[guide.chat] turey syria al quaida flowing into syria

  • From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2012 22:32:19 +0100

Iraq says al-Qaida fighters flowing into Syria, dangerous new element in fight 
against Assad

Syrian flag A Syrian girl lifts the centre of a giant revolutionary flag during 
a protest against President Bashar Assad in front the Syrian embassy in Amman, 
Jordan on Thursday. Mohammad Hannon/The Associated Press
BEIRUT ? Iraq asserted Thursday that al-Qaida insurgents are streaming out of 
the country to carry out attacks in Syria, an ominous development as the Syrian 
conflict enflames an already hostile region.

Extremists have been making inroads as the 16-month-old uprising against 
President Bashar Assad grinds on, bringing a dangerous new element to the 
forces fighting to topple the regime.

The militants are taking advantage of the chaos and the violence gripping 
Syria, which the head of the country?s U.N. observer mission said Thursday had 
reached ?unprecedented levels.?

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said authorities are worried that 
extremists could gain another foothold in Syria, posing a new threat to the 
stability of the entire region.

?We have solid information and intelligence that members of al-Qaida?s 
terrorist network have gone to Syria,? he told reporters in Baghdad. Zebari did 
not elaborate or provide details, but said his main concern is ?extremist, 
terrorist groups taking root in neighbouring countries.?

It?s a turnaround from the height of the Iraqi war six years ago, when weapons 
and fighters would cross from Syria to aid fellow Sunnis in Iraq. Zebari said 
Baghdad has for years warned Damascus about al-Qaida traffic between Iraq and 
Syria.

In February, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims from Iraq, 
Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to join the Syrian uprising, which began in March 
2011 with mass protests inspired by the Arab Spring, then grew into a bloody 
insurgency as the opposition took up arms to fight a fierce government 
crackdown.

Rebel fighters have launched increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and 
several suicide bombings that bear the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq indicate 
extremists are joining the fray.

Activists say more than 14,000 people have been killed since the revolt began. 
Syria severely restricts the media in the country, making it difficult to gain 
a credible account of events on the ground.

An al-Qaida-inspired group, the Al-Nusra front, claimed responsibility for 
dozens of attacks across Syria. On Tuesday, the SITE monitoring group, which 
tracks militant chatter on the internet, said the Al-Nusra Front released 
statements on extremist websites in late June saying the string of attacks were 
to avenge the killings of Syrians by the government.

Opposition activists and the rebel Free Syrian Army deny having any links to 
terrorism and say they do not have the desire or the capabilities to carry out 
massive suicide bombings and other al-Qaida-style attacks. But dozens of rebel 
groups are operating in Syria with little or no co-ordination between them.

Military defections also have been on the rise.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other opposition 
websites said Thursday that Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass ? a member of the elite 
Republican Guards and a son of a former defence minister ? reportedly defected 
and fled to Turkey. If confirmed, the defection would be a major blow to Assad.

Tlass is a top Sunni general in a regime made up mostly of members of Assad?s 
Alawite sect and was once a close confidant of the president?s.

The Observatory quoted ?multiple sources? in Syria as saying Tlass left Syria 
and was expected to formally announce his defection. Turkey did not immediately 
confirm the reports.

The violence already has drawn in Syria?s neighbours.

The bodies of two Turkish pilots were recovered from the seabed Thursday after 
U.S. ocean explorer Robert Ballard, best known for discovering the wreck of the 
Titanic, helped locate them nearly two weeks after their jet was shot down by 
Syria.

A Turkish official said Ballard, aboard his deep-sea exploration vessel R/V 
Nautilus, found the bodies Wednesday nearly 16 kilometres off the Syrian coast 
after the Turkish navy pinpointed the area. The June 22 incident fuelled 
tensions between the two neighbours and Turkey quickly deployed anti-aircraft 
missiles on the border.

The head of the country?s U.N. observer mission said the violence in Syria has 
reached unprecedented levels, insisting a cease-fire is needed in order for his 
teams to resume their work.

About 300 U.N. monitors were sent to Syria to provide an unbiased look at the 
violence as part of a peace plan put forward by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi 
Annan, but a truce has failed to take hold and the observers have been confined 
to their hotels since June 15 because of the bloodshed.

?The escalation of violence, allow me to say, to an unprecedented level, 
obstructed our ability to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local 
dialogue,? Norwegian Maj. Gen. Robert Mood told reporters in the Syrian capital 
Damascus.

He urged both sides of the conflict to have the ?moral courage to break out of 
the cycle of violence? and engage in dialogue.

?The longer the violence goes on, with more civilians killed or trapped in the 
line of fire, the more difficult it will become to have a peaceful transition,? 
he said.

Activists reported at least 26 people killed across Syria Thursday in clashes 
between troops and rebels and government shelling on suburbs of the capital 
Damascus, the central Homs region and rebel-held areas in northern and southern 
Syria.

More than 200,000 Syrians have so far fled the country overland, seeking refuge 
in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

The president of Cyprus, Dimitris Christofias, said the island nation has drawn 
up contingency plans to receive a possible influx of evacuees from Syria if 
necessary.

Cyprus is only 105 kilometres west of Syria.

Russia, a main ally of the Syrian regime, said it was not considering offering 
asylum to Assad. The statement came after respected Russian daily newspaper 
Kommersant quoted diplomatic sources on Wednesday as saying that Western 
nations are pushing Moscow to do so.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has no such plans, and he insisted 
such an invitation would not make sense because ?Syrians themselves need to 
find common ground.?

Also Thursday, the secret-spilling group Wikileaks said it was in the process 
of publishing material from 2.4 million Syrian emails ? many of which it said 
came from official government accounts.

WikiLeaks? Sarah Harrison told journalists in London that the emails reveal 
interactions between the Syrian government and Western companies, although she 
declined to go into much further detail.

Harrison quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying that ?the material 
is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria?s external 
opponents.?


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