Syrian state television has reported that a series of heavy explosions in the capital were caused by Israeli rocket strikes. SANA reports that the blasts early Sunday morning targeted a military research center on the outskirts of the capital. The research center in Jamraya was the target of an earlier Israeli strike in January.
The Taliban in Afghanistan has vowed to begin a new campaign of mass suicide attacks on foreign military bases and diplomatic areas as part of a new spring offensive. A Taliban spokesman announced that militants will use ‘special tactics against invading foreign forces’ and will target the government in Kabul that the Taliban views as a puppet of the West.
In response to saber-rattling by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the US sent B-2 stealth bombers for a “practice run” in South Korea. Why is North Korea threatening missile strikes against U.S. cities like Austin, Texas? The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Bellini has The Short Answer.
North Korea has elevated its artillery and strategic missile forces to “combat-ready posture” and said it is prepared to strike targets in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii and the continental United States.
France’s top defense official claims the terrorist group al-Qaeda stockpiled tons of weapons in Mali and planned to use the Central African country’s north as a base for international attacks.
More than six thousand Christian Armenians from Syria have poured into Armenia in recent months, escaping the civil war back home. The Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Parkinson reports from Yerevan.
Yaara Bou Melhem
Here’s a report from the frontlines in Syria from Yaara Bou Melhem, the first Western journalist given access to the labyrinth of secret caves used as a staging base by the Free Syrian Army in its revolution to topple strongman Bashar al-Assad. The 3,000-year-old caves serve as a huge strategic asset. ”The army besieged us many times and we always slipped through,” an FSA leader declares.
But local knowledge will only go so far and the rebels are hard-pressed to counter the might of the Syrian army with limited resources. As one failed test run of a home-made mortar shows, they don’t have much to work with. They are disheartened by months of fighting without help. Says the FSA spokesman, “America and Europe hide behind the Russian veto. They lie to us.”
Even the head of the Free Syrian Army, Col. Riad al-Assad, is unable to help. As rebel groups come to him for guidance, he can only encourage coordination. When asked about the suicide bomb that killed the minister of defense, he says, “This is an integral part of the revolutionary action. It could break the regime’s back.”
In 2011, Yaara Bou Melhem was named Young Australian Journalist of the Year by the Walkley Foundation for her reporting from Syria. She spent 2010 in Beirut and now reports for Australian and International networks around the world. Visit her website at
http://yaara.tv/
. H/T Journeyman Pictures
From Boudica of the British Celts to Corporal Klinger, few things unsettle the male mind like a lady in arms. The Kurds of Northern Iraq have long recognized this principle and incorporated it into their quest to build a Kurdish homeland in the overlap between Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Fighting alongside their male comrades in a region not exactly known for its progressive stance on women’s rights, the female Peshmerga guerillas of the Kurdish Liberation Movement built a reputation for themselves in the 70s and 80s as demure diaboliques with the deadly poise of Leila Khaled or Tania-era Patty Hearst.
Having secured the northern third of Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the Kurds have spent the last two decades divesting themselves of their guerilla jamjams, building up a stable and booming economy in their semi-autonomous little hamlet, and generally enjoying not being in the middle of the current Iraq War. Up in the hills abutting Iran and Turkey, however, the struggle for a Greater Kurdistan continues for boy and girl alike — Thomas Morton, Vice News
http://vice.com
