PRESIDENT ASSAD IN HOMS

Syrian President Assad visits crisis-hit city of Homs

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/233488.html

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has visited the Baba Amr neighborhood in the city of Homs, the epicenter of confrontations between government forces and armed gangs in the nearly one-year-old unrest in the country,Press TV reports.

During the visit to the neighborhood in the western Syrian city, Assad spoke with soldiers and the residents of the area. 

“Your government wants to help you. You should also help it,” said the Syrian president. “Of course the state hesitated a bit but we were trying to find ways to end the crisis by talking to rational people [in the opposition,” he added. 

Baba Amr was the main stronghold of the Syrian armed groups fighting the government, before the Syrian army regained control of the district and restored security and stability. 

“But as long as the terrorists are around, there is no other way except this. Every citizen and I myself know how you go to battle with no fear but your safety is also important to me. So if one has to fall as a martyr, it’s best to do it for a cause,” Assad went on to say. 

“Your safety is important to us, as are your achievements,” he further said. 

Areas such as al-Zahra, Ashireh, al-Naziheen and places close to Jub al-Jandali are still considered to be the hideouts of armed groups. 

Damascus has accepted a peace plan proposed by the joint United Nations (UN) and the Arab League special envoy, Kofi Annan, , aiming to bring an end to the unrest in the country. 

In a Tuesday statement, Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi confirmed that Damascus has written the envoy, accepting his six-point plan, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. 

Syria’s foreign-backed opposition has, however, rejected the international plan and is struggling to establish an interim government in case the ongoing regime change ploys against the Syrian government bear fruits. 

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011. Many people, including security forces, have been killed in the unrest. 

Major Western states, their Arab allies, the Israeli regime as well as Turkey and some factions of the Syrian opposition have accused the government of killing dissidents and anti-regime protesters. 

Damascus, however, blames what it has described as outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups for the unrest, insisting that the violence has been orchestrated from abroad. 








Armed groups receiving weapons from Lebanon: Syria

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/233381.html

Syria says armed terrorist groups in the country have been receiving weapons from supporters in Lebanon and other states along the Syrian border.

"Experts, officials and observers believe weapons are being smuggled into Syrian territory from bordering States, including Lebanon," Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said. 

He made the complaint in a letter sent last week to the UN Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. 

Ja'afari also said there had been multiple "confiscations of weapons, explosives and explosive devices smuggled from Lebanon to Syria by certain Lebanese political forces linked to terrorist groups funded and armed from abroad." 

He gave no details about which countries or "Lebanese political forces" were arming and funding the terrorist groups. 

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are reportedly arming the terrorist groups in Syria, but they do not share a border with the country. 

Syria's northern neighbor Turkey has hosted the Syrian Free Army forces but denies arming it. 

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011 and many people, including security forces, have lost their lives in the violence. 

The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing the protesters. But Damascus blames ''outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups'' for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad






Syria rebels form death squad, behead army soldiers: Report


http://www.presstv.ir/detail/233454.html

Syrian rebels have formed their own laws, courts and death squads in Baba Amr neighborhood in the restive city of Homs and beheaded the captured army soldiers, a report has revealed.

The report, published by Spiegel Online on Monday, discloses violent measures by the anti-government armed groups, laying bare the other side of the unrest in the Middle Eastern country. 

Hussein, one of the rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is quoted in the report as saying that he himself decapitated four army soldiers who had been detained by gunmen. 

Hussein said that he beheaded the first victim, a Shia soldier who had confessed to using violent tactics, in mid-October, 2011, in a cemetery. 

Hussein did not care whether the soldier’s confessions were real or he had made them under duress. He had simply grabbed a knife and beheaded the soldier who had knelt down in front of him. 

The soldier had been captured out of sheer “bad luck”, said Hussein. 

While he is a member of a rebel death squad killing government forces in the name of the “Syrian revolution,” there are others who are responsible for torturing captured soldiers. 

Many rebels can torture, but not everyone can kill, admits Hussein, who is now receiving treatment in a hospital in the Lebanese city of Tripoli where he and his fellow companions are openly talking about torturing and killing Syrian army soldiers. 

“But I do not know why killing is not difficult for me,” he added. 

Hussein’s life story demonstrates the course of actions rebels have taken during more than a year in the Arab state. 

The report further divulges that Syrian rebels in Homs have since August, 2011 begun regular execution of Syrian soldiers. 

“As of last summer, we have executed 150 men, which constitutes only 20 percent of our prisoners,” claimed another hospitalized rebel identified as Abu Rami. 

“Moreover, when we realize that a Sunni is spying against us we then hold a brief trial for him,” Abu Rami said, adding that they have executed between 200 and 250 people in such cases. 

Revealing the shocking incidents in which rebels even kill Sunnis, he went on to say that “Syria is not a place for the squeamish. “ 

The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing the protesters. 

Damascus, however, blames ''outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups'' for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad. 

Libya’s ‘non state’: Tribal war claims 50 lives

http://rt.com/news/libya-ntc-tribal-wars-621/

50 have been killed and dozens injured in Libya as tribal groups are fighting in the country’s south. After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is left in a condition which some residents call a ‘non state’.

The fighting between rival armed militias, ongoing since Sunday, has spilled into the center of Libya’s third largest city of Sabha on Tuesday. The country’s National Transitional Council initially sent out 300 of its troops to calm the situation but the contingent had to be reinforced two-fold, Reuters said. 

However, there are reports that the national army may have retreated from the city.  "We know that they are here to try to solve the problem and not fight," Sabha fighter Oweidat al-Hifnawi told the agency. "There are unconfirmed reports that they have retreated out of the city."

The fighting resulted in the resignation of an NTC representative to Sabha, Abdulmajid Saif al-Nasser. He said that he was leaving his post as the council proved unable, or unwilling, to curb the violence.

"I have not seen any reaction from the Council to what is happening now in Sabha. The air force has not been sent out, there was only a plane from the health ministry carrying medicine," he said. "The state is supposed to intervene in these cases but there is no state."

The ongoing fighting started after a man from the Tibu tribe allegedly killed a member of the Sabha tribe. The country’s Health Ministry confirmed that most of the 50 dead, already killed in the clashes, perished from gunshot and shrapnel wounds. 160 more have been left injured. 

The National Transitional Council, which came to power after the ouster of the country’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi, is struggling to establish its control over the whole of Libya. The council is trying to persuade tribal militias, busy with fighting over power and resources in the uncontrolled country, to lay down their arms and join national army and police. 

Arc of instability in Africa may turn into battlefield – Moscow’s envoy

http://rt.com/politics/mali-africa-arab-spring-538/

Last week’s coup in Mali has further destabilized the situation in the African region, says Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin’s special envoy to Africa.

Following the so-called Arab Spring – the series of protests that swept through the Middle East and North Africa – the situation in the region is “extremely complicated,” Margelov told Interfax on Tuesday.

“A ‘green arc of instability’ is being formed from the Sahel (the region bordering the Sahara Desert) to the Horn of Africa. Therefore careful monitoring of events in the region is necessary not to allow the transformation of this arc into a battlefield,” the official stressed.

Last week soldiers loyal to US-trained Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo stormed the presidential palace in the capital Bamako and overthrew Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Toure. The coup leader vowed that he would not stay in power for long and promised new elections will be called as soon as the army manages to contain a Tuareg insurgency in the northern part of the country.

According to the Russian diplomat, currently there is no constitutional power in the African republic. The military are now facing two opponents at the same time – civic opposition and Tuareg rebels. If protest rallies begin, they might be violently dispersed, Margelov warned.

The Russian expert also noted that after the death of Libya’s former leader, Muammar Gaddafi, there is no external force capable of pacifying the north of Mali.

‘Russia is Public Enemy No. 1’ – Mitt Romney

http://rt.com/news/romney-russia-enemy-obama-532/    video at link.

US presidential candidate Mitt Romney has branded Russia as America’s number one geopolitical enemy. He slammed President Obama’s comments to Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev over flexibility concerning US missile defense as alarming and worrying.

"This is without question our number one geopolitical foe; they fight for every cause for the world's worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed," he said

The presidential hopeful cited this case, along with the new START treaty and the decision to reduce missile defense sites in Poland and Alaska, as “unfortunate developments.”

While saying that the greatest current threat to the world is a “nuclear Iran,” he lambasted Russia for consistently“standing up for the world’s worst actors,” referencing the Russian veto of the Security Council resolutions on Syria.

“The idea that our president is planning to do something with them [Russia] that he’s not willing to tell the American people is something I find very alarming,” Romney stressed.

Russia’s outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev responded to the Republican frontrunner, saying Romney’s remarks had a “Hollywood” flavor and pressed the American hopeful to check his watch: “It's 2012 now, not the mid-1970s."

Romney appeared on CNN to comment on President Obama’s off-the-record moment with Medvedev during the international nuclear summit in South Korea. Obama was caught on camera saying that he would have more“flexibility” on thorny issues such as missile defense following the November elections.

Medvedev said he would pass the message on to President elect Vladimir Putin.

Obama addressed the wave of republican criticism following his statements on Monday, saying that he had no secret agenda with Russia and he was not trying “to hide the ball.”

Washington released a statement in an effort to underplay Obama’s words. The Whitehouse said the fact that both countries were going through elections this year meant a “breakthrough” in negotiations on the matter was not going to happen.

The US president then echoed this statement to the press during a break in the summit in Seoul on Tuesday, describing the current political climate as “not conducive” to these kinds of negotiations.

The planned US missile defense shield for Europe has been a major stumbling block for Russian-NATO relations. The US maintain that the shield will only be used for targets outside of Europe, while Russia says there is no guarantee the facility could not be turned against them.

Following his meeting with his US counterpart, President Medvedev described the last three years of US-Russian relations as the most productive ever.

Playing the Cold War card

Romney’s harsh statement is really a remnant of the Cold War – and much of the Republican elite has expressed a negative attitude towards Russia before, said Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Russian State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee.

“Mr. Romney is not the only person to say such things. We have witnessed the same ideology proclaimed by Mr. Cheney when he was vice-president of the United States. Mr. Rumsfeld, the former US Defense Secretary, disliked Russia very much too,” Pushkov told RT. “Also, Mr. McCain, when he was running for the presidency four years ago, he was basically saying the same things – that Russia is one of America`s adversaries.”

However, Pushkov pointed out, Romney is considered to be a moderate Republican, and if a moderate Republican says that Russia is enemy number one, it is hard to imagine what a real conservative Republican might say.

Chris Lapetina, an analyst for the journal Democratic Strategist, also says the Cold War legacy is the engine behind Romney`s remark. 

“There is some sentiment left over from the Soviet Union, there is an element of Americans both on the liberal side and the conservative side that almost suffer from paranoia about enemies seen and unseen,” he said, adding that“Republican candidates are trying to tap into some of these people.”

Police discovers firearms in US embassy van in Bolivia

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/233500.html

Bolivian police officers have discovered firearms in a van belonging to the US embassy during a routine search in the country's northeast.

Bolivia's Interior Minister Carlos Romero said that the firearms, including three shotguns, a revolver and more than two-thousand cartridges, were found in the northeastern city of Trinidad on Tuesday, AFP reported. 

Police stopped the vehicle for inspection following a tip from intelligence services, the minister said, calling the incident a matter of “national security.” 

“We're talking about actions that put the security of the nation in danger, about actions that call into question the respect for state institutions and the laws of the Bolivian state,” he said. 

Bolivian President Evo Morales has recently stated that he would shut down the American embassy in La Paz if Washington continues to interfere in Bolivia’s internal affairs. 

"If the US embassy continues bothering Bolivia, as it is doing now, then it is best we close the United States embassy in Bolivia because we are anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-neoliberals," Morales said. 

Morales has been publicly critical of US policies towards his nation, charging that a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been engaged in spying against the country on behalf of the US. 

The American embassy in Bolivia has issued a statement, claiming that Washington often provides weapons and ammunition to local police officers in many other countries to protect US diplomatic installations.

Resurgent Maoist rebels kill 15 in bus bomb attack

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0328/1224314009467.html

India : Maoist rebels killed 15 paramilitaries in western India’s Maharashtra province yesterday by detonating an improvised explosion device under their bus, writes RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi .

The strike on the Central Police Reserve Force in remote Gadchiroli district, some 1,000km (620 miles) from the state capital Mumbai, also injured 25 security personnel, many of them seriously, and officials feared the death toll could rise.

The attack was the deadliest by the left-wing rebels, who claim inspiration from Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Yesterday’s attack follows the kidnapping of two Italians and a local legislator in eastern Orissa state in separate incidents earlier this month. One of the abducted Italians was released over the weekend, but the other two remain in Maoist custody.

Before the kidnappings – the first by the Maoists which have targeted foreigners – security officials assumed that because of police and paramilitary pressure they were on the run.

But senior federal security officials said yesterday’s attack only reinforced their belief that they were merely regrouping before continuing to perpetuate their “red terror” across central, eastern and western India.

Since the late 1960s the Maoists have tapped successfully into growing resentment among India’s rural poor and vast tribal population over exploitation by a corrupt administration.

IRGC dismantles Western-backed terror group in SE Iran

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/233493.html

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) has dismantled a terrorist group that recently infiltrated the Iranian territory, intending to carry out acts of terror.

The terror ring infiltrated into southeast Iran over the past few days with guidance from foreign intelligence agencies as well as terrorist groups backed by the global arrogance, IRNA reported, quoting an IRGC statement. 

The IRGC forces succeeded in identifying and dismantling the gang in an intelligence taskforce operation. They killed one and captured two members of the terrorist group. 

A large number of weapons, explosive devices and communication equipment were also confiscated from the terror elements. 

However, the IRGC statement did not elaborate on the identity of the terror group. 

Iran insists that it has been the main target and victim of Western-sponsored terrorist efforts since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in the country in 1979. 

Most recently, Iranian nuclear scientists have become the key target of Western-backed terror attacks with a number current and former US and Israeli lawmakers openly urging the assassination of Iran's nuclear experts as part of their efforts to halt the country's nuclear energy program. 

The IRGC Ground Forces has vowed to proceed with all-out efforts to maintain sustainable security in southeastern parts of the country and confront any move that would pose a threat to the nation.