Free Republic

U.S. convicts "Prince of Marbella" of arms deal Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:17pm EST By Edith Honan NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal jury convicted a Syrian arms dealer and a co-defendant on Thursday of conspiring to sell $1 million in weapons...Monzer al-Kassar, 62, a longtime resident of Spain known as the "Prince of Marbella" for his lifestyle in the glitzy seaside town... Kassar has been selling weapons since the 1970s to the Palestinian Liberation Front and clients in Nicaragua, Bosnia, Croatia, Iran, Iraq and Somalia. In 1995, Kassar was tried and acquitted of supplying arms that were used...

IPT News June 9, 2010 SNIPPET: "The Turkish-based charity that helped drive last week's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos has deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Hamas ties are not in question. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and IHH officials simply do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group." SNIPPET: "U.S. officials have expressed concern over the fact that "IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years," but IHH is not a designated terrorist organization in the United States. It's fair to ask, why not?"...

As thousands of refugees flee violence inside of Syria, foreign fighters are streaming into it. "So long as (Syrian President Bashar) Assad refuses to go and Syria's transition is blocked, the danger grows of more foreign fighters, including extremists of the al Qaeda type infiltrating Syria," State Department counterterrorism chief Daniel Benjamin told reporters Tuesday.

Syrian rebels have acquired shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, NBC News reported late Tuesday night. According to the report, Free Syrian Army rebels claim they now have nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Turkey. The exact type of missile was not mentioned in the report. Such a weapon, however, would offer a significant defense against helicopter gunships that Syrian government forces have deployed against rebel strongholds such as Aleppo, where intense fighting has raged for nearly two weeks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rebels fighting to depose Syrian president Bashar al Assad have for the first time acquired a small supply of surface-to-air missiles, according to a news report that a Western official did not dispute. NBC News reported Tuesday night that the rebel Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen of the weapons, which were delivered to them via neighboring Turkey, whose moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad's departure with increasing vehemence. Indications are that the U.S. government, which has said it opposes arming the rebels, is not responsible for the delivery of the missiles. But some...

"The soldiers fled like rats," says a grinning rebel after he and his fellow fighters captured Anadan checkpoint from the Syrian army, giving them strategic access to Aleppo where they are battling a fierce loyalist offensive. "Bashar don't go, we will catch you," jokes another rebel, sitting on crates of ammunition in the back of a truck where the Islamist flag -- black with white lettering -- flutters. The jubilant rebels celebrate their victory with gunfire, while some retrieve weapons and ammunition left behind by the retreating Syrian troops after 10 hours of fierce fighting during the night. The ground...

Israel filed a complaint against Syria Monday in the United Nations, alleging that Syrian forces crossed the border between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights last week. Israel's Deputy UN Ambassador, Haim Waxman, sent a letter to the UN Security Council Secretary General, in which he said that during fighting Thursday between the Syrian Army and rebel forces at Jubta al-Hasheb, Syrian forces crossed the 1974 Armistice Line.

We already know the rebels have a serious Sunni Islamist bent to the point where al-Qaeda’s al-Nusrah Front is carrying out some of the most sophisticated attacks using suicide bombers. On the other hand we are already passively aiding the shipment of weapons from the Gulf Arab states, mainly Saudi Arabia, to the rebels. (Telegraph) — Syrian rebels have held meetings with senior US government officials in Washington as pressure mounts on the US to authorise a shipment of heavy weapons, including surface-to-air missiles to combat the Assad regime, the Daily Telegraph has learned. A senior Free Syrian Army representative...

Alex Thomson says crew was led to 'free-fire zone' as deaths would discredit Bashar al-Assad's regimeThe chief correspondent of Channel 4 News has claimed that Syrian rebels deliberately tried to get him and his crew killed by gunfire from government forces in a bid to discredit the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Alex Thomson alleged a small group from the Free Syrian Army deliberately guided the vehicle in which he and his Channel 4 News colleagues were travelling into what he described as a "free-fire zone" on a blocked road near the city of al-Qusayr, because "dead journos are bad for...

WASHINGTON – There remains frustration in trying to track down up to 20,000 missing shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles taken out of the bunkers during the waning days of the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. Now that they have disappeared, and despite a U.S. program worth tens of millions of dollars to try and relocate them, only 5,000 have been turned in. Concern is that many of them were acquired by al-Qaida elements in Libya and surrounding countries. Increasingly, intelligence sources also are seeing these weapons wind up in the hands of...

Unlike Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry, Hillary Clinton has been smart enough not to allow her picture to be taken with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad - at least as far as I could find. So I had to go with the montage above. But Clinton is apparently no less disposed to keeping the dictator in power than are Pelosi and Kerry (and President Obama for that matter). YNet has published a lengthy interview with two Syrian dissidents who have found temporary asylum in the United States. The two are still considered to be in danger - as are their families...

As'ad AbuKahlil—a political science professor at California State University, Stanislaus—spoke last month at a day-long "teach-in" at the University of California, Berkeley titled, "Building Solidarity with the Arab Spring." It consisted of a number of "workshop sessions" at the Valley Life Sciences Building, followed by a "plenary session" at the Multicultural Center, and was co-sponsored by the Arab Resource Organizing Committee, the Berkeley Muslim Students Association PAC, the International Socialist Organization, and the Syrian American Council. AbuKhalil's workshop on "The U.S. and the Arab Uprising" was held in a tiny, hot, windowless room filled with students wearing hijabs and keffiyehs....

Damascus, 1 Dec. (AKI) - Dozens of officials from North Korea and Iran have conducted meetings with representatives of the Syrian government in Damascus to help president Bashar al-Assad obtain weapons following the implementation of sanctions by members of the Arab League and other countries. The meetings have been taking place in recent days, and were attended by experts in the production of rockets, according to Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah, citing unnamed intelligence sources. "The Syrian regime is afraid of losing power so is asking help from these two allies to put in place whatever means are necessary, even if it...

Russian warships are due to arrive at Syrian territorial waters, a Syrian news agency said on Thursday, indicating that the move represented a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country's civil unrest.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A judge will decide whether a Virginia man accused of spying on U.S. citizens for Syria will remain jailed while he awaits trial.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead 20 protesters on Friday despite a pledge by President Bashar al-Assad that a crackdown was over, activists said as thousands marched across Syria, spurred on by U.S. and European calls for him to step down. Most of the violence was in the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against Assad erupted in March, triggering a harsh response in which U.N. investigators say Syrian forces may have committed crimes against humanity.

BEIRUT (AP) — Two Syrian rights groups say government forces have killed at least 52 people in the latest phase of their crackdown on dissent and the toll for the day could rise to 69.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian security forces shot dead at least 20 protesters on Friday as hundreds of thousands of people staged the biggest protests so far against President Bashar al-Assad, witnesses and rights groups said. Assad, facing the greatest challenge to 40 years of Baath Party rule, has sought to crush demonstrations that broke out in March. But although rights groups say some 1,400 civilians have been killed, the protests have grown. "These are the biggest demonstrations so far. It is a clear challenge to the authorities, especially when we see all these numbers coming out from Damascus for the...

I have just been forward what appear to be Syrian state documents leaked by the governor of al-Qunaitera, in south-west Syria, which suggest that the regime fully orchestrated the “Nakba Day” raids of Palestinian refugees into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 15. The document (below) which bears the Syrian Republic emblem, is dated May 14, 2011 and describes an “urgent meeting” of Major General Asef Shawkat, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces, and the chiefs of security and military intelligence branches in the province in Al-Qunaitera, which is located at the Syrian-Israeli border. The memorandum outlines

Syrian soldiers are killing other Syrian soldiers in the northern part of the country, according to a source who spoke with Israel National News Monday night on condition of anonymity. The source said the soldiers being massacred were being pursued by their fellow security officers because they had broken ranks and tried to escape to Turkey. "These are the soldiers who were seeking asylum across the border," the source said. "They were running away, and so the other soldiers surrounded them and slaughtered them." Syrian state television reported Monday that 120 security officers have been slaughtered in the town of...