U.S. tells Russia to piss off in supplying Syria with arms

...even though we have been supplying the Syrian rebels and militants to the teeth with brand spanking new weaponry but will throw a fit if Russian supplies 'defensive' weapons to Syria

US officials this Thursday called for Russia not to conduct arm sales to Syria as news reports surfaced that Moscow was ready to sell advanced ground-to-air missiles - the S-300  system to Syria.

Israel informed the U.S. about the sale of the missile batteries, claiming Syria has been making payments on a 2010 agreement with Moscow to buy six launchers and 144 operational missiles for $900 million according to the information the Israeli`s provided.

Commenting on the media reports, US Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier in the day that “the missiles are potentially destabilizing with respect to the state of Israel.”

Again, the key word said by Kerry - "...state of Israel," its always about Israel and nothing else it seems in the world.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that “the provision of additional weapons to the regime will not hasten a political solution,...including air defense systems that are destabilizing to the region.”

Well here he said 'region' while another said 'Israel' but do get the picture in the end though.

Of course Israel and the U.S. doesn`t want Syria to get the powerful S-300 missile system as it is a 'game changer,' meaning effectively Syria would be 'hands off.' They successfully lobbied Russia when they  persuaded Moscow as to not fulfill a contract with Iran about the similar S-300 missile system - in the event Israel and the U.S. launched airstrikes to maintain air superiority. 

Now the sale of Russian weapons to Syria has always been a source of bilateral tension between Moscow and Washington, with US officials accusing Russia of arming a regime the United States says is killing its own citizens in Syria’s raging civil war. 

But who is killing who? What is the real status quo in Syria? The Syrian rebels and militants are on record of being Al-Qaeda affiliated and media reports confirmed today that the rebels are defecting to the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra is a known Al-Qaeda group and designated as a terrorist organisation by our State Dept. It is the same rebels as evidenced by the UN who used deadly chemicals weapons...but of course the great superpowers of the world don`t care and brush off the news as 'false' and 'skeptical.'

Russia, however, has insisted that the deliveries are legal under international law and that it is not supplying Syria, [...] with offensive weapons which can be used to kill civilians.

As the world powers play around, innocent civilians are caught in the cross hairs so to speak and pay the ultimate price. They want to turn Syria into Libya...how the 'presstitute' media has forgotten Libya? Do they even KNOW or CARE what the current situation is on the ground there? Of course not, their job is done and have their sights on Syria and Iran. We all know the rebels and militants are completely equipped and financed from abroad who are Al-Qaeda affiliated and at the direction of the West,... yet they spin it in such a way that we are made to believe its a 'populous uprising' against a tyrant. Oh how we miscalculate and mistreat history, we never do indeed learn from history...until its too late.

Syrian rebels executing captives and POWS; isn`t this the WAR CRIMES UN Sec Ban Ki-moon accuses the government of doing?

War crime? Syrian rebels execute POWs (GRAPHIC VIDEO)
RT NEWS
Posted: August 1, 2012


Rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters capture a policeman who the FSA allege is a “Shabiha” or pro-regime militiaman, on July 31, 2012, as the rebels overran a police station in Aleppo (AFP Photo / Emin Ozmen)

A horrifying amateur video from Syria emerged online, showing an apparent mass execution of Assad supporters in Aleppo at the hands of rebels from the Free Syria Army.

The footage shows several bloodied men stripped down to their underwear being forced to kneel by a wall amidst a throng of excited, machine gun-touting men.

Once their captors open fire, the camera jerks away as the crowd momentarily disperses, seemingly unprepared for the nearly 40 seconds of uninterrupted shooting that follows. As the gunfire dies down, shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” resound as the once skittish onlookers victoriously raise their guns in the air, approaching what appears to be a pile of stripped-down corpses.
One of the victims has been identified as Ali Zein Al-Abidin Al-barri; the rebels accused him and his family of killing 15 FSA soldiers during a truce in Aleppo on Tuesday.

The video depicting the apparent massacre has not been verified, though the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said such vengeance was a crime as Islamic law does not authorize the execution of prisoners.

Clive Baldwin, a senior legal adviser for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told BBC News: "What it looks like is execution of detainees and if that is the case, that would be a war crime."

Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennady Gatilov condemned the shooting. "The brutal massacre of government supporters by the opposition in the city of Aleppo shows that human rights violations are being committed by both sides,” he wrote on Twitter.

It is not the first time that reports have emerged of rebels carrying out executions against pro-Assad forces without trial.

Ahmed, a rebel fighter from the Amr bin al-Aas brigade which operates in the Syrian town of Azaz, recounted the execution of a Syrian army sniper named Rami who was shot dead after a graveside “trial,” Reuters reports.

Ahmed says Rami was firing from the top of a high minaret at a local mosque before he was captured.

"We took him right to his grave and, after hearing the witnesses' statements, we shot him dead," the agency sites Ahmed as saying.

Ahmed made it clear that his forces often capture “handfuls of soldiers” in battle, saying that his men would create courts for the captured men and execute them.

However, when pressed on the specifics of creating makeshift courts to justify killing those captured in battle, Ahmed remained stoic.

"The culture of lawyers has long passed. I mean a guy like that," Ahmed said, referring to the slain sniper Rami, “what do you think his fate should be?"

Such extra-judicial killings might be a sign of things to come if the 17-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad spins further out of control.

Asia Times Online correspondent Pepe Escobar told RT that such massacres occur “all the time” in today's Syria. He believes, however, that summary executions of this nature will push minorities to fight against the rebels.

“I received this video from a source in Arabic, and then I asked for a translation. This is a very important clan in Northern Aleppo. Some of them were executed in cold blood, this is what this two and a half minute video shows. This is an extended clan. They have like 20,000 brothers, sisters and extended family in this tribal clan,” Escobar said.

“So this means that all of these people, instead of being recruited to the opposition, now they will fight the opposition because they are being executed in cold blood. This explains, among other things, why Christians all over Syria are taking up arms to defend themselves. Because they know if there is a post-Assad controlled [government] by Sunni hardcore elements, including Salafi jihadists, they are going to be unprotected minorities. At the moment they are protected minorities under the Assad regime," he continued.

Obama authorizes secret 'intelligence finding' supporting Syrian terrorist rebels

By Mark Hosenball
REUTERS
Aug 1, 2012

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad's armed opponents - a shift that intensified following last month's failure of the U.N. Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against the Damascus government.

The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some U.S. allies do just that.

But U.S. and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad's opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble.

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment...

(click here to read the full article on REUTERS)

Western-backed Syrian Rebels Ransack Christian Churches

NATO-backed thugs desecrate places of worship

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Shocking images have emerged which show the aftermath of Christian churches ransacked by NATO-backed Syrian rebels, illustrating once again how western powers are supporting Muslim extremists in their bid to achieve regime change in the middle east.



A photograph provided to us by a Christian woman in Homs, scene of some of the bloodiest clashes of the conflict, shows a member of the Free Syrian Army posing with a looted Catholic cross in one hand and a gun in the other while wearing a priest’s robe.

“Everyone knows simply removing these garments from the church is a sin. The priest is the only one who wears them too. They even pray before putting them on. Him posing in front of the funeral car as well is disgusting to the max,” our source told us.

“They destroyed the church and went in to film it. I know this for a fact.”

“The Robes can only be worn by Deacons or Priests or Sub-Deacons, and they a Christian man wouldn’t hold a Cross in one hand and a gun in another,” the woman adds

Another image shows a ransacked church in Bustan al-Diwan (Old Homs).



While Syrian rebels busy themselves ransacking Christian churches, they’re also rallying around the Al-Qaeda flag just as their counterparts did in Libya.

This video shows Syrian “activists” flying the Al-Qaeda flag during an anti-Assad protest in the northern Syrian town of Binnish.

In another clip, armed Syrian rebels address the camera standing behind a table draped with the black Al-Qaeda flag.

Last month we highlighted a photo published by French news agency AFP that shows a Syrian rebel wearing the Al-Qaeda flag on his arm accompanying UN observers in the village of Azzara.

Why are western governments who are supposed to be engaged in a ‘war on terror’ against radical Muslim terrorists handing those very same terrorists control over entire countries?



A third image sent by our source shows another place of worship, Church Um Al Zinar, with part of its roof missing thanks to Syrian rebels who have been portrayed by the international media as saints despite their involvement in terrorist bombings and massacres.

The latest terror attack carried out by rebels occurred earlier today when gunmen stormed a pro-government TV station, bombing buildings and shooting dead three employees.

The sight of NATO-backed rebels desecrating Christian places of worship is becoming a recurring theme.

Back in March we reported on shocking video footage which showed Libyan rebels desecrating Christian and Jewish graves at a cemetery.

The clip shows Libyan rebels breaking apart headstones while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The men later try to smash up a large Christian cross statue with sledgehammers.

Watch the clip below.

Al Jazeera hypocrisy: Provided Syrian rebels with satellite phones, confirms Al Jazeera in bed with the globalists

Ex-employee: Al Jazeera provided Syrian rebels with satphones
RT News
Published: 04 April, 2012, 23:38


Demonstrators holding Kurdish and Syrian opposition flags gather during a protest against Syria's President Assad in Qamishli (REUTERS/Shaam News Network/Handout)

Al Jazeera has supplied Syrian rebels with satellite communication tools to ensure telephone and Internet connection, claims Ali Hashim, a former correspondent of the Qatar-funded channel. The equipment was smuggled from Lebanon, he told RT.

The channel paid $50,000 for smuggling phones and other tools across the Syrian border to ensure they would get an inside picture, claims Ali Hashim.

A month ago, Hashim and two other correspondents working for Al Jazeera in Lebanon, stepped down from their jobs over a dispute over how the Arab Spring should be covered. Reporting popular unrest in Bahrain and Syria revealed the acutest differences between the men and their employer.

“The channel was taking a certain stance. It was meddling with each and every detail of reports on the Syrian revolution. At the same time it was almost covering up what was going on in Bahrain,” recalls Hashim.

The journalist says Qatar authorities actually decided the channel’s agenda and created their own version of the Syrian crisis.

“We went to the border between Lebanon and Syria. There it became obvious that militants entered Syria from Lebanon to clash with the Syrian regular army, which was 3 kilometers away from the border,” Hashim told RT.

“We took photos of those people, but the channel declined them. I was asked to forget about the militants and to return to Beirut,” he says.

In an earlier interview with the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, Hashim called Al Jazeera’s policy “informational suicide.”

The Syrian government has repeatedly slammed the unbalanced coverage of the uprising by some Arab news channels. But Hashim remarks that both sides of this conflict are playing dirty: while some media are siding with the rebels, omitting reports of the militants’ atrocities against civilians, the Syrian regime’s media behave as if there were no calls for freedoms and reforms in the country.

Syria has been engulfed by a popular uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad for over a year now. Opposition forces submit daily claims of people killed in fights with regular forces. The reports are hard to verify as the state remains closed to most foreign journalists. Nonetheless, the UN estimates over 9,000 people have died in the conflict. The Syrian authorities maintain they are fighting foreign insurgency, which has taken lives of over 2,000 troops.

Arab Gulf states to bankroll the Syrian rebels...how sweet it must be but nothing new of a globalist coup

Gulf-sponsored: Multi-million monthly cash-flow for Syrian rebels
RT News
April 2, 2012, 


Syrian National Council President Burhan Ghalioun (C) is greeted by council members during a news conference after their meeting in Istanbul March 27, 2012. (Reuters / Murad Sezer)

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are creating a multimillion-dollar fund to bankroll the Syrian rebels battling President Assad’s regime.

Attendants at the weekend’s Friends of Syria conference confirmed to AP that plans were afoot to fund the fighting.

Turkey’s foreign minister told the meeting, convened to raise funds for regime change in Syria, that the meeting supported the covenant of the Syrian national council as a legitimate representative of "all Syrians”.

The Turkey-based Syrian National Council will use the slush fund to pay salaries of Free Syrian Army soldiers and defectors from the Syrian armed forces.

“The SNC will take charge of the payment of fixed salaries of all officers, soldiers, and others who are members of the Free Syrian Army,” Council head Burhan Ghalioun said.

One of the officials called the fund a “pot of gold” to undermine President Bashar Assad's army.

The United States has also announced additional American “aid to the Syrian people” that will bring the total to $12 million. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US would provide communications equipment to the rebels.

The meeting gathered more than 70 representatives of Arab and Western countries who support the Syrian opposition in its fight against President Assad’s regime.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia called on the Friends of Syria to arm the rebels, saying supplying weapons is a “duty”. However, most of the conference participants are not ready to provide anything beyond non-lethal aid.

Journalist and political analyst Christoph Hoerstel told RT that salaries for the rebels are not news, as they “have been paid since the beginning.”

He insists that the conflict in Syria had been planned in advance from as early as summer 2010, and that this information “kills the whole story the West and some of those corrupt allies… are making out of Syria.”

Additional:

• Arab states pledge $100mn to pay salaries to Syrian rebels

Syrian rebel 'Executioner' tells his story...real face of Syrian opposition

The Burial Brigade of Homs
An Executioner for Syria's Rebels Tells His Story
Spiegel Online
03/29/2012

Human Rights Watch has condemned abuses committed by Syrian rebels in their stronghold of Homs. But one member of a rebel "burial brigade" who has executed four men by slitting their throats defended his work in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE. "If we don't do it, nobody will hold these perpetrators to account," he said.

By Ulrike Putz in Beirut

Hussein can barely remember the first time he executed someone. It was probably in a cemetery in the evening, or at night; he can't recall exactly. It was definitely mid-October of last year, and the man was Shiite, for sure. He had confessed to killing women -- decent women, whose husbands and sons had protested against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. So the rebels had decided that the man, a soldier in the Syrian army, deserved to die, too.

Hussein didn't care if the man had been beaten into a confession, or that he was terrified of death and had begun to stammer prayers. It was his tough luck that the rebels had caught him. Hussein took out his army knife and sliced the kneeling man's neck. His comrades from the so-called "burial brigade" quickly interred the blood-stained corpse in the sand of the graveyard west of the Baba Amr area of the rebel stronghold of Homs. At the time, the neighborhood was in the hands of the insurgents.

That first execution was a rite of passage for Hussein. He now became a member of the Homs burial brigade. The men, of which there are only a handful, kill in the name of the Syrian revolution. They leave torture to others; that's what the so-called interrogation brigade is for. "They do the ugly work," says Hussein, who is currently being treated in a hospital in the Lebanese city of Tripoli. He was injured when a piece of shrapnel became lodged in his back during the army's ground invasion of Baba Amr in early March.

He is recovering in relatively safe Lebanon until he can return to Syria and "get back to work." It's a job he considers relatively clean. "Most men can torture, but they're not able to kill from close range," he explains. "I don't know why, but it doesn't bother me. That's why they gave me the job of executioner. It's something for a madman like me."

Before he joined the Farouk Brigade, as the Baba Amr militia is known, last August, the 24-year-old had worked as a salesman. "I can sell everything, from porcelain to yogurt," he says.

How the Rebels Lost Their Innocence

The bloody uprising against the Assad regime has now lasted for a year. And Hussein's story illustrates that, in this time, the rebels have also lost their innocence.

There are probably many reasons for that development. Hussein can rattle off several of them. "There are no longer any laws in Syria," he says. "Soldiers or thugs hired by the regime kill men, maim children and rape our women. If we don't do it, nobody will hold these perpetrators to account."

Another reason, he explains, is the desire for vengeance. "I have been arrested twice. I was tortured for 72 hours. They hung me by the hands, until the joints in my shoulders cracked. They burnt me with hot irons. Of course I want revenge."

His family, too, has suffered. He explains that he lost three uncles, all murdered by the regime. "One of them died with his five children," he says. "Their murderers deserve no mercy."

Most chillingly, Hussein believes that violence is simply in the nature of his society. "Children in France grow up with French, and learn to speak it perfectly," he says. "We Syrians were brought up with the language of violence. We don't speak anything else."

But in spite of all the rebels' justification for their brand of self-administered justice, Hussein's actions fall under what the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch on Tuesday condemned as "serious human rights abuses" on the part of the Syrian rebels. In the corridors of the hospital in Tripoli, Hussein and his fellow injured comrades speak openly about the fact that they, just like the regime's troops, torture and kill. They find the criticism from the human rights activists unfair: "We rebels are trying to defend the people. We're fighting against slaughterers. When we catch them, we must strike hard," says one fighter, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Rami.

Alternative Justice System

Over the course of the last year, Homs had developed into the unofficial capital of the revolution. Until a few weeks ago, the rebels controlled whole neighborhoods of the city, especially the district of Baba Amr. But that area was overrun by government troops in early March. The fight between rebels and government forces has now shifted to the neighboring district of Khalidiya.

According to Abu Rami and Hussein, the alternative justice system that the rebels set up in Homs last fall remains intact. "When we catch regime supporters, they are brought before a court martial," they say. The commander of the rebels in Homs, Abu Mohammed, presides over the court. He is assisted by Abu Hussein, the head of the coordinating committee. "Sometimes even more men act as a jury," says Hussein. The interrogation brigade reports on the confessions of the accused. Often the suspects even had videos on their cell phones that showed atrocities being perpetrated against insurgents, the men say. "In that situation, their guilt is established quickly." In the event of a conviction, the prisoners are then handed over to Hussein's burial brigade, which takes them to gardens or to the cemetery. And then Hussein comes along with his knife.

So far, Hussein has cut the throats of four men. Among the group of executioners in Homs, he is the least experienced -- something that he almost seems apologetic about. "I was wounded four times in the last seven months," he says. "I was out of action for a long time." On top of that, he also has other commitments. "I operate our heavy machine gun, a Russian BKC. Naturally I have killed a lot more men with that. But only four with the blade." That will change soon, he says. "I hope I will be released from the hospital next week and can return to Homs. Then those dogs will be in for it."

'Sometimes We Acquit People'

The rebels in Homs began carrying out regular executions in August of last year, shortly after the conflict in the country began to escalate, says Hussein's comrade Abu Rami. In his Adidas tracksuit, he looks like any other convalescent in the hospital. But Abu Rami is a senior member of the Homs militia. The other Syrians in the ward greet him respectfully and pay close attention to his words.

"Since last summer, we have executed slightly fewer than 150 men, which represents about 20 percent of our prisoners," says Abu Rami. Those prisoners who are not convicted and sentenced to death are exchanged for rebel prisoners or detained protesters, he says. But the executioners of Homs have been busier with traitors within their own ranks than with prisoners of war. "If we catch a Sunni spying, or if a citizen betrays the revolution, we make it quick," says the fighter. According to Abu Rami, Hussein's burial brigade has put between 200 and 250 traitors to death since the beginning of the uprising.

He dismisses any doubts about whether these people were really all guilty and whether they received a fair trial. "We make great efforts to investigate thoroughly," Abu Rami says. "Sometimes we acquit people, too."

Apart from anything else, it is simply the nature of every revolution to be bloody, Abu Rami explains. "Syria is not a country for the sensitive."

Britain upping the cash to Syrian rebels...so isn`t this 'foreign intervention' and violation of international law? But who follows the the law these days huh?

Flashpoint Funding: UK doubles Syria rebel cashflow

Russia Today
Friday, March 30, 2012

The UK has announced it will allocate some £500,000 ($795,000) to supply non-military aid to the Syrian opposition. The Foreign Secretary says it will help the 'hard-pressed' opposition groups to register violations by the Assad government. RT's Laura Smith says exactly what type of support and equipment the opposition will receive is yet to be determined. What is already known is that the aid package is likely to include secure telephones that the British Foreign Secretary hopes will be used to document the regime's violence.

Uploaded by RussiaToday on Mar 30, 2012
http://youtu.be/3GFIFe2Xtps

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Syrian rebel death squads...yea they`re the 'legitimate representatives of the Syrian people' claimed by the U.S., we`ve heard that before

Syria rebels form death squad, behead army soldiers: Report
Press TV
Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:31PM GMT

Syrian rebels have formed their own laws, courts and death squads in Baba Amr neighborhood in the restive city of Homs and beheaded the captured army soldiers, a report has revealed.

The Free Syrian Army rebels (file photo)

The report, published by Spiegel Online on Monday, discloses violent measures by the anti-government armed groups, laying bare the other side of the unrest in the Middle Eastern country.

Hussein, one of the rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is quoted in the report as saying that he himself decapitated four army soldiers who had been detained by gunmen. Hussein said that he beheaded the first victim, a Shia soldier who had confessed to using violent tactics, in mid-October, 2011, in a cemetery.

• HRW: Syrian ‘Protesters’ Carrying Out Torture, Executions - Infowars (3/20/2012)

Hussein did not care whether the soldier’s confessions were real or he had made them under duress. He had simply grabbed a knife and beheaded the soldier who had knelt down in front of him.

The soldier had been captured out of sheer “bad luck”, said Hussein.

While he is a member of a rebel death squad killing government forces in the name of the “Syrian revolution,” there are others who are responsible for torturing captured soldiers. Many rebels can torture, but not everyone can kill, admits Hussein, who is now receiving treatment in a hospital in the Lebanese city of Tripoli where he and his fellow companions are openly talking about torturing and killing Syrian army soldiers.

“But I do not know why killing is not difficult for me,” he added.

Hussein’s life story demonstrates the course of actions rebels have taken during more than a year in the Arab state.

The report further divulges that Syrian rebels in Homs have since August, 2011 begun regular execution of Syrian soldiers. “As of last summer, we have executed 150 men, which constitutes only 20 percent of our prisoners,” claimed another hospitalized rebel identified as Abu Rami.
“Moreover, when we realize that a Sunni is spying against us we then hold a brief trial for him,” Abu Rami said, adding that they have executed between 200 and 250 people in such cases.

Revealing the shocking incidents in which rebels even kill Sunnis, he went on to say that “Syria is not a place for the squeamish. “

The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing the protesters.

Damascus, however, blames ''outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups'' for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

MAB/MF/MA