort its affairs," a European diplomat said.
Looming large over the Istanbul meeting, which began on Thursday, is the shadow of Saudi Arabia (http://www.reuters.com/places/saudi-arabia), which according to opposition sources will lead an Arab drive to back the new government financially, after differences with Qatar on how to deal with the coalition were largely settled.
Saudi Arabia is backing a proposal being debated at the three-day meeting to expand the 60-member coalition to 95 by bringing in members of a new liberal political bloc being set up by veteran opposition campaigner Michel Kilo.
The coalition is currently dominated by two blocs: the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies in the Syrian National Council, and a faction loyal to Mustafa al-Sabbagh, a businessman close to Qatar.
"The Kilo bloc, if it is admitted, will end the era of the coalition being decided by Sabbagh and the Brotherhood," a senior coalition source said.
Criticism has mounted against the coalition for failing to provide a credible democratic alternative to the four-decade family rule of Assad and his father.
Assad has vowed to defeat what he calls terrorists and foreign agents behind the uprising, which began with months of peaceful protests and evolved into an armed revolt after months of military repression.
More than 80,000 people have been killed in what is now a full-scale civil war that has dragged in Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas and is spilling into other neighboring countries.
Burhan Ghalioun, a strong candidate to become the new head of the opposition, said the coalition was likely to agree to go to Geneva because it did not want Assad to gain political advantage from the meeting, although, he said, it was unlikely to produce any deal for a transition of power.
(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Thomas Grove and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow, Arshad Mohammed in Amman, Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Peter Graff)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/24/us-syria-crisis-opposition-idUSBRE94M17420130524

See this is a weird story to me.
they are talking about peace talks, and they want Assad to concede power, or make confessions but HE's winning. why should he concede jack?
the rebels don't even have a single leaders or leaders. Nato the U.S, Fracne and the UK want to continue to arm and fund this mismash of groups whos ONLY effective fighting force is the Alqeada branch of it.
It's treasonous and it makes no sense. At least the way it's spun for us.
there's info missing.