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DAMASCUS, May 24 (Xinhua) -- A total of 12 fighters from Chechnya were killed Friday in Syria's central Hama province, activists said. The fighters were killed when two rockets landed in the al- Hamra village in the eastern countryside of Hama, the Britain- based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. ...

The top commander of foreign-backed militants fighting against the Syrian government says the militants have received a 35-ton arms shipment from Saudi Arabia. Brigadier General Salim Idris, the chief of staff of the so-called Free Syrian Army, said on Thursday that the consignment will help armed men in their battles against the Syrian Army. He added, however, that the munitions are not advanced and sophisticated enough to enable the militants defeat Syrian government forces. The general noted, in particular, that the weapons will not be able to overpower tanks and planes in the strategic town of al-Qusayr, which is situated...

Why the hysteria about Russia? From the tone of what passes for policy discourse in Washington, one would think that Russian troops were massing on the country’s western border and that opposition activists were being executed by the hundreds. Some realities in Russia are indeed disturbing, but a sense of perspective is needed. If Moscow were really the capital of a brutally authoritarian anti-American state, things could be far worse — and profoundly damaging to U.S. national interests. But demonizing Russia doesn’t change conditions there and only undermines our ability to get what we want and need. Domestically, Russia is...

The Muslims of the Middle East continue to choose sides before jumping into the Syrian Civil War free for all and doing what they seem to enjoy the most, killing for the sake of bloodletting. In this amateur video, a Hezbollah convoy, en route to the battle in Quasar to aid Assad's merry killers, has just been cut to rag dolls by Syrian rebels in a rocket and mortar ambush. http://youtu.be/q4l0VZzLr4oThe dead are Hezbollah terrorists or freedom fighters as Jimmy Carter and our media refer to them. Our president is shadow boxing like a boxer who has never boxed,...

Rudy Giuliani headed today’s Team McCain conference call, discussing the trip taken by Barack Obama adviser David Kurtzer to Syria in July. Giuliani, the recent selection for the GOP convention’s keynote speaker, took the opportunity to reassert himself on national security and foreign policy. Michael Goldfarb and Randy Scheuneman also took part in the call. Mayor Giuliani told the conference that the fact that the trip was not disclosed at the time shows Obama’s inexperience and irresponsibility on foreign policy. Giuliani pointed out that Obama included Assad on his list of world leaders he would meet without preconditions. He says...

The threats emanating from Syria have become downright frightening. For the past several days, Homeland Security Minister Gilad Erdan has been warning repeatedly that it is certain that Israeli population centers will be hit by Syrian ballistic missiles and that we have to be prepared for the worst case scenarios, including Scud missile launched chemical weapons attacks on Israel's metropolitan centers. Wednesday, Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel spelled out Israel's concerns from a military perspective. The chance of war breaking out at any time is extremely high. Syria has a massive arsenal that includes advanced anti-aircraft missiles, anti-ship...

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President Barack Obama says supporting transitions to democracy in unstable regions like the Middle East will remain a key part of his strategy for fighting terrorism. … He cited as an example the need to support those in Syria who are fighting to overthrow the government. He cautioned, however, that ending tyranny in Syria must not give way to “the tyranny of terrorism.” …

TEL AVIV – In a largely unnoticed speech to a think tank seven months before the Benghazi attack, a top State Department official described an unprecedented multi-million-dollar U.S. effort to secure anti-aircraft weapons in Libya after the fall of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime. The official, Andrew J. Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, explained how U.S. experts were fully coordinating the collection efforts with the Libyan opposition. He said the efforts were taking place in Benghazi, where a leading U.S. expert was deployed. Shapiro conceded that the Western-backed rebels did not want to give up the...

A “secret” Facebook group of foreign correspondents and human rights activists quickly devolved into an anti-Israel hate-fest on Tuesday following the release of a new Israeli government report that cleared the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of wrongdoing in the 2000 death of a Palestinian boy. The Israeli government report contests the claim that the IDF killed a Palestinian boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, in a famous 2000 incident in Gaza that helped ignite the Second Intifada. Journalists and activists mocked the report, attacked the IDF, and claimed pro-Israel lobbyists were influencing the media coverage, in a private Facebook group for foreign correspondents...

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IAF Commander, Major General Amir Eshel, spoke Wednesday about the IAF's preparedness for a surprise war scenario with Syria. "A surprise war can come about through many scenarios at present," he said at a conference of the Fisher Institute for National Security in Herzliya. Isolated incidents can escalate very quickly, he explained, and added that "we are committed to being ready in a matter of hours and to operate up to the end of the spectrum."

President Again Denies Georgia Co-Opted Chechen Fighters April 28, 2013 Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has again denied that the previous Georgian government recruited and trained a group of Chechens with the aim of infiltrating them into the Russian Federation. Saakashvili was responding to what he termed “irresponsible” and “extremely dangerous” comments made by Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili in an April 26 interview with the TV channel Rustavi-2. Referring to the annual study of the human rights situation in Georgia presented to parliament on April 1 by Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili, Ivanishvili said in that interview the ongoing probe into the...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria may pull its peacekeeping troops from the Golan Heights, evacuating the U.N. buffer zone, its defence minister warned on Tuesday, as Syria and Israel exchanged fire across a long dormant frontline now inflamed by civil war. Vienna's warning was aimed at Britain and other allies which want to help Syrian rebels by lifting an EU arms embargo - doing so, minister Gerald Klug told Reuters, would rob Austrian troops of their neutrality in a Syrian conflict that has already seen foreign peacekeepers come under fire and some even held hostage. He stopped short of saying an...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, which voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition in a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). "This is an important moment," Paul said, addressing his Senate colleagues. "You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It's an irony you cannot overcome."

WASHINGTON - A Senate panel voted Tuesday to provide weapons to rebels battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the first time lawmakers have endorsed the aggressive U.S. military step of arming the opposition. ... "The greatest humanitarian crisis in the world is unfolding in and around Syria," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the committee chief. ". . . The United States must play a role in tipping the scales toward opposition groups and working to build a free and democratic Syria." Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the panel's top Republican, implicitly criticized the Obama administration as he...

The Tsarnaev brothers’ brutal attack in Boston sparked renewed interest in terrorism in Eurasia. The subsequent disclosure that two students from Kazakhstan allegedly tried to hide incriminating evidence against Djokhar Tsarnaev has only heightened that interest. The not-guilty plea of Fazliddin Kurbanov, the alleged Uzbek terrorist in Idaho, underscores the new threat. And that’s a good thing. Understanding what was and is happening in Eurasia can help us better fight terrorism and prevent future attacks rooted in that region. Chechens and Uzbeks fought in Afghanistan with the Taliban, and fighters from the North Caucasus are involved in Syria on the...

MOSCOW – A delegation of American lawmakers will travel to Russia next week in part to investigate last month’s Boston Marathon bombings, ABC News has learned. The group, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wants to find out why a 2011 Russian request that the United States investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected Boston bombers, did not raise more red flags. The Russians offered a vague warning that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, but an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time. The lawmakers also want to know why subsequent...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, which voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition in a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). "This is an important moment," Paul said, addressing his Senate colleagues. "You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It's an irony you cannot overcome." The legislation, which would authorize the shipment of arms and military training to rebels "that have gone through a thorough vetting process," passed in a bipartisan 15-3 vote. Paul offered an amendment that would strike the...

... Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, said the Israeli army vehicle had been patrolling on the Israeli side of a border fence when it came under repeated fire. "They fire on it once. They fire on it twice. They fire on it a third time, from a clear Syrian position," he said in a speech. "One time, okay. Two times, okay. Three times, too many. The position was destroyed."

The Syrian army destroyed an Israeli armoured vehicle that violated the country's border, Syrian agency SANA reported on Tuesday with reference to the Armed Forces Command.

Now the Iranian constitution requires a new president to be elected, and Rafsanjani’s entry into the contest radically alters what was previously seen as a contest between rival conservative groups. Not that Rafsanjani currently is more than a relative moderate – currently, because in his time he has veered sharply from side to side across Iran’s political spectrum; and relatively moderate because, although he now favours a domestic free market, privatization of state-owned industries, and a moderate position internationally, he is still sought by the Argentinian government for ordering the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in...

Russia’s FSB has foiled a terror attack in Moscow as they managed to kill two and detain one of the militants planning it, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee said. The three men are “Russian citizens, arrived from Afghani-Pakistani region, where they have been trained,” the committee said. All three are said to practice Islam. Some reports suggest that the militants underwent training in Pakistan's Northern Waziristan, however, it is unknown which group they belong to. According to Russian special services, Waziristan is a hotbed of Taliban extremism. "There are also training camps for terrorists who come from all over the world....

At the entrance to this village in Hezbollah’s Bekaa Valley heartland, under a sign welcoming visitors to “The Citadel of Resistance,” workers on Monday hoisted a freshly printed banner honoring a young man described as one of Hezbollah’s latest martyrs — killed in battle not with Israel, the foe the group’s guerrillas train to fight, but with Syrian rebels. Down the road, another dead fighter’s uncle, Fayez Shukor, welcomed mourners under a tent overlooking the valley as the sun set on a day that had seen Hezbollah’s death toll rise to unexpected heights as the group joined Syrian forces trying...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 17 (UPI) -- Nobel Energy of Houston, which discovered Israel's big natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, is pressing the government to decide on an energy export policy as the prospect of an undersea pipeline to Turkey gains credibility. Israel's deep-water Tamar field, found in 2009 and containing an estimated 9 trillion-10 trillion cubic feet of gas, began production March 31. But Nobel and Israeli partner Delek Energy, the team that discovered Tamar and other fields off Israel, is reluctant to develop the much bigger Leviathan field, found in 2010, until it the government makes...

Meanwhile, no one even knows where the president was the night a U.S. ambassador was murdered, or why the U.S. military sent no help. No one knows who inserted into official talking points a false story that an anti-Islam video led to the massacre. And no one seems to care — least of all the White House. But be warned, White House: Bob Woodward, who knows a thing or two about scandals and cover-ups, isn’t falling for the double head fake. “If you read through all these emails,” the Watergate reporter said, “you see that everyone in the government is...

A senior Hizbullah terrorist was among 20 members of the group who were killed in intense fighting in Syria on Sunday, Al Arabiya reports. According to the report, the Hizbullah terrorists were killed in the Syrian town of Qusayr, following clashes between Syrian rebels and regime forces who attempted to enter the town earlier in the day. Sources also told Al Arabiya that dozens of Hizbullah members were wounded during the fight and had been taken to hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon for treatment. .....

State TV says troops have captured key buildings in the town centre, a claim strongly denied by activists. Rebels say 50 people have been killed while state media says 70 "terrorists" are dead. Lebanese militants are said to be involved - Hezbollah siding with the government, Sunni gunmen with rebels. The town - close to the border with Lebanon - has great strategic value. Its control would give the government access from the capital to the coast. For the rebels, control of Qusair means they can come and go from Lebanon, says the BBC's Jim Muir, in Beirut. The assault...

Israel Radio reported this morning (Sunday) that the United States has apologized to Israel for disclosing that Israel was behind the strikes on Damascus two weeks ago. According to the report, the decision to disclose that Israel was behind the strikes was made at a low level in the Pentagon, and the US Department of Defense is investigating how that happened. According to the report, Israel believes that it is now facing much stronger threats from Bashar al-Assad as a result of the disclosure.

Senior White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer is set to perform the 'full Ginsburg' on Sunday, appearing on all five major Sunday morning news shows in the latest sign that the Obama administration is determined to fight for control of the news cycle following an explosion of major scandals in the past several days. Pfeiffer will appear on CNN's State of the Union, ABC's This Week, CBS's Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, and Fox News' Fox News Sunday. The White House began suffering unusual setbacks in the media following the revelation that its edits to "talking points" on the...

Despite President Obama’s assertion on Thursday that he reserves “the options of taking additional steps, both diplomatic and military,” foreign intervention in Syria seems a distant prospect, and that, along with a string of military successes, has fueled the perception that president Bashar al-Assad now has the upper hand in his country’s bloody civil war. As Republican Sen. John McCain bluntly put it this week: "Right now, Bashar al-Assad is winning."

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said eight people were killed,...

If there’s one thing you can say about Bashar al-Assad, it’s that he has staying power. For more than two years, the Syrian president has defied predictions that his downfall is imminent. His regime has certainly suffered many setbacks during the brutal civil war that shows no signs of ending, but it's clear right now that Assad and his followers have been gaining momentum. The most recent example came just a few days ago, when Syrian forces took control of a town near the highway that links Damascus to neighboring Jordan. After battles with the opposition, government troops reopened the...

Israel is acting to prevent Syrian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hizbullah and will continue to do so, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, AFP reports. His remarks came two weeks after air strikes near Damascus that were widely attributed to Israel, which a senior Israeli source said were aimed at preventing the transfer of sophisticated Iranian arms to Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shiite ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu said the Middle East was going through its most sensitive period for decades, with the conflict in Syria at the center of the turmoil. "We are closely following developments and...

In an exceptional political signal, a senior Israeli official contacted Mark Landler of the New York Times and explained that the Israeli government was determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hizbullah. The official, who remained anonymous throughout the report, added that if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reacts to this policy by attacking Israel – either directly or indirectly through a proxy force – he will “risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles and has aimed them at Tel Aviv, the British Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Syria is preparing to strike Israel in case the Jewish State launches another attack on its territory. The army has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out, according to the Sunday Times. The information was reportedly obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles, which are capable of carrying a warhead of a half a...

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Syrian strongman Bashar Assad said in a weekend interview to an Argentinean newspaper that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime. “Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he said. “Firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them." Assad also told the Clarin newspaper said that rebels had attacked a radar station instrumental to Syria’s antiaircraft defenses against Israel, but gave no further details. The reporter asked Assad if he had any “self-criticisms." He replied: “It’s illogical to carry out self-criticism before...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite Democratic fears, predictions of the demise of President Barack Obama's agenda appear exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies, political triage by the administration and party leaders in Congress and lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office. "Absolutely not," Steven Miller, the recently resigned acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, responded Friday when asked if he had any contact with the White House about targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for special treatment. "The president's re-election campaign?" persisted Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. "No," said Miller.

<p>CEOs of large organizations all face the same problem – driving their agendas in organizations too diverse and geographically dispersed to manage directly.</p> <p>They hire competent managers for their units, set goals and establish clear metrics for evaluating performance. As in politics, competition in business is tough, and CEOs must set ethical boundaries for their managers’ conduct.</p>

Russia confirms plans to supply Syria with Yakhont missiles (Update 1) Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said on Saturday Russia has not dropped its plans to supply Syria with Yakhont missiles. "The contract [on supplies] is in progress," Serdyukov told journalists in Vladivostok, Russia's Far East. Russia earlier announced it would honor a 2007 contract on the delivery of several Bastion anti-ship missile systems armed with SS-N-26 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to Syria, despite efforts by Israel and the United States to stop the deal. The Yakhont missile has a range of 300 kilometers, the capacity to carry a 200-kilogram...

Russia has shipped an advanced antiship cruise missile to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said on Thursday. Russia has previously provided Yakhont missiles, as the weapon is known, to Syria. But the missiles that were recently delivered are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them far more accurate, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports. The new missile “contributes to Syria’s overall military capabilities, but specifically it would tend to push Western or allied naval activity further off the...

The area around the World Trade Center was once the center of Arab-American life in New York City. But all that remains of sprawling "Little Syria" are three buildings: a community center, a tenement building and a church. Activists from Save Washington Street are trying to have these fading memories recognized at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.

Report: Russia sends Assad 'ship killing missile' Russia delivers Yakhont missiles, warships to Assad; Lavrov: Arms deal won't change regional balance of power Russia sold advanced Yakhont antiship cruise missiles to Syrian President Bashar Assad, outfitted with an advanced guidance system that makes them more effective than the older version of the missile Russia sold to Syria, The New York Times cited two American officials as saying on Thursday. These missiles will allow Syria to thwart any attempt by international forces to reinforce Syrian rebels by imposing a naval embargo or no fly zone, Nick Brown the editor in chief...

Al-Hamad, who is Wahhabi (extremist Sunni) and harbors a sectarian hatred for Alawite and Shiite Muslims, said he has another gruesome video of his killing a government soldier from the Alawite faith. “Hopefully we will slaughter all of them [Alawites]. ... Human Rights Watch (HRW), which validated the video, released a report on May 13 identifying al-Hamad as a well-known commander responsible for the recent cross-border shelling of a Shi‘ite Lebanese village that killed two. The organization called on the U.N. Security Council to refer the Syria situation to the International Criminal Court to ensure accountability for all war crimes...

The lawmaker leading the charge to investigate the Benghazi terror attack on Friday subpoenaed the co-author of a report that slammed the State Department but didn´t interview Hillary Clinton. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) formally demanded that retired ambassador Thomas Pickering submit to being deposed by the committee next Thursday. The subpoena comes in the wake of a series of acrimonious public exchanges this week between the two men. Issa didn´t issue a subpoena to former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, who co-authored the Benghazi report with Pickering.

After weeks of a 21st century version detente between Washington and Moscow over the declining state of affairs in Syria, and possibly looking at a joint situation to the ongoing civil war that has gripped the nation, it appears Russia has decided to stop cooperating and continue supplying their allies within the Assad regime. According to two U.S. media reports: Russia has deployed at least a dozen warships to its Mediterranean Naval base in the Syrian City of Tartus and sent a large shipment of anti-ship missiles to the Assad regime, which could be used to defend against any potential...

http://youtu.be/9cc-HC1CnJgIf you believe in Obama's rainbows and unicorns, don't watch this video. Just join the ranks with the RINOs like McCain and Rubio and march with the Progressives. We can join this insanity and feel good about ourselves. Lest we forget, on September 11, 2012, America was attacked by radical Islamists once again. Four Americans were killed, including our ambassador to Libya. President Obama and Secretary Clinton made every effort to blame the attack on America. Hunting and killing the terrorists seems to have never been a consideration. The infamous video, that no one besides the administration knew existed, caught...

Russia has sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that US and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria's bloody civil war, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. On Thursday, Syria's official news agency SANA reported that five Russian warships had crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean Sea. A Russian Navy spokesperson said this was the first time in decades that Pacific Ocean Russian warships sail in the area.

CIA director John Brennan arrived in Israel Thursday evening and held consultations on the situation in Syria, amid fears that Israel could get drawn into the fighting there. Upon landing in the country, Brennan, whose visit was not announced ahead of time, went directly to the army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv for a meeting with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Channel 10 reported. During the meeting, the two shared intelligence assessments, and Ya’alon reiterated Israel’s refusal to let advanced weapons make their way from Syria to Hezbollah, vowing to continue carrying out strikes against arms shipments. According to Israel Radio, the...