Right now it looks like Israeli aircraft has bombed a research centre in Damascus, this is confirmed by a US official but no word out of Israel as of now.
In similar news, Israel has confirmed that they conducted airstrikes on Friday on advanced missiles being transferred to what the Israelis believe to be Hezbollah near the Lebanon border.
Looks like Israel had it's own "red line in the sand" or conspiracy theorists will say it's a way for the USA to get Al-Assadwithout pissing off Russia.
Syria is really a no win situation. On one side you have Assad, on the other you have basically Al-Qaeda. Not exactly easy to navigate.
At one point, it really looked like the rebels were the "good guys". They were initially composed of defectors from the Syrian army who had refused to fire on protestors. As more time passes, it's unfortunately become a no win situation, as the country has become largely infiltrated by jihadists.
If the rebels win, you're going to see a real showdown. It'll be Hezbollah/Iran, the #####es, vs. this new Saudi foothold.
Both sides will continuously try to draw Israel into the mix. Hopefully, Israel can keep its own hawkish elements at bay.
Looks like some kind of fuel air explosive in that secondary blast. Crazy.
I'm guessing Israel figures they had evidence of active weapons transfers and are using that as an excuse to eliminate all the possible weapons that could leak into Hezbollah hands. Question is, how come Syria's supposed top not Anti air systems aren't picking up the planes dropping the bombs. How long before the US gets drawn into this or will they just let Israel do all the work?
Looks like some kind of fuel air explosive in that secondary blast. Crazy.
I'm guessing Israel figures they had evidence of active weapons transfers and are using that as an excuse to eliminate all the possible weapons that could leak into Hezbollah hands. Question is, how come Syria's supposed top not Anti air systems aren't picking up the planes dropping the bombs. How long before the US gets drawn into this or will they just let Israel do all the work?
Thus far, the Israeli strikes are pretty few and far between. They have no incentive to enter this one. Israel saw an opportunity to eliminate a large weapons cache that would be ulitimately used on their own civilians.
Assad has lost effective control over much of Syria, and Israel is taking that opportunity to stop shipments to Hezbollah. As for the anti air systems, I'm guessing there are all sorts of holes due to losing so much control.
But aren't boarders just abstract. Shouldn't we be allowed to roam around anyplace without fear? Shouldn't we just walk the earth like Jules from Pulp Fiction?
... so now we have Assads regime, the rebels and the mujahideen, the kurds, Israel, Turkey and Lebanon as fighting parties, plus Iran, US, and very propably Russia arming the sides. Maybe some others too, I haven't followed that closely.
This is going great.
BTW, from what I've understood, the syrian rebels are still split into the mujahideen and what I would call the actual freedom fighters (the "National Coalition" or something?), and while the latter also has a large islamist element to it, the more radical islamists still clearly mostly flock to the mujahideens (which in itself is split into several groups).
So IF the war could be resolved militarily AND other involved countries made a clear commitment to support the non-mujahideen side of the rebels, they might be able to throw those radicals out. The fact that the "original rebels" has an islamist side to it might actually be helpful in this, because it would not be seculars vs. Islam, it would be radicals vs. non-radicals, and that is a winnable fight.
That's all theoretical though. That place is going to be a hellhole at this rate.
I think many are going to regret not getting directly involved in toppling Assads regime sooner, before the country was flooded with foreign "radical islamist" who have turned violence into a profession and a lifestyle and have little interest in bringing about peace and stability anywhere.
Of course for Assads regime this is partly a good thing. He propably hopes to come out as the lesser evil who will eventually be given foreign support and free reigns to fight the islamists.
EDIT: oh and of course the Hezbollah are in this, how could I forget those lovable rascals.
Last edited by Itse; 05-05-2013 at 03:25 AM.
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The target was a convoy carrying a shipment of advanced long-range ground-to-ground missiles to Hezbollah and not a Syrian chemical weapons facility, according to unnamed Israeli officials.
(Of course that statement could be pure propaganda BS.)
... so now we have Assads regime, the rebels and the mujahideen, the kurds, Israel, Turkey and Lebanon as fighting parties, plus Iran, US, and very propably Russia arming the sides. Maybe some others too, I haven't followed that closely.
Naw.
I'd say Israel, Turkey, and the US all want as little to do with this conflict as possible. As judged by the secondary explosion, Israel saw the opportunity to stop some very big weapons from getting into the hands of Hezbollah and took it. I don't see them getting involved in a major way.
Israel, the US, and Turkey, have all made some very big steps recently to mend their respective relationships. It's been overshadowed a lot by other more shocking events, but examples include Israel apologizing for death in the Flotilla raid and the resumption of full diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey.
Thought I'd share a little map project I did to try to get some perspective on the region that we're talking about:
For those of us born and raised in Canada, it's easy to lose sight of how much bigger our country is than most.
Google maps uses a sliding scale so unless two places are on the same latitude the scales will be different, even though they're on the same zoom level. Assuming Vancouver = Elat/Aqaba, Kuwait should be around Regina. Also Iraq is approx. 2/3 the size of Alberta.
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Syria is really a no win situation. On one side you have Assad, on the other you have basically Al-Qaeda. Not exactly easy to navigate.
Perhaps they should have thought of this and provided reasonable human rights to their citizens for the past 50 or so years. I suppose what they are getting now is what comes to all dictatorships.
And I hate to sound pessimistic, but I doubt that any of the groups fighting in Syria are hoping for a nice loving democracy when the dust settles.
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Large explosion in Damascus, Syria
