Critical Observer

AL-NUSRA ATTACKS RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN SYRIA - REPORT

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After the U.S. provided “insurgents” in Syria with tons for ammunition and weapons, the Russian embassy in Damascus was struck by two rockets. 
 
AFP reports claim the rockets were fired by “Islamist rebels” from the eastern edge of the capital. 
 
Around 300 people were outside the embassy demonstrating in support of Russia’s effort to bolster the al-Assad government and target jihadi and other U.S. and Saudi proxies. 
 
No deaths or injuries were reported. 
 
The attack followed a call by al-Nusra to kill Russians. The jihadi terrorist organization collaborates with and receives arms from U.S. “vetted” groups in Syria. 
 
“If the Russian army kills the people of Syria, then kill their people. And if they kill our soldiers, then kill their soldiers. An eye for an eye,” declared Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, the head of al-Nusra in Syria. 
 
Jolani called on the “heroic Mujahideen” in the Caucuses to attack Russians. 
 
He also offered a bounty for “whoever kills Bashar al-Assad and ends his story, even if he is of his own people and family.” 
 
In addition, he offered a reward for the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon. 
 
Meanwhile, Israel has continued to target Syrian targets in the Golan. 
 
“In response to the rocket fire, IDF artillery targeted two military posts of the Syrian Armed Forces in the central Syrian Golan Heights,” an Israeli army statement said on Tuesday.

AL-NUSRA ATTACKS RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN SYRIA - REPORT

After the U.S. provided “insurgents” in Syria with tons for ammunition and weapons, the Russian embassy in Damascus was struck by two roc...

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US-TRAINED SYRIA FIGHTERS GAVE ARMS TO NUSRA FRONT

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A spokesman for the Pentagon has confirmed that Syrian rebel fighters trained by the United States provided ammunition and equipment to an al-Qaeda-linked group</div>
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Syrian rebel fighters trained by the United States provided ammunition and equipment to an al-Qaeda-linked group this week, a spokesman for the Pentagon has confirmed. 
 
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday around 70 participants of the US train-and-equip program returned to Syria from a training camp in Turkey over the weekend. The group that operates as the New Syrian Force (NSF) was later thought to have defected to the Nusra Front. 
 
“Today the NSF unit contacted Coalition representatives and informed us that on Sept. 21-22 they gave six pick-up trucks and a portion of their ammunition to a suspected Nusra Front intermediary,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said as quoted by The Blaze. 
 
 
Refuting the initial claims of defections among NSF fighters on Thursday, Davis previously said all coalition-issued weapons and equipment were “under the positive control” of the NSF. 
 
Accounts allegedly associated with the Nusra Front tweeted photographs of US-made rifles on Wednesday. It was claimed the rifles belonged to the NSF. 
 
First reports of so-called moderate Syrian fighters, which were trained to fight militant groups like the Nusra Front and the notorious ISIL jihadist group, claimed the NSF had given up arms in exchange for safe passage. 
 
Davis said the Pentagon believed the reports that NSF fighters gave up weapons to the Nusra Front were false at the time and that the published photograph was an old “repurposed” image. 
 
Earlier this month, the Pentagon admitted that only five out of the over 5,000 fighters trained in the $500-million US program were actually fighting on the ground. The figure was later revised to nine. 
 
From Sputnik News

US-TRAINED SYRIA FIGHTERS GAVE ARMS TO NUSRA FRONT

A spokesman for the Pentagon has confirmed that Syrian rebel fighters trained by the United States provided ammunition and equipment to...

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Petraeus: Arm Al-Qaida. Al-Nusra Terrorists

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The latest brilliant plan to curtail Isis in the Middle East? Give more weapons to current members of al-Qaida. The Daily Beast reported that former CIA director David Petraeus, still somehow entrenched in the DC Beltway power circles despite leaking highly classified secrets, is now advocating arming members of the al-Nusra Front in Syria, an offshoot of al-Qaida and a designated terrorist organization. Could there be a more dangerous and crazy idea? 
 
Petraeus was forced to respond on Tuesday, the day after his article provoked a firestorm, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that he doesn’t want to arm al-Nusra itself, just “some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra”. He thinks the US could somehow “peel off” these fighters and convince to join the much weaker rebel army that al-Nusra recently decimated. Oh okay, then. He’s in favor of arming only the “moderate” members of al-Qaida: that sounds so much better. 
 
Let’s put aside for a second that there’s not much difference between arming al-Nusra and arming “some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra.” How the US can possibly “peel off” fighters from a terrorist group is a complete mystery. In Iraq – Petraeus is apparently using part of the largely failed Iraq “surge” as his blueprint here – he convinced some Sunni tribes to switch sides temporarily, but that was with over 100,000 US troops on the ground to do the convincing. Does Petraeus think we should invade Syria to accomplish the same feat? 
 
The idea that we should add more weapons to the equation, let alone give them to militants who the US considers terrorists, is preposterous at this point. Depressingly, escalating our involvement is the dominant talking point in Washington’s foreign policy circles these days. 
 
History could not matter less to war planners, as the dangerous cycle of arming dangerous factions in the Middle East and escalating US involvement is about to start anew. The CIA armed the Mujahideen in the 1980s in their guerilla fight against the Soviets, many members of the Mujahideen would end up forming the core of al-Qaida in the 1990s. 
 
Isis, which was originated inside squalid US prison camps from George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and which also has billions of dollars in US weapons and armored vehicles thanks to a series of embarrassing mistakes and battlefield routes of all the foreign militaries we arm, eventually turned on al-Qaida. So now an ex-CIA director is suggesting that we also arm a part of al-Qaida directly, since they are now the enemy of our (larger) enemy. 
 
Remember that one of the reasons the US claimed it could go ahead and bomb Syria without any congressional authorization in the first place was because of the allegedly ultra-dangerous “Khorasan Group” which was a group of supposed terrorist masterminds within al-Nusra, and that the US was in “imminent” danger from this previously non-existent group. The US has continued to target with al-Nusra with missiles in recent months. 
 
Continually ignored in the debate over arming Syrian rebels, is that the CIA itself produced a study that concluded that arming any rebel force, whether they are a notorious terrorist group or not, is generally a bad idea. The study found that most of the time such attempts either fail spectacularly or backfire in the face of the US, even if they initially succeed. This study, which is still classified, was apparently disregarded by the Obama administration and there’s no proof Congress even saw it when voted to arm the “moderate” rebels in the first place. 
 
There’s also the much larger question over the Obama administration’s continued refusal to require a war authorization from Congress. As the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui first pointed out, how could this half-baked plan possibly square with the administration’s already-absurd theory that the declaration of war against al-Qaida allows them to indefinitely go to war with Isis as well? 
 
Petraeus is likely not the only one who thinks this plan to work with and arm members of the al-Nusra front is a good idea. There are probably many faceless officials and spooks who are pushing the same agenda in Washington, but Petraeus is the only one with enough clout to go ahead and say it out loud (since we already know he is above the law). Now you can expect a bunch of fresh hot takes explaining how Petraeus is right and we should be arming al-Qaida.

Petraeus: Arm Al-Qaida. Al-Nusra Terrorists

The latest brilliant plan to curtail Isis in the Middle East? Give more weapons to current members of al-Qaida. The Daily Beast reported ...

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