Published time: November 17, 2013 21:16
Edited time: November 18, 2013 02:40
Screenshot from YouTube video by user Free Syria
A rebel bomb attack killed 31 Syrian military troops on an army base near Damascus on Sunday. Four generals were among those killed. The attack came amid a major regime offensive against rebel positions around Damascus and Aleppo, AFP reported.
“Three generals and a brigadier-general were among 31 troops killed in a bomb attack that caused a building in the army transport base in Harasta to collapse,’‘ Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdul Rahman said.
The rebel group Direh al-Aasmeh (Shield of Damascus) brigade – which is part of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army – has claimed responsibility for the attack, posting a video of the blast on YouTube. The video shows the military building collapsing.
An American drone has malfunctioned and crashed into a guided missile cruiser off the coast of Southern California, causing two injuries, say officials. The incident happened while the vessel was testing a combat weapons system.
Lt. Lenaya Rotklein of the US Third Fleet told AP the two sailors injured in the crash were being treated for minor burns. The remotely-controlled craft reportedly veered out of control during an operation to test the USS Chancellorsville’s combat weapons system on Saturday afternoon. Rotklein said the drone was being used to test the ship’s radar.
The guided missile carrier is now heading back to the San Diego Naval Base, where officials will assess the extent of the damage. In response to the accident, the Navy says it is opening an investigation to examine the possible causes.
This is the second drone crash to occur this week in the US after an unmanned craft malfunctioned and came down over Lake Ontario on Tuesday, prompting the suspension of all drone flights in the Central New York area.
The military was unable to say why the $4 million Reaper drone lost control and crashed, but reported there was no damage to civilian property or injuries.
Libyan protesters gather during a demonstration calling on militiamen to vacate their headquarters in southern Tripoli on November 15, 2013. (AFP Photo / Mahmud Turkia)
A 48-hour state of emergency was declared in the Libyan capital of Tripoli after fresh clashes erupted on Saturday. Vehicles full of fighters from Misrata headed to Tripoli from the eastern suburb of Tajura, according to media reports.
Violence in Tripoli reignited at sundown as fighting between militia groups intensified, Ukranian medics working on the ground told ITAR-TASS.
“After a break in fighting, you could hear shots being fired once again over Tripoli,” one medic said. “Hospitals received more dead and wounded. We haven’t seen this in Tripoli since the 2011 armed conflict.”
The state of emergency was declared in the city after at least one person was killed and dozens wounded in another wave of violence on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported. The unrest began in the capital on Friday. More than 40 people were killed and another 400 were wounded.
“Officially, there were more than 40 victims in the clashes in Tripoli in the past two days, but according to our data, the number of victims is much larger,” one of the medics said.
Due to the situation in Tripoli, some of the streets in the city were blocked off. Local residents formed protection brigades by their houses in order to ensure safety from the militias, the medics added.
Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan has appealed for restraint, stating that “the coming hours and days will be decisive for the history of Libya and the success of the revolution.”
On Saturday, thousands of protesters gathered to remember those who died in Friday’s clashes, as the government declared three days of mourning. Zidan also demanded that all armed militias leave Tripoli “without exception.”
“The existence of weapons outside the army and police is dangerous,” he said. “All armed militias need to leave Tripoli, without exception.”
Friday’s clashes began as thousands of protesters gathered in Tripoli on Friday, calling to intensify the security presence and end the militias’ rule which was established in 2011 after the uprising that ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi. The protesters marched from a downtown mosque to the headquarters of the militia waving Libyan flags and chanting slogans such as “We want an army, we want police.”
According to a Reuters report, the militia fired an anti-aircraft cannon into the crowd. The protesters initially fled, but then returned heavily armed. The majority of stores in the city were closed following the clashes.
The main cause of the violence is Libya’s weak government and armed forces which are struggling to control militias, Islamic militants, and other fighting groups which have refused to surrender their weapons two years after assisting the NATO-backed ouster of Gaddafi.
Part of the militia was formed from local brigades of rebels, including Islamic militants who fought against Gaddafi’s government. After the fall of the leader, the government tasked the former rebel forces with maintaining security. However, the militia has not been put under state control, prompting the armed groups to act on their own agenda.
Dan Johnson, president of People Against the NDAA spoke at a meeting last Wednesday in Santa Cruz calling for support of PANDA and the repeal of the indefinite detention provisions (Sections 1021 and 1022) of the National Defense Authorization Act. Photo by Aimee Hare
The Romero institute, a non-profit law firm, is spearheading a mission to strengthen an anti-National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Santa Cruz resolution passed in April 2012 through its project, the Campaign to Make Santa Cruz a Constitution Protection Zone. Last Wednesday, the group organized an anti-NDAA event at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, with People Against the NDAA (PANDA) director Dan Johnson as the keynote speaker.
The NDAA has been in effect for 51 years and prior to 2012 has primarily existed to fund U.S. armed forces and aid military families. As a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the NDAA has transformed into a “haystack bill” that continues to grow with added provisions such as 1021 and 1022, which were signed into effect on Dec. 31, 2011 by President Obama.
“In a nutshell, [these provisions] authorize the application of the laws of war to American soil, making us a battlefield,” Johnson said. “They authorize the military to detain any person, including American citizens, without a charge and without a trial, essentially affording the military the authority to ship any person here on U.S. soil, or any American citizen abroad, to Guantanamo Bay.”
California passed AB351 in October to halt provisions 1021 and 1022 from being applicable, a bill Johnson said “doesn’t even attempt to enforce California’s oath.”
“The bill says, ‘the state can’t participate in detention, prosecution or investigation if the NDAA violates the constitution,’” Johnson said. “All you have to do is go in court and claim the NDAA didn’t violate the constitution. Problem solved, you’re not prosecuted and you’re not punished.”
Santa Cruz passed a resolution in April 2012 supporting the repeal of sections 1021 and 1022.
Communications director of the Campaign to Make Santa Cruz a Constitution Protection Zone Robert Moddelmog said like California’s AB351, Santa Cruz’s legislation had good intentions behind it, but fell short in solidifying a constitutional protection zone.
“The signed resolution states that the city of Santa Cruz ‘hereby supports the repeal of the NDAA’s detention provisions described above,’” Moddelmog said, “and directs the mayor to write letters to our congressman and senators ‘indicating the city’s support for legislation to repeal those detention provisions,’”
Moddelmog says while this is an admirable stance, Santa Cruz needs to go one step further and actively stop any violations of the constitution from occurring, rather than only asking for its repeal.
Johnson stressed the government doesn’t have to present any evidence in taking these actions, it merely has to allege you are “suspected” of being a danger or of aiding terrorism.
“Terrorism is a method, and terror is an emotional reaction,” Johnson said, “you can’t legislate either out of existence.”
Johnson expressed his concerns regarding the vagueness of what constitutes being a terrorist, citing numerous reports such as the Department of Homeland Security’s terrorism study and a Responses to Terrorism (START) report released 31 days after the NDAA was signed. START categorizes terrorist acts by ideological motivations, such as “extreme right-wing” or “single issue.”
For example, the START report describes “extreme right-wing” terrorist groups as “groups who are nationalistic, anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty and believe in conspiracy theories involving grave threats to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.”
“Regardless of what words you put in here, the key is suspicion, reverence, and belief,” Johnson said. “All of those are thoughts, none of those are actions … Is thought a crime now?”
Pakistan could be given the responsibility for training two militant brigades in Syria, with about 5,000-10,000 militants.
Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest spenders of the foreign-sponsored war in Syria is turning to Pakistan to train militants, repeating a partnership that once failed in Afghanistan, a new report says.
The Foreign Policy Magazine wrote in an article on Thursday that Saudi Arabia is embarking on a major new effort to train Syrian rebel forces.
The article cites three sources with knowledge of the program that say Riyadh has enlisted the help of Pakistani instructors to do it.
According to the sources Pakistan could be given the responsibility for training about 5,000-10,000 militants from two brigades.
The report says the main goal of the Saudi project is to unite the mainstream armed opposition in Syria, many of whom are extremist forces, under the banner of a unified army.
The decision came after signs of rift in relations between Washington and Riyadh became evident.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to move forward with training the Syria militants independent of the United States is the latest sign of a split between the two longtime allies.
In Syria, Saudi officials were aggrieved by Washington’s decision to cancel a strike on the Syrian government in reprisal for a chemical attack on the Damascus suburbs this summer.
A top Saudi official told the Washington Post that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan was unaware of the cancelation of the strike. “We found about it from CNN,” he said.
As a result, Saudi Arabia has decided to follow its own plans which rely on a network of Saudi allies in addition to Pakistan, such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and France.
“As the Saudis expand their effort to topple Assad, analysts say the central challenge is not to inflict tactical losses on the Syrian army, but to organize a coherent force that can coordinate its actions across the country. In other words, if Riyadh hopes to succeed where others have failed, it needs to get the politics right — convincing the fragmented rebel groups, and their squabbling foreign patrons, to work together in pursuit of a shared goal,” the article writes.
“The biggest problem facing the Saudis now is the same one facing the US, France, and anyone else interested in helping the rebels: the fragmentation of the rebels into groups fighting each other for local and regional dominance rather than cooperating to overthrow Assad,” said David Ottaway, a scholar at the Wilson Center who wrote a biography of Prince Bandar.
Syria militants are facing with deep divisions and rivalries with every now and then several of them pledging alliance together to form independent armies.
On Thursday, al-Qaeda leader Aymen Zawahiri who has the strongest militant groups on the ground in Syria fighting alongside the US-backed opposition urged all armed groups to be united and overthrow the Syrian government and set up their own ruling system.
Syrian/Al-Qaeda rebels funded and armed by Obama did this. That makes Obama guilty of war crimes and mass murder.
The bodies of 30 Christian civilians, including women and children, killed by Islamist militias, have been found in two separate mass graves, in the city of Sadad. The number of Christian civilians confirmed dead in this small town halfway between Homs and Damascus has reached 45. Many are injured and several are missing.
According to eyewitnesses, many of the civilians were killed by militia gangs of ‘Al- Nusra Front’ and ‘Daash’. The city has been completely destroyed and looted. Some of the militants who invaded the city were holed up in the Syriac Orthodox Church of St Theodore, which was profaned. Sadad is an ancient Syriac village which dates back to 2000 BC located in the region of Qalamoon, north of Damascus. It had 14 churches, a monastery, temples, historic landmarks and archaeological sites.
Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh said: “What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two and a half years… 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.
Aftermath of last week’s shelling of the Aaisha al-Sidiqa School in Damascus.
Five children were killed and 27 people wounded when mortar rounds hit a school in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, state television reported.
“The toll in the terrorist targeting of the St. John of Damascus school with mortar rounds has risen to five dead, all of them children, and 27 injured,” a news alert on Syrian state television said.
Just last week, militants targeted another school, the Aaisha al-Sidiqa school in the Zahira neighbourhood of Damascus, with mortar fire injuring four first graders.
Aftermath of last week’s shelling of the Aaisha al-Sidiqa School in Damascus.
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