Assad assassination attempt may have prompted chemical weapons strike

NBC 'blogs ^ | August 28, 2013 | Richard Engel and Robert Windrem

[SunkenCiv]

Salim Idris, commander of the Free Syrian Army... said the attack on the rebel enclaves around the capital on Aug. 21 was ordered as pressure mounted on Assad -- even from his own supporters -- for a reprisal to the Aug. 8 attack, in which rebels fired rockets at his motorcade as it rolled through the Malki neighborhood of Damascus, headed to a local mosque for prayers marking the end of Ramadan.

Assad is not believed to have been in the motorcade at the time of the rocket attack, but the brazen assault on the president's own doorstep had a chilling effect on Assad and senior military officials...

Idris also indicated that pressure also has been growing on Assad to respond to a series of rebel advances.

One of the biggest gains for the rebels was the capture in July of large stockpiles of weapons from government depots near Qalamoun north of the capital, including 600 Concourse anti-tank rockets, according to Idris...

An equally important reason for taking drastic action may have been recent fighting in what Syrians call the "Sahel," the coastline around Latakiya that is the stronghold of Assad's regime and his religious base of support, Idris said.

The Assad family is Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The rebels, like the population in general, are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims. Since the war began, the Sahel has been a stable rock of Assad support -- safe and seemingly immune to the war. But fighting has intensified there recently in government protected Alawite villages. Rebels even captured the Alawite religious leader Sheikh Badr Grazel, and according to some reports have killed him. The fighting in the Sahel shook the confidence of some in the Alawite community who complained that Assad had lost his ability to protect them, Idris said.

[Southack]

Your experience, real or imagined, doesn’t matter because you pull your post materials from Fantasyland.

Sevastopol has *nothing* to do with Syria.

Oil has NOTHING to do with Syria.

Natural gas and pipelines have *nothing* to do with Syria.

In short, you are utterly clueless about the entire Middle East (and probably about most of life and reality, to boot).

[Yosemitest]

And you LACK of experience or any valuable knowledge allows you only to talk about your FEELINGS.
You're so naive, it's pathetic.
You haven't offered any PROOF of your silly accusation.
NONE.
Go back to grade school, and learn how to debate.

[Southack]

You either aren’t grasping, or aren’t reading.

I schooled you on Sevastopol. That’s not some “feeling.”

That’s geographic and geopolitical fact.

I point out that Sevastopol isn’t part of the current Syrian crisis due to **geography**, and you respond, like an utter idiot, that I’m somehow talking about “feelings.”

Sheesh. Carrots have higher IQs than you.

[Yosemitest]

"Natural gas and pipelines have *nothing* to do with Syria."

Read this Intelligence Analysis Study:

The geopolitical dimension of Syria, Turkey Israel and the Greater Middle East Energy War
Posted on February 19, 2013

Intelligence Analysis Study

The significant question to be asked at this point is
what could bind Israel, Turkey, Qatar in a form of unholy alliance on the one side,
and Assad’s Syria, Iran, Russia and China on the other side,
in such deadly confrontation over the political future of Syria?
One answer is energy geopolitics.

What has yet to be fully appreciated in geopolitical assessments of the Middle East
is the dramatically rising importance of the control of natural gas to the future
of not only Middle East gas producing countries,
but also of the EU and Eurasia
including Russia as producer and China as consumer.

Natural gas is rapidly becoming the “clean energy” of choice to replace coal and nuclear electric generation across the European Union,
most especially since Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear after the Fukushima disaster.
Gas is regarded as far more “environmentally friendly” in terms of its so-called “carbon footprint.”
The only realistic way EU governments, from Germany to France to Italy to Spain, will be able to meet EU mandated CO2 reduction targets by 2020
is a major shift to burning gas instead of coal.
Gas reduces CO2 emissions by 50-60% over coal.
Given that the economic cost of using gas instead of wind or other alternative energy forms is dramatically lower,
gas is rapidly becoming the energy of demand for the EU, the biggest emerging gas market in the world.

Huge gas resource discoveries in Israel, in Qatar and in Syria combined with the emergence of the EU as the world’s potentially largest natural gas consumer,
combine to create the seeds of the present geopolitical clash over the Assad regime.

Syria-Iran-Iraq Gas pipeline

In July 2011, as the NATO and Gulf states’ destabilization operations against Assad in Syria were in full swing,
the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic gas pipeline energy agreement
which went largely unnoticed amid CNN reports of the Syrian unrest.
The pipeline, envisioned to cost $10 billion and take three years to complete, would run from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory.
Iran ultimately plans then to extend the pipeline from Damascus to Lebanon’s Mediterranean port where it would be delivered to EU markets.
Syria would buy Iranian gas along with a current Iraqi agreement to buy Iranian gas from Iran’s part of South Pars field.
South Pars, whose gas reserves lie in a huge field that is divided between Qatar and Iran in the Gulf,
is believed to be the world’s largest single gas field.
De facto it would be a Shi’ite gas pipeline from Shi’ite Iran via Shi’ite-majority Iraq onto Shi’ite-friendly Alawite Al-Assad’s Syria.

Adding to the geopolitical drama is the fact that the South Pars gas find lies smack in the middle of the territorial divide in the Persian Gulf between Shi’ite Iran and the Sunni Salafist Qatar.
Qatar also just happens to be a command hub for the Pentagon’s US Central Command, headquarters of United States Air Forces Central,
No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF, and the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF.
In brief Qatar, in addition to owning and hosting the ANTI-Al-Assad TV station Al-Jazeera, which beams ANTI-Syria propaganda across the Arab world,
Qatar is tightly linked to the US and NATO military presence in the Gulf.
Qatar apparently has OTHER PLANS with their share of the South Pars field than joining up with Iran, Syria and Iraq to pool efforts.
Qatar has NO INTEREST in the success of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline,
which would be entirely independent of Qatar or Turkey transit routes to the opening EU markets.
In fact IT IS DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO SABOTAGE IT, UP TO AND INCLUDING ARMING SYRIA'S RAG-TAG “OPPOSITION” FIGHTERS,
MANY OF THEM JIHADISTS sent in from other countries INCLUDING SAUDI ARABIA, PAKISTAN AND LIBYA.

Further adding to QATAR'S DETERMINATION TO DESTROY THE SYRIA-IRAN-IRAQ GAS COOPERATION
is the discovery in August 2011 by Syrian exploration companies of a huge new gas field in Qara
near the border with Lebanon and NEAR TO THE RUSSIAN-LEASED NAVAL PORT OF TARTUS ON THE SYRIAN MEDITERRANEAN. Any export of Syrian or Iranian gas to the EU would go through the Russian-tied port of Tartus.
According to informed Algerian sources, the new Syrian gas discoveries, though the Damascus government is downplaying it, are believed to EQUAL OR EXCEED THOSE OF QATAR.
As Asia Times’ knowledgeable analyst Pepe Escobar pointed out in a recent piece,
Qatar’s scheme calls for export of its huge gas reserves via Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba,
a country where a Muslim Brotherhood THREAT TO THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE KING IS ALSO THREATENING.
The Emir of Qatar has apparently CUT A DEAL WITH THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
in which he backs their international expansion
in return for a pact of peace at home in Qatar.
A Muslim Brotherhood regime in Jordan and also in Syria, backed by Qatar, would change the entire geopolitics of the world gas market
suddenly and decisively in Qatar’s favor
AND TO THE DISADVANTAGE OF RUSSIA, SYRIA, IRAN AND IRAQ.
That would also be A STAGGERING NEGATIVE BLOW TO CHINA.
As Escobar points out,
“it’s clear what Qatar is aiming at:
TO KILL THE U.S. $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline,
a deal that was clinched even as the Syria uprising was already underway.
Here we see QATAR IN DIRECT COMPETITION WITH both Iran (as a producer) and Syria (as a destination),
and to a lesser extent, Iraq (as a transit country).
It’s useful to remember that TEHRAN AND BAGHDAD ARE ADAMENTLY ÅGAINST REGIME CHANGE IN DAMASCUS.”
He adds, “if there’s regime change in Syria – helped by the Qatari-proposed invasion – things get much easier in Pipelineistan terms.
A more than probable Muslim Brotherhood (MB) post-Assad regime would more than welcome a Qatari pipeline.
And that would make an extension to Turkey much easier.”

Now get out of your sophomore grade school FEELINGS, LEARN how to debate, and WAKE UP.
WORLD WAR III is coming, quicker than you think.
It's going to go NUCLEAR real fast.

Read your Bible (especially about "the remnant of Syria" and "the king of the north", "the king of the south" !

[Yosemitest]

You can’t school anyone, child!

[Southack]

You aren’t capable of understanding when you’ve lost.

Houseflies have higher IQs than you.

You *first* posted your grand “comeback” post to me, in response to a poster who had schooled you about chemical weapons.

You couldn’t even keep your posters straight.

Then you tried to claim that talking about the geographical location of Sevastopol was about “feelings,” as if you had copied and pasted some post from some ancient debate.

You couldn’t even respond coherently.

Are you drunk? Or just stupid?

You certainly don’t realize that you’ve been schooled on Syria...and probably don’t realize much if anything from *any* of your own schooling...assuming that you had any.

In short, you are incoherent and idiotic. You are babbling, off-subject, confusing hard facts such as the physical location of a port city with “feelings,” and ranting as if getting in the last word, even when you do it so poorly, will somehow improve your standing here.

Internet bots carry on better debates than what you can manage.

You don’t even seem sentient. Hmmm...

[Southack]

Ah, more copy and pastes. Heck, you haven’t even read what you are posting.

You certainly don’t have the IQ to understand what it says.

[Yosemitest]

You haven[t addressed ANY FACT.
All you are is "RHETORIC".
Go away and get an education.
Its obvious you don't know what you're talking about, and it's obvious no one will hire you, not even the military.
Address the FACTS, or SHUT UP.
You have NOTHING OF VALUE to add.

[Yosemitest]

And you still DON'T ADDRESS THE FACTS.
The FACTS blow you away!

[Southack]

Of course I’ve addressed facts. I pointed out that the port city of Sevastopol was too far from Syria to be part of the current Syrian conflict.

The problem is that you are too stupid to know what a fact looks like.

You rant on, like a troll or a mindless internet autobot program.

Clueless.

[Yosemitest]

And your are WRONG on those comments, because that puny mind of yours can’t comprehend the larger picture.

[Southack]

I’m not wrong about Sevastopol being too far away from Syria to be part of the conflict.

You are clueless.

[Yosemitest]

Yes, you are.
You're just too young and too unschooled to know it.
You have no idea just how fast war expands.
You need to go enlist into the military and LEARN.

[Southack]

That’s not even what anyone was talking about.

Good grief. You are a waste of oxygen...or CPU cycles if a bot.

[Yosemitest]

Have you broken any computer keys yet?
You SHOULD be talking about FACTS, and the information you're not being told by the LAME Stream Media.
If you're very young (and YOU are), you're the one that's going to have to pay the taxes for this CRAP.
And YOU'RE the one that may get you're butt shot off, fighting to give Muslim Terrorist the gas and oil revenues of Syria.
By the way Russia and China are NOT going to just stand by and let that happen.
I'm too old to have to pay for this crap for very long, or fight this war.
But you, you're a different story, and so are your friends and loved ones.
But the Kenyan Turd doesn't care.
You're just a SLAVE to him, and EXPENDABLE at that!

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

[Southack]

Are you high?

[Southack]

Well, you got to see what getting schooled looked like.

Post again when you sober up. Must’ve been quite a binder you went on.

[Yosemitest]

Child, the facts are indisputable.
I'm not like the delinquent kids of today.
My vices are unaffordable on an enlisted military retirement income.
And besides, there are too many other people counting on me for their care.
What will YOU DO when the Obama administration re-institutes the DRAFT, and you are called?
Will you serve the Kenyan Turd, and his minions and go fight one group of DISGUSTING ARABS for the Muslim Terrtorists for oil and gas revenues?
Your public schooling education fails you.
Yet, you cannot face the truth.
So you look for excuses to escape the harshness of the facts.
You're screwed!

[Southack]

Hey, you made bail!

Cool.

Did they put the cuffs on too tight this time, or actually remember that they had you locked in the drunk tank?