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US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urged caution Wednesday over an Israeli claim that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons, saying all evidence must be weighed carefully as such allegations are "serious business". Hagel indicated he had been caught off guard by claims from an Israeli general this week that Syria had fired chemical agents against rebels in recent months, the AFP news agency reported. "When I was in Israel they did not give me that assessment. I guess it wasn't complete," Hagel told reporters in Cairo on a tour of the Middle East that included a three-day visit to Israel....

Flanked by almost 20 men with rifles, Omar Abu al-Chechen kneels on a carpet and delivers a rousing speech urging fellow Muslims to support the 'jihad' against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Dressed almost entirely in black, the militant from Russia's Chechnya region declares an Islamist state is within reach. Fellow fighters from the brigade of foreign militants he leads translate his Russian words into Arabic. "Jihad needs very many things. Firstly it needs money. Much is dependent on money today for jihad," said al-Chechen, his nomme de guerre, the leader of what rebels and websites call the Brigade of Migrants,...

No, they don't say it quite like that. But after years of hypocrisy, the Obama administration has admitted that while it declined to arm Syrian rebels directly for fear that weapons would end up in the hands of al-Qaeda forces, it has been quietly vetting and training anti-Assad forces while others provided weapons all around. Now the training is out in the open, and Secretary of State Kerry has pledged $60 million in "non-lethal aid" to the rebels. (Plus $250 million to Egypt, while Israel may take a hit of $150 million from sequestration -- makes you wonder.) American assistance...

Syrian rebels have threatened to retake Golan Heights from Israel, and in response the IDF has begun reinforcing its presence along the border. In the meantime, the forces are focusing on providing security for contract workers building Israel's new border fence with Syria - a fence intent on providing Israeli security in a post-Assad era. The head of the IDF Operation Directorate has outlined a new operational plan for soldiers manning the border in wake of rebel advances towards the border region. For now, the IDF's chief concern is gun attacks on those charged with building Israel's new border fence,...

Syrian jihadist rebels from the Al Furkan Regiments have posted an Internet video that shows them just a few dozen feet away from an IDF patrol, on the Israel-Syria border. According to Yoni Alper of Terror Watch, the video was shot next to a UN position and a man seen may be a UN soldier. The location of the video is Kakhtania, which is a part of Kuneitra, on the Golan Heights. The jihadists were travelling in a truck with an anti-aircraft gun mounted on it. The jihadis appear to be boasting and praising Allah for having reached the location.

Al-Qaeda terrorist's son an Obama fundraiser Here's another 'associate' that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama may want to throw under the bus. This is a Debbie Schlussel exclusive. Al Churbaji is a Syrian national currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from where he is fighting the Department of Homeland Security's endeavors to deport him. If successful, this will be the second deportation for Al-Churbaji, after a return to the U.S. that violated federal immigration and deportation policies. More on that later. But even if Al-Churbaji is deported, at least two of his six children, a son and a daughter,...

Egyptian security forces arrested a man, apparently a Syrian, who allegedly tried to attack Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a visit to a mosque in Cairo. The attack was allegedly spurred by the man's opposition to Iran's support of the Syrian...

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian news agencies say the navy is sending another ship to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Russia has a naval base.

Government forces have fired at least a half-dozen short-range ballistic missiles at rebel groups in northern Syria over the past several days, according to U.S. officials, a potentially significant escalation of a civil war that has killed more than 40,000 people. U.S. officials and the group Human Rights Watch also alleged Wednesday that Syrian government forces are dropping incendiary devices similar to napalm weapons on rebel fighters in populated areas. The officials described the tactics as acts of desperation as rebels gain momentum in the nearly two-year-old fight to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel's ambassador to the United States warned Sunday that any evidence of chemical weapons being passed from the Assad regime to extremist groups like Hezbollah would be a "game-changer," and said that would be a "red line" for Israel. The remark comes amid claims that the Syrian regime is mixing and moving the components for the deadly sarin nerve gas. Ambassador Michael Oren said he could not confirm those reports but made clear that Israel is watching the situation "very carefully." "Were those weapons to pass into the wrong hands -- Hezbollah's hands for example -- that would be a...

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...