War in Syria, and Lebanon?

Two deadly bombings in Beirut point to the growing threat that the Syrian conflict will spread to Lebanon and throughout the region: here.

This video is called Islamists in Syria Get Arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

By Niall Green:

Turkey’s foreign minister demands war in the name of “human rights”

22 October 2012

The Turkish government has again called on the United States and the European powers to take direct military action against Syria.

Speaking to Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed that such an intervention was required to “stop the bloodshed” and resolve the refugee crisis in Syria.

“We [Turkey] are doing all we can to help these people, using all diplomatic capacity to stop this bloodshed,” Davutoglu told Guardian columnist and Assistant Editor Simon Tisdall. “But there should be a much more concerted effort by the international community. The best way we can see now is direct humanitarian intervention.”

This statement turns reality on its head, as Davutoglu and the Guardian editors well know. It is Turkey and its NATO allies, together with the Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, all operating under the aegis of the United States government,that are the principal sponsors of the 18-month old Syrian conflict.

Led by Washington, these powers have supplied hundreds of millions of dollars in money, arms and other materiel to the “rebel” militias fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Much of this military aid has gone directly to Sunni extremist groups, including those with links to Al Qaeda.

As the New York Times reported last week, top US intelligence officials in Washington have acknowledged that “most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists.”

These US-backed Islamist groups have turned the conflict in Syria into a sectarian civil war, in which Sunni-based “rebel” forces target members of the Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities, as well as other civilians who have refused to join or support their “jihad.” Pro-regime forces have responded in kind, with reports of reprisal attacks in villages and neighborhoods used as bases by the opposition fighters.

Western policy on Syria is failing on a monumental scale: here.

Fierce fighting erupted between Western-backed insurgents and Kurds in Syria amid growing threats of a Turkish intervention: here.

Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards told the BBC that British troops could be deployed to Syria in the event of a “major humanitarian crisis”: here.

Related articles

• Iran and Turkey’s meeting reveals new approach to Syria (guardian.co.uk)
• Lebanon Bombing: Impetus for US-NATO Planned Sectarian War (weeklyintercept.blogspot.com)
• Syrian gov’t blames Turkey, Gulf States for ongoing bloodshed – Xinhua (news.xinhuanet.com)
• US to Focus Exclusively on Arming Al Qaeda in Syria (blacklistednews.com)

About these ads