In Cairo, desperate Egyptian men search in vain for Syrian brides
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/14/191195/in-cairo-desperate-egyptian-men.html
“They ask us where the office is to buy a Syrian woman, as if they are buying a chicken. They don’t believe us when we tell them it doesn’t exist,” said Khalid, who said he was 26. “Our women are not for sale. We are here because we did not want to be killed.”
UAE Ministry Issues Lebanon Travel Warning » Gulf Business
http://gulfbusiness.com/2013/05/uae-ministry-issues-lebanon-travel-warning
Emirati citizens have been warned not to travel to Lebanon “for their own safety” due to the current situation in Syria spilling over the border, official news agency WAM has reported.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ advice against travelling to the country, which is popular with wealthy Arabs vacationing in the Middle East, echoes an identical warning it made in December last year.
The advice comes after hundreds of Syrians in the Lebanese city of Sidon held a demonstration on Sunday in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
“If necessary, holders of diplomatic and special passports planning to travel to Lebanon should obtain prior permits from the Ministry and should coordinate with it before departure by calling the Ministry on 02-4449600,” a statement from the Ministry said.
Holders of normal passports will be required to sign a pledge at the airport to take full responsibility when they travel to Lebanon.
Syrian Opposition “Rearranging Cards” in Preparation for Geneva II | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syrian-opposition-“rearranging-cards”-preparation-geneva-ii
It is as if the marching order has come from the US Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow: Forward unto Geneva II, the follow-up conference to a June 2012 meeting to end the conflict in Syria. A renewed sense of realism has pushed the administration of US President Barack Obama to finally agree to share the ‘Syrian pie’ with the Kremlin.
Syria : Secularism Takes a Backseat in Latakia
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-secularism-takes-backseat-latakia
But perhaps the most disturbing upshot of the “existential war” between the regime and its opponents in Latakia is the retreat toward religion. In a city that has long been known for the secular-leaning and open-minded attitudes of its residents, many have now sought refuge in their sectarian identities.
Clerics have staged a comeback, having had suffered a great decline in recent years. Of particular note is the clerical gathering known as the Islamic Alawi Council of Syria and Overseas. Though founded in 2007, most Syrians have never heard of this council.
[…]
However, this prompted some Alawi Syrians to wonder whether the council, too, represented anyone else but themselves. Such quarrels are now endemic to the Alawis, a community without a central religious leadership or hierarchy.
America’s hidden agenda in Syria’s war - The National
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/americas-hidden-agenda-in-syrias-war
Then, by the rebel commander’s account, the discussion took an unexpected turn.
The Americans began discussing the possibility of drone strikes on Al Nusra camps inside Syria and tried to enlist the rebels to fight their fellow insurgents.
“The US intelligence officer said, ’We can train 30 of your fighters a month, and we want you to fight Al Nusra’,” the rebel commander recalled.
Opposition forces should be uniting against Mr Al Assad’s more powerful and better-equipped army, not waging war among themselves, the rebel commander replied. The response from a senior US intelligence officer was blunt.
“I’m not going to lie to you. We’d prefer you fight Al Nusra now, and then fight Assad’s army. You should kill these Nusra people. We’ll do it if you don’t,” the rebel leader quoted the officer as saying.
Syrian refugees ’sold for marriage’ in Jordan
Before the war began, Kazal was in love with her neighbour in Homs. “He was 20 years old and I dreamed of marrying him one day,” she says. “I never thought I would marry someone I didn’t love, but my family and I have been through some hard times since coming to Amman.”
Les ambiguïtés du discours de Nasrallah et les problèmes de sa traduction vus par la BBC
Hezbollah chief’s ambiguous phrase on Syria arms raises translation headache
Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah’s mention in his 9 May speech of new weaponry has had translators and journalists scratching their heads and scouring their dictionaries for a clear, consistent and meaningful translation.
Differences have emerged in Western news agency reports of the speech, Arabic English-language media and even Iranian news sources; all of them coming up with alternative phrases for a key passage.
In the literal translation of his speech, broadcast live on Al-Manar TV, Nasrallah says Syria would supply his movement with “qualitative weaponry” that would be considered as a “balance-breaker” in the region.
BBC Monitoring translates Nasrallah as saying in his speech: “The first response, you Israelis must know, if you considered Syria as a weapon corridor to the resistance, then Syria will give weaponry to the Resistance. This is a major strategic decision. More than that, if you [Israel] claim that your aggression’s aim is to prevent the expansion of the Resistance’s capability, then Syria will give the Resistance qualitative weaponry that the Resistance has never obtained until now. This is higher than a matter of capability expansion; we went for a balance-breaker.”
The key phrase in Nasrallah’s speech is “silahan naw’iyyan lam tahsal ’alayhi al-muqawama hatta al-an”, which BBC Monitoring translates as “qualitative weaponry that the Resistance has never obtained until now”.
Elsewhere, Nasrallah’s choice of the Arabic word for “qualitative” - “naw’i” - has also been interpreted as “game-changing”, “sophisticated” and “strategic”. Reuters, for example, quotes Nasrallah as saying: “then Syria will give the resistance sophisticated weapons the like of which it hasn’t seen before” Meanwhile AFP quotes the same passage from the Hezbollah leader as “Syria will provide (Hezbollah) with game-changing weapons it has not had before”
BBC Monitoring notes that Nasrallah uses the Arabic word “silah” - the singular form denoting weapon or weaponry - instead of the plural form “asliha” for weapons. It is used throughout in conjunction with the ambiguous term “qualitative”.
In the passage, Nasrallah uses the phrase “kasir lil-tawazun” (balance shifting, literally balance breaking), which may account for the “game-changing” translation elsewhere.
Iranian, pan-Arab coverage
Iran’s conservative student news agency ISNA quotes the key passage from Nasrallah in this way: “Syria will provide the Resistance with strategic weapons which the Resistance has never had before We are ready to receive any type of weapon; even if it upsets the current balance in the region.” (Farsi: amma [Syria] selahhay-e stratezhiqki be moghavemat khahad daad ke ta konoon moghavemat aan ra dar ekhtiyar nadashte ast.)
Iran’s conservative news website Tabnak uses the following phrase as a direct quote: “They will be unique weapons which the Resistance has never possessed before.” (Farsi: [Syria] selahhay-e monhaserbefardi khahad daad ke ta konoon moghavemat aan ra dar ekhtiyar nadashte ast.)
Iran’s English-language Press TV also chooses the term “unique” on its website: “Nasrallah said Hezbollah has the capability to obtain what he described as unique weapons that could be used to defend Lebanon against the enemies.”
The English-language Arabic source Al Jazeera TV website borrows both the Reuters and the AFP wording: “The head of Hezbollah has said he is ready to receive ’game-changing’ weapons from Syria, which has long been a conduit for Iranian weapons bound for the Lebanese armed group The resistance [against Israel] is prepared to accept any sophisticated weaponry even if it was to break the equilibrium [in the region],” Al Jazeera quotes Nasrallah directly saying in his speech.
Source: Media observation by BBC Monitoring in English 10 May 13
« silahan naw’iyyan » : « deux sortes d’armes » me dit-on, et non pas « qualitative weaponry »
Deux sortes d’armes se dit « naw’aan min as silah » (en appuyant sur les deux « a »). « Naw’iyyan » c’est « qualitatif » au superlatif.
Dans ce passage précisément :
In the passage, Nasrallah uses the phrase “kasir lil-tawazun” (balance shifting, literally balance breaking), which may account for the “game-changing” translation elsewhere.
Il se trouve justement qu’en ce moment Israéliens et Américains, repris en cœur dans leurs médias, utilisent l’expression « game-changing ». Nasrallah utilise-t-il lui-même la même expression en arabe ? Si on traduit la propagande israélienne et son « game-changing » en arabe, est-ce qu’on utilise directement la même tournure « kasir lil-tawazun » que Nasrallah, ou est-ce qu’on trouverait cette traduction un peu tirée par les cheveux ?
Ma question en clair :
– est-ce que c’est Nasrallah qui, volontairement, reprend la phrase à la mode de la propagande israélienne (« game changing ») ?
– ou bien est-ce l’AFP (et Al Jazeera) qui trouve malin de lui faire utiliser – quitte à tirer un peu sur la précision de la traduction – exactement l’expression qui correspond à l’axe de comm du moment de nos potes israéliens ?
Dans les deux cas, ce serait fort cocasse.
kasr lil-tawazun c’est littéralement rompre l’équilibre, mais l’expression a été utilisée auparavant par les média.
Has the Obama administration Given into Russia on Syria?
http://www.juancole.com/2013/05/administration-russia-syria.html
There seems little doubt that the Obama administration took a big step back from the brink in Moscow this week, and that rumors of an American push to arm the rebels are, in the light of this diplomacy, overblown.
Information à prendre avec précaution - elle vient de sources officielles israéliennes qui l’aurait transmise à Washington - un accord de vente d’armes serait sur le point d’avoir lieu entre Moscou et Damas pour la vente de missiles sol-air S-300, selon le Wall Street Journal. Précision : ces missiles S-300 capables d’abattre des avions de combat et des missiles guidés étaient les mêmes que ceux que l’Iran avait souhaité acquérir auprès de la Russie :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324059704578471453006383248.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDL
Israel has warned the U.S. that a Russian deal is imminent to sell advanced ground-to-air missile systems to Syria, weapons that would significantly boost the regime’s ability to stave off intervention in its civil war.
Et voilà le résumé du problème pour les partisans d’une intervention directe en Syrie :
According to an analysis by the U.S. military’s Joint Staff, Syrian air defenses are nearly five times more sophisticated than what existed in Libya before the NATO launched its air campaign there in 2011. Syrian air defenses are about 10 times more sophisticated than the system the U.S. and its allies faced in Serbia.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-syria-defensesbre9470ue-20130508,0,1805117.story
While the effectiveness of Syria’s aging air force is unclear, most experts believe its air-defense missile system, considerably upgraded after a 2007 Israeli strike on a suspected nuclear site, remains more potent than any the United States has faced since it bombed Serbian forces in 1999.
“These recent events have not changed our assessment of the sophistication of the Syrian air defense system,” said a senior U.S. official.
That said, the United States does indeed have the power to wipe out Syria’s air defenses.
Syria has little or no protection against hard-to-stop weapons in the U.S. arsenal like B-2 stealth bombers or ship- and submarine-launched cruise missiles. Still, it would require a huge assault involving cruise missiles, and jets possibly flying either from aircraft carriers or bases in neighboring countries.
Israeli jets managed to avoid Syrian defenses twice again in recent days, but the raids were surprise strikes that experts said would have been difficult to defend against. U.S. officials said last week the Israelis did not even enter Syrian airspace in Friday’s bombing, firing missiles instead from the skies over neighboring Lebanon.
لماذا “يقاتل” حزب الله في سورية؟
Pourquoi le Hezbollah combat en Syrie, le point de vue de l’organisation
traduction en anglais ci-dessous
http://www.almanar.com.lb/adetails.php?eid=481099&cid=31&fromval=1&frid=31&seccatid=171&s1=1
Article explains Lebanese Hezbollah’s involvement in Syrian armed conflict
Text of report by Lebanese Hezbollah Al-Manar TV website on 2 May
[Article by Isra al-Fas: “Why is Hezbollah ’fighting’ in Syria?”]
Media exaggerations about battles Hezbollah is waging in Syria and about the number of the party’s martyrs in those battles or the number of those killed from the other side made people ask: Is Hezbollah really fighting in Syria? Why? Under what headline? Does the fight have a sectarian dimension in which the resistance, which often warned against sectarian strife, fell?
These are legitimate questions given the good reputation that Hezbollah built and entrenched over long years, during which it managed to change the equation and impose its balances of power in the face of the Israeli occupation, and given the ferocious media campaign that has Hezbollah’s “fight” in Syria as its main headline and the relentless media incitement that has been going on for two years now and that finds it easy to give the conflict a sectarian dimension.
Critics say that Hezbollah sends fighters under the headline of protecting holy shrines, which means that the party fell in the trap of a sectarian strife. They claim that through the party’s participation, the battle took a Sunni-Shi’i dimension. But how do those who are not influenced by this incitement read the situation?
Hezbollah’s record, to which the party’s secretary general implicitly referred in his speech the day before yesterday, gives answers to all these questions. The party, which in its repeated positions warned against sectarian strife, did not declare holy war when Iraq’s sanctities were violated and shrines of some infallible imams were bombed. Hezbollah did not support the demands of the Bahraini protesters when they went beyond the call for political reforms to a call for the removal of the king after the authorities demolished 30 Shi’i mosques, sabotaged dozens of worship places, and burned copies of the holy Koran.
In all those events, Hezbollah repeated its warning against sectarian strife, showing understanding each time for the sentiments of the followers of the sect, stressing that holy places do not belong to a certain Islamic group to the exclusion of the others, and always emphasizing that “greater jihad” must be directed towards the Zionist occupation.
Hezbollah’s policy did not change, just as the sentiments and feelings of the masses towards their holy places did not and will not change. But the conflict in Syria has another dimension that everyone near and far realizes - except, that is, for those who are under the full influence of the tendentious propaganda.
Hezbollah, which from the beginning of the events in Syria said it understood the reform demands that were raised and presented initiatives along with its allies to ease the tension, saw a new dimension of what Syria was witnessing. It warned others against riding the wave and spoke about a conspiracy targeting Syria and its role in the region and about attempts by some regimes to settle scores with the Syrian regime because of the support it offered for the resistance movements. Hezbollah also saw in the events an attempt to target an entire axis of which the party is a mainstay.
Hezbollah stresses that the conflict in Syria has an international dimension linked to the regime’s options with regard to the issue of resistance and opposition. The party sees itself as the next target. Perhaps the kidnapping of the Lebanese in A’zaz helped validate and entrench the party’s vision among the party’s supporters, who came to realize that sectarian affiliation is enough justification for attacks and blackmail in the bazaar of the international conflict with the resistance, the tools of which are armed groups affiliated with the intelligence agencies of countries that played a key role in the escalation of the crisis, without the crime of kidnapping civilians affecting the positions of those who supported the “Syrian revolution” as a “freedom-seeking” movement.
The prevailing conviction today is that any success in dismantling the resistance axis militarily, through the toppling of the Syrian regime, would not spare Hezbollah and others, especially after the failure of previous diplomatic efforts to distance Syria from this axis. Hezbollah’s supporters realize the dimensions of the battle and know its backgrounds. This is reflected in people’s acceptance of the fall of Hezbollah martyrs who confronted military attacks on their villages and property in border regions. Hezbollah supporters accepted to wage those battles in order to protect their lands and property, as they did in the past, after the State failed to carry out this mission.
Hezbollah and its supporters are paying the price of their enlightened reading of the events and their dimensions. The media propaganda, which fabricates news to produce reactions, portrays their self defence as “fighting” and “war crimes”. As a result of this propaganda, those who yesterday denounced “the Iraqi democracy that was imposed by the American tank” are the same ones who are today inviting this tank to come to Syria. The administration that “sponsors democracies” in the region is the same administration that refused to recognize a government produced by a popular will in Gaza in 2006 only because it is a resistance government.
Source: Al-Manar Television website, Beirut, in Arabic 0000 gmt 2 May 13
BBC Mon ME1 MEEauosc 080513 or
Iran says will turn Golan into ‘Fatahland’ - Israel News, Ynetnews
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4377663,00.html
After alleged Israel attack on Syria, Iran issues war-like declarations, orders Assad army to protect homeland, according to Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper. ‘Front open to Syrians, Palestinians, to all who wish to fight Israel’
Roi Kais
Will the latest attack allegedly carried out by Israel on the Syrian front awaken a military response from the Assad regime and its supporters?
On Wednesday, the Hezbollah-identified Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar quoted Iranian officials who claimed that Iran received a message from the United States and Russia stating that the alleged Israeli airstrike was not an attempt to launch a war against Syria.
According to the sources, Tehran responded to both sides by stating that operational command officers of the Syrian army were ordered to automatically respond to any attack against their homeland.
As with other reactions in recent days, it appears that the involved parties are intent upon warning against future attacks, and not eager to enter into a full scale war.
Iranian officials have warned that their reaction to preceived aggressions would likely would be expressed in one of two ways. The first, one of the sources said, would be “a blow below the belt in more than one location,” both within and outside of Syria, as they approached “the Day of Judgment.”
The same source indicated that “a final decision has been taken to turn the Golan Heights into the new ‘Fatahland’ and the front will be open to “Syrians, Palestinians and to all who want to fight Israel.”
The second manner of response, according to the same sources, would be expressed on the political level. Preparations are currently underway for a far-reaching Syria conference, to be held in Tehran, in which the Syrian regime will be represented by Syrian Minister for National Reconcilation Ali Haider and by the Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil.
In addition, preparations are underway for an international conference of states designated “Friends of the Syrian people,” which is scheduled to take place two weeks from now in Tehran. Forty states have been invited to participate. Iran will take the opportunity to announce a new initiative to solve the crisis in Syria.
The Kuwaiti newspaper, Alrai, quoted statements by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in closed meetings. He rejected the possibility that Israel would enter into southern Lebanon, because, according to him, Israel knows Lebanon would become its “cemetery.” He was quoted as saying that “the Iron Dome (missile defense system) which Israel boasts about has proven that it is more feeble than a spider web."
The report also said that Nasrallah recently participated in more than one session of the Hezbollah’s “Jihad Council.” The newspaper claimed that during these meetings, the secretary-general stated, “Israel believes that if it attacks facilities and strategic stockpiles, it changes the resistance capabilities. This is an erroneous assessment.” He said,"The reason being that the stocks of the resistance have been filled with all that it needs."
Nasrallah also warned, “If Israel attacks any (arms) cache of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the response will be immediate and total war.”
US Asked Moderate Syrian Rebels to Fight Al-Nusra « Antiwar.com Blog
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/08/us-asked-moderate-syrian-rebels-to-fight-al-nusra
US foreign policy is constantly remedying the catastrophes it has previously wrought. Bush’s war for regime change in Iraq gave rise to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Obama’s meddling (and that of his allies in the Gulf) in Syria’s civil conflict prompted AQI to move to Syria and fight Assad as Jabhat al-Nusra. Now the meddling continues to try and eliminate al-Nusra, which has quickly become the foremost element in Syria’s rebellion. It is an endless trail of failures, leading to more interventions, which lead to more failures.
Une entente russo-américaine pour mettre fin à la guerre en Syrie par la négociation ?
Syrian opposition insists on Assad’s departure before any deal - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/05/08/Syrian-opposition-insists-on-Assad-s-departure-before-any-deal.ht
Syria’s main opposition National Coalition on Wednesday said any political settlement to the country’s two-year-old conflict must start with President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, implicitly rejecting a U.S.-Russian initiative for dialogue with the regime.
U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, hailed the agreement between Washington and Moscow to push both sides in the Syrian conflict to end the bloodshed and sit down for talks.
“The National Coalition welcomes all international efforts which call for a political solution to achieve the aspirations of the Syrian people and their hope for a democratic state, so long as they begin with the departure of Bashar al-Assad and his regime,” the opposition umbrella group said.
The response could be a blow to the U.S.-Russian initiative, which is based on an international deal agreed in Geneva last year that makes no mention of Assad stepping down.
The opposition has long insisted that the embattled president cannot stay on, but the regime insists that Assad’s future will be decided in elections, with a presidential vote scheduled for 2014.
“This is the first hopeful news concerning that unhappy country in a very long time,” Brahimi said of the deal announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russia counterpart Sergei Lavrov after talks in Moscow on Tuesday.
“The statements made in Moscow constitute a very significant first step forward. It is nevertheless only a first step,” said Brahimi, who an aide said has been mulling resignation over the apparent absence of a political track to resolve a war that has killed more than 70,000 people.
“There is every reason to expect” backing for the accord from the remaining U.N. Security Council permanent members” – Britain, China and France, the veteran Algerian diplomat added.
“It is equally important that the entire region mobilizes in the support of the process.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Wednesday he will fly to the Russian resort of Sochi on Friday to discuss the Syrian conflict with President Vladimir Putin.
The U.S.-Russian deal was announced at a joint press conference, with Lavrov saying the two countries were ready to use all their resources to bring “the government and opposition to the negotiating table.”
“We agreed that Russia and the United States will encourage both the Syria government and opposition groups to find a political solution,” he said.
Lavrov and Kerry said they hoped they could convene an international conference by the end of May to build on a deal agreed by world powers in Geneva last June for a peaceful solution in Syria.
The Geneva deal, which calls for a transitional government but makes no mention of Assad’s fate, “should be the roadmap... by which the people of Syria can find their way to the new Syria and in which the bloodshed, the killing, the massacres can end,” Kerry said.
C’est sûr, on peut trouver une meilleure source pour ce genre d’info, mais je la poste quand même.
Iranians urged to join Shiite fighters in Syria - Israel News, Ynetnews
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4377963,00.html
A website affiliated with the supporters of Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, posted a call to arms, inviting Iranians to volunteer and join the fighting currently underway in Syria.
In another article published by the same website, names and telephone numbers for those interested in volunteering were made available, allowing them to text or call for further information.
Attached to the article was Hezbollah’s logo and written underneath it was the name of one of the most famous of Shiite battalions currently fighting in Syria – Abu Fadl Al-Abbas.
U.S., Russia push for rapid talks to end Syria carnage: Russia and the United States agreed to bury their differences over Syria and to try to convene international talks with both sides in the civil war to end the carnage that is inflaming the Middle East. Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces new calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month involving both President Bashar al-Assad’s government and his opponents. (Reuters)
L’agence de presse iranienne Fars News Agency commente longuement la cybe-rattaque syrienne contre Israël.
Fars News Agency :: Syrian Electronic Army Hacks Israel’s Main Infrastructure (SCADA)
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107168206
The SEA said it has hacked into the Haifa infrastructural system at around 22:00 (local time) Monday night, underlining that the hacking was done in retaliation for the recent Israeli strike on a research center in suburban Damascus.
“We would like to announce that in response to the unfair and illegal attacks of Israel on DATE, the SEA has penetrated one of the main infrastructural systems (SCADA) in Haifa and managed to gain access to some sensitive data,” SEA said in a message left for the Israeli operators of Haifa SCADA system.
“Also, the SEA is now able to cause irrecoverable damage to the Israelis’ infrastructural systems,” it added.
Israel staged an airstrike on Syria on Sunday, hitting the Jamraya research center in the vicinity of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out the airstrike - the third in the last few months - after heavy losses were inflicted on al-Qaeda-affiliated groups by the Syrian army.
The SEA warned that it could cause a major blast by continuing the attack on the servers of the Haifa infrastructural systems, but avoided further move due to inescapable human casualties as it did not want a story like the recent accident in Texas which claimed the lives of dozens of the people.
“This message carries a serious warning to the Israeli statesmen. They should know that not receiving a quick reaction to such childish ventures does not show the Syrian inability in doing so, but it is based on wisdom and humanity considerations. We do not approve of killing civilians and innocent people as this is an Israeli type of solution,” added the message.
“Also an advice to those who left their homelands for many years, dreaming a happy and safe life, deceived by politicians whose deed is much far from their slogans; Do the best to express your objection to Israeli policies, since we do not like to see innocent people getting killed like in Texas, US, but this time in Haifa.”
The SEA has recently gathered a name for itself in the hacking market by successful attacks on a wide range of the western media, most notably the hacking of AP Twitter accounts and sending of bogus messages which wreaked havoc on stock exchanges. The hackers tweeted that President Obama had been injured in a bomb attack at the White House, causing a temporary 143-point drop on the Dow Jones industrial average.
In an apparent effort to cause disruption and embarrassment in the West and to spread support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the SEA has so far hacked the Guardian, the BBC (including BBC weather, BBC Arabic Online and BBC Radio Ulster), France 24 TV, the National Public Radio in the United States, al-Jazeera, the government of Qatar, E!, and Sepp Blatter, the president of football’s governing body Fifa, whose Twitter account was hacked.
Cybersecurity experts told the Guardian that the SEA attacks are designed to disrupt and embarrass the West and pro-Israeli lobbies, states and entities.
In the BBC case, the SEA, which emerged two years ago, hacked into the Twitter accounts of the British broadcaster and sent nine bogus tweets in an hour, including some with anti-Israeli sentiments, and others saying “Long Live Syria”, and the “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here”.
Guardian itself believes that the SEA attack was a reprisal for a number of leaked emails from the Assads and their inner circle that it had published.
Hours after the cyber-attack began, the SEA said it has targeted the Guardian for spreading “lies and slander about Syria” and said it was in a “state of war with the security team of Twitter”.
But this last cyberattack is certainly a boost in the platform of SEA operations as it required much more sophisticated knowledge and capabilities compared with the previous hackings; giving the Syrian Electronic Army the opportunity to rise to a different level of fame.
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) is a type of industrial control system (ICS). Industrial control systems are computer controlled systems that monitor and control industrial processes that exist in the physical world. SCADA systems historically distinguish themselves from other ICS systems by being large scale processes that can include multiple sites, and large distances. These processes include industrial, infrastructure, and facility-based processes.
Industrial processes include those of manufacturing, production, power generation, fabrication, and refining, and may run in continuous, batch, repetitive, or discrete modes.
Infrastructure processes may be public or private, and include water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, oil and gas pipelines, electrical power transmission and distribution, wind farms, civil defense siren systems, and large communication systems.
Facility processes occur both in public facilities and private ones, including buildings, airports, ships, and space stations. They monitor and control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC), access, and energy consumption.
Hackers usually leave a couple of files for their colleagues to prove that their allegations are true. The SEA has left the following files on its website to show others in the hacking industry that it has had a successful security breach and hacking into the Haifa SCADA system.
La Syrie complètement coupée de l’Internet
http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2013/05/08/la-syrie-completement-coupee-de-l-internet_3173302_3218.html
semblerait que ça revienne en ce moment :
https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/explorer/?r=SY&l=EVERYTHING&csd=1367946029273&ced=1368023397318
Syria Internet back up after day-long outage | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/syria-crisis-internet-idUSL6N0DP3T920130508
Syrian state news agency SANA quoted the Director General of the General Establishment for Communications Bakr Bakr as saying that Internet services and communication between provinces had gone down due to a malfunction in an optic cable.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors both President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces and the rebels, cited military sources who said the blackout was part of a security force operation.
(...)
Assad’s forces have often shut down telephone and Internet connections in some cities or neighbourhoods during major combat operations. Opposition activists accuse them of doing the same during alleged massacres that killed hundreds of people.
Most recently, communications appeared to have been cut in the coastal towns of Banias and Baida during what activists said were widespread executions that killed hundreds of people, including dozens of children.
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/87kuqcetviof28v/internet-syrie-retour.png
Syria cut off from global Internet as civil war rages - Middle East - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/syria-cut-off-from-global-internet-as-civil-war-rages-1.519841
Internet connections between Syria and the outside world were cut off on Tuesday, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies.
Google’s Transparency Report pages showed traffic to Google services pages from the country, embroiled in a civil war that has lasted more than two years, suddenly stopping shortly before 3 PM EDT.
The vast majority of websites within Syria were rendered unreachable as well, other experts said, as the county appeared to shut itself off.
“Effectively, the shutdown disconnects Syria from Internet communication with the rest of the world. It’s unclear whether Internet communication within Syria is still available,” wrote Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer at infrastructure services firm OpenDNS.
“Although we can’t yet comment on what caused this outage, past incidents were linked to both government-ordered shutdowns and damage to the infrastructure, which included fiber cuts and power outages.”
Hubbard wrote on an OpenDNS blog that a similar Internet blackout in Syria occurred in November and lasted three days. About 80 Internet pathways normally are listed by Syrian providers, but only three were being advertised to machines searching for connections late on Tuesday.
The Syrian ambassador could not immediately be reached for comment.
Fars News Agency :: Former Egyptian Envoy : Israel’s Attack to Increase Arabs’ Political Support for Syria
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107168128
Former Egyptian Ambassador to Damascus Mahmoud Shokri said that the Israeli attack on Syria had a positive outcome as it has increased Arab support for the Syrian government.
Diplomatic source : Iranian FM meets Assad | Maan News Agency
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=593247
DAMASCUS (AFP) — Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, whose country is one of Syria’s closest allies, held talks with President Bashar Assad on a previously unannounced visit to Damascus on Tuesday, an Iranian diplomatic source said.
“Salehi arrived in Damascus from Amman and was received by President Bashar Assad,” the source said.
In the Jordanian capital, Iran’s top diplomat called for dialogue between the Syrian regime and “peaceful” opposition groups, warning that the impact of the conflict would affect the entire region.
Salehi’s visit comes after Israel reportedly carried out two separate attacks against Syrian sites last week.
Iran condemned those strikes and has said it is ready to train the Syrian army, which is in its third year of a conflict against rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.
Syrie-Russie-Israël-Négociations israélo palestiniennes.
Poutine met en garde Netanyahou contre toute nouvelle intervention en Syrie et fait savoir que de nouvelles armes russes pourront être fournies à Damas. John Kerry, en visite à Moscou, reçoit un discours similaire : « pas question de renverser Assad ». En préalable à la visite de Netanyahou en Chine, le Président Xi rend public ses idées sur le règlement du conflit israélo-palestinien (le « plan de paix chinois » dans l’article).
US to arm Syrian rebels: Putin’s rebuke, Chinese “peace plan” mar Netanyahu’s Chinese trip
DEBKAfile Special Report May 7, 2013, 2:19 PM (IDT)
http://debka.com/article/22957/US-to-arm-Syrian-rebels-Putin%E2%80%99s-rebuke-Chinese-%E2%80%9Cpeace-plan%E2
Negative diplomatic ricochets are pursuing Israel in the aftermath of its air force attacks on Syria. In the first place, they are seen to have had no effect on Hizballah’s successful military intervention on the side of the Assad regime or the Syrian war at large. In the second, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, while in Shanghai, was given a sharp dressing-down by President Vladimir Putin Monday, May 6, a warning that Russia would not tolerate further Israeli attacks on Damascus and would respond.
Putin did not say how, but he did announce he had ordered the acceleration of highly advanced Russian weapons supplies to Syria.
debkafile’s military sources disclose that the Russian leader was referring to S-300 anti-air systems and the nuclear-capable 9K720 Iskander (NATO named SS-26 Stone) surface missiles, which are precise enough to hit a target within a 5-7 meter radius at a distance of 280 kilometers.
In his phone call to Netanyahu, the Russian leader made no bones about his determination not to permit the US, Israel or any other regional force (e.g. Turkey and Qatar) overthrow President Bashar Assad. He advised the prime minister to make sure to keep this in mind.
Our sources add: Since Syrian air defense teams have already trained in Russia on the handling of the S-300 interceptor batteries, they can go into service as soon as they are landed by one of Russia’s daily airlifts to Syria. Russian air defense officials will supervise their deployment and prepare them for operation.
Moscow is retaliating not just for Israel’s air operations against Syria but in anticipation of the Obama administration’s impending decision to send the first US arms shipments to the Syrian rebels.
Intelligence agencies in Moscow and the Middle East take it for granted that by the time Washington goes public on this decision, some of the Syrian rebel factions will already be armed with American weapons (…)
The Chinese president unveiled his peace plan before meeting the Israeli prime minister. This plan emphasizes, as the key to a settlement, the Palestinian right to a state on the basis of 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital. It also adopts Abbas’s preconditions for talks, including a stop to settlement activities, an end of the Gaza blockade and “proper handling” of the Palestinian prisoners issue. (…)
Echoes of Lebanon in Syria-
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/echoes-lebanon-syria-8436
By the early 1980s Lebanon had been suffering several years of combat among sectarian militias, reflecting disagreement over the fairness of old power-sharing agreements among the confessional communities. The biggest stirring of this already turbulent pot came in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon. The principal Israeli targets—declared targets, at least—were fighters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization who had been in Lebanon ever since being kicked out of Jordan a decade earlier, after losing the Black September confrontation with King Hussein. A small multinational force of U.S., French, and Italian troops entered Lebanon in August 1982 and supervised the extraction of the PLO to Tunisia before itself withdrawing to ships in the Mediterranean.
Israeli objectives were not limited just to booting the PLO out of Lebanon, however, and Israeli forces remained enmeshed in the sectarian fighting, besieging Beirut. Menachem Begin had ideas about trying to maintain a client to the north in the form of the pro-Israeli Christian government of Bachir Gemayel, who became president about when the PLO was leaving. Three weeks later Gemayel was assassinated, triggering the most horrid blood-letting of the Lebanese war. At least several hundred—and by some outside estimates perhaps something closer to 2,000—Palestinian civilians were slaughtered in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The massacre was carried out by the Christian Phalangist militia, which was allied to and supplied by the Israelis. Israeli forces, whether wittingly or not, facilitated the massacre by maintaining a cordon around the area of the camps, and fired illuminating flares that enabled the Phalangists to continue their work by night.
The massacre stimulated the Reagan administration to organize a new multinational force that eventually included 1,800 U.S. marines as well as French and Italian troops. The force initially had some success in acting as a buffer between contending elements. But the intervention later became a textbook example of the near-inevitability of getting drawn into ever costlier commitments and endeavors in any situation as messy as Lebanon at that time. U.S. military engagement included not only the marines on the ground but also combat between carrier-based U.S. aircraft and Syrian forces (which had originally entered Lebanon as part of an Arab League peacekeeping force). At one point even the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey were brought into action.
Those striking back at the increasingly resented foreign forces used methods against which jet fighters and battleships are of little use. In April 1983 a truck bomb was detonated at the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 persons. Six months later, another truck bomb was used against barracks housing U.S. troops (along with an identical and simultaneous attack against French troops). 241 U.S. servicemen were killed in that bombing—the deadliest terrorist attack against U.S. citizens until 9/11. Congressional pressure on the administration to withdraw from Lebanon increased. The last U.S. forces left in February 1984. The Lebanese civil war continued for several more years until sheer exhaustion, and a new political accord brokered by Saudi Arabia and Syria, brought it to an unsatisfying end.
Some parallels between that experience and the current situation regarding Syria are obvious. There is the overall complexity of the conflict and the presence of bad guys all around. There also is Israel taking advantage of a neighboring state’s civil war to pursue its own objectives, whether those are to smash a Palestinian force or to intercept long-established Hezbollah supply lines, regardless of how much its actions stoke and escalate the war. And if much of the discourse in Washington about Syria since the (presumed) Israeli attacks there over the past few days are any indication, there again is the pattern of Israeli actions increasing the chance of the United States getting sucked into the mess.
Let us hope that those eager to get into the mess will reflect more than the statesmen of 1982 did about how this all will end. Moreover, those who talk about damage to U.S. prestige or credibility also ought to think about that aspect of the experience in Lebanon. Withdrawing the U.S. troops in 1984—although it was the least bad thing the Reagan administration could have done at the time—was a U.S. defeat by Hezbollah. There is no way to sugar-coat that conclusion. It was just the sort of caving in to bad guys that we so often hear that we need to avoid. And it could have been avoided in Lebanon if the United States had not gotten involved in the mess in the first place, or at least if Israel had not—in its futile pursuit of absolute security for itself regardless of the insecurity it causes for everyone else—made the mess worse.
Blurring the Borders: Syrian Spillover Risks for Turkey
As the humanitarian crisis reaches catastrophic proportions, Syria needs to open its borders to external aid, while Turkey and its international partners need more long-term planning to meet growing refugee needs and avoid having instability spill over the porous border.
Errant Syrian mortar shells land in southern Golan Heights - Haaretz Daily Newspaper
At least three shells found in an open area just west of the Syria-Israel border; no damage or casualties reported; IDF files complaint with UN observer force on border over incident.
Three mortar shells fired from over the Syrian border landed in the southern Golan Heights Saturday afternoon, landing in an uninhabited area near Moshav Ramat Magshimim and causing no injuries or damage. On Friday, meanwhile, according to Syrian opposition figures, a 2,000-year-old synagogue was destroyed by shelling from forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The Israel Defense Forces has filed a complaint with the United Nations oberver force on the border. Sources within the IDF believe that the event is another incident of hostilities between the army of Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebels spilling over the border.
As reports of chemical weapons abound, Obama urges caution on Syria | McClatchy
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/26/189773/as-reports-of-chemical-weapons.html
Le degré de confiance avec lequel on peut affirmer que le régime syrien a utilisé des armes chimiques serait « faible ou modéré » selon le renseignement étasunien,
In U.S. intelligence analytical parlance, “moderate confidence” generally means that information lacks sufficient corroboration, while low confidence usually means that it’s too fragmented, it isn’t authenticated and there are major concerns about the credibility of the sources.
Mais, fait remarquer le site FAIR, il n’en faut pas plus pour que les « médias de référence » en parlent comme d’une certitude, http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/syria-skepticism
Major salafi faction [Ahrar al-Sham] criticizes Jabhat al-Nosra - Syria Comment
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/major-salafi-faction-criticizes-jabhat-al-nosra
Par Aron Lund,
...
While frank and critical, the Ahrar al-Sham statement is not really hostile to Jabhat al-Nosra or al-Qaida. Rather it is written in the tone of honest advise for an ally who has committed a damaging mistake. In fact, the statement expresses disappointment in Jabhat al-Nosra, since Ahrar al-Sham says it had previously only seen good deeds from the group and had expected better.
Ahrar al-Sham also takes care to point out that they agree in principle with the al-Qaida goal of establishing an transnational Islamic state, but asks for a bit of realism and patience given the current situation. (...)
Previously, the Jabhat al-Nosra and ISI declarations had been criticized in similarly nuanced statements by the FSA-aligned SILF Islamist alliance and several other opposition factions, including the mainstream pro-Western and pro-GCC leaderships.
But it took Ahrar al-Sham almost a month to respond. The group has recently grown a lot, incorporating smaller SIF factions, so they probably had to go through some internal consultations before producing a statement on a sensitive matter like this. The SIF as an alliance has still not taken a public position on the Jabhat al-Nosra/al-Qaida affair, but I expect it will follow. And Ahrar al-Sham is by now so dominant within the SIF that their word could almost be taken to represent the SIF.
This dispute illustrates the subtle but real distinction between al-Qaida’s radically internationalist salafi-jihadism and the more locally rooted, Syria-focused and somewhat pragmatic salafi program of Ahrar al-Sham and the SIF. For more on that, see my recent report on the SIF and its member factions.