Syrian officials under ISIS attacks
January 31, 2015
Hasakah, Syria – Militant fighters of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) blew up the house of Syrian Parliament’s member Hamid Karko Jassim in the village of Kabirat al-Karko of the town of Tel Brak (42 km northeastern Hasakah) on charges of supporting the Syrian regime, pro-regime media sources reported on Friday.
An eyewitness from the town of Tel Brak told
ARA News that the IS militants bombed the house of Syrian Parliamentary Hamid Jassim “as he was an active participant in pro-regime activities in Hasakah in the recent months”.
“Jassim’s house was empty when it was bombed, but the group wanted to send him and his peers a message that they’re not welcome anymore in the IS-held areas,” the source said.
Jassim recently participated in events organized by the regime in the city of Hasakah including regime’s meetings with tribal leaders.
The village of al-Karko (10 km northwestern the town of Tel Brak) is held by the IS group.
The Islamic State insurgents had recently blown up a number of houses belonging to the pro-regime figures in Hasakah city, accusing them of “spying for the benefit of the Syrian regime”.
The group had also bombed the house of Fahmi Abbas in January 4, 2015, after accusing him of supporting the Syrian regime. In January 14, the IS militants bombed the house of the tribal leader of al-Bushekh clan (Baggara) Sheikh Adnan Ali Jadaan, a member of the tribal council and the Arab tribes of the Ministry of National Reconciliation of the Syrian regime.
Syrian officials under ISIS attacks - ARA News
Al-Qaeda attacks Syrian rebels in Aleppo
January 31, 2015
Damascus, Syria – Clashes broke out Friday between fighters of the al-Nusra Front (Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and rebels of the Hazm Movement in the western countryside of Aleppo. The clashes followed attacks by Nusra militants against strongholds of Hazm in Aleppo earlier on Thursday, activists reported.
The Al-Nusra group took control Thursday of the Hazm Movement’s headquarters in Salman Camp in the western countryside of Aleppo after a fierce battle between the two sides in the vicinity of the towns of Atareb and Orim.
The clashes spread then to the vicinity of the town of Kafrnouran, Sheikh Ali and al-Muhandisin areas in the western countryside of Aleppo.
A number of Syrian armed opposition factions intervened in an attempt to stop the fighting between both sides, but the al-Nusra fighters pledged to continue what they described as “the campaign of eliminating spoilers”.
The Al-Nusra group issued a statement (of which
ARA News received a copy) explaining the reasons behind its operations against the Movement in Aleppo, saying: “Members of the Hazm armed movement kidnapped two of our Mujahideens (Jihadists) during their return to their homes from battles against Assad regime.”
“After the failure of negotiations between the two sides, the Front (al-Nusra) has taken proper path (which is fighting) of liberating the Mujahideen brothers (detained militants held by Hazm),” the statement read.
The Nusra militants regained the military camp in the village of Salman on Friday.
Nusra leadership accused Hazm fighters of bombing villages and towns in Aleppo countryside, which reportedly caused the death of a number of civilians in the villages of Sheikh Ali and Sahhara.
The Hazm movement is one branch of Syrian rebels, which the al-Nusra Front engaged in battles with, seizing all their weapons as well as their headquarters in the countryside of Idlib and Zawiya mountain months ago.
Al-Qaeda attacks Syrian rebels in Aleppo - ARA News
IS killed 3 Assad soldiers and destroyed artillery piece around Shaer fields, Homs countryside.
CIA, Israel plotted senior Hezbollah commander's killing: report | News , Lebanon News | THE DAILY STAR
WASHINGTON: The CIA and Israel's spy agency Mossad were behind an elaborate plot to killHezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in a 2008 car bomb attack in Syria, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Citing former intelligence officials, the newspaper reported that U.S. and Israeli spy agencies worked together to target Mughniyeh on Feb. 12, 2008 as he left a restaurant in the Syrian capital Damascus.
He was killed instantly by a car bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of a parked car, which exploded shrapnel in a tight radius, the Post said.
The bomb, built by the United States and tested in the state of North Carolina, was triggered remotely by Mossad agents in Tel Aviv who were in communication with Central Intelligence Agency operatives on the ground in Damascus.
"The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute," a former U.S. intelligence official told the newspaper.
A senior Hezbollah commander, Mughniyeh was suspected of masterminding the abduction of Western hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s and of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina that killed 29 people.
He was also linked to the bombing of the U.S. marine barracks at Beirut airport in 1983, in which 241 American servicemen died, and the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, in which a U.S. navy diver was killed.
The CIA declined to comment to the Post about the report.
According the newspaper, the authority to kill required a presidential finding by George W. Bush. Several senior officials, including the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and the national security advisor, would have had to sign off on the order, it added.
- 'Find, fix and finish' -
The former officials that spoke to the newspaper said Mughniyeh was directly involved in arming and training Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeting U.S. forces, and though it occurred in a country where the United States was not at war, his assassination could be seen as an act of self-defense.
"They were carrying out suicide bombings and IED attacks," one former official told the Post, referring to alleged Hezbollah operations in Iraq.
They added that getting approval from the most senior echelons of the U.S. government to carry out the attack against Mughniyeh was a "rigorous and tedious" process, and it had to be proven that he was a true menace.
"What we had to show was he was a continuing threat to Americans," the official told the Post.
"The decision was we had to have absolute confirmation that it was self-defense."
The newspaper said that during the Iraq war, the Bush administration had approved a list of operations aimed at Hezbollah, and according to one official, this included approval to target Mughniyeh.
"There was an open license to find, fix and finish Mughniyeh and anybody affiliated with him," a former U.S. official who served in Baghdad told the Post.
According to the newspaper, American intelligence officials had been discussing possible ways to target the notorious Hezbollah commander for years, and senior US Joint Special Operations Command agents held a secret meeting with the head of Israel's military intelligence service in 2002.
"When we said we would be willing to explore opportunities to target him, they practically fell out of their chairs," a former U.S. official told the Post.
Though it is not clear when the agencies realized Mughniyeh was living in Damascus, a former official told the newspaper that Israel had approached the CIA about a joint operation to kill him in Syria's capital.
The agencies collected "pattern of life" information about him and used facial recognition technology to establish his identity after he walked out of a restaurant the night he was killed.
CIA, Israel plotted senior Hezbollah commander's killing: report | News , Lebanon News | THE DAILY STAR