Free Republic

Retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, former CIA director under President Barack Obama, called strongly Saturday for Congress to back the White House on Syria, declaring that military action against the regime is “necessary” to deter “Iran, North Korea and other would-be aggressors.” “Failure of Congress to approve the president’s request would have serious ramifications not just in the Mideast but around the world,” Petraeus said in a four-sentence statement provided to POLITICO. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/petraeus-calls-on-congress-to-back-white-house-on-syria-96413.html#ixzz2eFVZm9TT

MAFRAQ, JORDAN – Just 16 years old, Mohammed Hamad was heading to war. The lanky Syrian teenager was joining what United Nations officials warn might be the start of a flood of underage fighters enlisting in rebel ranks. About half of the 200 new recruits who board buses each week to Syria from Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari refugee camp are under 18, U.N. officials at the camp estimate. Hamad said it was his duty to “fight in the name of God to take back the country” from government forces. “If my generation doesn’t take up arms, the revolution will be lost,”...

Up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are now in rebel hands - in particular Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda off-shoot which is the strongest faction in this part of the country. Now the violently anti-Western jihadist group, which has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.

... The footage shows the commander, his face covered in a black balaclava, shooting each prisoner in the back of the head as they kneeled, blindfolded and lined up in a row in the sand. "The sharia court for the eastern region in Deir al-Zor has sentenced to death these apostate soldiers that committed massacres against our brothers and families in Syria," the executioner said on the video. Islamist militants with black flags shouted "God is great" as each man was shot. The executioner returned to some victims, firing more bullets into them to make sure they were dead. Videos...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Western nations will suffer the consequences for what he said was their support for al Qaeda militants in his country's civil war. "The West has paid heavily for funding al Qaeda in its early stages in Afghanistan. Today it is supporting it in Syria, Libya and other places, and will pay a heavy price later in the heart of Europe and the United States," he told Syrian television channel al-Ikhbariya, according to extracts published on the Syrian presidency's Facebook page on Wednesday. Assad was speaking a week after Syria's rebel al-Nusra Front, one of the...

A Syrian jihadist group appears to have pledged allegiance to al Qaeda's leader -- but also stressed it can achieve a Syrian Islamic state only by working with other rebels, including secularists. The group, al-Nusra Front, also denies an earlier claim that it has merged with Iraq's al Qaeda affiliate, according to an audio message purported to be from group spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Joulani. The message was posted on various radical Islamist websites known for posting similar statements by al Qaeda figures. Al-Joulani's message comes after the leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq purportedly claimed this week...

In fierce battles with Syrian troops, Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra front is spearheading the rebels’ advance on the two Syrian army’s biggest chemical weapons depots – at the Al-Safira military and air defense base near Aleppo in the north and the Dumeir facilities 40 km northeast of Damascus. By Tuesday, April 2, the assault force had come within 1.5 kilometers of the Al-Safira complex. This prompted an urgent visit by Israel’s top security officials to the Golan border for a close assessment of the situation. The group surveying the situation from the IDF position at Tel Hazaka was led by Defense...

Al Qaeda brigade captures Syrian-Israeli-Jordanian border junction Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra fighters on Golan March 25, 2013 - "The highly strategic intersection of the Syrian, Israeli and Jordan borders, just east of the Golan, was captured by the Al Musanna Brigade of al Qaeda’s Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra on Passover Eve, Monday, March 25 ... This put the jihadists directly opposite 14 Israeli southern Golan villages and at a distance of 5-6 kilometers from one of Israel’s earliest kibbutzim, Ein Gev, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. ... this sensitive area fell to al Qaeda in a fierce battle...