operations units are operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus, according to debkafile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources. The foreign troops are not engaged in direct combat with the Syrian forces bombarding different parts of Syria’s third largest city of 1.2 million. They are tactical advisers, manage rebel communications lines and relay their requests for arms, ammo, fighters and logistical aid to outside suppliers, mostly in Turkey.
This site is the first to report the presence of foreign military forces in any of the Syrian uprising’s embattled areas.
Our sources report the two foreign contingents have set up four centers of operation - in the northern Homs district of Khaldiya, Bab Amro in the east, and Bab Derib and Rastan in the north. Each district is home to about a quarter of a million people.
More details as they unfold will be available in the coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly issue out Friday.
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, click here
Our military sources also report that Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 8, Assad sent the 40th Mechanized Brigade of heavy T-72 tanks to Homs for an all-out effort to beat the rebellion, counter the foreign contingents and reinforce the 90th Infantry Brigade commanded by his kinsman, Gen. Zuhair al-Assad, the backbone of the military force battering the city for the past five days at the cost of hundreds of dead.
The presence of the British and Qatari troops was seized on by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for the new plan he unveiled to parliament in Ankara Tuesday, Feb. 7. Treating the British-Qatari contingents as the first foreign foot wedged through the Syrian door, his plan hinges on consigning a new Turkish-Arab force to Homs through that door and under the protection of those contingents. Later, they would go to additional flashpoint cities.
In the close to eleven months of the Syrian revolt, Erdogan has hatched more than one scheme for countering the Assad regime’s savage crackdown on dissent. His most persistent was a plan for the creation of military buffer zones to shelter rebels and civilians persecuted by the Syrian authorities. But nothing came of those plans because, every time they came up, Assad reinforced his contingents on the Turkish border and deployed air defense and surface-to-surface missile batteries. He made it clear that the first Turk crossing the border would spark a full-scale war.
It is hard to say at this point whether the latest Turkish leader’s current plan is any more practical than his earlier schemes. For now, he has put the ball in the American court. Wednesday, Feb. 8, he sent Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Washington to ask for the Obama administration’s cooperation. The Turkish prime minister is also in urgent consultation with Saudi and several other Gulf rulers in the hope of bringing them aboard.
The British-Qatari troop presence in Homs was at the center of Assad’s talks in Damascus Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian SVR intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov. Senior Syrian intelligence officers laid their updates from the field before the Russian visitors and received SVR data and evaluations in return.
Western intelligence officials familiar with the talks describe the atmosphere between Assad and the Russian officials as uneasy and tense. Later, Lavrov reported optimistically that he had received assurances from the Syrian ruler of an end to the violence, talks with all Syrian parties and an early referendum on a new constitution for political reforms. His account was no more than prevarication to conceal the opposite outcome of their talks. In fact, their conversation focused on more violence, namely, Assad’s plans for his next assault on rebels and protesters and his military response to the rising covert presence of foreign Western, Arab and Muslim troops in Syria.
=======
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
British Special Forces are on the ground in Syria directing rebel fighters in a repeat of how Libyan rebels were aided in the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi, according to a report by Israeli intelligence outfit DebkaFile.
“British and Qatari special operations units are operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus, according to DEBKAfile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources,” states the report, adding that the foreign units are not engaging in direct combat but are acting in an advisory capacity, while also relaying requests for arms outside of the country.
The report suggests that the situation in Syria is developing in an almost identical manner to how rebels in Libya were aided by British and French Special Forces.
Given reports that Iran is preparing to dispatch 15,000 troops to help the embattled President Bashar Assad, the west’s quest for regime change in Syria could also manifest itself as a proxy war with Tehran.
As we previously reported, the same Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who fought U.S. troops in Iraq and helped NATO powers overthrow Colonel Gaddafi were airlifted into Syria to aid rebels there in attempting to topple President Bashar al-Assad in November last year.
Former terrorist turned Libyan rebel leader Abdulhakim Belhadj, now head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” after being sent there by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the interim Libyan president, the London Telegraph reported.
As we previously documented, Belhadj is the former front man for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Belhadj was captured by the CIA in Malaysia in 2003 and extradited to Libya where Colonel Gaddafi had him imprisoned. Belhadj is a committed jihadist who fought with the Taliban against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi also admitted that Belhadj’s LIFG fighters were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Whereas the western corporate media has attempted to portray the bloodshed in Syria as a one sided affair, with Assad’s regime being solely responsible for the atrocities, independent observers have noted that both sides are culpable for the violence.
In their report, Arab League monitors who toured the country last month noted that the media has greatly exaggerated the amount of violence taking place in Syria. It also emphasized that the opposition rebels had also perpetrated indiscriminate violence against government forces.
Despite trumpeting the entrance of Arab League monitors as a major milestone, the corporate media seemed to lose interest when the feedback did not portray Assad’s government as a bloodthirsty genocidal regime engaged in organized repression.
“The report did not follow the official GCC line – which is that the “evil” Bashar al-Assad government is indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order,” writes Pepe Escobar, noting how “the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or mercilessly destroyed – by Arab media.”
========
Israeli news outlet Haaretz is reporting that Iran is aiding in Syria’s crackdown on opposition forces.
The Al Arabiya news channel also reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has deployed 15,000 armed troops to Syria recently in order to help Syrian President Bashar Assad in his fight against opposition forces.
“(A) Prominent Syrian lawmaker says the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force has recently arrived in the country to help manage Assad’s regime brutal suppression of a 11-month-long popular unrest,” reports Haaretz.
The official who made the claim, Kassam Salimani, is a top member of the National Syrian Council.
Salimani claims that a commander of Iran’s Quds Force special forces unit arrived in Syria recently to help direct army maneuvers against rebel fighters.
=========
Weapons and fighters sent to support overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, November 28, 2011
The same Al-Qaeda terrorists who fought U.S. troops in Iraq and helped NATO overthrow Colonel Gaddafi are now being airlifted into Syria to aid rebels there in toppling President Bashar al-Assad.
Libya’s transitional ruling authority has agreed to send weapons and fighters over to Syria to help the Free Syrian Army fight government forces.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” a Libyan source told the London Telegraph, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
In a separate piece, the Telegraph also reports that terrorist commander Abdulhakim Belhadj, now head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” after being sent there by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the interim Libyan president.
A rival Libyan rebel brigade detained Belhadj at Tripoli airport for traveling on a fake passport and threatened to jail him before Jalil stepped in to intervene.
“Members of the Free Syrian Army on the borders of Lebanon and Turkey denied rumours circulating in Tripoli that “hundreds” of Libyans had tried to cross into Syria,” states the article, amidst other reports that Libyans have already been detained trying to infiltrate the country from the Turkish border.
As we previously documented, Abdulhakim Belhadj is the former front man for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Belhadj was captured by the CIA in Malaysia in 2003 and extradited to Libya where Colonel Gaddafi had him imprisoned. Belhadj is a committed jihadist who fought with the Taliban against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi also admitted that Belhadj’s LIFG fighters were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops.
A 2007 West Point report indicated that the Benghazi-Darnah-Tobruk area of Libya is a world capital for Al-Qaeda or mujahideen suicide bomber recruitment. Author Webster Tarpley details this intelligence in his excellent analysis piece, The CIA’s Libya Rebels: The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq. The West Point report detailed how the LIFG and Al-Qaeda had formed an “increasingly co-operative relationship”.
Libyan rebels have gone on to impose a “reign of terror” across the country, throwing blacks in concentration camps while torturing and murdering thousands of others before imposing Sharia law. The official Al-Qaeda flag now flies high and proud above Libyan cities as armed gangs roam the streets.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Following the fall of Tripoli, reports circulated that Libyan rebels had acquired a deadly arsenal of weapons, many of which are now on their way to Syria to aid in the overthrow of Assad.
“Qatar and Turkey were reported to be airlifting “volunteers” from Libya to fight alongside the rebel Free Syrian Army, some also transporting weapons,” reports Israeli intelligence source DebkaFile.
These terrorists have already been implicated in the killing of 10 air force personnel at a Syrian military base last week, even as the western media continues to characterize opposition fighters as “protesters,” just as they did with Libyan rebels who were commandeering fighter jets and firing rocket-propelled grenades.
While being hailed as liberators and freedom fighters by the media, terrorists who killed U.S. troops and who are now throwing black Libyans in torture camps, are yet again going to be used as the vanguard of the next act of US/NATO middle eastern regime change, all carefully orchestrated under the smoke and mirrors of the contrived “Arab Spring”.
In related developments, DebkaFile also reports that “Israeli armored brigades pushed forward up to the Lebanese and Syrian borders,” over the weekend, while US and Russian warships are now “in the midst of a naval buildup opposite Syrian shores.”
As we reported last week, in an identical pattern to how U.S. warships surrounded Libya in the days before the NATO bombardment began, the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush was repositioned off the coast of Syria in recent days having moved from its usual theater of operations in the Straits of Hormuz.
This followed reports that Russian warships carrying sophisticated missile defense systems entered Syrian territorial waters last week as a deterrent to any NATO-led assault.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
=======
Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group
Libyan authorities this week dispatched the country’s most renowned Islamist militia leader to meet senior figures of the Free Syrian Army, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
The “covert operation” was immediately laid bare when a rival Libyan rebel brigade detained Belhaj at Tripoli airport, accused him of travelling on a fake passport, and declared they would jail the senior military leader.
Only a letter from the country’s interim president was enough to persuade them to let him leave the country.
The meetings came as a sign of a growing ties between Libya’s fledgling government and the Syrian opposition. The Daily Telegraph on Saturday revealed that the new Libyan authorities had offered money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Belhaj also discussed sending Libyan fighters to train troops, the source said. Having ousted one dictator, triumphant young men, still filled with revolutionary fervour, are keen to topple the next. The commanders of armed gangs still roaming Tripoli’s streets said yesterday that “hundreds” of fighters wanted to wage war against the Assad regime.
“Everyone wants to go. We have liberated our country, now we should help others,” said the commander of the ‘Fighting Village’ brigade, “This is freedom. This is Arab unity”.
Increasing volumes of video footage have been uploaded to YouTube of Syrians calling on Libyans to join their fight. In a clip backed by dramatic musical effects, a veiled Syrian woman entreats men from Misurata, the west Libyan city that fought off a month-long siege by forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi, to come to save her country.
“We cannot say no to a woman,” said Misurata rebel Lutfy el-Amin. “Many men are readying themselves. If they can they will go to join the fight”.
Members of the Free Syrian Army on the borders of Lebanon and Turkey denied rumours circulating in Tripoli that “hundreds” of Libyans had tried to cross into Syria.
Newspapers reported on Saturday that four Libyan men had been caught on the Turkish border trying to infiltrate into the country. The grand design envisioned by Mr Belhaj and the Libyan authorities is still in its nascent stage.
In Libya News
Pictures of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi following his capture
=======
Libya Ex-Islamic terrorist leader heads Tripoli Military Council
45
Interviewed by CNN, a former commander in the LIFG, who has become a campaigner against extremism, Noman Benotman, said “This is potentially a very dangerous development. Nobody knows what these released prisoners are going to do next. Will they take part in the fighting and if they do will they join pre-existing rebel brigades or form a separate fighting force?” Many of those imprisoned fought in Iraq, contributing to its collapse into chaos. They, therefore, have the knowledge and skills, which could be used to reproduce a similar situation in Libya or to exploit one, should it develop. According to Benotman there are also many other types of radical Islamist groups, whose younger members may be working with foreign militants and may even have set up training camps. But, most worrisome is that they will be able to train with some of the best and most sophisticated weapons, which are in plentiful supply. The Los Angeles Times reported an expert, who pointed out that there are 523 arms bunkers known about and until now the rebels have only been able to put a minimum number of guards on a small minority of them. The UK Guardian reported yesterday that all of Gaddafi’s stockpiles of mustard gas, which were being monitored by NATO, have now disappeared. Furthermore, it quotes Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, who was in Libya in the spring and reported seeing thousands of shoulder-launched Soviet Sam-7 anti-aircraft missiles in unguarded ammunition dumps around the country. He said there is also a great threat from all other munitions, “like tank shells and artillery shells which can easily be turned into car bombs.” Bouckaert even found stocks of napalm! The potential for an Islamist insurgency shouldn’t be underestimated, nor the destruction it could bring. In neighboring Algeria during the 1990s, a fundamentalist group, the GIA, started an uprising which cost 250,000 lives. Like the LIFG, many of the GIA were “Afghans”-those who had fought in Afghanistan and like the LIFG, they did not belong directly to the Al Qaeda group, but had worked with it. Later a group of Salafists, like those just released from prison in Libya, split from the GIA and formed “Al Qaeda in the Maghreb.” Yemen, where the local Al Qaeda is strong, is a country awash with weapons, with at least 3 guns for every 1 person. Libya is fast becoming something similar. Controlling this now is going to be virtually impossible and is causing grave concerns for the West, who are afraid that sophisticated weapons could be sold to Islamic extremists in many countries. They are demanding that the NTC does something quickly and its even possible that special forces will get involved. Commenting on the NTC’s ability to control the flow of arms, former head of the State Department’s Office of Conventional Arms Threat Reduction, Christian Kessler said “My guess is that the closest thing they have to inventory on ammo is, ‘Nuts, we’re getting low, find some more.’” “We need to assume that X percent of the inventory will leak,” and added, “Where it leaks to, how badly it leaks, those are guesses.” Many rebels themselves are looting the arsenals for personal weapons or guns to sell. One can be sure that extremists also haven’t let the opportunities pass them by. Abdelhakim Belhadj and his group have renounced terrorism. The LIFG has renamed itself the Islamic Movement for Change (IMC) and says it accepts democracy within an Islamic state. Benotman hopes they may even be a force to halt the rise of violent fundamentalist groups. There is no doubt now that Islamist groups are going to play a very influential role in post-war Libya. The Wall Street Journal reported that at the press conference on Friday, Belhadj said that the Tripoli Military Council “was the first step in a process to bring the fighters into a new national army.” He looks like becoming one its senior commanders. The IMC has sworn loyalty to the TNC under the so-called Union of Revolutionary Forces. We can only hope it stays that way. However, the very fact that a former leader of the terrorist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is now head of the Tripoli Military Council, is a warning of just how real the threat of Islamist extremism is.
Al-Qaeda Army Seizes Control of Tripoli
Militants led by terrorist kingpin who fought against U.S. troops in Afghanistan occupy Gaddafi compounds
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, August 29, 2011
Senior Al-Qaeda commander Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj and his 1000-strong Islamist fighting group have seized control of key Gaddafi strongholds in Tripoli and are refusing to transfer power over to the western-backed National Transitional Council, prompting accusations that the NATO-led act of regime change in Libya has resulted in the creation of a new home base for the terrorist group.
Belhadj is the front man for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Belhadj was captured by the CIA in Malaysia in 2003 and extradited to Libya where Colonel Gaddafi had him imprisoned. Belhadj is a committed jihadist who fought against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
DebkaFile, the intelligence-gathering outlet that successfully predicted the precise time frame of last weekend’s assault on Tripoli, reports that Belhadj and his army of terrorist fighters have seized control of Gaddafi strongholds.
“His brigades were the principal rebel force in the operation for the capture of Qaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya ruling compound on Aug. 23. Saturday, Aug. 27, those brigades overran the Abu Salim district of southern Tripoli taking it from the last pro-Qaddafi holdouts in the city,” states the article, adding that Belhadj has now declared himself “Commander of the Tripoli Military Council.”
According to the report, when asked if they planned to hand over control of Tripoli to the western-backed National Transitional Council, LIFG representatives dismissed the question.
“Tripoli is rife with disorder, awash with weapons and prey to reciprocal allegations of atrocities. Our sources doubt that the council will be able to assert control of – or even a presence in – Tripoli any time soon. US intelligence sources in Tripoli see no sign that the NTC will be able to persuade the Islamist brigades to relinquish control of the city in the near future – or even lay down arms,” states the report, warning how, “Institutions of government have wound up in the hands of fighting Islamist brigades belonging to al Qaeda, who are now armed to the teeth with the hardware seized from Qaddafi’s arsenals.”
Indeed, DebkaFile emphasizes the point that the Al-Qaeda presence amongst the rebels is no mere “flicker,” as NATO would have it, but that the majority rebel fighters are taking orders not from the NTC but from from Al-Qaeda commanders like Belhadj.
“Therefore, the armies of Western members of NATO took part directly in a bid by extremist Islamic forces to capture an Arab capital and overthrow its ruler,” states the article.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The DebkaFile report is also backed up by a Digital Journal piece, which notes how Belhadj’s “appointment reflects the growing influence of Islamists generally among radicalized militiamen. Reporters have remarked upon the increasing number of beards being grown by fighters and videos frequently testify to their prominence and ubiquity in events.
Reports of atrocities on behalf of terrorist-led rebel forces to rival anything Gaddafi was accused of are already flooding in. The Washington Post reported Saturday on how black Libyans are being tortured, killed and denied hospital treatment, and that many were not pro-Gaddafi fighters but migrant workers “taken at gunpoint from their homes, workplaces and the street on account of their skin color.”
As the Asian Tribune reported, the LIFG is set to take a prominent role in the post-Gaddafi power structure. Following the siege on Tripoli, hundreds of terrorists were released from Libyan jails, including members of the LIFG. Others released include terrorists who fought and killed U.S. troops in Iraq.
These terrorists have now obtained a deadly arsenal of weapons “which British and French special operations forces gave the rebels, said a senior American source,” according to the Debka report.
LIFG was also behind the 1996 attempt to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi, a plot hatched and funded by MI6. British intelligence, along with SAS soldiers, were also instrumental in directing the assault on Tripoli.
As we have previously highlighted, shortly after the start of the conflict in March, Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the leader of the anti-Gaddafi rebel army, admitted that the rebel ranks include Al-Qaeda terrorists who have killed U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Asian Times reporter Pepe Escobar discusses Al-Qaeda’s control of Tripoli in the clip below.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.
Tweet
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);
