The head of the terrorist group Hezbollah told a gathering in Beirut that Syria is going to be providing their group with “game-changing weapons” less than a week after alleged Israeli airstrikes destroyed a shipment of Iranian missiles that were being transported out of Syria.
Israel has not admitted being behind the strikes but did say that they would strike against any shipment of missiles bound for the terrorist group. Continue reading
Syrian state TV announced that President Bashar al-Assad had activated Palestinian groups to attack Israel.
Media linked to the terrorist group Hezbollah, however, stated that only “popular committees” had been formed by Lebanon and Syria in response to Israel’s attacks in Syria and that those committees are “ready to fight Israel.” Continue reading
The government of Syria is accusing Israel of working with a group that has called for the deaths of all Jews in a bombing raid against Syrian military targets.
The Syrian foreign ministry said that Israel was working with the al-Qaeda affiliated group al-Nusra. Continue reading
Syria has stationed missile batteries aimed at Israel in the aftermath of alleged Israeli air strikes in the country, the website of Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV, considered close to the regime of President Bashar Assad, quoted a top Syrian official as saying on Sunday.
The report came as Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi said on Sunday that alleged Israeli air strikes against three targets on the outskirts of Damascus “open the door to all possibilities.”
Source: The Jerusalem Post – Report: Syria stations missile batteries aimed at Israel
A series of massive explosions illuminated the dark sky over Damascus early Sunday, igniting renewed claims that Israel has launched attacks into the war-torn country. Continue reading
Syria responded angrily to the overnight air strikes on military targets that it accused Israel of carrying out, warning that the attack “opens the door to all possibilities.” Continue reading
Two Iron Dome batteries were deployed in Safed and Haifa, as a result of tensions in the north.
Following an IDF evaluation of developments in the region, culminating in Israeli strikes on Syria – as confirmed by officials – Israel is bolstering protective measures in preparation for possible retaliatory rocket fire. Continue reading
Israeli jets devastated Syrian targets near Damascus on Sunday in a heavy overnight air raid that Western and Israeli officials called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
As Syria’s two-year-old civil war veered into the potentially atomic arena of Iran’s confrontation with Israel and the West over its nuclear program, people were woken in the Syrian capital by explosions that shook the ground like an earthquake and sent pillars of flame high into the night sky.
“Night turned into day,” one man told Reuters from his home at Hameh, near one of the targets, the Jamraya military base.
Source: Reuters – Israel strikes Syria, says targeting Hezbollah arms
In light of reports that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on civilians and that military troops are carrying out summary executions of suspected rebels without trial, the U.S. is considering supplying arms to the Syrian rebels.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters that for the first time the U.S. is no longer ruling out the possibility of arming the rebels. Last year, President Obama had rejected a similar proposal from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Arming the rebels, that’s an option,” Hagel said during a press conference. “You look at and rethink all options. It doesn’t mean you do or you will. These are options that must be considered with the international community.”
A European Union ban on arming the rebels expires in a few weeks and Hagel’s British counterpart, Philip Hammond, said Britain would be looking at their options after the ban’s expiration.
Sources within the defense department told a BBC reporter that because the U.S. does not want to directly get involved militarily in Syria, arming the rebels is now considered the “least worst option.”
Both Hagel and Hammond stated that despite multiple reports and photographic proof of the Syrian government using chemical weapons, there is still not enough hard evidence to act. Hammond said that because much of the public clearly remembers the weapons of mass destruction claims in 2003 which led to the Iraq invasion, any evidence of chemical weapons would have to come from “very clear, very high quality evidence.”
More than 70,000 have died in the Syrian civil war.
Civilians and security personnel are among the dead after a terrorist bombing in Syria’s capital.
The bombing comes one day after Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived a car bomb attack in Damascus. Continue reading