Middle East Focus: Intervention in Syria: the Legend of Qassem Suleimani and his Lost Brigade…………

Arabia Deserta

Intervention in Syria: the Legend of Qassem Suleimani and his Lost Brigade…………

Rattlesnake Ridge

BFF
“Russia said on Friday that the West was stoking the conflict in Syria by sending weapons to the opponents of President Bashar Assad. In an attempt to deflect criticism of Russia for blocking a UN Security Council resolution urging Assad to give up power, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Western states were stirring up trouble in Syria, where Assad has pursued a violent crackdown since March on protests against his 11-year rule……………”

“The regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is expecting up to 15,000 Iranian troops to help maintain order in the country’s provinces, a Chinese newspaper reports. Iran has yet to confirm or deny the news. According to the central Chinese daily Renmin Ribao, the Iranian special task troops are due to be deployed in Syria’s key provinces. The Syrian opposition announced earlier that commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, advises the Syrian authorities on quashing the country’s opposition movement, the Telegraph newspaper reports……...”

I would take all claims by the Syrian opposition, all factions of the opposition, with a grain of salt. Their claims are suspect. The same goes for claims by the Syrian regime. It is possible that Qassem Suleimani went to Damascus, but these people can also claim, any day now, that Hassan Nasrallah is in Damascus helping the Assad regime crush the protests. They may forget that Imad Mughniya is dead and claim that he, too, is in Syria helping Assad. After all, the Saudi network Alarabiya last month claimed that Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iraqi militia were in Syria fighting for Assad (Alarabiya was trying a bit of divisive Sunni-Shi’a sectarian mischief, a Saudi specialty).
This publication got the news about 15,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria from a Chinese news site which got it from Israeli daily Haaretz which in turn allegedly got it from Saudi semi-official network Alarabiya! This has become a truth now, continuously disseminated online by the Wahhabi faux-liberal media and tweeters of some GCC Gulf states. The rest of Arab media (yes, there is arrest of Arab media that is not owned by the GCC) seem to ignore it. So far.

Now we all know that if there were 15, 000 Iranian troops in Syria the Western intelligence services would know it and they would publicize it: they wouldn’t need a Saudi propaganda network to tell them. Hell, members of the U.S. Congress would leak the information, if it were true. And they would know.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com