Syria without Assad will turn into Salafis terror hub: Analyst

 

Members of the terrorist Free Syrian Army (file Photo)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/11/271548/syria-salafis-terror-hub-without-assad/

A political analyst warns that if the Salafi-Jihadists fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad take control of Syria, the Arab country will turn into a “breeding ground” for terrorism in the region.

“Syria without Bashar Assad would mean a country in the hands of the Salafi-Jihadists who will undoubtedly turn the country into a graveyard for the Alawites and the moderate Sunnis and a breeding ground for terrorism and extremism in the region,” Iranian academic Dr. Ismail Salami wrote in an article published on Press TV's website.

“The fact is that the al-Qaeda-affiliated Salafi-Jihadists have already swarmed into the country and are already fighting against Bashar Assad’s government,” he added.

Referring to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s call on his followers to fight against Assad last February, Salami said, “The grand plan is to turn Syria into a safe haven for the Salafis.”

In a two-hour video released on Jihadists websites in October, Zawahiri repeated his call and said, “I incite Muslims everywhere, especially in the countries that are contiguous to Syria, to rise up to support their brothers in Syria with all what they can and not to spare anything that they can offer.”

The analyst said videos of Salafi-Jihadists beheading Syrian troops and civilians in cold blood have caused outrage among humanitarian organizations which have condemned the attacks as “war crimes.”

“This shocking footage depicts a potential war crime in progress, and demonstrates an utter disregard for international humanitarian law by the armed group in question,” Amnesty International said.

Salami added that the Middle East region is being “systematically and consciously devoured by an act of extremism funded and promoted by Washington and some Arab regimes.”

"Without envisaging any foreign intervention and the domino effect it will have on the region and on the world as President Bashar Assad predicts, Syria is being eroded from within and without by different forces which have mobilized despite the rift in their ideologies but each with a unique agenda," Salami added.

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West supports Qatar plan to unify terrorist Syrian opposition

 

An insurgent keeps an eye out for Syrian government forces in the Karmel al-Jabl district of Aleppo city on October 31, 2012.

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/03/270183/west-backs-new-syria-opposition-plan/

The US, Britain and other western states have backed a Qatari plan that seeks creation of a consistent Syrian opposition that would engage in talks with Damascus government, or provide greater arms supports to insurgents if negotiations fail.

The plan, due to be formally introduced in Qatar’s capital city of Doha on November 8, will unify foreign-based Syrian opposition groups with armed groups fighting on the ground, the Guardian reported on Friday.

A blueprint for the plan, known as the Syrian National Initiative, is outlined in a document put forward by Riad Seif, a Syrian dissident driving the council’s formation.

The Doha initiative has been organized by the Qatari government, and the US, Britain and France have already thrown weight behind it.

Russia, however, opposes the plan, stating that it violates earlier international agreements that seek formation of a new Syrian government by "mutual consent" of parties involved in the conflict.

The Istanbul-based Syrian National Council (SNC), the leadership of the main opposition group, also dismissed the plan, arguing that it attempts to mitigate SNC influence.

Washington's decision to shift support away from the SNC and swing it behind the Doha initiative comes as US officials are deeply frustrated over the exile group's failure to incorporate all internal and external factions of the Syrian opposition.

"We've made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition," the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said on October 31.

"They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard," she pointed out.

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Syrian opposition rejects US meddling

AFP Photo / HO / Shaam News Network

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/syria-opposition-reject-us-791/

Members of the Syrian opposition have given an icy response to Washington’s calls to revamp the movement’s leadership, slamming it for attempting to dictate its will on Syrians.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a re-shaping of the Syrian opposition's leadership adding that the Obama administration was suggesting names and organizations that should be included in the new leadership that may emerge in the talks held next week in Qatar.

“This direct tutelage and these dictates are not acceptable to the Syrian people anymore,'' said Zuhair Salem, the London-based spokesman for Syria's banned Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, which is a part of the Syrian National Council, AP reports.

Clinton was also dismissive of the Syrian National Council (SNC) holding a leading role, saying that the Paris-based group of exiled regime opponents does not represent those fighting on the ground in Syria.

Syria has various militias fighting Assad, many of which have reportedly been infiltrated by radical Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda.

According to Salem, Clinton's remarks show that Washington wishes to “tailor the Syrian opposition to specific demands.''

American criticism of the SNC reflects a growing sense that Washington has grown disillusioned with the group, for failing to gain support from numerous rebel factions. But despite US efforts to forge a new united opposition, one ready to cooperate with the West, many remain skeptical.

A defected Syrian army general, Faiz Amru, told AP that any transitional government or body created abroad, cannot possibly represent those dying in Syria. “Everyone is trying to push their own agendas,'' he said. “The big powers have hijacked the Syrian revolution.''

Amru claimed that none of the opposition groups really care about fighters on the ground.

Meanwhile violence continues to ravage Syria with at least 153 people – civilians, soldiers and rebels – killed in one day, according to activists.

Rebel forces are reported to have killed at least 78 soldiers on Thursday. About a half of them were killed in attacks on military checkpoints in the north of the country that followed a wave of bombings in the Damascus area earlier in the day.

Also a YouTube video showing rebels executing soldiers appeared on Thursday – though its authenticity could not be verified. It appeared to show rebels beating about 10 soldiers before lining them on the ground and executing them with automatic rifles.

Amnesty International slammed the summary execution of security forces that have allegedly happened in Idlib.

Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director said in a statement, "This shocking footage depicts a potential war crime in progress and demonstrates an utter disregard for international humanitarian law by the armed group in question."

Adrian Salbuchi, an international consultant and author, believes the revamp of the Syrian opposition proposed by Clinton will lead to even further violence.

“What we are going to see is even more violence in Syria because in the case of Syria, Obama for example had specifically said ‘Assad must go.’, Mitt Romney has said that he would be giving anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to the so called ‘opposition,’ the guerilla opposition, the terrorist opposition. Secretary of State Clinton has said the same,” he told RT.

Salbuchi claims that the US needs Damascus to fall quickly, to pave the way for an attack on Iran.

“What they need is to have overall turmoil throughout Syria. Let’s not forget that the road to Iran from the American point of view goes through Damascus. So they need Syria to fall quickly before the Israelis go ahead and unilaterally attack Iran.

 

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US defeat in Syria would be end of US hegemony in Middle East

AFP Photo / John Cantlie

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/syria-us-strategy-fail-783/

The United States is doing everything possible to salvage 'operation Syria' and in doing so hedging all their bets on its success, says Eric Draitser, geopolitical analyst from stopimperialism.com. But that strategy, Draitser believes, will fail.

­Earlier, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US no longer sees Syria’s foreign-based National Council as a leading opposition force, due to its lack of support on the ground.

The Syrian opposition consists of various rebel militias, many of which have been infiltrated by radical Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda.

A new 51 member "National Initiative Council" is due to be unveiled in Doha next week, and will include only 15 seats for the SNC.

Meanwhile, the SNC is planning to base itself inside Syria, in an attempt to prove its relevance to skeptical international backers. But as Eric Draitser told RT, these efforts may be too little too late to fit into US plans for the region.

RT:Washington's already suggesting names to represent a new opposition leadership, with the Syrian National Council to have just a few seats – why this shift now?

Eric Draitser: First and foremost I think it represents the manufactured nature of the opposition or at least the political opposition that we see in the public sphere. The Syrian national council and other leadership there, they never had any legitimacy among the Syrian people. They merely had legitimacy within the ruling class circles of the west. But what’s happened in recent months as the offensive from the Syrian military has developed, is that they have no real backing on the ground – that is to say the manufactured opposition. And so the United States, in their imperialist project to destroy the independent nation of Syria, has to find another way. And so a shakeup of the opposition with new “leaders” emerging…this is the US strategy. One that is doomed to fail.

RT:Doesn't Washington risk being accused of controlling events from the outside, rather than Syrians deciding things for themselves?

ED: Certainly it does run that risk. However I think the United States, the Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and the other major players, I think they’ve taken the calculated decision that it is worth the risk if it means they can salvage the Syria operation. We have to remember the US adventure in Syria ending in defeat would be the end of US hegemony in the Middle East. If they’re unable to continue their march from Syria, that means their attempt to destroy Iran is unlikely to evolve. That means that their stranglehold over the Persian Gulf and the oil resources is weakening so they’re putting all their cards on the table and all their chips in the pot when it comes to Syria.

RT:In an attempt to prove its relevance, the exiled opposition group has said it will move to Syria. But that might not be enough to save its credibility – could the major western-backed shift in the opposition help change anything on the ground?

ED: Well what’s interesting about the development of the SNC moving into Syria is that the propaganda line from CNN and the western corporate media is that this is to prove their relevance and legitimacy. But what I’m hearing from my sources and from independent sourcse around the world, this is because Turkey has grown tired of basing the FSA and so theyre pushing them and prodding and encouraging them to enter into Syria because it seems that turkey is looking for any way to disengage from this conflict once they’ve seen the writing on the wall that this would be the end of modern Turkey.

RT:Washington has revealed plans to hand more political power to major figures fighting on the frontline, but says extremists should NOT 'hijack' the Syrian revolution. Doesn't its latest policy make that more likely?

ED: Sure! And we shouldn’t be taken in by the rhetoric of the Syrian opposition. The manufactured opposition has been riddled with Al Qaeda and other forms of extremists, many of them imported from the imperialist war against Libya directly into Syria. So when they say on one hand that they don’t want to arm the extremist elements, on the other hand it is the same extremist elements that were imported by the US and Qatar and Saudi Arabia. So they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth. But the reality is they’re arming the opposition, arming extremists, because they want chaos in Syria. That is the only way to get military intervention and move forward with the imperialist project.

RT:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that the violence in Syria could spread terror throughout the Middle East, and that ousting Assad's government would lead to more bloodshed. Why do you think some western states don't share his views?

ED: It’s not that they don’t share the view. I think it’s an objective fact that Alawites and Shias and Armenians and Jews and Christians, would all be slaughtered under an al qaeda regime. This is an objective fact. What’s not being recognized by the west is that the attempt to destroy Syria has stalled and ended. The rhetoric from Moscow has always been the same – defend human rights, defend territorial sovereignty and the norms of international relations. But what we see time and time again is that the United States is not interested in that. The us is interested in the singular goal of the destruction of Syria with the longterm project of destroying Iran so it makes sense that any attempt to reconstitute the opposition would be in the interest in the US and the Obama administration, which is going to be the one that suffers politically from all of this.

 

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Abuse of inmates happens in every Georgian jail, says torture whistleblower

 

Source Video: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/prison-torture-saakashvili-enemies-572/
Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/georgia-prison-torture-scandal-634/

The penal system in Georgia is rife with the sadistic abuse of inmates covered under a glossy façade, claims an ex-deputy chief warden, who released footage of beatings and rape allegedly taken in a Tbilisi prison.

Vladimir Bedukadze alleges that top Georgian officials, including President Saakashvili, were aware of the abuses at the Gdlani prison, which triggered a major political scandal in the country. He claims that inmates in Georgia face inhumane treatment for political reasons or simply for the amusement of those in charge of jails.

Bedukadze told RT that he wanted to release the footage after bringing his family to Belgium, where he is seeking political asylum. But the Georgian authorities found out about the incriminating evidence and tried to undermine it by painting him a crook and a fabricator.

 

Vladimir Bedukadze

 

RT: Vladimir, how long have you been making these videos?

Vladimir Bedukadze: I have been working as the prison’s deputy chief warden since 2008.

RT: Who gave the orders? Who in the government knew what was going on? And who kept this matter under wraps?

V.B.: I made those videos on the instruction of the chief warden, and then the chief warden showed these videos to Minister Akhalaia. I made those videos over the period of a year, or maybe six months, I’m not sure. I didn’t make them in a day or two. They were accumulated over a period of time, and eventually I had two hours of video. Minister Akhalaia was in charge of all correctional facilities. Then Saakashvili made him Deputy Defense Minister. Then he became Defense Minister, and then, Minister of Internal Affairs. Throughout this time, Akhalaia remained in charge of Georgia’s prison system.

RT: How do you know the chief warden showed those videos to Akhalaia?

V.B.: I just did what I was told to do. I made those videos for him, and then he would take the tape, and I don’t know what he would do with it. But Akhalaia would often come to the Gdlani prison, perhaps once or twice a week. He used to spend a lot of time talking to the chief warden in his office. Akhalaia was a very close ally of President Saakashvili, whom President Bush called a “beacon of democracy.” He was fully aware of what was going on in the prisons. This is why I insist that Saakashvili should resign. In a democratic country, it wouldn’t be the Minister of Interior Affairs or Defense Minister stepping down; the President would resign. President Saakashvili must step down if he is a democrat. But he’s no democrat. He keeps the entire nation in chaos and fear. He relies on criminals. He has people with blood on their hands working in high positions in the government.

RT: Was Saakashvili aware of what was going on?

V.B.: Of course he knew. Saakashvili was fully aware of what was going on. When Akhalaia was appointed minister in 2005, the system was very far from European standards. Then Saakashvili appointed Akhalaia minister, and Akhalaia started taking very tough steps. He would send security forces into prisons. They would break into prisons and beat up inmates. Even Akhalaia himself would often be there with a camera, filming everything. And then, I think, he would show those videos to Saakashvili in order to show him what kind of system he had built. European MPs would visit the Gdlani prison, and they were impressed. They would say, “How did you manage to build such a system? You have 4,000 inmates there, and this place is so quiet, we haven’t heard as much as somebody speaking loudly. It’s almost as if there were no inmates there at all.

RT: You’re saying this has been going on for some time. Why did you release these materials now?

V.B.: In May, I asked myself whether I wanted to serve the regime or be a man. I tendered my resignation, took the videos I had made and left the country. I was afraid because I thought they would kill me. So I came to Belgium and asked for political asylum. My family is currently in Georgia, held hostage by the Saakashvili regime. This is why I asked the Belgian authorities to grant me and my family political asylum as soon as possible.

RT: Are you afraid that something may happen?

V.B.: Yes. Saakashvili is mentally unstable. Nobody knows what he may do.

RT: Do you have specific reasons to be concerned about your family? Have you received any threats?

V.B.: Yes, after I released those videos, some people called me on the phone a few times, telling me to keep my mouth shut.

RT: And then you moved to Belgium?

V.B.: No. Those phone calls were just a couple of days ago. I secretly left Georgia and came to Belgium in July. I have been here for three months now, and for financial reasons I have been unable to bring my family here. Belgian institutions tell me my videos can’t be published before my family comes here, because nobody knows what Saakashvili may do to them. As soon as my family is in Belgium, this footage will be released. When I came to Belgium, I played those tapes to the European Commission and the European Parliament, and they assured me that they would keep it secret and that Saakashvili would never find out about it. They kept their word, but somehow four or five days ago President Saakashvili found out about this tape, and then he told Akhalaia to get two of my friends who worked with me at the prison, and stage a beating of an inmate. So those two guys beat up an innocent inmate, and then that video was aired on Georgian television. They claim that they did it on my orders. The purpose of this fabrication was to create an impression that I was connected to the opposition. They say I was paid 2 million dollars for those videos. But I have never been involved in politics. I have never been in a political party. I didn’t care about politics.

RT: Your critics say the upcoming election is the reason why you have published these videos now.

V.B.: No, no. They started this by publishing their video! They contacted two of my friends, made that video with an inmate and played it on Georgian TV. What could I do? I had this tape with two hours of footage. I had to defend myself. They forced me to release those videos.

RT: You mean you released your videos in response to what they did?

V.B.: Right. This had nothing to do with the election.

RT: Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Saakashvili somehow found out that you had these videos…

V.B.: Actually, it was not Saakashvili. It was Minister Akhalaia who found out.

RT: And then they published their video to accuse you, and after that you released your videos.

V.B.: Right. Except that their video was staged, it was a fabrication. Those two friends of mine are in prison now. Actually, four of my friends are in prison. This is just to put psychological pressure on me. Saakashvili and Akhalaia accused me of torture and issued a warrant for me. I’m a wanted man now.

RT: Who gave you the order to make those videos? And who among the high-ranking officials knew about what was going on?

V.B.: Nobody – just the chief warden and I. I was deputy chief warden. He wanted me to film some interesting moments: for example, when police arrest an opposition activist, or a prominent figure, is arrested, he wanted it on tape. Probably, they intended to use those videos later against those people. The chief warden would take those videos to Akhalaia, and Akhalaia would take them to the President. They used it for entertainment. They enjoyed watching how helpless people were in their hands. Once they take you to prison, you are nobody. You have no dignity. This is why these videos caused such an outrage in Georgia. This is why all those young people are protesting.

RT: How did they pick inmates for torture?

V.B.: They just did it for entertainment, or, if an inmate had something to do with politics, if he was Saakashvili’s enemy, they would pick him. The system is extremely politicized. If you work in.

 

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