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Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Wing Takes Over the Oilfields Once Belonging to Assad (+video)

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Photo Credit: telegraph.co.ukUp to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are now in rebel hands – in particular Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda off-shoot which is the strongest faction in this part of the country.

Now the violently anti-Western jihadist group, which has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.

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9/11 Military Force Bill to Authorize Drone Strikes For Another 20 Years

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Photo Credit: APThe fight against al-Qaida could continue for another 20 years, a top Pentagon official told Congress Thursday as the administration warned against any changes to the 2001 law giving the president broad authority to use military force in the war on terror.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan said the Authorization for the Use of Military Force bill passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks still serves its purpose and will continue to be effective until al-Qaida is in “the ash heap of history.”

“In my judgment, this is going to go on for quite a while, yes, beyond the second term of the president . . . I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years, ” Sheehan told the panel.

Many lawmakers, however, have questioned whether the military force authorization bill should be rewritten, or perhaps even thrown out, given the increased use of drone strikes in places that some say are not true war zones. President Barack Obama has pledged to be more transparent about the drone program, which has included the use of nearly 400 CIA and military drone strikes, reports the Washington Post. But Sheehan told lawmakers that there are still no geographic boundaries on future drone use, noting that they would continue to take place anywhere that al-Qaida or other terrorist groups are considered a threat to U.S. national security interests.

Sen. John McCain called Sheehan’s testimony on drone policy and the use of force military force bill “disturbing.”

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Syrian Rebels Post Grisly Execution Video

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Photo Credit: YouTubeA gruesome video (warning: graphic content) posted Wednesday shows Syrian rebels in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor invoking sharia law as they sentence soldiers loyal to President Bashar Assad to death. The soldiers, kneeling and blindfolded, are then shot in the back of the head by a rebel whose face is hidden by a black balaclava.

The executioners claim to belong to the al-Nursa Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), a Syrian rebel cell associated with al-Qaeda, Reuters reported Thursday.

With the civil war in Syria between Assad’s forces and myriad insurgent groups entering its third year, and as both sides struggle for the upper hand in media coverage, increasingly unpalatable videos have been surfacing that expose the war at its most brutal.

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Russia Warns Obama that He is Arming Syrian Rebels Who are al-Qaeda Terrorists

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Photo Credit: WNDRussia delivered to the Obama administration a list of the names of Syrian rebels who are members of al-Qaida groups and who are receiving arms shipments coordinated by the U.S., according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

The list, the officials added, demonstrates how the U.S. is failing in its due diligence of vetting the rebels being supported by the West for ties to al-Qaida and other jihad groups.

The information comes amid scores of news media reports that the Obama administration is aiding the rebels, including by coordinating Arab arms shipments.

The arming of Syrian rebels is considered highly controversial. A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups.

Just last week, KleinOnline broke the story that the U.S. in recent weeks aided in the transfer of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, or man-portable air-defense systems, to the Syrian rebels, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

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Syria: Al-Qaeda's Battle for Control of Assad's Chemical Weapons Plant

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Photo Credit: Getty Images By Colin Freeman. Set amid the rolling plains outside Aleppo, the town of al-Safira looks just like another vicious battleground in Syria’s civil war. On one side are lightly-armed rebels, on the other are government troops, and in between is a hotly-contested no-man’s land of bombed-out homes and burned-out military vehicles.

The fight for al-Safira is no ordinary turf war, however, and the prize can be found behind the perimeter walls of the heavily-guarded military base on the edge of town. Inside what looks like a drab industrial estate is one of Syria’s main facilities for producing chemical weapons – and among its products is sarin, the lethal nerve gas that the regime is now feared to be deploying in its bid to cling to power.

Last week, Washington said for the first time that it had evidence of Sarin being used in “small” amounts during combat operations in Syria, a move that President Barack Obama has long warned is a “red line” that President Bashar al-Assad must not cross.

But as the West now ponders its response, the fear is not just that President Assad might start using his chemical arsenal in much greater quantities. Of equal concern is the prospect of it falling into even less benign hands – a risk that the stand-off at al Safira illustrates clearly.

For among the rebel lines in al-Safira flutters the black flag of the al-Nusra Brigade, the jihadist group that recently declared its allegiance to al-Qaeda. Known for their fighting prowess honed in Iraq, they are now taking the lead in nearly every frontline in the Syrian war, and earlier this month, pushed to within just over a mile of al-Safira, only to for the Syrian troops to regain the ground last week. Read more from this story HERE.

Report: The Israeli Air Force Flew Into Syria And Bombed A Chemical Weapons Plant

By Robert Johnson. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) reports that Israeli fighter jets slipped into Damascus over the weekend and bombed a chemical weapons depot outside the city.

Neither Damascus nor Jerusalem have yet confirmed the attack, according to UPI.

According to The Jewish Press (JP) “many” reports came in over the weekend confirming the mission. Sources told the JP Israeli jets arrived over Damascus early Saturday morning and circled Assad’s presidential compound before moving on to target the weapons site.

The Israeli jets reportedly received fire but returned to base unscathed.

The Lebanese Daily Star confirms heavy FSA fighting occurred near the plant, the Scientific Studies and Research Center, but troops lacked the resources to breach the heavily fortified site. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Now Appears to be Allied With Al-Qaeda in Syria

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Iraq’s al-Qaeda wing has united with a kindred Syrian group in the front line of a struggle to oust President Bashar al-Assad, sharpening a dilemma for nations that back the revolt, but fear rising Islamist militancy. The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said his group had trained and funded fighters from Syria’s al-Nusra Front — which is blacklisted by the United States — since the early days of the two-year-old uprising.

He said in a statement posted on Islamist websites and seen by Reuters on Tuesday that the two groups would operate under the joint title of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

“It’s now time to declare in front of the people of the Levant and the world that al-Nusra Front is but an extension of the Islamic State of Iraq and part of it,” Baghdadi said.

“We thus declare . . . the cancellation of the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the name of al-Nusra Front and grouping them together under one name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” he added.

The militant Islamist element of the Syrian conflict poses a quandary for Western powers and their Arab allies, which favor Assad’s overthrow but are alarmed at the growing power of Sunni Muslim jihadi fighters whose fiercely anti-Shiite ideology has fueled sectarian tensions in the Middle East.

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Al Qaeda On The Warpath

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Al Qaeda affiliates have spread throughout the Middle East and Africa, transforming al Qaeda into an increasingly dangerous global network, research analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) said during a panel Wednesday.

“Al Qaeda is stronger at an operational level than it has been for many years” and the prospects of al Qaeda strengthening are more likely, AEI senior research analyst Katherine Zimmerman said.

Even though the United States successfully found and killed Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda movement has spread to Yemen, North Africa, Syria, Somalia, and other areas in the Middle East.

Al Qaeda is “not defeated or on the verge of defeat,” Zimmerman said.

With the outbreak of the Arab Spring, local affiliated al Qaeda groups have infiltrated unstable locations in the Middle East.

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Revealed: Al-Qaeda’s 22 Tips for Dodging Drones

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The document includes advice such as “hide under thick trees” (believed to be bin Laden’s contribution), and instructions for setting up a “fake gathering” using dolls to “mislead the enemy”.

Found by the Associated Press in a building in Timbuktu, the ancient city occupied by Islamists last year, the document is believed to have been abandoned as extremists fled a French military intervention last month. It is a Xeroxed copy of a tipsheet authored by a Yemeni extremist that has been published on some jihadi forums, but that has made little appearance in English.

The list reflects how al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghbreb anticipated a military intervention that would make use of drones, as the war on terror shifts from the ground to the air.

The document also shows the coordination between al-Qaeda chapters, which security experts have called a source of increasing concern.

“This new document… shows we are no longer dealing with an isolated local problem, but with an enemy which is reaching across continents to share advice,” said Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the CIA, now the director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institute.

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Al-Qaida Alive And Well, Ready To Attack West

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Photo Credit: WNDIn an agreement between al-Qaida and the Islamic regime, three camps have been set up within Iran to train terrorists, WND has learned.

Al-Qaida members are trained to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan and collaborate with the Islamic regime on terrorist activities against Israel, the United States and some European countries, according to a source within the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division.

The camps are in the Sistan and Baluchestan provinces of Iran bordering Pakistan, where the al-Qaida members are trained in terrorism and guerrilla-warfare tactics.

The al-Qaida members, under the pretext of conducting commerce, enter Iran through local bazaars along the Pakistani-Iranian border, the source said. After completing the course, each al-Qaida member is paid the equivalent of $12,000 in appreciation of their participation and further collaboration with the regime’s Quds Forces.

Three training bases have been set up:

The Revolutionary Guards base of the 763rd Infantry Division, close to the airport and near Azadi Square in the city of Zahedan. It is equipped with a unit for bomb-making and explosives. Zaboli, a camp built in the desert adjacent to the city of Zabol. It has a harsh 45-day training program.

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Al Qaeda Pledges ‘Shocking’ Attack on US

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A jihadist website posted a new threat by al Qaeda this week that promises to conduct “shocking” attacks on the United States and the West.

The posting appeared on the Ansar al Mujahidin network Sunday and carried the headline, “Map of al Qaeda and its future strikes.”

The message, in Arabic, asks: “Where will the next strike by al Qaeda be?” A translation was obtained by Inside the Ring.

“The answer for it, in short: The coming strikes by al Qaeda, with God’s Might, will be in the heart of the land of nonbelief, America, and in France, Denmark, other countries in Europe, in the countries that helped and are helping France, and in other places that shall be named by al Qaeda at other times,” the threat states.

The attacks will be “strong, serious, alarming, earth-shattering, shocking and terrifying.”

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