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The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war. The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened...

A chemical attack may be launched on Israel by Syrian rebels from government-controlled territories as a "major provocation," multiple sources told RT. The report comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed that Syria puts its chemical weapons arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction in order to prevent a possible military strike against the war-torn country. Moscow also urged Syrian authorities to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The offer has already been passed over to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met Lavrov in Moscow for talks on Monday. “We don’t know if Syria will...

A series of fresh revelations about atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by Western-backed Syrian "rebels" had sparked alarm among analysts, further complicating Obama's already tough-push for support to launch military strikes against the Assad regime. ... the latest atrocities are being cited by critics of the warmongering as more reasons not to join the civil war on behalf of ruthless jihadists... Christian villagers quoted in new reports [URL at link] said the rebels had, among other atrocities, forced them to convert to Islam or be murdered while shouting the now-infamous "Allahu Akbar" war cry. Christian homes and churches were reportedly...

Syrians inside the country say the revolution began with peaceful protests from the poor seeking reforms. The movement now brims with violent terrorist operatives aligned with Al Qaeda and Al-Nasra, including extremist fighters from Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. The mainstream media portrays a false picture of the now-compromised Free Syrian Army. The extremist elements within are not just minority-affiliates. They win the battles, they have the ammunition and the food. They have slowly filled the power vaccuum and they do not fight for a freed Syria, but to establish an ultra-fundamentalist state. American taxpayers have fueled the Syrian Civil War...

Salim Idris, commander of the Free Syrian Army... said the attack on the rebel enclaves around the capital on Aug. 21 was ordered as pressure mounted on Assad -- even from his own supporters -- for a reprisal to the Aug. 8 attack, in which rebels fired rockets at his motorcade as it rolled through the Malki neighborhood of Damascus, headed to a local mosque for prayers marking the end of Ramadan. Assad is not believed to have been in the motorcade at the time of the rocket attack, but the brazen assault on the president's own doorstep had a...

Good interview and worth listening to. Obama is actively backing the radical Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida elements (approx. 20,000 strong) of the rebellion while leaving the Free Syrian Army (approx. 800,000 strong) high and dry, warns retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely. Listen to radio interview at http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/general-obamas-backing-wrong-syrian-rebels/

Sometimes I stumble upon a story that I can’t pass up. This is one of those times. It would be morally wrong to have a couple of slices of bacon with your eggs but by all means you can not disturb or try to eradicate the blessed lice living in Muslim beards, for they are special lice that were sent forth by Allah. I am not making this up.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad recently transferred two shipments of chemical weapons to Lebanon-based Hizbullah, the Syrian rebels are claiming. Fahad al Masri, a spokesman for the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, told the Lebanese news website El Nashra on Thursday that “the Syrian regime managed to deliver shipments of chemical weapons to Hizbullah.” He added that the weapons were delivered from an area near the capital Damascus and arrived in Lebanon sometime in the past several weeks. The transfer of the weapons, al Masri told El Nashra, was coordinated by Syria and Iran. …

The Obama administration has faced criticism from both the left and right for its non-interventionist approach regarding the civil war in Syria. The Washington Post, which in the past editorialized that President Obama was “weak” on the issue, upped the ante Friday. From the Post: IT HAS been a month since the White House informed journalists that President Obama had decided to supply Syrian rebels with light arms. Since then, the regime has launched a bloody new offensive in the city of Homs, using heavy artillery and rockets to attack residential areas held by the rebels. …

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels said Friday they would retaliate for what they described as the assassination of one of their senior commanders by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, threatening to widen a rift between moderate and jihadist opposition forces fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The killing of Kamal Hamami, a member of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army’s top executive body, comes amid heightened tensions on the opposition side as jihadist groups extend their influence in rebel-held areas of northern Syria. Rebels said that Hamami, whose nom de guerre is Abu Bassir al-Ladkani, was shot dead Thursday in the coastal province of...

Syria's Islamist rebels say the downfall of Egypt's popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood president has proven that Western nations pushing for democracy will never accept them, and reinforced the view of radicals that a violent power grab is their only resort. Radical Islamist groups, some of them linked to al Qaeda, have lately been in the ascendancy in Syria's two-year conflict as the death toll rises above 100,000. Assad has celebrated President Mohamed Mursi's fall as a symbolic blow to the Islamist-dominated opposition, though on the battlefield, where his troops are already making gains, it is likely to have little impact...

Syrian rebels said on Friday the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war, opening a new front for the Western-backed fighters struggling against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Good news: John McCain will finally get his wish about being able to tell the good guys from the bad guys in Syria’s civil war.  Bad news: They’ll be the guys in the crossfire.  After playing footsie with al-Qaeda affiliates for more than two years in their attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, the so-called secularists have discovered that terrorist networks tend to be unreliable partners: Syrian rebels said on Friday the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war, opening a new front for the Western-backed fighters struggling against President...

Obama is backing these savages. Thank heaven there are still decent human beings in Congress: Intelligence panels cut off aid to Syrian rebels, Obama says he will arm them anyway "Syria: Christian Girl Falls Victim to Horrendous Crimes" Persecution. org, July 4, 2013 Rape and atrocities on a young Christian in Qusair ICC Note: Troubling news continues to pour out of Syria as the war-torn country becomes a hotbed for religious extremism. Witnesses report civilians suffer immensely at the hands of rebel-imposed Shari’ah law. One, a young Christian girl from rebel-controlled Qusair, was systematically married, raped and divorced 15 times,...

The worldwide rise in anti-Christian persecution is not often noted by the MSM, but that doesn’t make it any less deadly. This week two new stories of persecution hit the web. Christianity Today reports that Hindu extremists broke into a Christian prayer meeting in India and beat up the attendees with clubs and iron rods. The attackers accused the pastors of using force and coercion to convert Indians to Christianity, an accusation the pastors vigorously deny. And in Syria, Fr. François Murad became the latest victim of rebel militas, some of whom are systematically targeting Christians for persecution and death....

An Al-Qaeda front group operating in Syria has killed a rebel chief in a firefight in the coastal province of Latakia, a monitoring group said on Friday. The killing comes amid soaring tensions between the mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its supporters and groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda, mostly made up of non-Syrian fighters. Better known as Abu Bassir al-Jeblawi, rebel chief Kamal Hamami was shot dead Thursday by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), one of the main jihadist groups operating in Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He was killed when ISIS fighters...

A senior member of the Free Syrian Army is reported to have been killed by a rival rebel group linked to al-Qaeda. Kamal Hamami, of the group's Supreme Military Council, was meeting members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant "to discuss battle plans". A Free Syrian Army spokesman said he received a call from the group saying they had killed Kamal Hamami. It is part of an escalating struggle within the armed uprising between moderates and Islamists. The BBC's Paul Wood says a civil war within a civil war is building within the opposition as the two...

As Syria’s civil war shows no signs of abating, a source within the Free Syrian Army says that Al-Qaeda-linked militants have killed one of the FSA’s senior figures. Supreme Military Council member Kamal Hamami, also known as Abu Bassel al-Ladkani, was meeting with members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Syrian port city of Latakia when he was killed, FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told Reuters. "The Islamic State phoned me saying that they killed Abu Bassel and that they will kill all of the Supreme Military Council," Saadeddine said. "He met them to discuss battle...

Mr Kerry told the meeting in Istanbul that the US would provide Syrian rebels $123m in new, non-lethal aid. He said President Barack Obama was committed to a "democratic, unified, post-Assad Syria". More than 60,000 have died in the two-year uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Mr Kerry also announced that all aid from the 11 countries known as the Friends of Syria would now be channelled through the Turkey-based Free Syrian Army group headed by Gen Salim Idris. The meeting in Istanbul brought together the foreign ministers of countries opposing the government of President Assad. Mr Kerry said the meeting had...

Sen. John McCain Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the bloody civil war there began over two years ago, The Daily Beast has learned. McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy, made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to...