Iraq unable to search all Syria-bound Iranian planes: Maliki

kirkuki

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Apr 20, 2012
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Kirkuk - Kurdistan
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Saturday that Iraq is not capable of searching all Iranian cargo planes using its airspace to deliver arms shipments to Syria.

"Iraq has no ability to search all Iranian aircraft heading for Syria," Maliki told reporters at a news conference here.

Maliki said Iraq is committed to "the application of the Iraqi constitution which prohibit passing arms across the Iraqi territories," as well as "the sanctions imposed on Syria."

"But other countries don't," he said, "I call on them not to support the opposition in Syria by qualitative weapons, some of which began to flow to Iraq."

The Iraqi authorities previously forced several Iranian cargo planes from Tehran to Damascus to land in Baghdad airport for security search, and later allowed them to continue their journey after finding nothing banned.

U.S. officials and media have reported suspicions that Iranian aircraft are carrying weapons to Syria via Iraqi airspace, but Baghdad repeatedly refused the allegations, saying that the Iranian flights are carrying humanitarian aid.

Gulan Media
 
Is collapse of the Syrian regime imminent?...
:confused:
'You can hear the artillery outside the president's office"
January 24th, 2013 - The U.S. ambassador to Syria said the Syrian regime slowly starting to crumble.
Ambassador Robert Ford said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Ivan Watson while touring the Islahiye refugee camp in Turkey that it is a slow process but the signs are pointing towards decline. "Members of the regime, little by little, are flaking off," Ford said, noting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's mother had fled the country and is now in the United Arab Emirates.

The former foreign ministry spokesman is now a refugee in the United States, Ford said. (Update 9:11 pm – Senior administration officials tell CNN that the ambassador misspoke and that the Syrian foreign ministry spokesman is not in the U.S.) Ford said it is a slow process, but al-Assad’s government is falling apart. "You can see little-by-little the inner core is weakening," Ford said. "But again, it's a gradual process."

Ford said when the U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met with al-Assad in December, the closeness of the fighting was evident. "He told us that you could hear artillery outside the president's office," Ford told Watson. "The fighting is getting that close now to the inner circle itself. And so you can imagine what that does to their own spirits, their own morale."

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Syria crisis: Locals tell of Homs massacre
18 January 2013 - In every war, the battle to control the narrative can be as fierce as the conflict on the ground.
That's been the story of Syria, and a growing war which has seen all too many horrific massacres. We've now seen evidence from the latest atrocity in the village of Haswiya on the edge of Homs. Villagers confirmed earlier reports that emerged from activists that more than 100 people were killed this week in a small farming community of mainly Sunni residents. What we saw ourselves confirmed it was another gruesome war crime. Piecing together what happened is another story.

Hiding in cupboards?

In two family compounds we saw several charred bodies in gutted rooms. Blackened corpses with bullet holes showed people had been both shot and burnt. A plastic fuel bottle was still there. A kitchen with long blood smears on the floor suggested at least two bodies were dragged away. Had people been hiding in the cupboards? In one large compound, we went room to room in a small cluster of houses, trying to trace the trail of blood and bullet casings to establish the sequence of what happened on that terrible day. In a kitchen splattered with blood, delicate blue patterned teacups still sat on shelves in neat rows. Two bedrooms were turned upside down. On the washing line, clothes still were hanging to dry. Chickens pecked for food on the ground.

Worrying future

Who did this? It was hard to establish a full picture since we were accompanied by a posse of soldiers and minders through a village where there was still a pall of grief and shock. Soldiers who escorted us to the edge of Haswiya insisted this was the work of the Islamist al-Nusra Front. They said hundreds of men had entered the village from adjoining fields. It begs the question of why the atrocities, which villagers said took hours, weren't stopped by the military base which is just around the corner.

Others in the village confirmed the army's account. But one woman, who spoke to us off-camera, out of earshot of our minders, told us soldiers were there that day, and that some had apologised that "others acted without orders". Her version tallies with activist claims that this was the work of the pro-government Allawite militia known as Shabbiha. Both sides are already hurling accusations at each other across official and social media.

More BBC News - Syria crisis: Locals tell of Homs massacre
 
Deserting Syrian soldiers killed in Iraq...
:eusa_eh:
48 Syrian soldiers killed in Iraq ambush
March 4, 2013 - Dozens of Syrian soldiers who had crossed into Iraq for refuge were ambushed Monday with bombs, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in an attack that killed 48 of them and heightened concerns that the country could be drawn into Syria's civil war.
The fact that the soldiers were on Iraqi soil at all raises questions about Baghdad's apparent willingness to quietly aid the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The well-coordinated attack, which Iraqi officials blamed on al-Qaida's Iraq arm, also suggests possible coordination between the militant group and its ideological allies in Syria who rank among the rebels' most potent fighters. Iraqi officials said the Syrians had sought refuge through the Rabiya border crossing in northern Iraq during recent clashes with rebels and were being escorted back home through a different crossing farther south when the ambush occurred. Their convoy was struck near Akashat, not far from the Syrian border.

image.jpg

In this Sunday March 3, 2013 image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Syrian rebel fighters displays an epaulette from a government soldier during a tour of the police academy complex in Khan al-Asal, in the province of Aleppo, Syria. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels seized the police academy in Khan al-Asal after entering the sprawling government complex with captured tanks. The Observatory said the battle left at least 120 soldiers and 80 rebels dead.

Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, provided the death toll and said nine Iraqi soldiers were also killed. The Syrians had been disarmed and included some who were wounded, he told The Associated Press. He said the soldiers had been allowed into Iraq only on humanitarian grounds and insisted that Baghdad was not picking sides in the Syrian conflict. "We do not want more soldiers to cross our borders and we do not want to be part of the problem," al-Moussawi said. "We do not support any group against the other in Syria."

The Iraqi Defense Ministry said 10 additional Syrians were wounded in the assault. In a statement, it warned all parties in the Syrian war against bringing the fight into Iraq, saying its response will be "firm and tough." Iraqi officials who provided details of the attack described a carefully orchestrated assault on the Syrians' convoy, with a senior military intelligence official saying the attackers appeared to have been tipped off ahead of time.

More 48 Syrian soldiers killed in Iraq ambush - Middle East - Stripes
 

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