President Obama stressed the importance of showing the world “we are united in our resolv
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ANNE R. PIERCE: Beware ISIS strategy that fortifies Russia, Iran, and Syria - Washingto... - 0 views
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Demonstration of united resolve against blood-thirsty terrorists whose ranks, ambitions and territory have grown exponentially is important
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forging strategy to battle ISIS without also forging strategy to thwart Syria, Russia and Iran is a terrible mistake
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brutality and aggression of the Islamic State, he still whitewashes the brutality and aggression of established states Syria, Russia and Iran, and still ignores the need for grand strategy to deal with them
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We must, therefore, take Iran, Russia and Syria, and the collusion between them, seriously.
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potentially, an even greater threat to the “free world” than ISIS. Because they are terror sponsors and supporters, WMD in their control means WMD out of control, susceptible to being sold or given to fanatics who are willing to work for their cause
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working with the Iranian, Russian and Syrian regimes to address Middle Eastern problems and fight ISIS is a sure way to alienate Middle Eastern moderates and traditional partner
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Russia’s staunch support of Syria and Iran; its ruthless aggression in Ukraine; and its expansionist designs in Eastern Europe, should make containing Russia an American foreign policy priority
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Instead, much of the White House plan for combating ISIS plays right into Syrian, Iranian and Russian hands, for it revolves around their plans –which include allowing Assad to stay in power, legitimizing Russian-sponsored “peace conferences” that buy Assad time and raise Putin’s stature, accommodating the Iranian nuclear program, and giving Iran the lead in the battle against ISIS and in the Levant.
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the United States has been mostly passive, while Russia, Iran and its proxies, and al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, have seized the day.
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opened the door to extremist groups eager to hijack the Syrian revolt and/or defend the Syrian regime
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Iran and Russia have worked stolidly to protect Assad and capitalize on the chao
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While the Obama administration justified its unwillingness to give meaningful aid to Syrian rebels with fear of helping extremists within rebel ranks, that stance allowed extremism within Syria to metastasize
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development so serious that it now requires a military respons
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Russia provided cover for Syria in the UN, and supplied many of the very weapons Assad uses to massacre civilian
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the administration has endorsed yet more Russia-sponsored “peace talks”
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President Obama and Secretary Kerry have backed even further away from demands that Assad leave, while even the goal of a transitional government which characterized the previous talks has been dropped
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Working with the Iranian, Russian and Syrian regimes to address Middle Eastern problems and fight ISIS is a sure way to alienate Middle Eastern moderates.
Now I Know - Around the Horn - 0 views
Israël utiliserait le DIME, une arme particulièrement effroyable | L'Humanité - 0 views
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From Syria to Ukraine, social media opens up warfare | New York Post - 0 views
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This article is about how blogger Eliot Higgins was involved in the social media revolution in Syria and now in the Ukraine. This article talks about how Higgins posted online from Syria to track weapons and pinpoint a chemical strike in Damascus from a computer in the English Midlands. He is now using the same techniques to investigate missiles in the Ukraine believe to have brought down flight MH17. This article is great for a comparison between the two p[laces and a has a great explanation of his social media techniques for social change.
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This Is How ISIS Smuggles Oil - 0 views
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Turkish-Syrian border
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The militants can make more than $1 million a day selling oil from fields captured in eastern Syria.
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In recent months, the government has vowed to crack down on illicit oil, and police have targeted smuggling routes, seizing oil drums and digging up pipelines.
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helped make ISIS the world’s richest extremists.
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Rebel groups targeted oil resources from the regime in battles often overshadowed by higher-profile fronts in the war — namely in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, where there were refineries and oil fields.
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Strapped for cash, the rebels smuggled some of the oil to buyers in Turkey, whose government was one of the Syrian opposition’s main backers, having already opened its borders to activists, fighters, and refugees.
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Omar would receive a call from a commander in the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the U.S.-backed rebel coalition, telling him to head to the Syrian side of the border.
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If he took in $1,500 in a night, he would give $500 to the FSA commander and another $500 to the Turkish border guards. “You can’t really say that we are smuggling oil, because we take permission from the Turkish side and the Syrian side,” Omar said. “But since it’s under the table, we call it smuggling.”
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it controlled Raqqa, and soon after it was battling for control of the rebel-held parts of Deir Ezzor.
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As ISIS gained new oil fields, Omar kept smuggling. He may have worked along an FSA-run border, but he knew he was buying the oil from middlemen who had taken it from ISIS’s hands.
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For ISIS, the profits were startup funds as it built up its self-styled caliphate, buying weapons and paying salaries.
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U.S. airstrikes now targeting its oil infrastructure, ISIS can make over $1 million a day from the trade
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ISIS controls 60% of the oil-producing resources in eastern Syria, he said, plus a handful of marginal oil fields in Iraq.
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The group sells most of it within its own territory in Iraq and in Syria — which covers more than 12,000 miles, a size comparable to Belgium, and includes some 8 million people, a population approaching Switzerland’s. Desperate residents need the fuel to run their cars, generators, and bakeries.
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It was the worst example of a wartime pillage that has stripped Syria of everything of value, from scrap metal to precious artifacts. “I just want to show the world what they are doing to my country,” he said.
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ISIS has become very rich extremist group because of the oil smuggling business they are involved in.
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shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14
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Mapping Libya's armed groups - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
www.aljazeera.com/...lained-201452293619773132.html
libya armed groups middle east Revolution recontruction war militias
shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14
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Haftar accuses Congress of allowing "terrorists" to flourish in Libya and has vowed to "wipe them out", gaining support from much of the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. Other militias have lined up to oppose him, insisting his attacks amount to a "coup".
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1. National Army
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2. Regular forces
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re-formed to help fight in the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011.
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composed of non-Islamist fighters and former soldiers
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Haftar used it to launch Operation Libyan Dignity on May 16, saying his mission was to dissolve the General National Congress, which he labelled Islamist, and to destroy "terrorists" he said Congress had allowed to establish bases in Libya.
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National Army is a nationalist armed group controlled by Khalifa Haftar, rather than Libya’s national army.
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small army and air force have mostly defected to Haftar. Libya’s armed forces fought on both Gaddafi and the rebel side in the 2011 uprising. Since then, the army has been rebuilding, with most of its units in training.
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fighting a tit-for-tat battle against Islamist militias for more than a year.
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3. Zintan
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Zintan's militias are the second most powerful armed force in Libya, after Misrata, and based in the Nafusa mountains 144km southwest of Tripoli.
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regard themselves as opponents of both Congress and Islamists.
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Zintan formed one of the three fronts in the uprising and by the end of that uprising, Zintan brigades surged into Tripoli, with several maintaining bases in the city and holding the international airport.
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2. Ansar al-Sharia
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1. LROR
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Libyan Revolutionary Operations Room was formed in 2013 as the headquarters of the Libya Shield, an alliance of pro-Congress militias.
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accused by opponents of being Islamist,
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LROR led a powerful Shield force to Tripoli last year to defend Congress.
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3. Misrata
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With strong affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, LROR will have much to lose if Haftar takes power.
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dedicated to establishing a caliphate in Libya
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The US blamed Ansar al-Sharia for the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi that saw the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012.
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On May 18, two days after Hiftar’s forces attacked Benghazi, two Zintan militias stormed the national congress building in Tripoli.
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Misrata’s 235 militia brigades are collectively the most powerful single force in Libya, fighting through a six-month siege during the uprising.
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They are equipped with heavy weapons, tanks and truck-launched rockets and have the power to be a decisive force in any struggle between Haftar and Islamist forces.
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Many Misratan leaders back the Islamists in Congress, and Misratan brigades once formed a key part of the Libya Shield force in Tripoli.
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After the ousting of the Gaddafi regime the country pivoted into civil chaos. Because of the deficiency of structure and state autonomy, armed militias have become the dominant force in determining Libya's future governmental system. While the UN has internationally recognized the NTC as the interim government to ultimately turn the country into a democratic one, militias have taken things into their own hands tipping the country towards the brink of civil war. General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign accusing congress of allowing terrorists flourish in Libya and vowed to wipe them out, gaining much support from the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. The opposition to Haftar insist that his attacks are aiming for a military coup. This article was helpful in highlighting the armed groups and dividing them by Pro-Haftar and Pro-Congress sections.
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How ISIS makes its millions - CNN.com - 2 views
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Oil-smuggling operations involving millions of barrels have recently been uncovered.
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oil comes from wells and refineries that ISIS has taken over inside northern Iraq and northern Syria
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until very recently it was easy to smuggle it into this quiet part of southern Turkey.
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Turkey, just a half hour's drive away, gasoline costs roughly $7.50 per gallon
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believes ISIS takes in millions of dollars a month.
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how much the group spends -- is huge, including salaries, weapons and other expenses.
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Besides revenue from oil smuggling, the group receives money through donations from wealthy sympathizers in countries including Qatar and Kuwait.
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This article goes into specific into the way the Islamic State makes their money like oil smuggling. They talk about how IS is taking control of oil wells and refiners.
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shared by fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
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Syrian Opposition Groups Wary Of Russia's Invitation To Moscow : NPR - 0 views
www.npr.org/...f-russias-invitation-to-moscow
russia opposition groups syria politics peace talks war
shared by fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
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U.N. envoy is pressing ahead on that front, while Russia tries to play peacemaker
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U.N. continues to try to collaborate with both groups while Russia wants to be a "peacemaker."
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Russia is inviting the parties to Moscow this month, but some opposition groups won't go to a country that has been backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
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Rebel groups in Syria do not trust the Russian government since they have been supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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Syrian opposition figures have good reason to be skeptical of Moscow's diplomatic moves
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they provide weapons and advice to the Assad regime and they have taken an approach of cherry-picking who they talk to and who the regime talks to
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The U.S. is not pressuring the opposition groups it supports to go to Moscow. Instead it's suggesting they should think about it so that Russia can't blame the opposition for the diplomatic stalemate
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U.S. is not pushing for the opposition groups to go to Moscow to talk peace but they feel they have nothing to lose if they do.
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"If there are no guarantees as to the end state, that is, a movement towards a transitional government with full executive powers without Assad, then there is really no reason to go
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meant to revive the peace process that started in Geneva in 2012
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Russians aren't in a position to decide who will take part in future negotiations. And this has been the whole problem with their approach.
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He says the Russian job has always been to deliver the regime to the negotiating table, but the Syrian government only wants to talk about fighting terrorism, not discuss a political transition.
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We are hoping, more than expecting, that it will be a success," he says.De Mistura describes Syria as the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II
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They all agree that we need to do something to avoid that the Syrian conflict goes into a back burner and that movement towards some type of political solution should take place this year,"
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He says that's because Assad thinks he's winning — and U.S. plans to train and equip 5,000 moderate rebels a year won't help level the playing field.
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The rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State and the U.S.-led airstrikes against that group in both Syria and Iraq now top the U.S. agenda.
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war in Syria has been raging for nearly four years and it's been challenging for diplomats to get warring sides to agree on even temporary truces.
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No guarantees as to what the alleged "peace talks" will provide from the opposition groups.
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Russia is attempting to bring opposition groups and the Syrian government to Moscow in order to "talk peace." In the past, Russia has supported the Syrian President and because of this, opposition groups are wearing of these alleged "peace talks."
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Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic - 0 views
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xtreme temperatures
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drought from 2006 to 2011
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2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms.
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lessening of rainfall
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as of the last year before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated
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agriculture
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20 percent of national income
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employed about 17 percent
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Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine
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densely populated
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less than 0.25 hectares (just over a third of an acre) of agricultural land per person
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population/resource ratio is out of balance.
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So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.
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threw the country into the arms of
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Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser
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or three and a half years
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part of the United Arab Republic
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A fundamental problem they faced was what it meant to be a Syrian.
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1961 Syrians were thrown back on their own resources
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The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims
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seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab
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being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.
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Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.
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Israel
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Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions
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A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.
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or Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics
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bridge the gaps between rich and poor
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socialism
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Muslims and minorities
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Islam
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society
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hould be modern
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secular
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defined by a culture of “Arabism”
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the very antithesis of
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Muslim Brotherhood
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military, which seemed
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o embody the nation.
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help the Syrian people to live better provided only that they not challenge his rule
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his stern and often-brutal monopoly of power
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foreign troublemakers
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Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
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During the rule of the two Assads, Syria made considerable progress.
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locked into the cities and towns
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they f
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had to compete
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Palestinians
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Iraqis
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Syria was already a refuge
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March 15, 2011
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small group gathered in the southwestern town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them
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government saw them as subversives.
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He ordered a crackdown
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And the army,
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responded violently.
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Riots broke out
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attempted to quell them with military
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what had begun as a food and water issue gradually turned into a political and religious cause.
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interpretation of Islam
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the Syrian government is charged with using illegal chemical weapons
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All observers agree that the foreign-controlled and foreign-constituted insurgent groups are the most coherent, organized, and effective
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astonishing as they share no common language and come from a wide variety of cultures
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slam has at least so far failed to provide an effective unifying force
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all the rebels regard the conflict in Syria as fundamentally a religious issue
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pwards of $150 billion
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a whole generation of Syrians have been subjected to either or both the loss of their homes and their trust in fellow human beings.
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How the victims and the perpetrators can be returned to a “normal life”
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First, the war might continue.
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Second, if the Syrian government continues or even prevails, there is no assurance that,
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t will be able to suppress the insurgency.
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Third,
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Syria will remain effectively “balkanized”
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This article captures Syria's geography, history, and all events leading up to the state Syria is in today.
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Profile for Iran | NTI - 0 views
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"The Nuclear Threat Initiative works to strengthen global security by reducing global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons." Here, the NTI gives a brief overview of Iran's advanced nuclear program and the direction it is headed. -
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BBC News - Can Iraqi militants be kept off social media sites? - 0 views
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co-ordinated hashtag campaigns to get its content trending on Twitter.
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The Iraqi government responded by blocking social media sites and, in some provinces, barring access to the internet entirely.
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But some of the most active Islamist social media accounts are still live,
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n Twitter using military pseudonyms,
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The BBC spoke to a number of social networks, all of which said they did not actively monitor their sites for content promoting terrorism, but rather responded to requests from governments and individuals to remove offending material.
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r Twitter said the company would remove a reported post that violated its rules.
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Facebook and YouTube, have been more successful in removing extreme content.
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Many of the militants on Twitter redirect users to their Kik accounts.
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Ask.fm, a
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One Ask.fm account offered advice on how to join Isis fighters in Iraq, as well as what weapons one could expect to be equipped with on arrival.
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Twitter's terms ban threats of violence and the "furtherance of illegal activities" on the site.
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rminated any account registered by a member of a foreign terrorist organisation - as designated by the US secretary of state - and used in an official capacity to further its interests.
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Interesting article about challenges social media companies face in preventing and deactivating accounts with content or users linked to terrorist organizations such as ISIS.
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Is Libya on the brink of a new civil war? - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
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former rebel fighters who helped to oust Gaddafi are now jostling among themselves for power
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The country is flooded with weapons
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In the past year alone, more than 80 people, many of them high-ranking military and police figures, have been killed in eastern Libya.
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Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan
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The country's prime minister recently called on western powers to help him stop the spread of what he calls 'militancy' in his country.
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There are more than 225,000 Libyans registered in militias. They receive state salaries but often act outisde of government control, taking orders from local or political commanders.
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Groups in Libya's eastern Cyrenaica region and in the southern Fezzan region have called for independence
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In Cyrenaica, former rebel leader Ibrahim al-Jathran and his 20,000 men strong militia say they now run local affairs, with Jathran and his men controlling facilities that account for 60 percent of Libya's oil wealth.
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Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views
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It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
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Benghazi is again a battlefield.
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The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
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Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
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Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
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the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
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Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
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In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
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Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
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he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
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militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
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The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
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Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
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The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
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tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
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The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
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He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
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which might have given militiamen jobs
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Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
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the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
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In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
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In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
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The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
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Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
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Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
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Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
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Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
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So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
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The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
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Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
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General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
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the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
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Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
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Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
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threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
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Yusuf Dawar
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The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
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And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
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ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
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Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
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oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
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The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
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The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
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Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
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Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
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Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
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In Fashloum
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residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
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“No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
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Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
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Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
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On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
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The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
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the Western powers
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have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
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Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
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Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
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Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
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Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
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The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
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If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
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Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
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The old divisions still matter
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the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
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Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
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July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
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In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
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Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
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Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
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opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
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Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
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In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
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The Iran Nuclear Threat: Why it Matters - 0 views
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A short explanation of why Iran's nuclear weapons program poses a threat to the United States and it's interests.
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Fresh allegations of chlorine gas attacks in Syria - 0 views
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New videos purportedly show victims of chlorine gas attacks in Idlib. The attack occurred on March 16, 2015. the attack is allegedly chlorine gas and killed at least six people
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Syria's Assad says West wants to weaken Russia | Reuters - 0 views
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused the West of trying to weaken Russia by turning Ukraine into a puppet state, a tactic he said had also been used against his own country.
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keep coming back to the fact that there is a connection between the Syrian crisis and what is happening in Ukraine
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"Firstly because both countries are important for Russia, and secondly because the goal in both cases is to weaken Russia
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The United States and the European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its role in the crisis in Ukraine.
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Russia, a long-standing ally of Assad, denies sending troops and weapons to support separatists fighting government forces in east Ukraine
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Assad will not attend, the president said those taking part should not lose sight of the main goal, clearly meaning restoring peace
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Many Syrian opposition figures shunned the January talks, saying they would appear only at meetings that led to Assad's removal from power.
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Syria's President Assad claims that Western powers are trying to "weaken" Russia. Russia and Syria have been long time allies and so it is unclear what Russia will say to this.
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The adventures of a Libyan weapons dealer in Syria | Reuters - 0 views
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A Reuters interview with a Libyan arms dealer and his involvement in supplying the rebels in Syria.
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Syrian Army BMP Hit By TOW ATGM - Crew Survives Close Call | Syria War 2015 - YouTube - 0 views
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This video shows a Syrian army armored vehicle being hit and disabled by a TOW missile. I think this is worth linking because it is a visual representation of what the US armed rebels actually means.
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This video shows a Syrian Army armored vehicle being hit and disabled by a TOW missile. I think this is worth linking because it is a visual representation of what the US armed rebels actually means.
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The Historic Deal that Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon | The White House - 0 views
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The White House published an interactive article about the role the United States is playing in the Iran Deal. It showcases facts, the deal itself and why it is important.