The Syrian civil war is swiftly becoming a dangerous regional conflict

[cali]

Here's to the somewhat futile hope that we stay the hell out of it.

Report: Gunmen kill 3 Lebanese troops near Syria

Gunmen fired on a Lebanese government checkpoint near the Syrian border on Tuesday, killing three soldiers, the state-run National News Agency said. The attack comes amid escalating tensions in Lebanon linked to Syria's conflict, in which rival Lebanese groups have taken sides.

The fighting in the volatile Lebanon-Syria border region also comes just hours after the European Union decided not to extend an arms embargo on Syria, enabling member states to send weapons to help Syria's outgunned rebels and step up the pressure on the government of President Bashar Assad to seek a negotiated settlement to the 26-month-old conflict.

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http://news.yahoo.com/report-gunmen-kill-3-lebanese-troops-near-syria-065006523.html

European Nations End Weapons Embargo, Creating Path to Arming Syrian Rebels

Divisions among European Union foreign ministers on Monday prevented the renewal of the arms embargo on Syria, raising the possibility of a new flow of weapons to rebels fighting to bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“While we have no immediate plans to send arms to Syria, it gives us the flexibility to respond in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate and worsen,” William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said after more than 12 hours of stormy talks.

In a declaration, the European Union said member states that might wish to send weapons to Syrian rebels “shall assess the export license applications on a case-by-case basis” in line with the organization’s rules on exports of military technology and equipment.

The ministers did agree to renew all the economic sanctions already in place against the Syrian government.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/world/middleeast/syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

By Inserting Itself Into Syrian War, Hezbollah Makes Dramatic Gamble

Fighting a pre-emptive war against foreign jihadists is not the usual mission for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group best known for confronting Israel. So when its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, explained why he was sending fighters into Syria, he took care to remind his followers that they were not “living in Djibouti” but on the border of a country whose two-year uprising Hezbollah sees as a threat to its existence.

With its plunge into the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah is taking its followers in an unaccustomed direction, in a gamble that could help rescue it from that threat, bringing it new power and confidence, or end in a defeat with wide repercussions. Hezbollah is betting its prestige and security on the effort to crush a Syrian rebellion that is detested by Hezbollah’s Shiite Muslim base, but popular with the group’s Lebanese rivals and with much of the Sunni majority in the wider Arab world.

Hezbollah’s biggest stake in the conflict is the same as that of its ally, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad: survival. The group relies on Syria to provide a conduit for arms from its main patron, Iran. Preserving that flow is a matter of life or death for Hezbollah, as its leaders have made clear.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/world/middleeast/by-inserting-itself-into-syrian-war-hezbollah-makes-historic-gamble.html?pagewanted=all

Syrian refugees targeted in Turkish town

REYHANLI, Turkey – Muafaq Nasan rushed towards the bloody and broken bodies to take the wounded to the hospital right after the huge blast, but a crowd stopped him.

“The people began to scream, ‘Syrians must be expelled, they are responsible,'” the 37-year-old Syrian said.

The Turkish mob turned on Syrian women and children standing nearby and beat them too, Nasan said.

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http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/27/18473267-syrian-refugees-targeted-in-turkish-town?lite



It’s official: the war in Syria has spread to Lebanon. In an extraordinary speech Saturday, Hassan Nasrallah, the bearded and bespectacled leader of the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, promised an all-out effort to keep the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria. “It’s our battle, and we are up to it,” Nasrallah said in a televised address. The war, he said, had entered “a completely new phase.”

This is a terrifying development; the beginning of a regional war. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed armed group, has been fighting inside Syria for months, something I detailed in an article on the group in February. But Hezbollah was intervening in Syria covertly, in large part because it feared a backlash at home. Month after month, Nasrallah denied that his men were fighting for the dictator across the border. When Hezbollah fighters were killed in Syria, they were memorialized in bizarre funerals back in Lebanon, in which the causes of death were not mentioned. In public, Nasrallah maintained that Hezbollah was the same thing it always had been: an armed group dedicated to protecting Lebanon from the depredations of Israel. In a speech in October, he said: “As of now, we have not fought alongside the regime.” As more and more Hezbollah fighters died inside Syria, that lie could no longer be sustained. The truth is out.

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It’s difficult to overstate how dangerous this new phase is. At the moment, the conflict in Syria is a war of attrition, essentially a contest between the country’s Sunni Muslim majority and its Alawite-dominated government and military. Each side is doing its best to butcher the other, but neither appears to be prevailing. A massive intervention by Hezbollah would obviously be aimed at tipping the balance in Assad’s favor. Indeed, it was no coincidence that Nasrallah decided to give his speech during a big battle for the Syrian city of Qusayr, where Hezbollah appears to have suffered heavy losses. Qusayr lies on the road between Damascus and the Syrian cities on the Mediterranean coast, the stronghold of the Alawites, the minority sect that is loyal to Assad. For obvious reasons, the Assad regime in Damascus wants to hold the highway to the coast. It’s unclear how much a difference a new infusion of Hezbollah fighters will make, but it can’t hurt.

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/hezbollah-enters-syrian-civil-war.html

[gordianot]

1. In Hell Saddam Hussein must be having a big gut wrenching laugh.

[cali]

2. no shit.

not to mention that Iraq is a mess despite the glowy language about what a success it is.

70 people were killed in car bombings in Baghdad yesterday.