Calling itself the "Armed Men of the Muslim Brotherhood", the militia has a presence in Damascus as well as opposition hot spots like Homs and Idlib. One of their organisers, who called himself Abu Hamza, said that he started the movement along with a member of the Syrian National Council (SNC), the opposition alliance."Our mission is to build a civil country but with an Islamic base," he said. "We are trying to raise awareness for Islam and for jihad."The Syrian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood has been revitalised by the organisation's success in Egypt, where it won both parliamentary and presidential elections.
Iran has successfully test-fired the fourth generation of its Fateh-110 missile, Iranian Defense Minister Brig.-Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Saturday.According to the Fars News Agency, Vahidi said that the new version of the Fateh-110, which means "conqueror" in Farsi, has increased accuracy and has a range of 300 kilometers."With the fourth-generation of the Fateh 110, the armed forces of our country are able to target and destroy land and sea targets, enemy headquarters ... missile seats, ammunition sites, radars and other points," Vahidi said in quotes carried by Islamic Republic News Agency.The missile is of particular interest to Israel since Hezbollah has hundreds of M600 missiles, which are copies of the Fateh-110. Hezbollah is believed to be storing the M600 in private homes throughout southern and central Lebanon.
Analysts say that the West has security plans for major intervention to secure the stocks in the event it looks like the Syrians will use chemical weapons, but there are serious drawbacks to this prospect.
Short of direct outside military intervention to secure the sites, the West could rely on the rebels to capture the facilities. However, there is serious trepidation with that idea, since the West isn’t entirely sure of the composition of the rebel forces, fearing that they increasingly are being infiltrated by more radical Salafists and al-Qaida. That would put the chemicals in the wrong hands .
Analysts believe it would take a force of at least 75,000 troops to secure the facilities. Some have proposed airstrikes and the use of cruise missiles, but the inherent problem with that approach is the potential for the release of hazardous chemicals into the surrounding area, causing serious casualties.Given that it would take a sizeable military force to secure all the sites, such a mission “would fully implicate the United States in another major war in the Middle East,” the report said.. “Intervention would be a precarious task fraught with geopolitical risk and consequences.”
The small village of Buqata is located on the Israeli side of the border that extends across the Golan Heights. From here, it's possible to see deep into Syrian territory. Right at the foot of the hill lies Jubata al-Khashab, a town just 55 kilometers (34 miles) southwest of Damascus, Syria's capital.Every day, hundreds of concerned Israelis have been gathering along the barbed wire at the border and using binoculars to gaze at their neighbors in Jubata al-Khashab, who have been subjected to artillery fire in recent days. Thick clouds of smoke have been billowing from concrete apartment complexes there.The war is close by and, whenever an Arab dictator falls, anxiety spreads throughout Israel: Will the toppling tyrant drag the Jewish state and perhaps the entire region into chaos? This fear already existed back in 2003 when the US and its allies attacked Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein. It was a similar story with the fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and, to a certain degree, the demise of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Now, this fear has been rekindled.
In Jerusalem, one can imagine several of them. For example, a horror scenario in which terrorists could attack Israel with rockets, including from the Golan Heights, amid the general chaos. But military leaders are even more concerned about the Syrian regime's chemical weapons. They could be slipped into Lebanon by Hezbollah or fall into the hands of terrorists in Syria. Or, as a last resort, Assad could launch missiles armed with poison gas at Israel, as well as at Jordan and Turkey.There is a deep-seated fear that despots react irrationally whenever their survival is threatened.Chemical weapons have already been unscrupulously used in the region on more than one occasion. In the 1960s, Egypt used poison-gas bombs during Cairo's intervention in the civil war in Yemen. And, in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein used poison gas against Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War -- and to murder large numbers of his own population."Once Hezbollah gets its hands on chemical weapons, someone will teach them how to use them," says Isaac Ben Israel, the former head of the Israeli military's research department. "The Iranians and the Syrians have already taught them how to launch long-range missiles."
"If we have information that Hezbollah or al-Qaida are about to put hands on non-conventional weapons, we will spare no effort in preventing this," adds Danny Yatom, a former chief of the Mossad. He adds that even airstrikes on a weapons depot could not be ruled out if Hezbollah was about to get its hands on poison gas.
This was confirmed last week by a high-ranking official from Jerusalem: "If the Syrians pull out their missiles, arm them with chemical warheads or leave them to Hezbollah, this would be seen as a reason to attack Syria -- even if it led to a war. A country has to maintain its red lines."
I'm tired of the lies.And obviously, so are a lot of other people. I don't think America has ever seen such an outpouring of support before for a business as we have seen for Chick-fil-A in the past weekChick-fil-A incorporates the first and the second great commandments into theirbusiness model:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
How refreshing. The next time you hear someone ranting about "corporate greed," remember what you have learned this week about the efforts of Chick-fil-A, Inc. to go the second mile for their customers. Wouldn't it be nice if the IRS were so disposed?Like Dan Cathy and millions of others, I have deeply held moral and religious convictions. And I am tired of being bullied, insulted, and lied about because I am unwilling to abandon the traditional definition of heterosexual marriage.They call us homophobes, which is defined as "fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men."But I don't fear homosexuals. I just don't see some things as they do. The charge is a lie.
They say I am motivated by hate. That's the biggest lie. I don't hate anyone.
I am weary of being relentlessly charged with bigotry, homophobia, and hatred simply because I have deeply held traditional moral and religious values and refuse to be bullied into relinquishing them. I am guilty of none of these things. I love my neighbor, and I always try to treat him or her with respect. And so do most people. The overwhelming support for Chick-fil-A tells me that not only are the American people determined to stand for legitimate free speech, but, like me, they are weary of the lies.
Less than 100 days before the US presidential elections, the Obama administration is openly denying Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. Can this be a vote-getter?Last week, the Emergency Committee for Israel released an ad titled, "O, Jerusalem." The commercial showed administration officials squirming when asked to name the capital of Israel, and highlighted the recent refusals of White House and State Department spokespeople to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel's capital city. The underlying message of the ad was that the administration's policy is out of step with the views of the majority of Americans.Barack Obama's position is certainly a political outlier. The 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed nearly unanimously by both houses of Congress, explicitly stated that it is the policy of the United States that Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel. The law granted the president a right to postpone the transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on national security grounds. But the law's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital was unconditional.During his visit to Israel earlier this week, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney highlighted the fact that he holds the consensus view of the American public on Jerusalem.In his speech in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon, Romney said simply, "It is a deeply moving experience to be in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel."The Palestinians were predictably enraged.It was predictable that the Palestinians would condemn Romney for his run of the mill support for Israel and his milquetoast criticism of the Palestinians, because they reject every criticism of their behavior and take umbrage at every step anyone takes that suggests acceptance of the Jewish state or recognition of Jewish history.
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