Syria's state television said rebels fired a rocket carrying chemical agents that killed 25 people and wounded dozens. The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said 16 soldiers were among the dead.
Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Meqdad, said his government would send a letter to the UN Security Council "calling on it to handle its responsibilities and clarify a limit to these crimes of terrorism and those that support it inside Syrian Arab Republic".
He warned that the violence that had engulfed Syria was a regional threat. "This is rather a starting point from which (the danger) will spread to the entire region, if not the entire world," he said.
As US President Barack Obama arrives in Israel, he does so amid a growing sense of urgency among the Israeli leadership over Iran's nuclear programme - and the possibility it will take military action to stop it.
The window in which to solve the crisis by peaceful means, estimated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN last September as this spring or summer, is closing, and the prospect of a military strike looms.
Then, the prime minister, in front of a global audience, famously produced a caricature of an Iranian "nuclear bomb" and, with a red marker pen, drew a line near the top - making crystal clear where along Iran's path of uranium enrichment Israel would not allow it to reach.
"The possibility of an Israeli strike is realistic and even probable under certain circumstances," says Brig Gen (ret) Shlomo Brom, of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
"For example, a situation in which Israel will have credible intelligence that Iran is on the verge of breaking out to military capability", a process which could take as little as a few weeks. This is the "final stage" Mr Netanyahu said he would never let Iran begin.
The top U.S. military commander in Europe said Tuesday that NATO is conducting contingency planning for possible military involvement in Syria and American forces would be prepared if called upon by the United Nations and member countries.
The Syrian civil war marked an ignominious two-year milestone this week with no sign that President Bashar Assad is close to giving up power. Adm. James Stavridis, commander of U.S. European Command, told a Senate panel that the United States is "looking at a variety of operations."
The commander said discussions within the NATO member countries have focused on imposing a no-fly zone, providing lethal support to the Syrian opposition forces and imposing arms embargoes.
Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked whether there is any consideration of targeting Syria's air defenses. Stavridis simply said yes.
More than 70 aircraft and some 1,000 troops will be deployed in a series of tactical drills in preparation for a large-scale exercise next week in northwest Russia, military officials said on Tuesday.
Preparations for the exercise, codenamed Ladoga-2013, have begun in the Republic of Karelia, and the Leningrad, Smolensk and Tver regions with tactical drills by fighters, bombers and army aviation.
North Korea warned Wednesday that it will take military action should the United States deploy B-52 strategic bombers again on the peninsula.
"We are keeping close tabs on the activity of the B-52 strategic bomber," a spokesperson for the North's foreign ministry said, according to its official news agency KCNA.
If the bomber appears again over the Korean Peninsula, it won't be able to avoid a strong military response, added the unnamed spokesperson.
The U.S. sent B-52 bombers based on Guam to Korea for ongoing joint military drills, apparently in a show of firepower.
"We are keeping close tabs on the activity of the B-52 strategic bomber," a spokesperson for the North's foreign ministry said, according to its official news agency KCNA.
If the bomber appears again over the Korean Peninsula, it won't be able to avoid a strong military response, added the unnamed spokesperson.
The U.S. sent B-52 bombers based on Guam to Korea for ongoing joint military drills, apparently in a show of firepower.
New Jersey Congressman Leonard Lance (R) has demanded an explanation from Secretary Janet Napolitano as to why the Department of Homeland Security is buying huge amounts of bullets.
Asked about the federal agency’s purchase of over 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the past year – enough to wage a 20 year plus war – as well as thousands of armored vehicles – Lance called on Congress to get involved.
“I think Congress should ask the Department about both of those issues and I would like a full explanation as to why that has been done and I have every confidence that the oversight committee ….should ask those questions,” said Lance, adding that he shared a belief, “that Congress has a responsibility to ask Secretary Napolitano as to exactly why these purchases have occurred.”
Five shells fired from Syria landed in Lebanon on Wednesday, one day after Lebanese President Michel Suleiman warned that Syrian strikes on its neighbor were an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty.
Witnesses said the shells landed in fields near al-Qasr, a village less than a mile from the border, but no one was hurt.
The Syrian government, battling a two-year-old revolt against four decades of rule by the Assad family, has warned it may strike at Syrian rebels taking refuge across the frontier.
Lebanon, which fought its own civil war from 1975 to 1990, has tried to maintain a policy of "dissociation" from Syria's conflict.
But many citizens fear their country is increasingly at risk of being dragged into the neighboring conflict, in which more than 70,000 people have been killed.
Years ago while writing for Neithercorp Press I penned an article entitled “One Day Soon, We’ll All Be Homegrown Terrorists”. In that piece I described a not so far off future in which martial law, economic collapse, and the destruction of civil liberties stood imminent. I related my views on the propaganda rhetoric of the SPLC, and how they were using false association to tie liberty groups to any deviant organization they could think of, including racists and domestic terrorists, in order to condition the American public to react to our message with immediate contempt.
It became clear to me then that the SPLC, which had become the propaganda wing of the widely reviled Department Of Homeland Security, was helping set the stage for a paradigm shift in the U.S. This shift would obviously include economic and social disruption, as well as political turmoil beyond anything our nation has seen for over 150 years. But most importantly, it would pave the way for certain elements of the American populace, namely those who are awake, aware, and outspoken, to be labeled “enemy combatants” dangerous to the state.
It became clear to me then that the SPLC, which had become the propaganda wing of the widely reviled Department Of Homeland Security, was helping set the stage for a paradigm shift in the U.S. This shift would obviously include economic and social disruption, as well as political turmoil beyond anything our nation has seen for over 150 years. But most importantly, it would pave the way for certain elements of the American populace, namely those who are awake, aware, and outspoken, to be labeled “enemy combatants” dangerous to the state.
Though posing as an anti-racist monitoring institution, the SPLC’s primary concern has never been the KKK or “White Identity”. Rather, the SPLC’s job has been and always will be to marginalize and defame those who stand against centralized federal power, regardless of how corrupt that power has become. They are not anti-racists, or liberals, or concerned citizens; they are STATISTS, who only care about maintaining the superiority of a government that has been bought and paid for many times over by a gaggle of international financiers with delusions of godhood.
Just as the public is on a shrinking timeline, so are the elites. For every burst forward in our efforts to wake up the population to the loss of their freedoms and heritage, they must speed up their plans to gain economic and political supremacy. The harder you pull on the ends of a frayed rope in opposite directions, the sooner it is going to snap.
Today, as never before, I believe our culture has reached the breaking point, which is why the SPLC has pushed their attacks on the Liberty Movement into overdrive with manipulative media hit pieces like this:
The Department Of Homeland Security has in only a few years placed orders for ammunition totaling at least 1.6 billion rounds, and new orders indicate they may be accumulating over 2 billion rounds. The DHS has initiated a disinformation campaign through the mainstream media claiming that this ammunition stockpile, which is to be delivered over the course of five years, is for “training purposes only”. Here is the reality…
First, by the department’s own numbers, training and qualification exercises taking place in three facilities nationwide use a total of 15 – 20 million rounds of ammo yearly. This means that if the DHS claims are true, they have ordered enough ammo to last a minimum of 75 years! No government agency plans this far ahead.
Second, the DHS and most federal and state law enforcement agencies DO NOT use hollow point pistol ammo and expensive Sierra Match King hollow point sniper rounds for “training”. Anyone who knows anything about combat simulation training knows that you use the cheapest plinking ammo you can find, and this includes the government. The ammo purchased by the DHS is used for one thing only; killing people.
Third, if this ammo is being used only for non-threatening purposes, then why is the DHS now redacting order requests in a ploy to hide what they are purchasing?
First, by the department’s own numbers, training and qualification exercises taking place in three facilities nationwide use a total of 15 – 20 million rounds of ammo yearly. This means that if the DHS claims are true, they have ordered enough ammo to last a minimum of 75 years! No government agency plans this far ahead.
Second, the DHS and most federal and state law enforcement agencies DO NOT use hollow point pistol ammo and expensive Sierra Match King hollow point sniper rounds for “training”. Anyone who knows anything about combat simulation training knows that you use the cheapest plinking ammo you can find, and this includes the government. The ammo purchased by the DHS is used for one thing only; killing people.
Third, if this ammo is being used only for non-threatening purposes, then why is the DHS now redacting order requests in a ploy to hide what they are purchasing?
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