“Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Walid Muallem, stated in an interview with al-Mayadeen TV, that the approach the US and its allies are continuing to take in Syria by arming terrorist groups, otherwise referred to by the Obama administration as “moderate Syrian rebels,” will only exacerbate the ongoing bloodshed, destroy any prospects for a political solution, and lead to the creation of another ISIL-like organization. Muallem argues that the funneling of arms into the Syrian conflict by the US and its Gulf Arab allies is what made groups that adopt the Wahhabi Takfiri ideology strong and ultimately led to the emergence of ISIL as the monster it is today.”
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Lilly Martin Sahiounie (in Latakia): “Friday, October 3, 2014: This afternoon Latakia, Syria was hit by 2 GRAD missiles. These were probably shot from somewhere along the Turkish border. The Turkish government supports terrorism. One hit the Tishreen University, and the other on a hill near Jummoria street (near Soued Hospital) No info on casualties yet, if any. Those missiles are aimed at killing unarmed civilians in their own home. Those missiles were given to the Free Syrian Army by United States of America, by legal act of Congress. These are you American supported Free Syrian Army.”
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Linda H Badr (in Latakia): “medical source in #Latakia‘s Four civilians martyrs and 10 wounding , including three children and their father by 2 GRAD missiles are targeted #Lattakia City One at Tishreen University the second on Thawra Highway Tonight
استشهاد اربع مدنين و اصابة 10 اخرين بينهم ثلاثة اطفال والدهم بين الشهداء الاربعة جراء سقوط الصاروخ على اتوستراد الثورة في اللاذقية
أنباء عن ارتقاء أربع شهداء على الأقل وعدد آخر من الإصابات الخطيرة جراء سقوط صاروخ قبل قليل بالقرب من أوتوستراد الثورة
وبحسب المصادر الطبية من المستشفيات غير الشهداء في عدد من الحالات الحرجة
Medical source in #Latakia’s Four martyrs and wounding 10 civilians, including three children and their father by 2 GRAD missiles are targeted #Lattakia City One at Tishreen University the second on Thawra Highway Tonight, four civilians were killed and 10 others injured, including three children, the father of the four martyrs by the rocket on the Expressway in Lattakia on the rise at least four martyrs and several other serious injuries caused by a rocket shortly before near the Speedway revolution according to medical sources Hospitals are martyrs in a number of critical situations”
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Insurgents’ Bombings “Kill 45 Civilians at a Homs Children’s School“:
“Twin terrorist attacks killed 45 civilians and wounded over 100 others today (Oct 1) in the Homs Governate; most of the victims were reportedly women and children. The explosion was heard all across the provincial capital, where citizens and government employees rushed to the aide of the wounded and dead.
The first terrorist attack took place when a car bomb loaded with 3 gas cylinders and 7kg of C-4 explosives was detonated by the perpetrators at the Akrama Al-Makhzoumi School in the Akrama Neighborhood of Homs. Following the first explosion, a suicide bomber then detonated another bomb at this school, creating a much larger explosion that destroyed much of the school. Akrama has been targeted by terrorists in the past due to their predominately ‘Alawi presence….”
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Dan Glazebrook, CounterPunch: This War is Not Aimed at ISIS, But at Assad:
“…That ISIS have been emboldened, or even created, by the West’s insistence on supporting the armed insurgency in Syria over the past three years – pouring money, weapons and training (including even in public relations) into the hands of fighters of all shades – was admitted again and again by MPs from all parties, as was the reality that it was precisely the dysfunctional state bequeathed by the occupation that had allowed ISIS to take root in Iraq
…When the Ba’ath party itself ended up overseeing a successful modernisation of the country in the 1970s, Britain did all it could to encourage a war with Iran, ensuring that the wealth of both countries was squandered, their development pushed back by decades. Within three years of that war ending, Britain was involved in an aerial attack that devastated the country’s infrastructure, followed by a crippling sanctions regime the like of which the world had never before seen, which killed half a million children, and caused 3 successive senior UN officials to resign in protest at what they described as a policy of genocide.
…This war – presented as a new war against a new enemy, Isis – is in fact a continuation of the three-year old war against the Syrian state – itself a continuation of the centuries-old war against development and independence amongst the states of North Africa and West Asia, and indeed the entire global South.The fact that so many of the MPs in the debate who voiced support for airstrikes, did so with an admission that they will almost certainly fail to destroy ISIS, is one clue that this war is not what it purports to be. In fact, the British government is both unable and unwilling to destroy ISIS….Why do they not pursue a more effective strategy? Because the defeat of ISIS is not really their goal. ISIS and its friends have played right into the hands of British foreign policy for the past three years, acting as the vanguard in the Anglo-American proxy war of attrition against the Syrian state. But the use of sectarian militias as tools of foreign policy has a much longer pedigree in Britain. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Al Qaeda’s Libyan affiliate) were hosted in London for decades before finally being unleashed against the Libyan state in March 2011, their services to their imperial masters including a botched MI6-led assassination attempt against Gaddafi in 1996. The Muslim Brotherhood were cultivated by British intelligence as a means of undermining Nasser’s pan-Arab socialism in Egypt in the 1960s, but had already been used against the progressive liberal movement of the interwar years, the Wafd. Most infamously, the self-proclaimed ‘mujahadeen’ in Afghanistan – which ultimately spawned both Al Qaeda and the Taliban – were given full support by Britain in their war against the Soviet Union and the progressive forces of Afghanistan.So what will this war achieve? Firstly, it will have a number of effects on ISIS itself. As Cockburn has pointed out, it will probably force ISIS to “revert to guerrilla warfare which has been its tactic in Iraq since the US started bombing there on 8 August”, noting that “in the past few days Isis fighters have killed 40 Iraqi soldiers with suicide bombs and captured another 68 as well as over-running an army garrison west of Baghdad.” In other words, it will ensure that ISIS continues in its role as a straightforward terror gang, rather than evolving into some kind of semi-governmental body administering territory. And this suits the British government, which wants to see them fully focused on destabilisation, rather than being diverted into any kind of ‘state-building’, however half-baked. Airstrikes may, as it were, succeed in turning IS – a proto-state formation – back into ISIS – a sectarian death squad, the role originally mapped out for them by imperial planners.
However, there will be one crucial difference to the ISIS of pre-April 2011 and the ISIS that is now emerging under Western aerial bombardment. This time, they will benefit from a credibility that they have so far been denied – the credibility of being able to pose as an anti-Western , anti-imperialist force.
Because, over the past three years, it has been so obvious they and the Western countries have been on the same side, singing from the same ‘Assad must go’ songsheet, they have not really been able to do this – until now. This will undoubtedly bring them more recruits, more support, and more funding. But an even bigger shot in the arm will come from the image of strength that they will gain from surviving airstrikes. Nothing succeeds like success, it is said, and the image of endurance and perseverance apparently ‘against the odds’ will gain them an appeal formerly beyond their reach.
We are now being told that the West are being ‘forced’ to intervene in Syria because Assad failed to defeat ISIS, but the truth is precisely the opposite – the West is now in Syria because ISIS and its friends – the recipients of so much lavish diplomatic, financial and military support from the West and its allies these past three years – have failed to defeat Assad. The US – alongside Britain shortly, no doubt – are thus going in to Syria in order to take more direct control of a war in which, for much of this year, the momentum has been with the Syrian state forces.
…there has already been talk of a Turkish ground invasion of Syria, along with a new initiative aimed at training yet more insurgents in Saudi Arabia (5000 more, apparently) – the breeding ground of the violent sectarianism that underpins ISIS. The idea is that if anyone is to seize ground from ISIS, it should not be the secular forces of the Syrian government (the only power capable of actually governing the country, even according to US general Martin Dempsey), but rather the forces of NATO and their ISIS lookalike allies.
…A Reuters report from last week noted that the strikes “seemed to be intended to hamper Islamic State’s ability to operate across the border with Iraq, where it also controls territory.” In other words, the aim is not to destroy ISIS in Syria – but, as far as possible, to keep ISIS in Syria….”
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Imperialist Obama is a war criminal – Bolivian President:
“Bolivian President Evo Morales harshly criticized US President Barack Obama in an interview with RT Spanish, calling him a war criminal who should be tried in international court. The outspoken critic of US policy did not mince words in the interview, lashing out at capitalism, the UN Security Council and America’s “imperialist” foreign policy.”
Filed under: Syria