Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Shia cleric and militancy leader Muqtada al-Sadr has urged the Iraqi government to ensure protection for its borders with Syria after a controversial deal between Islamic State militants and Lebanese militia Hezbollah helped the group redeploy there.
“The Iraqi government is required to secure the borders with Syrian al-Boukamal region,” Sadr tweeted on Thursday. “We are fully prepared to cooperate with it (the government)”.
A deal between Hezbollah and Islamic State fighters, approved by the Syrian government, has gone into force, granting IS militants a safe exit from the Syrian-Lebanese borders towards the Syrian Al-Boukamal city, near the borders with Iraq’s Anbar.
Baghdad has lambasted the agreement, saying it endangers its security. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for an investigation by Damascus into the controversial deal.
Speaking to Alsumaria News, Naeem al-Kaoud, chairman of the Anbar province’s security committee, said IS had already deployed members coming from Syria at the province’s western areas. “Daesh (Islamic State) terrorist group has deployed a large number of their fighters coming from Syria at the towns of Annah, Rawa and Qaim”. He deemed the situation “violation of Iraq’s sovereignty”.
IS has held the three towns since 2014, and the government marks them as future targets of its military action seeking to end the group’s existence.
Category: Syria
The Syrian Truth Finally Comes Out
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a “fabrication” to justify a US strike on his forces, in an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus.
The embattled leader, whose country has been ravaged by six years of war, said his firepower had not been affected by the attack ordered by US President Donald Trump, but acknowledged further strikes were possible.
Assad insisted his forces had turned over all their chemical weapons stocks years ago and would never use the banned arms.
The interview on Wednesday was his first since a suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun.
“Definitely, 100 percent for us, it’s fabrication,” he said of the incident.
“Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack,” added Assad, who has been in power for 17 years.
At least 87 people, including 31 children, were killed in the alleged attack, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
But Assad said evidence came only from “a branch of Al-Qaeda,” referring to a former jihadist affiliate that is among the groups that control Idlib province, where Khan Sheikhun is located.
Images of the aftermath, showing victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth, sent shockwaves around the world.
But Assad insisted it was “not clear whether it happened or not, because how can you verify a video? You have a lot of fake videos now.”
“We don’t know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?”
He said Khan Sheikhun had no strategic value and was not currently a battle front.
“This story is not convincing by any means.”
© Provided by AFP A handout picture released by the Syrian presidency’s press office shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during an interview with AFP in the capital Damascus on April 12, 2017The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has begun an investigation into the alleged attack, but Russia on Wednesday blocked a UN Security Council resolution demanding Syria cooperate with the probe.
And Assad said he could “only allow any investigation when it’s impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won’t use it for politicised purposes.”
He insisted several times that his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russia to avoid threatened US military action.
“There was no order to make any attack, we don’t have any chemical weapons, we gave up our arsenal a few years ago,” he said.
“Even if we have them, we wouldn’t use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history.”
The OPCW has blamed Assad’s government for at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving the use of chlorine.
The Khan Sheikhun incident prompted the first direct US military action against Assad’s government since the war began, with 59 cruise missiles hitting the Shayrat airbase three days after the suspected chemical attack.
Assad said more US attacks “could happen anytime, anywhere, not only in Syria.”
But he said his forces had not been diminished by the US strike.
“Our firepower, our ability to attack the terrorists hasn’t been affected by this strike.”
Iran Threatens Response To Trump’s Attack

BY: Adam Kredo Follow @Kredo0
April 10, 2017 5:00 am
Joint Russia-Iranian forces operating in Syria warned the Trump administration over the weekend that further American strikes on the war-torn country will unleash a “lethal response,” according to official statements aimed at ratcheting up tension with the United States following a string of fresh airstrikes on Syrian strongholds.
Iranian and Russian forces working together in Syria on behalf of embattled leader Bashar al-Assad issued a stern warning to the United States and threatened to take their own action against American military forces.
“We will respond to any aggression powerfully, as Russia and Iran would never allow the U.S. to dominate the world,” read a statement issued by the Syria-Iran-Russia Joint Operations Room, a combination of forces operating on behalf of Assad in Syria. The statement was first published in Iran’s state-controlled media.
The statement raises the stakes of continued U.S. intervention in Syria, as Iran and Russia become further entrenched in the battle to bolster Assad and keep him in power. Iran and Russia also announced this weekend new military alliances aimed at bolstering Tehran’s fleet of amphibious airplanes.
While the Trump administration has not ruled out further military intervention in Syria, it remains unclear how willing the White House will be to isolate further Iranian and Russian forces operating together inside Syria. U.S. coalition forces in nearby Iraq also remain vulnerable to reprisal attacks by the thousands of Iranian forces operating in that country alongside local militias.
The joint Russian-Iranian group in Syria hinted that it believes the United States may be behind the chemical attack that prompted military action.
“We believe that the events [chemical weapons use] in [Syria] have been plotted by certain states and bodies to be used as a pretext to attack Syria,” according to the statement, which suggests the United States may have orchestrated the attack in order to justify military intervention.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also condemned the U.S. strike on Sunday, warning the Trump administration about further military action.
“What Americans did was a strategic mistake, and they are repeating the same mistakes done by their predecessors,” Khamenei was quoted as saying during a meeting with senior Iranian armed forces commanders in Tehran.
Khamenei also said that U.S. forces in the region were conspiring with anti-Assad terrorist forces.
“Former U.S. officials created ISIL or helped it, and present officials are reinvigorating ISIL and similar groups,” Khamenei alleged.
Multiple Iranian military officials adopted a similar stance over the weekend and vowed to continue fighting alongside Russia on behalf of Assad in Syria.
A delegation of more than 220 Iranian lawmakers also moved to condemn the U.S. attack over the weekend and demanded an independent investigation into the measures.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in a phone conversation Sunday with Assad, vowed to continue Iranian support for the Syrian president.
“The Iranian people are still standing by the Syrian nation,” Rouhani was quoted as telling Assad.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the latest strike by the United States could serve to push Russia and Iran closer in their alliance, which has grown since the landmark Iran nuclear deal.
“In the aftermath of the recent Tomahawk cruise missiles strikes by the U.S., Iranian officials have voiced their condemnation of the U.S. as was expected, but will also seek to capitalize on a recent highly public trip by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Moscow,” Ben Taleblu said.
“While not a formal alliance, the Syrian theater is one area where Russian and Iranian interests overlap,” he explained. “With the expiration of a United Nations mandated arms ban in 2020, we can expect to see this Russo-Iranian relationship deepen significantly. U.S. policymakers would be wise to exploit whatever cleavages exist in the relationship until then.”
Syrian Chemical Attack Not Due To Assad
“There is no proof that the cause of the explosion was what they said it was. Remember what happened in Iraq…I’ve seen testimony alleged from witnesses who said they saw chemical bombs dropping from the air. Well, you can not see chemical weapons dropping from the air. Such testimony is worthless.”“But think about the consequences because this is not likely to be the end of it. It doesn’t make sense that Assad would do it. Lets not leave our brains outside the door when we examine evidence. It would be totally self-defeating as shown by the results…Assad is not mad.”
As we pointed out yesterday, Ford’s comments seemingly align with the opinion of former Representative Ron Paul who argued that there was a 0% chance that Assad deliberately launched a chemical weapons attack on Syrian citizens.
“Who benefits?”
Meanwhile, this CNN anchor was left speechless Wednesday during a televised interview when a congressman questioned the mainstream narrative that Bashar al-Assad attacked his own people with chemical weapons.
“It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening in Syria right now. I’d like to know specifically how that release of chemical gas, if it did occur — and it looks like it did — how that occurred,” Representative Thomas Massie told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.“Because frankly, I don’t think Assad would have done that. It does not serve his interests. It would tend to draw us into that civil war even further.”
“I don’t think it would’ve served Assad’s purposes to do a
chemical attack on his people…It’s hard for me to understand why he
would do that — if he did.”
The War of Iranian Hegemony (Daniel 8:4)

Asked about comments Mattis made in 2012 that the three primary threats the United States faced were “Iran, Iran, Iran,” Mattis told reporters that Iran’s behavior had not changed in the years since.
“At the time when I spoke about Iran I was a commander of US central command and that (Iran) was the primary exporter of terrorism, frankly, it was the primary state sponsor of terrorism and it continues that kind of behavior today,” Mattis said.
Assad Not Behind Chemical Attack
Ron Paul: Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria Likely a False Flag
“Zero chance” Assad behind attack, says former Congressman
If the Trump administration falls into the trap of following that same disastrous policy, many more innocent people will die than those who sadly lost their lives in Khan Sheikhoun.
The unifying power of the Antichrist
The Antichrist and the Clueless West
Iraq insurgency and the clueless West
Gábor Somlai

After all, the bad dictator is defeated, so the people should be happy, elect a new government and live happily ever after, isn’t it that simple?
