Source: Syria News
The Syrian Arab Army crowned its military operation in the south and southwest Syria has managed to clean the main Nassib Border Crossing with Jordan from US-sponsored FSA terrorist groups.

After one of the swiftest, professional, and intense 2 weeks military operation by the Syrian Arab Army, the SAA managed to restore the Nassib border crossing with Jordan thus opening the vital M5 Highway connecting Aleppo in Syria’s north to Amman in Jordan through Syria’s main cities Hama, Homs, and Damascus.

This is the most strategic breakthrough in this hybrid operation that was carried out by both the SAA and the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Reconciliation Center in Hmeimim.

Tens of villages in Daraa countryside joined the reconciliation efforts after years of oppression and horrors under the US-sponsored terrorists, many of the armed groups within went as far as joining the SAA advancing forces in pursuing the more fanatic and radical anti-Islamic Wahhabi FSA groups, including al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and ISIS. Many other towns and villages showed some resistance but eventually were liberated by the SAA.

The cleaning of Nassib border crossing is as a strategic victory for the Syrian state almost equal to the cleaning of Damascus Eastern Ghouta from the terrorists due to its economic value.

The Nassib Border Crossing will be reopened within days after this major achievement and after the SAA’s engineering units mop the whole route from IEDs and dangers leftovers by the terrorists. Goods from all of Syria and Lebanon can now be exported by land to and through Jordan continuing to other countries in the south, such countries like the GCC group has seen prices of essentials rise as much as 3 times after the closure of this same crossing.

Syria’s produce is 5 times cheaper (1/5th of its price) from those of any of its neighboring countries, thanks to the State’s policies in supporting and subsidizing all essentials in the country.

Lebanon, though not deserving in its majority who conspired against Syria, will breath better now having its goods exported through this very important land route.

Thanks to the sacrifices of the Syrian Arab Army, the help of the Russian Aerospace forces and the vast support of the people of Daraa and its countryside, the eliminating of terrorists strangling Syria’s economy and threatening its statehood was achieved. We hope the Kurds in the north and northeast of Syria would learn from all these lessons in not to depend further on the US, Israel or the Saudis in their adventure of creating another Israel in the territories they control or plan to handover to Turkey. The Syrian leadership and the Syrian Arab Army have determined to clean the whole country from all terrorists and separatists and to restore the country to the last inch.

The SAA’s new target is to clean the south and southwest remaining pockets of terrorists especially those ISIS-affiliated groups of the FSA protecting Israel. The next missions in the south will be easier using the newly cleaned highway.

In Conversation with Arnaldo Perez Guerra of Cuban News ‘Prensa Latina’ – Translated by Joshua Tartakovsky
Source: Off-Guardian
Syria lives in an inferno, as the crisis will continue as long as there are countries that support and finance terrorism. The West is intent on destroying the Syrian government in order to create small weak states and finally to guarantee the security of Israel.

We are not only fighting against terrorist groups inside Syria, but also against terrorist groups that proceed from all parts of the world with the support of the most rich and most powerful countries.”

Turkey, that has close relations with the West, supplies arms, money and volunteers, to groups such as the Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State (IS). “The West perceives terrorism as a wildcard that it can pull off periodically”, said the Syrian President Bashar al Assad to the Russian channel RT, adding that the alliance between Syria, Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which he termed the axis of resistance, “will achieve a defeat of terrorism which is the new tool used to subjugate the region”. Russia has joined the axis decisively.

The United States has been bombing Syria since September 2014 without the consent of Damascus and violated international law. Attacks had no impact on terrorist groups such as the Islamic State but only strengthened it… until now. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, caused a stir when he sent military help to Syria. For the past several weeks, joint forces of military warplanes of Russia and Syria attacked command posts of terrorists in Palmyra, Aleppo and Homs.

Miguel Fernández Martínez, a Cuban journalist of the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina is now in Syria as a correspondent:

“Before I was in Central America, covering the elections in El Salvador. I have also traveled to the USA, Puerto Rico, and other parts of Latin America”, he told Punto Final magazine. About the presence in Syria of Russian military advisers, he said that it is provoking a stir among the Western strategists, who are betting on the destruction of this Arab country: “The Western press spares no headlines that run from announcing an “armed invasion” to “territorial annexation”, intended to create a hostile atmosphere and tension. He says that air incursions by Israel against the Syrian territory in August hardly received a mention by the Western Press: “drones attacked the village of al-Koum, located in the province of Quneitra, 67 kilometers southwest of Damascus. A day earlier, an Israeli helicopter fired various rockets at buildings in Quneitra, causing serious material damage”.

The Pentagon and NATO see the presence of Russia in Syria as a failure of their efforts in over for years to topple President Bashar al Assad.

AN AGGRESSION FINANCED BY THE WEST

According to UNICEF, 5.6 million Syrian children suffer from extreme poverty and are forced to move constantly to escape the war zones. Two million refugees live in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey and in other countries in North Africa, while 3.6 million children remain in vulnerable communities. Twenty thousand children have died in this imposed war. “The picture of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi, lying lifeless on the sand of a Turkish beach, crackles like a whip on the conscience of a hypocritical and silent Europe, that negated to provide protection to its own victims. Europe, the United States, Israel and their armies encouraged this fratricidal war that claimed the boy’s life. Aylan is a reflection of other Syrian children who are dying right now in Damascus, exposed to the terrorist fire of rockets, suffocating from toxic gas in al Foa and Kafraya, or having their heads brutally decapitated in Raqaa, or defeated by the heat and the thirst in the desert, trying to escape the canon fire”, said Fernández.

How does the blockade of the United States affect the Cuban people in communications, Internet and broadcasting? Is it a little bit similar to Syria?
“All of the blockades are harmful because the victims have many needs. Cuba knows this very well, after facing the physical blockade imposed by the USA for over 50 years, which until today caused a loss and damages of more than 833,755 million dollars. In regard to Syria too, the Western powers led by US, France and the United Kingdom, also showed no mercy. They seized their exports, blocked all their contracts, froze their bank accounts. They interrupted their satellite signals, so that the truth does not float to the surface, and then finally, a media campaign intended to destabilize, fragment and destroy the unity of the Syrian people and to undermine its resistance against the terrorist aggression sponsored by the West”.

Tell us about the Government of Bashar al Assad. What was life in Syria like before the intervention by the US and EU?
“The President Bashar al Assad was converted into a scapegoat by those great circles of international powers who seek to repeat in Syria the same they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and in other countries in the region. Since long before the beginning of the crisis in 2011, al Assad was under the scope of Washington and its intelligence agencies, destined to become a victim of imperial greed for not bowing to the edicts of the White House.

Since President al Assad came to power following the death of his father, Hafez al Assad, he continued the same pan-Arab policies for regional unity, which have been given much prominence in Syria within the Non-Aligned Movement. Assad did not compromise on the national economy for the sake of the designs of the IMF and followed the example of his father, the most important defender of the PAlestinian cause for the return of the occupied territories by Israel and for the return of million of Palestinian refugees to their place of origin. Syria has always been one of the worse enemies of Israel, who condemned it for its expansionist policies and called for the return of the Golan Heights, occupied illegally since 1967. To that, we must add the solid relationship that exists between Damascus and the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are united by historical ties of friendship and collaboration.

Bashar al-Assad drove the modernization of Syrian society, initiated by his father in the 1970s, defended the concept of the secular state, imposed the law of the state on all religions and the right of coexistence of a multiethnic population, which forms the core of the Syrian people. He also did not allow for the privatization of the oil industry nor of the most important industries of the country. For all these reasons, it was an objective to destroy on the part of the neo-colonial administrations of the U.S. and its European allies”.

What’s actually taking place in Syria: is it a civil war?
“I refuse to accept the thesis that there is a civil war here. It is as false as the sun coming out at night. What is happening here is an international aggression, maintained by NATO, the US State Department and the Israeli intelligence services, who managed to unite the monarchies of the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia and Qatar- along with the governments of Jordan and Turkey, to initiate a siege on Syria. The strategies for starting the crisis were clear. They tried to transfer to Syria the effects tested on other countries in what became known as the Arab Spring, a form of destabilization which caused pain in all countries where it was imposed. For this they utilized various methods, one of which was the manipulation of the well-known Muslim Brotherhood, which has already which had already been used in Egypt, Libya, Tunis and in other countries, trying to give religious overtones to protests and on the other hand, using the well-known destabilizing political organizations organized by the US embassy.

It is no secret that prior to the supposed popular demonstrations that took place in March 2011 that initiated the beginning of the conflict, the former north American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, travelled constantly to various provinces, met with leaders of the opposition and financed the protests. In these “popular” demonstrations, there were armed men who fired at the police. Generating chaos and violence, because it was all a well designed plan to generate destabilization and give way for jihadist groups, organized, armed and trained by the West, who were waiting at the borders with Jordan in the south, Turkey in the north, and Iraq in the east. It is also not a secret that the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army- of which there is now barely a trace- composed in its majority by defectors from the Syrian Army, was financed by Paris, and that in its process of disintegration, a majority of members joined the terrorist gangs of the Islamic State or the Al Nusra Front, which is the armed wing of Al Qaeda in Syria.

One of the other forms employed to attack Syria was through the attraction or recruitment of mercenaries from more than sixty countries, who came instigated by extremist religious leaders who insisted on making a call for jihad or holy war against the legitimate government in Syria. At the end, four years after the initiation of this war of prey, the forces have been concentrated in two large groups. On the one hand, the forces of the Syrian army, with an army of nearly 350 thousand men with arms, in cooperation with the popular militias known as Units of National Defense, and on the other hand, terrorist gangs that continue to generate chaos and terror”.

TERRORISM OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

How did the Islamic State surge and how was it introduced in Syria? Who controls it? It is said that they sell oil to finance themselves and that they have millions of resources…
“The terrorist group the Islamic State, also known in Arabic as Daesh, emerged a little more than a year ago and is a dismemberment of the group Al Qaeda that operated in the territory of Iraq. Since then they began their expansion in the Syrian territory, proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate, whose capital is the city of Raqqa, located a little more than 500 kilometers to the east of Damascus, occupied by armed extremists.

The atrocities of the Islamic State are spoken of every day. They manipulate the religious faith of their members and followers, and form a perverse interpretation of the Koran, dictating the laws of Sharia, and with them, a type of a tyrannical government that includes the imposition of cruel punishments that can range from throat-cutting to stoning, crucifixion and other barbaric forms used to impose the law. Behind them there is an entire network of drug dealers, loan sharks and criminals, most of whom are from the same countries seeking to overthrow Bashar al Assad – and who are trafficking with oil from the oil wells in the occupied zones and with archeological and historical relics that they vandalized from the different villages that they passed.

There is a detail that I do not want to neglect to mention, and that is the manipulation that is being done by the Western mainstream media regarding the occupied territories by the Islamic State in Syria. Many media insist on affirming that over 50% of the territory of Syria is occupied, something that does not correspond with the strict reality. A majority of the population of Syria lives in areas under the control of the government in the center and to the west of the country, along the mediterranean coast. The great part of the areas under the control of the terrorists are desert areas with a low population density; they only have under their control the city of Raqqa, part of the city of Idlib, and a little less than half of Aleppo. Where they are strong in reality is in the control of roads to the east, where they impede the movement of the troops to the battle areas and weaken the domestic economy of the Syrians”.

Whom does it interest if Syria disintegrates?
“I remember that many years ago someone told me that the US and the great powers wish to turn the Middle East into a “large lake of oil”. The West has never looked with respect at this part of the world. Here there are the traces of the colonial time, leftovers of the ancient culture of these people and the bleeding of important reserves of fuel.

In the case of Syria, after it refused to be a lackey of the great Western powers, it was “condemned” for invasion. What they did not take into account was the resistance of the Syrian people, who had the capacity to defend themselves for more than four years of this campaign of terrorist aggression. One of the formulas they tried to apply to destabilize the national unity was sectarianism and trying to create divisions between Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Kurds, Armenians, Druze, Christians, Yazidis who form one historical and indestructible amalgam, which is called the Syrian people”.

What kind of difficulties do you have to realize your work as a correspondent of Prensa Latina?
“The same ones encountered by any ordinary Syrian. I lived with them, I suffered the same needs and shared their hopes. I was able to visit battle areas, schools destroyed by the war, refugee camps, and at the end, I tried to feel it all. I have even been able to speak to foreign mercenaries captured by the army and heard from their own lips until where were their external forces committed in this war. I have had the opportunity to interview ministers all the way down to common people. Anyone who can give me his version of the war, and will let me have new arguments to explain the readers, will always be on my agenda”.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

What is the humanitarian situation in Syria?
“According to the UN, Syria is suffering the worst humanitarian crisis known in the past 70 years. As a consequence of this war, more than four million Syrians had to seek refuge in other countries and the host countries are Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Around 11 million are displaced inside the same national territory, and the number of the dead is shocking. Until now, and some say that these are conservative calculations, more than 240 thousand people, of them 50,000 members of the army. In some areas there is famine and the most basic items such as water and electricity, are lacking. It is a very difficult and sad situation”.

How has the government faced the war against terrorism?
“Syria is being defended in a war of international aggression. The Syrian army and the popular militias have borne the weight of this war at a high cost, material and human. On the international coalition led by the US, there is little to say. They have been for over a year “bombing” suspected positions of terrorist groups, and doing what they can to strengthen them. There is evidence that in some locations in the east of Syria and Iraq, aircraft dropped weapons and munitions that are going into the hands of extremist groups. For its party, the Syrian-Kurdish militias known as YPG, also accomplished the hard task in defending its territories in northern Syria, especially in the areas north of Aleppo and in the eastern province of Hasaka, achieving even the expulsion of terrorists from their territories”.

What can you tell us about the crimes against women, children and the elderly and the destruction of cultural properties?
“They have scandalized the international public opinion. They use methods that are truly sadistic, like cutting off the heads of their enemies, or crucifying people in public squares or stoning women until their death. They throw homosexuals from roof tops of building and inflict blows on women who do not wear a veil or go out on their own in the streets. The kids is what hurts most. They closed many schools in the occupied areas and opened colleges where small kids are taught the importance of suicide in order to achieve a purpose, or turn into helpers of the butchers who execute people. The psychological and social done against the children is impressive”.

(*)Originally Published by revista Punto Final (Punto Final magazine), No. 839. Edition: 23 October – 5 November 2015.

Reports from recent visitors to Iran, Syria and Lebanon:
* Where is the war on Syria going?
* What does the Iran agreement meant?

Speakers: Haj Hussein Dirani, Father Dave Smith and Dr Tim Anderson.
Chair: Tom Toby

When: 6:30pm Friday 18 September 2015
Where: Coronation Hall, 23 Barden Street, Arncliffe (Sydney, Australia)

https://www.facebook.com/events/1623087104609904/

By Tony Cartalucci
Source: Global Research
Increasingly difficult to cover-up or spin, it is becoming apparent even in Western media coverage that the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) is not sustaining its fighting capacity from within Iraq or Syria, but rather through supply lines that lead to and from adjacent nations. These nations include Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and most obviously, NATO-member Turkey.

It was in Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW)’s report, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” that hundreds of trucks destined for ISIS held territory were videotaped waiting at Oncupinar, Turkey to cross over into Syria with apparently no oversight by the Turkish government. Later, TIME magazine would admit ISIS’ dependence on the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, just across the border from Turkey, for supplies and the significance of its loss to Kurdish fighters in sustaining their fighting capacity both at the border and beyond.

AP’s June 2015 report, “Kurds move to cut off ISIS supply lines in Syria,” would state:

Syrian Kurdish fighters closed in on the outskirts of a strategic Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-held town on the Turkish border Sunday, Kurdish officials and an activist group said, potentially cutting off a key supply line for the extremists’ nearby de facto capital.

Taking Tal Abyad, some 50 miles from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stronghold of Raqqa, would mean the group wouldn’t have a direct route to bring in new foreign militants or supplies. The Kurdish advance, coming under the cover of intense U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in the area, also would link their two fronts and put even more pressure on Raqqa as Iraqi forces struggle to contain the group in their country.

And while US airstrikes are credited for Kurdish advances against ISIS, one wonders why the US, whose military including a US airbase at Incirlik, Turkey and US special forces as well as the CIA are operating along and across the Syrian border in Turkey – hasn’t done more to interdict ISIS supply lines before they reach Syria and awaiting terrorists.

The Kurds and Syria’s military both realize the importance of stemming terrorist armies within Syria by cutting them off from their supplies at Syria’s borders. However, both the Kurds and Syrian forces are increasingly limited from securing these borders due to an ever-expanding “safe haven” the US and its regional allies are carving out of Syrian territory. Turkey and Israel have both attacked Syrian forces in these “safe havens” creating a virtual sanctuary for Al Qaeda affiliates including Al Nusra and ISIS.

Efforts to “assist” the Kurds appear only to have been a pretext to violate Syrian airspace first, then Syrian territory on the ground second. America’s meager “Division 30″ of less than 60 fighters trained in Turkey then sent to fight the thousands upon thousands of terrorists the US and its allies have been arming, training, and sending over Syria’s borders for years was yet another attempt to make ISIS and Al Nusra’s gains appear a result of Western folly rather than of Western design.

How the West Can Stop ISIS Without Setting Foot in Syria

An old military maxim states: “an army marches on its stomach.” Logic dictates that an army with empty stomachs is unable to march. Napoleon Bonaparte who is credited with this quote, found out first hand just how true these words were when his army found itself deep within Russia without supplies, leading to its ultimate and catastrophic defeat.

Likewise, ISIS’ fighting capacity depends entirely on its supply lines. Cutting these supply lines will lead to its inevitable defeat. For the United States, who is either allied with or has troops operating in all nations bordering Syria, cutting ISIS’ supply lines would be a simple matter – that is – if the United States was truly interested in defeating ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates.

While the United States has assisted Turkey in erecting missile defenses along its border with Syria in order to create a defacto no-fly-zone providing Al Nusra and ISIS with an invaluable sanctuary, little to no effort has been spent in increasing border security – specifically the searching for and interdiction of terrorist fighters, weapons, and other supplies. As German DW’s report illustrated, it appears Turkey’s borders are not only dangerously wide open, but intentionally so, with little or no effort at all by Turkey to stem the torrent of obvious ISIS supply convoys from passing through.

DW would likely videotape a similar situation unfolding in Jordan near its border with Syria, close to Syrian cities like Daraa which have become battle-torn as Syrian forces desperately try to stem the torrent of fighters and weapons flowing over the borders there, aimed ultimately at Damascus.

The US Can Stop ISIS in One Month… If it Wanted

By cutting off ISIS from its money, supplies, additional fighters, weapons, and essential equipment, it would quickly be overwhelmed by Syrian and Iraqi forces. Without cash to pay fighters, and without new fighters to replace those lost in fighting, morale would quickly falter. Without a constant torrent of weapons, ammunition, and fuel, ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates would quickly lose their tactical capabilities. Fighters unable to flee would be encircled and destroyed as has happened deep within Syria’s interior where Syrian forces have been able to cut supply lines to key cities and starve out terrorist armies.

Syria is intentionally prevented from securing its borders through an increasingly overt “buffer zone” or “safe haven” the US and its regional allies are creating for the purpose of sheltering clearly non-existent “moderate rebels.” What these “safe havens” are in actuality doing, is ensuring ISIS’ supply lines remain intact. With the Kurds – the only effective force near the Turkish-Syrian border able to threaten ISIS’ supply lines – now being attacked by Turkish forces directly, what little obstacles supplies had in reaching ISIS through Turkey is being swiftly negated.

The US and its allies could easily increase security along Syria’s borders and permanently cut ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates supply lines without having to enter Syrian airspace or cross onto Syrian soil. Just as easily as the US built a line of missile defenses facing Syria, it could create border checkpoints and patrols within Turkey to interdict and effectively stem all weapons and fighters flowing to ISIS. It could, but it intentionally doesn’t.

The implications are obvious. ISIS is both a creation and intentional perpetuation of US foreign policy. Just as the US so many years ago colluded with Saudi Arabia in the creation of Al Qaeda in the mountains of Afghanistan in the first place, it to this day colludes with its regional allies to use Al Qaeda and its various rebrandings – including ISIS – to fight wars Western troops cannot fight. This includes dividing and destroying Syria – the overtly stated, true objective of US policymakers.

Could Syria and its allies create their own “buffer zone” in northern Syria? Could international troops be brought in, with the inclusion of UN observers to secure the Syrian border and put in check attempts by both Turkey and the US to engage Syrian and Kurdish fighters attempting to restore order there?

The incremental strategy of carving out northern Syria, claiming to shelter “moderate rebels” while in reality securing further ISIS’ supply lines and providing them an increasingly unassailable safe haven from which to launch operations deeper into Syria, is inching along and will inevitably pay off at the expense of Syrian territorial integrity, stability, and perhaps even its existence as a functioning state if no measures are taken to counter this conspiracy.

The basics of logistics and the simple fact that the US can both fight and defeat ISIS by simply securing Turkey and Jordan’s borders must be repeatedly brought up by non-Western media and diplomatic circles – highlighting the fact that Syria’s conflict is one of foreign invasion, not civil war. The conflict can be brought to an end, along with all the horrors associated with it, by simply checking ISIS’ bags at the Turkish border. If the US and Turkey refuse to do this, someone must check them on the other side, someone the US and Turks may hesitate to attack as they have the Syrians and Kurds.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

Source: ShiiteNews

Hujjat-ul-Islam Seyyed Hashim Safi el Din, head of Hezbollah’s political council, attending the ceremony for Lebanese martyrs demanded authorities and media activists to protect the resistance and sovereignty of the country.

He criticized the claimants of supporting Lebanon, backing Takfiri groups in reality, and said,” Any view which questions Hezbollah efforts, is in fact a support for Takfiri terrorist groups.”

“Resistance recognizes the Zionist regime of Israel as its number one enemy and does not count Takfiri terrorists to be apart from the Zionist regime and the US.” Hezbollah official noted vowing for full resistance of Hezbollah against these groups in a bid to change all political equations to its own benefit.

Lebanese scholar praised national determination of the people to stand against Takfiri groups and added,” Lebanese nation, who spare no effort in standing against measures and activities of the Zionist regime, will not let Takfiri members, puppets of the Zionist regime, to find the grounds for their crimes in Lebanon.”