On the Road to Damascus

Also today the Syrian airforce wanted to bomb Jabhat al-Nusra positions in the Golan heights where Nusra is, as first reported here, opening a corridor from Jordan towards Lebanon and for attacks on Damascus right along the demarcation line between Israel and Syria. Israel, in quite open support effort for the Nusra plan, shot down the Syrian SU-24 using U.S. provided Patriot missiles. While Israel claims that the plane violated its border the reported crash site was far from the border near Kanaker, Syria which is halfway between the demarcation line and Damascus.

Under the protection of the U.S. attack on IS and other targets Israel now practically established a no-fly-zone next to the Golan which will allow Jabhat al-Nusra to safely use the corridor and to attack Hizbullah in Qalamoun and in south Lebanon. It also opens space for new attacks on Damascus.

The U.S. attack on the IS in Syria will, as the NYT headlines express, have as little effect as such attacks have in Iraq. Without coordinating air attacks with a capable, available ground force like the Syrian army such strikes on IS will make no conceivable difference. I have yet to see any report that the U.S. planes have hit some of the major weapons or ammunition depots the IS captured from the Iraqi army.

  Moon of Alabama

As in the case of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the Caucasian mujahideen in Dagestan base their struggle on a hadith saying that the end-of-the-world Imam Mehdi will fight at the head of an army of Islam coming from Khorasan - a historical region containing Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan - referred to by Muslim radicals as Black Flags from Khorasan. The Taliban in Pakistan have formed a Lashkar-e-Khorasan to hunt down "American spies" who facilitate drone attacks. In Dagestan, Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists call themselves Black Flags of Khorasan.

SOURCE:
Sunday Times (Islamabad)
April 28, 2013 Sunday
Boston bombing and Pakistan
LENGTH: 914 words
DATELINE: Karachi

  Radamisto

It’s no wonder most Americans’ eyes glaze over at talk of complex Middle East policy. Just kill us some bad guys so we can watch The Voice in safety.  And as far as we're concerned, all Middle Easterners (except Israelis, of course) are bad guys.