The Syria Analysis Thread

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 21 Feb 2012

LOL, except when they are.

Angocachi Tuesday 21 Feb 2012

When? Tell me when!
All Saudi Arabia has ever done to AQ is exile its leader, then torture and kill his followers. They've been stomping on AQ for years. Just go to a Saudi intelligence office and tell them you're Al Qaeda if you want to learn new pains.

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 21 Feb 2012

Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, Libya, and now Syria, etc. etc. etc.

Angocachi Tuesday 21 Feb 2012

Saudi Arabia didn't help AQ in any of these places!

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 21 Feb 2012

Of course they did. They financed them through their control of Islamic charities and in tandem with the CIA as per the Old Afghan Network.

Angocachi Tuesday 21 Feb 2012

I read the experts on AQ, like Michael Scheuer. They are adamant that AQ and the Saudi Monarchy are total rivals and have never supported one another.
Have dissidents within the Saudi elite supported AQ, as dissidents within the Pakistani elite have supported the Taliban, yes. But try not to get confused, it is not as if the royal family is throwing funds and arms at Ayman Al Zawahiri. They want to kill each other!

If you can show me a source, please, then you're talking.

Niccolo and Donkey Friday 24 Feb 2012

Dionysian SteamshipTime Thomas777 Angocachi President Camacho

Once again we see how Sunni Muslims are useless.

Hamas ditches Assad, backs Syrian revolt

Feb 24 (Reuters) - Leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas turned publicly against their long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday, endorsing the revolt aimed at overthrowing his dynastic rule.

The policy shift deprives Assad of one of his few remaining Sunni Muslim supporters in the Arab world and deepens his international isolation. It was announced in Hamas speeches at Friday prayers in Cairo and a rally in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas went public after nearly a year of equivocating as Assad's army, largely led by fellow members of the president's Alawite sect, has crushed mainly Sunni protesters and rebels.

In a Middle East split along sectarian lines between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, the public abandonment of Assad casts immediate questions over Hamas's future ties with its principal backer Iran , which has stuck by its ally Assad, as well as with Iran's fellow Shi'ite allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

"I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Egypt from the Gaza Strip, told thousands of Friday worshippers at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque.

"We are marching towards Syria, with millions of martyrs," chanted worshippers at al-Azhar, home to one of the Sunni world's highest seats of learning. "No Hezbollah and no Iran.

"The Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution."

Contemporary political rivalries have exacerbated tensions that date back centuries between Sunnis - the vast majority of Arabs - and Shi'ites, who form substantial Arab populations, notably in Lebanon and Iraq, and who dominate in non-Arab Iran.

The divorce between Hamas and Damascus had been coming for months. The Palestinian group had angered Assad last year when it refused a request to hold public rallies in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria in support of his government.

Hamas's exile political leader Khaled Meshaal and his associates quietly quit their headquarters in Damascus and have stayed away from Syria for months now, although Hamas tried to deny their absence had anything to do with the revolt.

Haniyeh visited Iran earlier this month on a mission to shore up ties with the power that has provided Hamas with money and weapons to fight Israel. It is not clear what the outcome of his visit has been, though the tone of the latest Hamas comments is hardly compatible with continued warm relations with Tehran.

Rallies in favor of Syria's Sunni majority have been rare in the coastal enclave but on Friday it seemed the Islamist rulers of the territory had decided to break the silence.

"Nations do not get defeated. They do not retreat and they do not get broken. We are on your side and on the side of all free peoples," said Bardaweel.

"God is Greatest," the crowd chanted. "Victory to the people of Syria."

Hamas-Hezbollah relations have been good in the past. But Hamas did not attack Israel when it was fighting Hezbollah in 2006 and Hezbollah did not join in when Israel mounted a major offensive against Hamas in Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.

Anything that divides Hamas and Hezbollah is likely to be welcomed by Israel, which has been watching warily recent moves by Hamas to reconcile differences with its Palestinian rivals in Fatah, the movement of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Angocachi Saturday 25 Feb 2012

Hamas has Turkey, the GCC, Jordan and both Islamist parties in Cairo jockeying for its favor. They don't need Assad, and they expect him to fall to a government like the one in Egypt now.

Team Zissou Saturday 25 Feb 2012

My family members say Syrian Muslims used to be like the Bosnians were in Yugoslavia. Now, it's like going back in time a hundred years.

Niccolo and Donkey Sunday 26 Feb 2012

President Camacho SteamshipTime SweetLeftFoot

Remember guys, we need to support democracy in Syria and Saudi Arabia is leading by example......

Saudi Arabia backs arming Syrian opposition

[IMG]

Saudi Arabia has backed the arming of Syria 's opposition guerrilla army in remarks that could signal an intervention by the Sunni Muslim superpower in the Assad regime's crackdown against the uprising.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, described the arming of the Free Syria Army as an "excellent idea" at an inaugural meeting in Tunisia of an anti-Assad group – the Friends of Syria.
But the Saudi delegation later walked out of the summit citing "inactivity" among the member states gathered.

Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, called for the creation of an Arab force to "open humanitarian corridors to provide security to the Syrian people".

The Syria Analysis Thread

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