…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

One year to destroy Syria’s chemical arms: Assad
19 September, 2013 – Agence France Presse

DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: President Bashar Al-Assad has said it will take at least a year and $1 billion for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons, as Al-Qaeda-linked fighters tightened their grip Thursday on a border town.

In a confident interview with US network Fox News, Assad insisted Syria was not gripped by civil war but was the victim of infiltration by foreign-backed Al-Qaeda fighters.

His latest appearance came as UN envoys debated a draft resolution that would enshrine a joint US-Russian plan to secure and neutralise his banned weapons in international law.

The plan is to be discussed at a meeting in The Hague on Friday by the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Assad insisted in the television interview that his forces had not been behind an August 21 gas attack on the Damascus suburbs that killed hundreds of civilians, but vowed nevertheless to hand over his deadly arsenal.

It was his second interview this month with US television, and one of a series of meetings with Western journalists to counter mounting political pressure from Western capitals.

After last month’s barrage of sarin-loaded rockets, which the West says was clearly launched by the regime, US President Barack Obama called for US-led punitive military strikes.

But with US lawmakers and the Western public not sold on the virtues of another Middle East military adventure, Assad’s ally Russia seized the opportunity to propose a diplomatic solution.

Pushed by President Vladimir Putin, the White House agreed to hold fire while Russia and the international community — with Assad’s agreement — draws up a disarmament plan.

Assad reiterated his pledge to cooperate, but insisted he had not been forced to do so by US threats of US action.

“I think it’s a very complicated operation, technically. And it needs a lot of money, about a billion,” he told Fox.

“So it depends, you have to ask the experts what they mean by quickly. It has a certain schedule. It needs a year, or maybe a little bit more.”

Asked why he had used force to repress a popular uprising and triggered a two-and-a-half year war that has claimed 110,000 lives, Assad insisted Syria was a victim of terrorism.

“What we have is not civil war. What we have is war. It’s a new kind of war,” he said, alleging that Islamist guerrillas from more than 80 countries had joined the fight.

“We know that we have tens of thousands of jihadists… we are on the ground, we live in this country,” he said, disputing an expert report that suggested 30,000 out of around 100,000 rebels were hardliners.

“What I can tell you is that… 80 to 90 percent of the underground terrorists are Al-Qaeda and their offshoots.”

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground became still more complex and dangerous, when — according to residents — an Al-Qaeda front group overran a Syrian border town on Wednesday.

“The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has seized complete control of Azaz. They are in control of the town’s entrances,” said Abu Ahmad, an activist inside the town.

The fighting in Azaz began when ISIS fighters tried to kidnap a German doctor working there, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which also said he is now in a safe location.

“The situation in Azaz is unchanged (Thursday),” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“There are attempts to mediate between the factions. Azaz is home to many people who fled (the nearby city of) Aleppo,” he added.

“They want to live in a safe place, not one where anything that moves gets sniped.”

Elsewhere, roadside bombs targeting a convoy of minibuses in the central province of Homs killed at least 14 members of Assad’s Alawite minority, Abdel Rahman said.

The blast targeted two buses near the Alawite village of Jabourin, 13 km north of Homs city, he said.

While Assad pursued his media counterattack, the five UN Security Council powers held new talks on a resolution backing the Russia-US plan to destroy the chemical weapons.

Western nations, which said they are not looking for an immediate threat of force against Assad, could seek a Security Council vote this weekend if Russia agrees.

UN envoys from the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China held two hours of talks at the US mission.

“There is no accord yet, there will be more negotiations,” said one UN diplomat.

The disarmament plan will face its first big test on Saturday, the one-week deadline announced by Moscow and the United States for Assad to provide a list of his chemical facilities.

Assad said in his interview that he could provide a list “tomorrow”, and Moscow said it had received assurances that he would cooperate.

…source

Western lies, criminality unraveling in Syria

19 September, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV

What is clear is that Western governments are shamelessly contriving partial and unsubstantiated data to fit political objectives.”

The US has accused Russia of “swimming against the tide” in persisting with its claims that foreign-backed militants in Syria committed the chemical weapons attacks, not the Syrian armed forces, as the Western governments have asserted.

In a sense, the US is correct. Russia is indeed swimming against a tide – a powerful tide of fabrication and propaganda promulgated by Washington, its Western allies and their dutiful news media.

But that tide is now subsiding, by the day, as more facts emerge about what really happened in Syria with regard to the use of chemical weapons. If Russia was swimming against a tide, the position of the US and its allies is now sinking from lies and criminality.

As each day passes, it becomes clear that Western states tried to railroad a guilty verdict on the Syrian government and thereby trigger a desired military aggression.

The Western propaganda operation went into full speed on Monday following the release of the report by the United Nations chemical weapons team, led by Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom. No sooner had that report been published than the US, British and French governments were crowing that it provided “conclusive proof” of their allegations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had committed the mass killings on 21 August near the capital, Damascus.

The UN team did not actually state who perpetrated the chemical gas attack, but its inferences allowed others to point the finger of accusation at the Syrian army. So too did the tone of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who called for sanctions against those who commit such crimes “against your own people”.

So, they all lined up in familiar choreography to denounce the Syrian government. The US, British and French said they were justified in calling for military strikes and that they intended incorporating such action in the recent chemical decommissioning deal worked out by Washington and Moscow. For a day or two, it seemed that the Western governments had gained the psychological upper hand.

But it is increasingly clear that the Western “certainty” over Syrian chemical weapons is an edifice built on sand. The initial Western claims were never supported by verifiable evidence, only “secret intelligence”. Now it turns out that the UN inspectors’ report upon which the Western governments have rested their case is fatally flawed.

By its own admission, the UN study was carried out hurriedly under duress and in circumstances tampered with by the Western-backed anti-government militants. In a word, its putative evidence is unreliable.

More damning is the new disclosure by the Syrian government purporting to show that the culpable party for the gas attack near Damascus is the insurgents. Syria shared this “factual evidence” with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who was in Damascus this week. Syria and Russia are to submit this information to the UN.

What is disturbing is that this latest evidence, which includes ballistic charts and chemical analysis data, was already presented to the UN team led by Sellstrom. Russia has also said that other evidence and information presented to the UN team during the investigation was ignored in its final report. That suggests that the UN team was compromised to accommodate Western political interests.

Another disclosure this week is that Moscow confirmed that it never supplied Syria with sarin gas, not even during the years of the former Soviet Union. The significance of this is that Western governments flagged up the finding in the Sellstrom report that the inspectors had recovered remains of unusual rockets with Cyrillic (Russian) lettering. The inference was that Russia supplied Syria with chemical weapons, which the Syrian army had used.

But the Kremlin denied that it has ever delivered such munitions to Syria. It said that Soviet-era rockets with Cyrillic markings of the type cited in the Sellstrom report were supplied in the past to Libya. Given that Libya is a major arms supply conduit to the Western-backed so-called rebels in Syria, this again lends credibility to the Russian and Syrian claims that the chemical gas attacks near Damascus were carried out by these groups in a provocation to elicit Western military intervention.

There are many other unanswered perturbing questions about the chemical weapons attack near Damascus last month. Who were those dead children in the videos that the West has based so much of its emotive claims on? Why were they dressed in day clothes if they were supposedly killed in the middle of the night when they should have been in their beds? Why were their corpses arranged in such an orderly way, suggesting the scene was organized for an anticipated video recording? Why are there so few adult female victims in the apparent gas attack? Where are the grieving mothers and fathers of the little ones whose bodies are stacked up in death shrouds?

More chilling is a study led by Syrian Christian figure, Mother Agnes Mariam, which cites relatives of the dead who claim that the children were abducted by militants during earlier attacks in the northwest Latakia area. In that case, the children may have been poisoned, not by rockets filled with sarin, but by premeditated murder, with the purpose of fabricating a chemical gas attack.

What this demonstrates is that the exact circumstances of the atrocity near Damascus are far from known. But what is clear is that Western governments are shamelessly contriving partial and unsubstantiated data to fit political objectives.

The rush to railroad a guilty verdict on the Syrian government shows once again that the Western objective is regime change. That objective is criminal and the means to achieve it – fabricating lies and fomenting acts of war – gravely compound the criminality. …source

Attempts to blame Assad for chemical attack are baseless, Russia says
18 September, 2013 – Shia Post

Russia says certain Western states are making baseless efforts to blame the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a chemical weapons attack that allegedly killed hundreds of people in the suburbs of Damascus last month.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich made the remarks in a statement on Tuesday, a day after the United Nations issued a report by UN investigators which said sarin nerve agent was used in the Damascus suburbs attack, without indicating who launched the attack.

Lukashevich said that the Western attempts to blame the Assad government for the attack are “simplistic and groundless”.

Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the report on the August 21 chemical weapons attack had produced no evidence that Syrian troops carried out the attack and that Russia believed foreign-backed militants were behind it.

Lavrov made the statement during a joint news conference with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Moscow.

The Russian foreign minister stated that the UN report proved that chemical weapons had been used, but it failed to answer a number of questions Moscow had asked such as whether the weapons were produced in a factory or they were homemade.

“We have very serious grounds to believe that this was a provocation,” Lavrov said.

He said that there had been “many provocations” by the militants fighting against the Syrian government and people. “They were all aimed, over the last two years, at provoking foreign intervention.”

Lavrov added, “We want the events of August 21 to be investigated dispassionately, objectively and professionally.”

The United States, France, Britain and the foreign-sponsored militants blamed the Syrian government for the attack near Damascus.

The Assad government has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the attack was carried out by the militants themselves as a false-flag operation.

On September 10, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said Damascus is ready to implement a Russian proposal to place its chemical weapons arsenal under international control.

The Russian government proposed the initiative during a meeting between Lavrov and Muallem in Moscow on September 9.

“We want to join the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons. We are ready to observe our obligations in accordance with that convention, including providing all information about these weapons,” Muallem said.

In response, US President Barack Obama asked Congress to delay a vote on authorizing military action against Syria in order to give the Russian proposal a chance to play out. …source

Russia Blasts UN Inspectors for Ignoring Evidence on Syria Chemical Attacks
19 September, 2013 – FARS

TEHRAN (FNA)- UN inspectors ignored evidence on chemical weapons use in Syria secretly passed to them by Damascus, said Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

That is why the UN report is biased and needs reinvestigation, he said in an exclusive interview to RT.

“The Syrian authorities have conducted their own sampling and investigation, analysis in terms of possible evidence of the rebels being responsible for the tragic episodes both on August 21, but beyond that also on August 22, 23 and 24,” Sergey Ryabkov told RT’s Maria Finoshina, who caught up with him during his visit to Damascus to discuss these allegations.

Ryabkov revealed that there were actually several chemical attacks in Syria in August and that the UN inspectors, headed by Swedish scientist Dr Ake Salstrom, were informed about this, but ignored the information in their report.

“This material was discreetly handed over to Ake Salstrom, the head of the UN mission of experts here (in Syria) which came to investigate the Ghouta incidents. Salstrom was asked to look into it and eventually factor this new evidence into the final report. It never happened in fact,” Ryabkov said. “This is one of the reasons why we criticize the speed with which the report was released… and also an incomplete content of this report,” he said.

Moscow wants the UN inspectors to return to Syria and continue investigating in order to determine who was responsible for the chemical attack.

“We expect the UN Secretariat to both send Salstrom and his people back to Syria to continue investigation of the three remaining incidents, and also to write a full and comprehensive report against the background of all information they have received,” Ryabkov stressed.

He warned against the evidence provided by the Syrian and Russian sides being “simply nullified and disregarded”.

So far, Rybkov said, “one of the few areas” where the UN mission “kept its word” is that it only announced that chemical weapons were used without specifying who deployed them.

Ryabkov called on the UN inspectors to follow the approach of the Russian expert analysis of the chemical attack that took place in Syria on March 19, which was professional and contained chemical, biological and medical analysis of the incident.

The Russian deputy FM maintained that during his two-day visit to Damascus a great job has been done as Syrian authorities are firmly set to fully fulfill all the obligations, and first of all to provide information about the complete list of chemical weapons they possess by the end of this week. …more

Revolution, civil war and imperialist intervention

Statement on Syria by Marea Socialista

Wednesday 18 September 2013

This statement on Syria was issued by the Venezuelan revolutionary organization Marea Socialista (“Socialist Tide”) on 8 September 2013. Active since the beginning within the Chavista movement and the Bolivarian process, Marea Socialista is a current organized within the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), founded by Hugo Chavez. It advocates deepening the popular process in Venezuela and mobilizes against the bureaucratization of this process. It is interesting, in this respect, to know its analysis and its positioning concerning events in Syria. Its call for the internationalist and democratic radical Left to make itself heard in a coordinated manner is also important.

Since August 21, Syria has been on the front pages of the world’s press. The killing of more than 1,400 people with chemical weapons provided the excuse for Obama to launch a criminal threat of intervention by the United States against this already martyred Middle Eastern country. A threat in which he has got himself bogged down and which for that reason is even more dangerous.

A hundred thousand dead, half a million injured and maimed, more than a million (if you count only minors less than 18 years old) refugees; that is the balance sheet of the victims caused by the dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad since March 2011. This makes the Syrian conflict one of the most tragic of the first years of the twenty-first century. These figures are those of the reports of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and so far nobody has challenged them.

The military intervention of the United States will only add to this tragedy with a very large dose of barbarism and the definite probability of a regional explosion with incalculable consequences.

For we who look at these things from the outside, without feeling in our own flesh the anguish and the daily violence, the pain and hatred due to the daily loss of relatives, friends or companions, the desolation and destruction of a country once known as “the land of cinnamon”, the debate nevertheless unleashes raging passions and evokes a feeling of urgency faced with the dangers for humanity that an imperialist aggression represents.

How can we help stop the massacre in this country? What can we do to prevent the imperialist intervention which will cause a great new leap in the spiral of violence that strikes primarily the Syrian people and those of the region? What can we do to help ensure that this people which rose up against decades of oppression manages to achieve its objective? The answers to these questions, as to so many others, cut across the bitter debates that are develop in the so-called “Left” on a world scale.

The crisis of the capitalist system of domination, open from the 2007 financial crisis onwards, has initiated a new period of rebellion. A period of struggles and protests that have in their turn triggered revolutionary processes against governments and regimes in different countries of the world and challenged the traditional political organizations and institutions of capitalist governance. But they have also triggered counter-revolutions and wars whose purpose is to crush the rise of this new process of struggle of the peoples and their desire and determination for change.

In this new stage on a world level, the Arab Spring , that is to say, the process of democratic and anti-capitalist revolutions which has liquidated the old status quo that had lasted for more than five decades in the Near and Middle East, is the first regional laboratory for the confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution. The cost in human lives of the barbarism caused by dictators, by monarchs, by the fascist state of Israel and the leaders of world imperialism would be all for nothing if we do not learn the bitter lessons that these processes themselves provide us with.

In our opinion, we are in the presence of a long-term process, whose development will consist of advances and retreats. A process which, with its peculiarities, different rhythms and distinct time scales, will continue to spread steadily. That is why the direct military intervention that U.S. imperialism is preparing for Syria is intended, among other objectives, to strike at a regional revolutionary process of which we must seek the origin in the structural crisis of capitalism, which has been open and visible since 2007.

Identify the root causes of the present conflict; identify the sectors in conflict and the role of each driving force; understand the internal dynamics of the forces, build an active solidarity in order to support the revolutionaries who are fighting over there: all this is so much raw material for the debate we must conduct so as to dispel the darkness caused by the big imperialist propaganda media and those of the Syrian hereditary dictatorship and its allies. At the risk of being unilateral, the contribution to the debate that we want to make with this text must be seen in relation to our position in Bolivarian Venezuela and our struggle in defence of the conquests of the revolutionary process in our country.

Syria: A chapter of the Arab revolution

The outbreak of the first popular protests in Syria in March 2011 followed, with its own peculiarities, the model and the goals of the rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt. Popular mobilizations which became transformed into massive rebellions demanding freedom, social justice and dignity.

At that point, the expansive wave of what was called the Arab Spring included several countries in the region: Yemen, Morocco, Bahrain, Libya, in addition to the two countries already mentioned, Tunisia and Egypt. Nobody dared to talk then, in the Syrian case, of foreign intervention, except for the participation of Russia, which has from the beginning provided military support to the regime in Damascus. After a month of protests, the repression unleashed by the Syrian government had already left a balance sheet of 3,000 fatalities among protesters.

The semi-legal opposition, tolerated by the government of the Assad clan, rushed to his aid and concocted, in concert with the regime, a relative and manipulative policy of opening, embodied in a new constitution designed to give the regime a democratic facade. This did not prevent increasingly cruel and disproportionate repression, which accumulated victims by the hundreds each week, nor did it stop the protests that took shape and grew in number and combativeness. As events unfolded, even the so-called reforms granted with this pusillanimous opposition were considered unnecessary by Assad, with the cynical argument that the Syrian people had not asked for them.

The criminal NATO intervention in Libya, the brutal absorption of the process in Yemen, the cosmetic reforms in Morocco, the crushing of the revolt in Bahrain by forces from Saudi Arabia, the cruel crescendo of violence in Syria, the coup d’état in Egypt; all this has not so far put a stop to the wave of revolts that toppled Ben Ali and Mubarak, and has not “stabilized” the region.

Quite the contrary: in a few months, this process has liquidated the old status quo laboriously built up by the United States in the region with its Western allies, Israel and the monarchies and dictatorships that have ruled the region over the past fifty years. A status quo that was, from its inception, backed by the USSR, which no longer exists. A status quo that was first shaken by the Iranian revolution against the Shah and that Bush Jr. tried to restore with the occupation of Iraq, which is now an obvious failure. Between January and June, 2011, in scarcely six months, this chessboard, shaky but supported for decades by the United States in order to ensure their control of a region that is strategic because of its natural resources and its geographical location, vanished.

This is the framework in which the Syrian revolution became a civil war, or an armed conflict, and then became the terrain of tragic intervention by global and regional powers. In the first place, and from the beginning of the revolution, there was support in weapons and equipment provided by Russia to a Syrian government that was supposedly “legitimate” in the eyes of “international law”, but had demonstrated over the last thirty years, for those who had eyes to see, its character as a bloodstained regime. Since then, the spiral of horror has been completed with the present U.S. threat of massive destruction.

An atypical civil war

The civil war in the United States in the late nineteenth century, the one in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and the Spanish Civil War between Republicans and Nationalists, to mention only a few examples, were characterized on both sides by relatively concentrated political and military command centres. This is not the case of the rebel camp in the civil war in Syria.

The evolution of the Syrian revolution followed the “model” of the Arab Spring: mass mobilizations that extended to the rest of the country from the cities where the rebellion began. The peaceful nature of the demonstrations was defended by the Local Coordination Committees until the repression had gone from the use of snipers and assassinations in the street to the direct intervention of the armed forces of the regime, acting as an army of occupation in their own country and using all the weapons that one of the best equipped armies in the region had at its disposal. The peaceful protests gave way to armed defence on the part of the population, which tried and is still trying to resist inside the country. But this armed defence is atomized, local and extremely defensive.

A rejection of the first massacres caused desertions from the armed forces of the regime and a military centre of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was installed in Turkey and began to try to organize a defence force of the revolution. But the FSA brigades operating within the country do so on the basis of local criteria and needs, without answering to a general plan and a single command, which moreover does not really exist.

Without a single national centre of the rebellion in the country, with a political leadership abroad paralyzed by insurmountable political and tactical differences, with its military forces acting without connection and without central control; such a situation favoured the intervention of sectarian and extremist foreign militias who answer to those who finance and arm them and conduct a political and ideological struggle that corresponds only to their own interests. These takfiri extremist forces, funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia , just like the militias linked to Al Qaeda, act in the interests of these monarchies and try to direct the war in agreement with them, but their objectives and conceptions are rejected by the Syrian people.

So, without being able to build a unified political leadership or a single military command, the revolutionary Syrian people has been driven to exchange the peaceful nature of its engagement for armed defence of the revolution in order to confront the regime’s brutality. Much more than a conventional civil war, we are confronted with the armed defence of a revolution attacked in a ferocious manner by all the destructive force of the state apparatus.

We reject imperialist intervention because it goes against the revolution

Contrary to what Assad claims, the main objective of the military intervention planned by the U.S. is not the overthrow of the Syrian regime. Obama says his aim is to lead a punitive action against Damascus, but we cannot really believe that. Instead, Assad’s fall could be considered by imperialism as collateral damage if it happened as a result of its military intervention.

The main concern of this old and weakened imperialism, still dominant in the world, is the uncertainty affecting this region and the participation of a large number of forces that have their own interests: Russia, China, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, etc. According to the North American logic, none of these forces, with the exception of Israel, should impose itself on the others, at the risk of challenging the Yankee world domination.

On the other hand, as the main counter-revolutionary force, the United States cannot allow the process of regional rebellion to develop. It is for this reason that it justifies and treats in a friendly way the government resulting from the military coup in Egypt, it goes along with the various currents of political Islam that are subordinated to capital, as in the case of Tunisia or previously, of Morsi in Egypt. It facilitated the repression in Yemen and encouraged Saudi Arabia to intervene militarily in Bahrain.

It is certainly not the alleged “anti- imperialism” of the dictatorship in Damascus that worries Obama. Nor is it the false socialism of the state party that governs Syria, a country that, before the conflict, had 40 per cent of its population living below the poverty line. Nor is it a plan for gradual domination of the region. It is on the contrary the conviction that the extension of the rebellion that began in Tunisia in late 2010, and which has spread in this historically volatile region of the world, can put an end to the puppet totalitarian regimes that oppress these peoples and lead to the questioning of the very existence of the criminal state of Israel.

That is why we support these peoples and this revolutionary process, which Obama also wants to strike with his intervention against the rebellious, heroic, martyred Syrian people, and this is why we emphatically reject imperialist intervention.

The erroneous argumentation of comrades who support Bashar al-Assad

For comrades who only see the bloody imperialism of the United States, the world is something simple and predictable and history repeats itself like an endless wheel. They see the international reality as a black and white photograph between on the one hand the intentions, hopes and policies of Obama – or any Yankee president – and the rest of humanity on the other. They do not seem to have learned yet of the death of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, or the restoration of capitalism in Russia and China, or the global crisis that erupted in 2007 and is the most serious crisis of the last hundred years. They close their eyes to a process of regional rebellion that has lasted two and a half years. And when they talk about it, they describe it as a plan meticulously designed by the United States, which they present as omniscient and omnipotent, thus despising the popular revolts.

The arguments of these sectors rely fundamentally on the denial of facts and reality. For them, there is no real civil war in Syria, but they publish in abundance photographs of “rebels killing Syrian soldiers.” There was no use of chemical weapons, but at the same time they assert that “only the rebels have used them.” They characterize as identical the foreign fundamentalist brigades and forces which oppress and act against the objectives of the revolution, and the rebel Syrian people, thus justifying Assad’s repression against this people.

They say that if we do not defend Assad, we are necessarily in the camp of the imperialist intervention. They argue that there is not a massive sector of the Syrian people who reject the regime and as proof of this, they say that Assad is still in power. But they overlook the fact that the regime maintains itself by conducting a massacre against a poorly armed people and by the destruction of much of the country.

They do not speak of the figures advanced by UN bodies such as UNHCR, which estimate the number of victims at more than 100,000 dead , two million refugees and half a million wounded. But they demand that the UN publishes the report of its inspectors on chemical weapons and that it finds a political solution to the conflict. A conflict whose nature, besides, they deny.

And those who have no problem denying the dictatorial nature of the regime of this hereditary republic justify its defence in the name of the “lesser evil.”

This superficial and conspiratorial view of history is at the same time intolerant with those who, though in the camp of the opposition to imperialist intervention, think differently and do not accept to defend the Assad clan. And when their arguments fall short, they spend their time discrediting, making groundless accusations against and criminalizing those who have different opinions.

The need to make the voice of the radical Left heard

We do not take it upon ourselves – and we think it would be a mistake and a lack of respect for those who are struggling in the region – to enter into tactical discussions. We believe that we must respect the views of those who, in the ongoing popular processes, defend revolutionary objectives. That is why we call for this statement signed by organizations from different countries in the region, and among them Syria, [1] to be made known widely.

However, we cannot limit ourselves to expressing our rejection of imperialist intervention and solidarity with the Syrian people in their struggle. There are many of us in the world who have, since the beginning of the Arab Spring, supported unconditionally these revolts. But we have so far done so in isolation from each other, each in our own countries, where we live. For we who struggle against capital, the recovery of the internationalist tradition is a fundamental task in order to confront the new times that are emerging today. A first step in reviving this tradition is the need to create spaces for discussion and for joint action and solidarity that has an international impact.

If we do not act, the position of those sectors of the Left in the world who support the Syrian regime will represent a debt that the mass movement will make all those who situate themselves on the left pay, without distinction.

It is necessary for the voice of the radical Left to be heard on the level of its real power. So that the peoples who are struggling in the world can see that there is a different Left; plural, democratic, anticapitalist, genuinely committed against imperialist brutality and against all forms of barbarism.

Behind the toxic clouds that cover today the daily life and death of the rebel Syrian people, our duty is to take steps forward, towards an international coming together of the radical Left, which acts as an amplifier of the cry for freedom and the dignity that comes from deep within the collective memory of the peoples who are struggling .

A necessary clarification concerning the attacks against Santiago Alba Rico

It is unfortunate that from within our Bolivarian process voices have been raised, attacking Santiago Alba Rico. By distorting his positions, they use them to discredit him and present them as purported evidence of a pro-imperialist posture. These are the same people who, short of arguments, discredit those who think otherwise and want to cast doubt on his political and intellectual honesty, almost accusing him of being an imperialist agent.

Santiago Alba Rico lives in Tunisia: he is a writer, a philosopher and an activist of the Arab Spring. A friend of the Bolivarian Revolution, he was invited to Venezuela on several occasions by the government of President Chavez to participate in the jury of the Libertador Prize for Critical Thinking. He was part of the organizing committee of the last Forum against the Debt of the Countries of the Mediterranean, held in Tunis. He is a member of the Freedom Flotilla in Solidarity with Palestine. He is a friend of the Cuban Revolution and of the processes that are opposed to neoliberalism in Latin America. In a recent article, Atilio Borón, winner of the Libertador Prize for Critical Thinking in 2013, defended his integrity as a left-wing activist, although he does not share his position.

Marea Socialista, which includes Santiago among its friends on the international level, wants to express here its solidarity. We also reject any kind of accusatory insults in the debate over ideas, as well as the intention of suppressing critical internationalism and the aim of imposing a single thought based on dogmatic illusions and not on the facts of reality, honestly analyzed and verified.

Carlos Carcione, Stalin Pérez, Juan García, Zuleika Matamoros, Gonzalo Gómez, Alexander Marin

Caracas, September 8, 2013 …source

Bahrain’s rebellion continues in spite of domestic and regional pressures
14 September, 2013 – Anna Jacobs – Morocco World News

Charlottesville, Virginia – Arab League names Bahrain as destination for the Pan-Arab Human Rights Court in the midst of increasing limitations to freedom of assembly and on-going talks between the Saudi supported government and Shia opposition forces over political reform

As the debate over diplomatic solutions and possible military intervention in Syria continues, developments in other countries have taken a second place in international news. However, one event struck me as particularly interesting and especially nonexistent in the US media: Bahrain has been chosen to host a pan-Arab human rights court. This choice was made at an Arab League meeting in Cairo and announced by the official Bahrain News Agency at the beginning of September.

Aljazeera English cited the Bahrain foreign minister as saying that “The initiative to establish the court stems from the King’s firm belief in the importance of human rights and basic human liberties,” which was naturally met with much criticism from human rights activists in the country, as well as internationally, after King Hamad Al-Khalifa went to the Gulf Council Cooperation (GCC) to seek help in smothering Bahrain’s political uprisings in 2011. Protests broke out in the country’s capital Manama, in Pearl Square, during the early months of the Arab Spring, calling for greater political freedoms and an end to the royal family’s absolute power. As a response to the King’s request at the GCC, both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent troops in to suppress the peaceful protestors.

The US and Gulf countries; a marriage of convenience

The subsequent crackdown on human rights defenders, as well as medical professionals that treated the protestors, has become infamous and a stain on the country’s reputation. However, as Maryam AlKhawaja, the acting head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, argued, the lack of criticism from major western governments is nothing new.

“The Gulf states are not held accountable for their human rights abuses. No one will take this seriously. For them to have a court such as this is a slap in the face to those who have documented abuses in Bahrain, for which there have been no consequences.” She was quoted as saying by Aljazeera English. In other words, the choice of Bahrain as the locale for the pan-Arab Human Rights Courts and the lack of debate over this choice among both Arab and western governments represents a status-quo event of hypocritical hype—which all too often characterizes western relations with Gulf countries, epitomized by the US-Saudi alliance.

As the Shia majority called for political change against a Saudi allied Sunni monarchy, the United States found itself attempting to formulate a “diplomatic” response to the widespread violence, arrest and imprisonment of activists and doctors, and the Saudi led military crackdown in the country. The monument in the Pearl Square was also torn down, in an attempt to emphasize the royal family’s iron fist backed by a legion of supporting GCC-sanctioned tanks.

Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa claimed that the demolition of the monument, signifying the nation’s history as a location of pearl diving and a symbol of Arab Spring revolutionary fervor against autocracy, was an exercise in “restoring law and order” in typical despotic fashion.

US reaction to the crackdown was especially dismissal, even compared to the reactionary positions taken by officials as dictators were taken down in both Tunisia and Egypt. “Stunned” US officials advised Bahrain to show “restraint” after a particularly violent suppression of protests in April 2011. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed the government to quickly initiate a reform process that “advances the rights and aspirations of all the citizens of Bahrain.” Yet the US government never recalled its ambassador or mentioned the threat of sanctions, and this was at the height of the Arab Spring’s revolutionary zeal. In the over two years since this bloody event, the US has remained more or less silent on the subject of oppression in the island kingdom. The reason for this, of course, relates to the government’s general relationship with Gulf countries as a regional supplier of oil, an ally against hostile governments such as Iran and Syria’s Al-Assad, and the strategic significance of Bahrain in particular, as the location of the United States Fifth Naval Fleet.

The Tamarod Bahrain Movement

Mobilization against the Bahrain government has nonetheless continued in various forms for the last two and a half years, and the country’s own Tamarod movement was begun by activists on August 14th of this year. The government’s response to this initiative was a series of draconian laws restricting the freedom of assembly, to such a point that it was essentially a fiction, while also threatening to remove citizenship rights and apply severe sentences to opposition party members.

In reaction to these oppressive security measures, Tamarod Bahrain Movement leader Hussein Youssef told the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir that “Aug. 14 marked the launch of a political project that will endure no matter how complicated the security situation becomes, because our reliance is on the strategy of popular street action, which does not end even if the movement’s leadership is arrested.”

Regional influences on government-opposition talks

After a two month break in talks between the Bahraini opposition and government officials, they were reignited again on August 28, with a mind to both the domestic and regional situation. The sectarian nature of the Syrian conflict, especially the intensified Sunni Shia dichotomy, has strong implications on talks between the government and the opposition in Bahrain. A former Bahraini opposition member of Parliament, Abdulhadi Khalaf, who was also stripped of his citizenship by Bahrain’s King this year, described this dynamic to al-Monitor:

“The longer the Syrian crisis goes on, the bigger its implications for Bahrain. Inciting against the Alawites in Syria goes hand-in-hand with demonizing the Shiites in Bahrain….Before the Arab Spring, no one in Bahrain, no matter how arrogant, would have dared to call the opposition apostates. But that is normal today. The incitement campaigns aimed at raising funds or recruiting militants to fight in Syria have catalyzed and hardened the discourse of sectarian confrontation. Resolving the crisis in Syria through a regional and international agreement (Geneva II, for example) would make it easier to propose the same mechanism to resolve the crisis in Bahrain.” …more

Bahrain opposition leader arrested, charged with inciting terrorism
By Mohammed Jamjoom and Samira Said – CNN 18 Septemebr, 2013

(CNN) — A leading opposition figure in Bahrain has been jailed after being charged with “inciting and advocating terrorism,” Bahrain’s Public Prosecution Office said. Activists in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, however, insist the charges against Khalil Al Marzooq are politically motivated and accuse the country’s leadership of attempting to stifle dissent.

Al Marzooq, secretary general of Al-Wefaq, the main Shia opposition party, was arrested Tuesday after being interrogated about a speech he delivered last week. According to BNA, Bahrain’s official news agency, he was summoned to a police station, questioned and then referred to the Public Prosecution Office.

In a statement, the office accused Al Marzooq of being “affiliated with the terrorist organization” and added that he had been “speaking at many forums, inciting and promoting terrorist acts, advocating principles which incite such acts, supporting violence committed by the terrorist coalition, and legally justifying criminal activities.”

Taher Al-Mosawi, the head of Al-Wefaq’s media center, says that Al Marzooq did not incite violence and that Bahrain opposition parties are suspending participation in national dialogue.

Al-Wefaq called the government’s actions in regard to Al Marzooq “reckless” and “a clear targeting of political action in Bahrain.” The party added in a statement that it believes his detention is, in part, a reaction to a European Parliament resolution passed last week regarding the human rights situation in Bahrain.

On a mission: Oppression in Bahrain

That resolution called for “the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Bahrain” and urged Bahraini authorities “to immediately end all acts of repression, release all prisoners of conscience, and respect the rights of juveniles.”

European Parliament member Marietje Schaake told CNN that “the lack of progress in terms of dialogue and reforms towards the rule of law and respect for human rights in Bahrain continue to be of great concern to the European Parliament.”

Schaake spearheaded the effort to get the resolution passed. “For the sake of the well-being of all people in Bahrain,” she said, “and for the future of the country, the crackdown on peaceful demonstrations must end. The blanket ban on assembly in Manama is not helping reconciliation, either.”

Bahraini opposition activists say that Al Marzooq’s arrest is just the latest in a country where many prominent dissidents have been jailed in the past two years and that it only underscores how tense the situation remains in Bahrain. …more

Bahrain: Special Investigations Unit Makes Claims to False Achievements and Colludes to Extract Revenge On Political Prisoners, Prisoners of Conscience
16 September, 2013 – Bahrain center for Human Rights

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) expresses dissatisfaction over the Bahraini authorities continued avoidance to comply with the recommendations which aim to limit human rights violations. Many official institutions were established which propose to value the protection of human rights, while in reality they follow the government’s official policy of impunity and discrimination. The BCHR has monitored the performance of the Special Investigations Unit at the Public Prosecution over the course of a year and a half, and concluded that this unit is only one of the many attempts of the Bahraini regime to present the image of reforms, while acting as a tool to punish political prisoners and prisoners of conscience for their peaceful activism.

The Special Investigations Unit was established on February 28, 2012 after an order from Attorney-General Ali AlBuainain to establish a specialized unit at the Public Prosecution for the investigation of torture crimes, abuse and ill-treatment that may have been committed by government officials. Specifically, this unit is designed to investigate into the facts arising from the events in 2011 during the three month state of emergency declared by the government, and which are included in the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), as well as any facts or other issues decided by the Attorney-General to be referred to the Special Investigations Unit.

The establishment of this Unit came as an implementation to recommendation No. 1716 of the BICI report, which stated “To establish a national independent and impartial mechanism to determine the accountability of those in government who have committed unlawful or negligent acts resulting in the deaths, torture and mistreatment of civilians with a view to bringing legal and disciplinary action against such individuals, including those in the chain of command, military and civilian, who are found to be responsible under international standards of “superior responsibility”.

However, what is witnessed on the ground in Bahrain is quite different from the recommendation. The unit is headed by the Chief Prosecutor, and there is no mechanism in which the use of the independent experts to conduct investigations is compulsory, which stands in violation to the very essence of the recommendation, particularly as the involvement of the Public Prosecution itself in the abuse of detainees during the investigation period has been documented. In the investigation cases referred to the unit, some of the cases were documented while others were suspended, and many resulted in the acquittal of those involved in torture as occured in the case of doctors lawsuit against Mubarak bin Huwail and Noora AlKhalifa. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) believes that the formation of this Unit was primarily intended to stop international human rights pressure on the government, while the reality shows a deliberate avoidance of real reforms that are at the heart of the recommendation. …more

Bahrain Shia groups quit reconciliation talks
18 September, 2013 – AlJazeera

Bahrain’s main Shia Muslim groups have suspended participation in reconciliation talks with the Sunni-led government after the detention of an important opposition figure.

Bahrain’s public prosecution said Khalil al-Marzooq, a former deputy parliament speaker, was detained on Tuesday accused of instigating violence and having links to bombings and other attacks.

Marzooq, a senior member of Al Wefaq, the main Shia political bloc, was ordered to be held for 30 days during the investigation.

His supporters claim he was targeted in attempts to punish the opposition after recent criticism from European officials about government crackdowns on dissent.

The decision by the Shia groups closes one of the main channels for dialogue.

Repeated rounds of political talks have failed to significantly close the rifts between the Sunni establishment and Shia factions, who began an Arab Spring-inspired uprising in early 2011 to seek greater political rights.

According to the government, more than 65 people have died in the unrest, but rights groups and others put the death toll higher. …source

In US-Backed Bahrain, Detention and Torture of Children is Routine
John Glaser – AntiWar.com – 16 September, 2013

“Bahrain security forces routinely detain children without cause and subject them to ill-treatment that may rise to the level of torture,” Human Rights Watch said in a report this week.
Obama meets with Bahrain King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa

Obama meets with Bahrain King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa

“Rounding up kids, throwing them in jail and beating and threatening them is no way for a country to treat its children,” said Joe Stork, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The Bahraini authorities need to look into these allegations and immediately call a halt to any arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of children.”

HRW:

Information recently obtained from victims, family members, and local rights activists suggests that Bahraini authorities often hold children for long periods in detention and subject them to similar forms of mistreatment as adult detainees, including beatings and threats of torture. The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires governments to protect children from ill-treatment and torture, to give all child detainees – those under 18 – special protections and to separate them from adults in detention.

A human rights probe back in 2011 found that the U.S.-backed dictatorship in Bahrain has engaged in “systematic” torture since the start of Arab Spring protests several years ago.

But Bahrain has long engaged in torture in its time as a U.S. ally. One year before the democratic protests broke out, HRW released a report revealing torture including “electro-shock devices, suspension in painful positions, and beatings.” Many detainees also reported being threatened with rape or murder, or that their families would be harmed.

A confidential State Department cable was issued at the same time acknowledging the widespread torture, indicating the Obama administration was fully aware of the abuse, but continued unconditional U.S. support.

The people being tortured and beaten are being detained for entirely illegitimate reasons. The regime has outlawed protesting, specifically prohibiting “sit-ins, rallies and gatherings in the capital Manama.” It is also illegal to “incite hatred” against the security forces (whatever that means), and people can be thrown in prison for calling the king a “dictator” on Twitter (something that has happened to at least eleven people).

Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has been mum about the vicious crackdown in Bahrain over the course of nearly three years now. The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is stationed in the tiny Persian Gulf island, giving Washington control over the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf, through which over 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil transits. …more

IHS Jane’s report: Nearly half the rebel fighters in Syria are now aligned to jihadist or hardline Islamist groups according to a new analysis of factions in the country’s civil war.

Syria: nearly half rebel fighters are jihadists or hardline Islamists
By Ben Farmer, Ruth Sherlock – UK Telegraph – 15 September, 2013

Opposition forces battling Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria now number around 100,000 fighters, but after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented into as many as 1,000 bands.

The new study by IHS Jane’s, a defence consultancy, estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists – who would include foreign fighters – fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda..

Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.

There are also at least a further 30,000 moderates belonging to groups that have an Islamic character, meaning only a small minority of the rebels are linked to secular or purely nationalist groups.

The stark assessment, to be published later this week, accords with the view of Western diplomats estimate that less than one third of the opposition forces are “palatable” to Britain, while American envoys put the figure even lower.

Fears that the rebellion against the Assad regime is being increasingly dominated by extremists has fuelled concerns in the West over supplying weaponry that will fall into hostile hands. These fears contributed to unease in the US and elsewhere over military intervention in Syria.

Charles Lister, author of the analysis, said: “The insurgency is now dominated by groups which have at least an Islamist viewpoint on the conflict. The idea that it is mostly secular groups leading the opposition is just not borne out.”

The study is based on intelligence estimates and interviews with activists and militants. The lengthy fighting has seen the emergence of hundreds of separate rebel bands, each operating in small pockets of the country, which are usually loyal to larger factions.

Rebels from Jabhat al-Nusra at Taftanaz air base, Idlib, in 2011 (AP)

Two factions linked to al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – also know as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) – have come to dominate among the more extremist fighters, Mr Lister said. Their influence has risen significantly in the past year.

“Because of the Islamist make up of such a large proportion of the opposition, the fear is that if the West doesn’t play its cards right, it will end up pushing these people away from the people we are backing,” he said. “If the West looks as though it is not interested in removing Assad, moderate Islamists are also likely to be pushed further towards extremists.”

Though still a minority in number, ISIL has become more prominent in rebel-held parts of Syria in recent months. Members in northern Syria have sought to assert their dominance over the local population and over the more moderate rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The aim of moderate rebel fighters is the overthrow of their country’s authoritarian dictator, but jihadist groups want to transform Syria into a hard-line Islamic state within a regional Islamic “caliphate”.

These competing visions have caused rancour which last week erupted into fighting between ISIL and two of the larger moderate rebel factions.

A statement posted online by Islamists announced the launch of an ISIL military offensive in the eastern district of Aleppo which it called “Cleansing Evil”. “We will target regime collaborators, shabiha [pro-Assad militias], and those who blatantly attacked the Islamic state,” it added, naming the Farouq and Nasr factions.

Al-Qaeda has assassinated several FSA rebel commanders in northern Latakia province in recent weeks, and locals say they fear this is part of a jihadist campaign to gain complete control of the territory.

As well as being better armed and tougher fighters, ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra have taken control of much of the income-generating resources in the north of the country, including oil, gas and grain.

This has given them significant economic clout, allowing them to “win hearts and minds” by providing food for the local population in a way that other rebel groups cannot.

ISIS has also begun a programme of “indoctrination” of civilians in rebel-held areas, trying to educate Syria’s traditionally moderate Sunni Muslims into a more hard-line interpretation of Islam.

In early September, the group distributed black backpacks with the words “Islamic State of Iraq” stamped on them. They also now control schools in Aleppo where young boys are reportedly taught to sing jihadist anthems.

“It seems it is some sort of a long-term plan to brainwash the children and recruit potential fighters,” said Elie Wehbe, a Lebanese journalists who is conducting research into these activities. …source

Extremists in Syria admit killing 30 Alawites
16 September, 2013 – Shia Post

Al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists in Syria say they are targeting members of the Alawite community in the country, adding that they massacred dozens of Alawites in three Homs villages last week.

On Sunday, terrorist group Al-Nusra Front claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attacks in which at least 30 Alawites, including several women, children and elderly men, were shot dead in cold blood.

Al-Nusra said in an internet statement that its militants entered the villages of Massudiyeh, Maksar al-Hissan and Jab al-Jerah in Homs province and carried out the massacre.

The group said one of its jurists asked them to slay Alawites whom he called “enemies of God”.

“… this was the first time these villages were entered and such a high number was killed,” it added.

Last month, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, a commander of al-Nusra, threatened to target Alawites with rockets.

“On top of that we will prepare a thousand rockets that will be fired on their towns in revenge for the Damascus Ghouta massacre,” he said in an audio recording posted on YouTube on August 25.

Al-Nusra and other militant groups fighting against the Syrian government and people accuse Damascus of launching the August 21 chemical weapons attack which they claimed killed about 1400 people.

The government has rejected the accusation, saying it has proof that the militants were behind the attack.

On August 24, the Syrian forces found chemical agents in tunnels dug by the militants in Jobar, near Damascus. A number of soldiers suffocated as they entered the area.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

According to the UN, more than 100,000 people have been killed and a total of 7.8 million of others displaced due to the violence. …source

Bahrain to shut Shia clerics’ council amid new protests
16 September, 2013 – Tehran Times

According to agencies, the ministry said it wanted the office of the Olamaa Islamic Council to be closed and its assets liquidated for “functioning outside the law.”

The lawsuit came as authorities in the Sunni-ruled monarchy crack down on opposition action by Shias, who make up the majority of the population in the Gulf archipelago.

The council, which is led by prominent cleric Issa Qassem, “violates the constitution and the laws of the kingdom,” the ministry said, accusing its members of “using it to practice politics under a confessional cover.”
The council also “adopted the call for the so-called revolution,” the ministry charged, referring to the protests against the government, which erupted in February 2011 and were dispersed a month later.

Meanwhile, a Bahraini court jailed on Sunday three dissidents for 10 years each after convicting them of attempting to kill police officers during anti-government protests, lawyers said.

The trio, Jaafar Ali, Hussain Mansur and Mustafa Abdulkarim, had been charged of attempting to kill three policemen “with premeditation” on February 16, in the village of Karzakan, southwest of Manama.

The public prosecution had also accused the men of “possessing homemade shotguns, as well as employing violence against police, and participating in an unauthorized protest.”

Home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and strategically situated across the Persian Gulf from Iran, Bahrain still sees demonstrations on almost daily basis.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights, around 80 people have been killed in Bahrain since the violence first broke out in 2011. …source

Bahrain courts ignore testimonies of torture
17 Septemebr, 2013 – ABNA.co

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Testimonies of torture, brutal assault and coerced confession are repeatedly given by detainees before courts in Bahrain. But the courts do not take any measures in such cases. A number of detainees accused in the claimed “Riffa bombing” have boycotted Sunday’s hearing session (15th September) because they do not trust the judiciary, the detainees’ lawyers said.

The defense lawyers said the detainees have been repeatedly subjected to torture while the courts have failed to take necessary measures.

Al-Wefaq had demanded that an independent and impartial commission be formed to investigate incidents claimed to have happened by the security apparatuses, such as the Riffa bombing. A big number of claims made the security apparatuses have been proven false before courts, leading to the natural conclusion that they lack credibility.
…source

Bahrain protest condemns threats to deport cleric
17 Septemebr, 2013 – PressTV

People in Bahrain have held a fresh anti-regime demonstration south of the capital Manama to condemn the regime’s threats to send a senior cleric into exile.

The demonstration was held on the island of Sitra on Monday in response to the Al Khalifa regime’s threats to deport Ayatollah Hossein Nejati, who is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s representative in Bahrain.

The protest turned violent after Saudi-backed Bahraini security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

Manama has recently revoked the citizenship of Ayatollah Nejati and his family members as well as 31 other Bahrainis in a move that has been widely described as unconstitutional.

The Bahraini regime began pressures on Ayatollah Nejati after some of the country’s distinguished religious scholars met him to pledge their allegiance.

Tension has heightened in the tiny Persian Gulf country over the past few days following the killing of Mohammed Abdul Jalil Yousif, a young activist, by the regime forces last week.

According to activists, the 20-year-old was run over by a vehicle belonging to the security forces.

The Bahraini uprising began in mid-February 2011.

Bahrainis primarily called for political reform and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests. …source

The chemical weapons of Ghouta came from the Turkish Army
Voltaire Network – 17 September, 2013

The TV channel Al-Ikbariya broadcasted, on Sunday the 15th of September 2013, a long interview of a prisoner reporting the way that he had transported chemical weapons from a Turkish military base to Damascus.

According to this report, the Turkish army was aiming to provoke an international intervention against Syria.

This limited bombing would have been accompanied by a vast communication initiative.

This broadcast was followed by a debate between general Ali Maksoud and the political specialist, Thierry Meyssan, regarding the Turkish implication in the conflict and the Russian proposition of Syrian signing of the Convention forbidding the use of chemical weapons.
…source

Syria security official says rebels have missiles, sarin gas
17 September 17, 2013 – Agence France Presse

DAMASCUS: Syria rebels possess ground-to-ground missiles and sarin, and a UN report on chemical weapons use shows they carried out attacks near Damascus, a high-ranking Syrian security source said Tuesday.

“I categorically deny that we have used sarin gas, for the reason that we had no interest in doing so. We were winning in the battlefield,” the official said a day after a UN report on an August 21 attack was published.

“It is generally the losers who adopt such a suicidal attitude. On the contrary, the army was winning,” he told AFP.

The UN investigation team said in its report that it had “clear and convincing” evidence that sarin gas was used in an August 21 attack on rebel areas near Damascus, and that chemical weapons have been used on a “relatively large-scale” in the 30-month-old Syrian conflict.

The UN report does not say who used the weapons, though the opposition and its allies have blamed Assad’s troops.

According to the Syrian security source, “the terrorists locally manufacture ground-to-ground missiles, and it is highly likely that they used them to transport” the toxic chemical sarin.

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has systematically referred to opponents and rebels fighting its loyalists as “terrorists”.

“Of course the rebels know how to load missiles with sarin. They have been trained by the US, French and British secret services, which are active on the ground,” said the source.

Asked why the Syrian army stocked chemical arms, he said: “At a particular time in history, there was the desire to have this kind of weapon to create a strategic balance with Israel.

“It was nothing more than a way to dissuade the Zionist enemy, which has an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.”
…source

Tuesday Sep 17, 201303:48 PM GMT
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Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey must turn in chemical arms: Iran MP
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov address a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, September 12, 2013, after agreeing on a deal on Syrian chemical weapons.
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov address a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, September 12, 2013, after agreeing on a deal on Syrian chemical weapons.
Tue Sep 17, 2013 5:10AM GMT
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Following three days of intense talks in Geneva, Switzerland, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed on the details of a plan that would identify and purge Syrian chemical weapons.”
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An Iranian lawmaker says the Israeli regime, Saudi Arabia and Turkey must also turn over their chemical weapons, as Syria has agreed to, if a US-Russia deal on Syrian chemical arms is to be implemented.

Spokesman for Iran’s Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Hossein Naqavi Hosseini made the remark on Monday, adding that the US demand from the Syrian government to hand over its chemical arms while also intending to take military action against the Middle Eastern country is illogical and contrary to international norms.

US President Barack Obama had said in 2012 that Washington’s “red line” on Syria would be the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to other parties.

One year later, on August 21, the militants operating inside Syria and its foreign-backed opposition claimed that the Syrian government had carried out a chemical attack on suburban Damascus, killing over a thousand people.

Damascus categorically rejected the accusation.

Nevertheless, the unsubstantiated claim prompted the US to start repositioning military assets in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria. Repeated threats were also issued by the US against the crisis-hit country, alarming the world that a new US war could be just around the corner.

However, events seemed to take a different course when Syria nodded to a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control.

Later, following three days of intense talks in Geneva, Switzerland, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed on the details of a plan that would identify and purge Syrian chemical weapons. Syria had earlier announced its readiness to join the international convention that bans chemical weapons.

Naqavi Hosseini called for a US pledge of not attacking Syria, describing such a guarantee as key to the implementation of the plan for the Syrian chemical weapons to be put under international supervision.

This plan should not be implemented unless the US guarantees that it will not engage in an attack against the people and government of Syria, Naqavi Hosseini said.

The United States will experience a worse situation than what it went through in Vietnam in case it does engage in a military offensive against Syria, he added.

Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Ja’afari said on September 12 that the “main danger of WMD is the Israeli nuclear arsenal.”

The Tel Aviv regime also possesses chemical weapons but “nobody is speaking about that,” the Syrian envoy added.

Ja’afari said Syria’s chemical weapons served as “a mere deterrence against the Israeli nuclear arsenal” and other WMDs, referring to a declassified CIA report on Israel’s chemical weapons program.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also said that the Syrian chemical arms were intended for deterrence purposes against Israeli nukes.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since 2011.

Syria deal needs to face down US terror
13 September, 2013 – PressTV

Russia’s diplomatic efforts to avert a potential international conflagration over Syria are to be lauded. But it would be preferable if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and others in Moscow refrained from referring to US officials as “our American partners.”

Washington is not a “partner” or “colleague” to anyone who is serious about upholding international law and peace. Its behavior is that of an outlaw state that needs to be faced down, not pandered to.

Ironically, Washington says that the world needs to take a tough stance towards President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, otherwise other alleged tyrants will be emboldened. The truth is that the world needs to take a tough stand on Washington to curb its predatory aggression that seems to know no bounds.

Lavrov and his American counterpart John Kerry are currently holding talks in Geneva in a bid to come up with a credible formula by which the Syrian government can hand over its stockpile of chemical weapons.

The proposal that Syria submits these weapons to international control was formally announced at the start of the week by Russia’s top diplomat.

It was greeted enthusiastically by the Syrian government, which within days signed up to the international Chemical Weapons Convention banning such munitions. US President Barack Obama also made a surprise swerve from his war agenda, disclosing in a televised nation-wide address that he would explore the Russian initiative.

This development appears to provide a welcome diplomatic alternative to the drive for war that the United States has been pushing. The US threat of military action against Syria escalated dramatically since 21 August following an alleged chemical weapons attack near the Syrian capital, Damascus, in which it appears that several hundred people were killed.

With US warships toting more than 200 cruise missiles mobilized in the East Mediterranean and plans to deploy long-range B-52, B-1 and B-2 fighter bombers, the world was watching the makings of a catastrophic collision, given that any such attack on Syria would inevitably draw in other antagonists, including nuclear-powered Israel and Russia, as well as Iran and America’s allies Britain, France and the Persian Gulf monarchies.

Hence, there was palpable international relief when Russia proffered the gambit for Syria to decommission its arsenal of chemical weapons.

The plan, in principle, has been endorsed by European governments, China and Iran, and the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

However, the chemical solution, so to speak, is being framed in a manner that does not bode well. It is incumbent on Russia and others to ensure that the US and its allies do not abuse the initiative to create just another lever for their criminal agenda of regime change against the Syrian government.

At the opening of the Geneva meeting on Thursday between Lavrov and Kerry, the American diplomat displayed his usual arrogance by asserting in the joint press conference that “the Syrian regime” was guilty of using chemical weapons. Kerry also said that the US reserved the right to use military force if Damascus does not deliver on commitments to disarm these munitions.

This high-handed attitude from Kerry flies in the face of the facts that the perpetrators of the latest chemical weapon attack near Damascus were the Western-backed militants. Russia’s Lavrov should have abruptly struck down this American arrogance and calumny.

Disturbingly, the Russian diplomat showed too much humor and camaraderie in the face of outrageous American criminality.

The Americans and their Western allies have not presented a scintilla of credible evidence to support provocative claims that the Assad government used chemical weapons. Western claims are negated by Syrian government denials, and by official Russian reports that it was the so-called rebels who committed this and previous chemical weapons crimes, in a blatant effort to trigger the very kind of military intervention that Washington is threatening.

Several other sources refute Western assertions, such as admission by the militant groups themselves, and testimony from recently released European journalists who say their militant captives acknowledged responsibility for the attack.

The release of classified US army files also show that Washington knew that the mercenary groups were in possession of the deadly nerve agent sarin. The latter disclosure supports other evidence that the US and its allies colluded in the atrocity on 21 August, which they have audaciously blamed on the Syrian government.

On the basis of fabrication and lies, Washington dispatched an armada of warships in order to point a gun at the head of the Syrian people.

Moreover, the Obama White House threatened that it would attack Syria unilaterally regardless of the United Nations Security Council. As Russian President Vladimir Putin, among others, noted, such action amounts to the crime of aggression. Even without firing a single cruise missile, the mere threats that Washington has issued and continues to issue constitute a crime of aggression.

Syrian President Assad is entirely correct therefore to insist that his country’s disarmament of chemical weapons must be on condition that the US drops its unlawful military threat immediately.

Furthermore, any proposal to remove Syrian government chemical munitions must be part of a multi-lateral process.

Some of the other urgent factors that need to be addressed include Western stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that are threatening peace and stability in the Middle East, principally those of Israel, which is why Syria has historically acquired its arsenal.

Another essential part of a multilateral process is for the US and its allies to halt immediately the supply of weapons and mercenaries into Syria. This criminal covert destabilization has been going on for more than two and half years and is the primary reason why the country is ensnared in a conflict that has resulted in 100,000 deaths and up to seven million refugees out of a population of only 22 million.

Washington’s state terrorism is central to the problem in Syria, including the use of chemical weapons by foreign-backed mercenaries. The US is in no moral or legal position to lay down demands on the Syrian government over its compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Syria’s ally Russia needs to adopt a more militant attitude towards the US and its Western co-conspirators. The US is not a colleague or partner. It is a criminal party that should feel the full force of international law.

Pretending otherwise is only pandering to Washington’s state terrorism, and instead of finding a chemical solution to the Syrian crisis, the very real danger is that we are only postponing American aggression. …source

Bahrain: Security Forces Detaining Children
By Albany Tribune – 15 September, 2013

Bahrain security forces routinely detain children without cause and subject them to ill-treatment that may rise to the level of torture, Human Rights Watch said today, based on reports from victims, family members and legal rights activists.

On September 12, 2013, the European Parliament issued a further resolution on the deteriorating rights situation in Bahrain, urging it, among other things, “to respect the rights of juveniles, to refrain from detaining them in adult facilities, and to treat juveniles in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Bahrain is a party”.

“Rounding up kids, throwing them in jail and beating and threatening them is no way for a country to treat its children,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Bahraini authorities need to look into these allegations and immediately call a halt to any arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of children.”

Information recently obtained from victims, family members, and local rights activists suggests that Bahraini authorities often hold children for long periods in detention and subject them to similar forms of mistreatment as adult detainees, including beatings and threats of torture. The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires governments to protect children from ill-treatment and torture, to give all child detainees – those under 18 – special protections and to separate them from adults in detention.

Bahraini rights groups told Human Rights Watch that the detention of children suspected of involvement in anti-government protests is common. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights recorded 15 such detentions in August and said that the number of child arrests makes it impossible to document every detention to ascertain its lawfulness and the age of the people involved. The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights recorded 22 such detentions since August 1.

Murtada al-Muqtad, the brother of an arrested boy, told Human Rights Watch that police arrested a group of 14 people, including 9 boys between the ages of 15 and 17, on September 5 at a swimming pool near the Ain Adhari National Park. He said that they were among a group from the nearby town of Bilad al-Qadim who had rented the swimming pool to enjoy a last night out before school started on September 8.

Al-Muqtad said that Jafar al-Muqtad, the youngest of the group at 15, called his family the day after his arrest, but it was not until September 9 that he was able to tell his family that he was in Dry Dock detention center and describe the circumstances of his arrest. He said that six police cars arrived at the swimming pool at 4 a.m., arrested the 14 people who were still there and blindfolded, punched, and kicked the group of youths while detaining them. He also said that interrogators later mistreated them, pressing them to confess to a September 2 attack on a police officer with Molotov cocktails. On September 11, officers at Dry Dock refused the family’s request to see him.

Murtada al-Muqtad said that his younger brothers had not had access to a lawyer or social worker, though the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Bahrain and nearly every country in the world, requires that “every child deprived of his or her liberty… has the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance.”

In a separate incident, more than 10 plain-clothes and uniformed police went to the home of another 15-year-old boy, Ali Rustam, in the village of Al Arad in the early hours of September 8 and arrested him, Bahraini rights activists said. They said that Rustam, who has diabetes and requires four daily injections of insulin, had not had any contact with his family since then. …more