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July 21st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Separate clashes were reported in Aleppo’s al-Sakhour district, a poor suburb
inhabited by members of four large Arab tribes that have joined the
anti-Assad revolt, according to opposition activists.
The clashes came as Mr Assad’s forces did their best to retain control of the
country, targeting border posts that rebels claimed to have siezed
yesterday, and dislodging opposition fighters who gained an unprecedented
foothold in the Midan district of Damascus on Thursday.
Army helicopters and tanks used rockets, machine guns and mortars to pound
rebel fighters in Damascus overnight on Friday, with the city quiet by
around 4am GMT, residents told Reuters. Lightly-armed fighters had been
moving through the streets on foot and attacking security installations and
roadblocks.
“The regime has been rudderless for last three days. But the aerial and ground
bombardment on Damascus and its suburbs shows that it has not lost the
striking force and that it is re-grouping,” opposition activist Moaz
al-Jahhar said by phone from Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based opposition group which
monitors the violence in the country, said 240 people had been killed across
Syria on Friday, including 43 soldiers. It said the total death toll from
the last 48 hours stood at 550, making it the bloodiest two days of the
16-month-old uprising against President Assad.
“We couldn’t sleep at all, every time we heard firing or the sound of
helicopters, we were terrified,” said Abdel Jaber, 45, who passed through
the Lebanese border post at Masnaa with his wife and six children.
Meanwhile, a senior Syrian military defector claimed that Mr Assad’s forces
were moving chemical weapons across the country for possible use in a
military retaliation for the killing of four top security officials.
“The regime has started moving its chemical stockpile and redistributing it to
prepare for its use,” said General Mustafa Sheikh, citing rebel intelligence
obtained in recent days.
“They are moving it from warehouses to new locations,” he told Reuters in an
interview in southern Turkey, close to the Syrian border. “They want to burn
the country. The regime cannot fall without perpetrating a sea of blood.”
US intelligence officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that they know the
location of at least some of Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile, and have
monitored movements of part of the arsenal from storage bunkers to more
secure sites earlier this month. It is thought the Assad regime itself
shares US anxieties about the stocks falling into the hands of Islamic
extremists or Hezbollah. The US is also trying to persuade Israel not to
invade or bomb Syria in an effort to destroy the stockpiles, which include
blister agents and poison gas.
The same US intelligence sources also said that opposition leaders now seemed
to be backing away from seeking a negotiated settlement with Mr Assad, in
favour of pursuing outright military victory. That has led to fears of
bloody reprisals against the president’s minority Alawite sect, some of whom
are already reported to be fleeing to the Alawite heartlands around the city
of Latakia on Syria’s western Mediterranean coast.
However, Washington does not believe Mr Assad’s fall is imminent, the US
officials said, predicting that he would cling to power for another two or
three months.
In other developments, Syrian army units shelled rebels who seized control of
one of three main crossings between Iraq and Syria, Iraqi officials told the
Agence France Presse news agency. The officials also said that Syrian
refugees had attempted to enter Iraq but that Baghdad had ordered its
security forces to refuse them access.
Mr Sheikh claimed that momentum gained by the rebels was now prompting ever
more defections, and that at least 100,000 soldiers had deserted out of the
320,000-strong military, almost double the numbers of only a few months ago.
On Saturday a Turkish official told Reuters that two Syrian
brigadier-generals had also fled to Turkey overnight.
Opposition sources claim that the government has now deployed elite forces
from the Fourth Brigade and the Republican Army against the rebels,
indicating that they are using every last weapon at their disposal.
Speaking on a visit to Croatia, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary
general, said that Syrian authorities had “manifestly failed” to protect
civilians and called on the international community to act to stop the
violence.
Mr Ban also called on both government and opposition forces alike “to stop
armed violence without any conditions”.
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