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THE BURDEN OF DAMASCUS

Assad: We could blind Israel in an instant

The Jerusalem Post reports: “‘We now possess deterrent weapons that are more important and more sophisticated than chemical weapons,’ Syrian President Bashar Assad told visitors to his palace in Damascus on Thursday [9/26/13].

He emphasized that he had no need for chemical weapons.

According to the report, which was carried by Hezbollah’s paper Al-Akhbar, Assad said this was because the situation in Syria ‘has never been better,’ as ‘we created chemical weapons in the ’80s as a deterrent against Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Today, it is no longer a weapon of deterrence.

We have weapons that are more important and more sophisticated to challenge Israel, which we can blind in an instant.’

‘In Syria there are thousands of tons of chemical weapons that have become a burden to us since their destruction costs a great deal of money and could take years to destroy.

They also create environmental challenges and others that would need solving. So they [UN inspectors] should just come and take them,’ Assad said.

‘[Getting rid of] the chemical weapons is not the goal of the United States and their allies, and they never have been,’ he said. ‘They wanted to change the balance of power and to protect Israel.

‘We turned the tables and sent to the ball into their court. This move embarrassed them in front of the American public, in Europe and even in front of the US government,’ he said.

Assad praised the ‘unprecedented collaboration with Russia,’ and added that ‘we have an agreement with Russia that they will intervene, in a big way, if Syria is attacked.’…”


 

Assad: Turkey will pay heavily for backing Syrian rebels

Haaretz reports: “Syrian President Bashar Assad told Turkey it will pay a heavy price for backing rebels fighting to oust him, accusing it of harboring ‘terrorists’ along its border who would soon turn against their hosts.

In an interview with Turkey’s Halk TV due to be broadcast later on Friday [10/4/13], Assad called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ‘bigoted’ and said Turkey was allowing terrorists to cross into Syria to attack the army and Syrian civilians.

‘It is not possible to put terrorism in your pocket and use it as a card because it is like a scorpion which won’t hesitate to sting you at the first opportunity,’ Assad said, according to a transcript published on Halk TV’s website.

‘In the near future, these terrorists will have an impact on Turkey and Turkey will pay a heavy price for it.’

Turkey, which shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria and has NATO’s second largest deployable military force, is one of Assad’s fiercest critics and a staunch supporter of the opposition, although it denies arming the rebels…” (The religion of peace? Assad who has slaughtered 110,000 Sunni Muslims and many Christians now threatens the death of thousands of Turkey’s Muslim brothers and sisters in the Islamic faith because they are not Shiites or Alawites, two different denominations in the same religion. See the next report.)


 

Syrian FM: We Intend to ‘Reclaim’ the Golan

Israel National News reports: “Well over 100,000 people may have died in his country in the civil war that has ranged for the past several years, but for Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem and the government of President Bashar al-Assad, there is only one problem fit to be discussed at the UN: Israel.

Speaking at the General Assembly Monday [9/30/13], Muallem made a passing reference to the civil war, before aiming his verbal sword at Syria’s neighbor to the south.

‘The events in my country do not cause us to lose our way,’ Muallem said. ‘We intend to reclaim the Golan that Israel is occupying.’

Israel, Muallem said, was the cause of most of the trouble in the Middle East, hinting that it was one of the forces behind the ‘foreign rebels’ he and Assad say are attempting to unseat the Syrian leader. He also demanded that Israel give up any weapons of mass destruction it may have…”


 

Assad Smuggling Weapons Through Tunnels to Hizbullah

Israel National News reports: “A Saudi newspaper has claimed Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is using tunnels to smuggle chemical weapons to Hizbullah.

The report by the Al-Watan daily said the regime had made the move to avoid being spotted, moving the deadly weapons before the arrival of international inspectors.

…The Syrian regime agreed to a Russian brokered deal to hand over its chemical weapons stock to the international community amid the threat of a U.S. strike on the country. Intelligence agencies have estimated the cache to measure some 100 tonnes.

According to the Al-Watan report, Assad had ordered the weapons to be transferred to Hizbullah in vegetable trucks until this drew attention, subsequently preferring underground tunnels to move the load. In addition the report said weapons were being transferred to Iraq as well as Russian ships docked on the Syrian coast. The report has not been confirmed…” (Assad who crossed President Obama’s red line and suffered no consequences by our hopeless and helpless leader is now again finding loopholes for his chemical posions.)