"A more radical & violent al-Qaeda current moving operations to Saudi Arabia'

"... The division of al-Qaeda in Syria into Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS will not be limited to Syria, with the split appearing elsewhere. The position of al-Qaeda in Yemen is ambiguous regarding the two groups in Syria, and it has preferred to stay silent and not take sides. However, some leaders of al-Qaeda in Yemen made statements in support of ISIS at the expense of Jabhat al-Nusra.
Monitoring social media reveals that the armed conflict between Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria has caused fractures between al-Qaeda supporters in other countries, including Saudi Arabia. This fracture will cause the emergence of a more radical and violent al-Qaeda current, via ISIS, whose supporters on social media do not hide their desire to move their operations and bombings to Saudi Arabia ..."

Egypt and Israel to reach another gas deal

"... Analysts say the structure of the deal, in which a foreign company uses Egypt only as a transit point for exports, could offer Cairo a way to minimise domestic political backlash...."

New Gestures to Opposition Unlikely to Change U.S. Syria Policy

"... In particular, the administration remains strongly opposed to providing surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to the rebels for fear that they could eventually fall into the wrong hands, most importantly radical Islamist forces aligned with or sympathetic to Al Qaeda.SAMs, however, are at the top of the shopping list brought by the leader of the main external opposition coalition, Ahmad Al-Jarba, and the latest head of its military wing, Gen. Abdul-Ilah Al-Bashir, who are meeting with top administration officials, very possibly including Obama himself, key lawmakers, newspaper editorial boards, and think tanks over the next week..."

U.N. Probe Chief Doubtful on Syria Sarin Exposure Claims

"... The indication that the overwhelming majority in the sample had very little or no exposure to Sarin was particularly significant, because those in the sample had been chosen by local opposition authorities as being among the most serious affected survivors. The data suggest that the Syrian opposition and its external supporters had vastly exaggerated the scope and severity of the attack...."

... that leads us to the attack: it was, as many US & EUR intelligence officials & Sy Hersh have suggested: an insurgent/jihadis kitchen that went sour, with attempts to drag the US into an aggression!

International Crisis Group : Flight of Icarus? The PYD’s Precarious Rise in Syria

"... Secondly, suspected collaboration with the regime has taken a toll on its popularity. The Damascus authorities have maintained a light albeit firm presence in PYD-controlled areas, reportedly acting mostly beneath the surface. Even as they relinquished control over certain state assets (notably administrative and security buildings) to the PYD, they have maintained their hold on, and continue to disseminate, state resources without which the Rojava project would wither..."

'If it quacks ...!'

 'Earlier in Homs!'

"... These rebel fighters have become weary of the war effort, and are seeking ways out of the devastating conflict that has killed over 140,000 people and ravaged the country’s infrastructure."Let's admit it: Time has come for an agreement," Abdel says. "Without a US intervention, we cannot win, it's clear. But we can prevent Assad from governing and [force] him to compromise. This is the red line: Assad must go."
The model, he says, is Homs, where cease-fires are now beginning to appeal to weary rebel fighters in Aleppo. "We are not surrendering, ..."

Fmr. French ambassador to Tehran: "The Iranians are set to resolve the conflict over their nuclear program as fast as possible, once and for all"

"... To date, negotiators on both sides of the talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which resume next week, have been remarkably discreet. Even at the political level, people have been unusually quiet. This is an excellent omen. In the past, too many opportunities have been nipped in the bud due to an excess of statements calibrated for domestic purposes (a special mention to Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator, for saying so little, amiably, in many background meetings with the press). The involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the negotiations has also been of inestimable value. The Agency offers unique expertise and notarizes regularly the way in which Iran complies with its commitments. It contributes therefore decisively to the smooth progression of the discussions.Quite unexpectedly, Iran’s negotiators have been the driving force in this process. They have seized President Hassan Rouhani’s initiative to solve the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program and have kept it ever since, setting the targets as well as the tempo. Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on April 7 that the drafting of the final agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) should start in May, and that all efforts should be taken to complete the negotiations by the official deadline of July. The Iranians seem set to resolve the conflict over their nuclear program as fast as possible, once and for all...."

Israel will not stop spying on the US!

Newsweek;

".....  According to classified briefings on legislation that would lower visa restrictions on Israeli citizens, Jerusalem’s efforts to steal U.S. secrets under the cover of trade missions and joint defense technology contracts have “crossed red lines.” 

Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly, counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very sobering…alarming…even terrifying.” Another staffer called it “damaging.” .. 

The Jewish state’s primary target: America’s industrial and technical secrets.    

. “But this is the first time congressional aides have indicated that intelligence and national security concerns also are considerations in weighing Israel’s admission into the visa waiver program,” Jonathan Broder, the foreign and defense editor for CQ Roll Call, a Capitol Hill news site, wrote last month. He quoted a senior House aide as saying, “The U.S. intelligence community is concerned that adding Israel to the visa waiver program would make it easier for Israeli spies to enter the country.”..."

Iraq, world’s car bomb capital

"... Though that ban appears to have been successful in preventing car bombs, the elections were still marred by violence. As the polls closed, Agence France-Press (AFP) had recorded at least 53 attacks throughout the country — including mortar attacks, roadside bombs, and suicide bombers — leaving at least 14 people dead and 36 wounded. It was just the latest sign of how violence is surging to levels not seen since the height of the country’s civil war.The statistics show just how precipitously violence has risen in the years following the American withdrawal. During this year alone, AFP’s Baghdad bureau has recorded more than 3,000 violent deaths, putting the country on pace for more than 12,000 casualties by the end of 2014. By comparison, AFP recorded less than 7,000 violent deaths in all of 2013. In 2012, the Brookings Institute tallied roughly 5,200 casualties among civilians and security forces, and 4,800 such casualties in 2011..."

With Washington’s Syria Gambit in Tatters, Iran’s ‘Smart Power’ Strategy Working

"... One of the more striking things about this story is that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the talks between the Syrian government and opposition fighters that produced this agreement were “brokered by the United Nations and the Iranian Embassy in Damascus.”  Western discourse about Syria wants to limit any discussion of a “peace process” in Syria to the Geneva process—but the United States and its Western partners have rendered the Geneva process utterly dysfunctional by their continued insistence on Assad’s departure as an essential precondition for a political settlement.  By contrast, the Islamic Republic of Iran, by having a clear political strategy of supporting elections and by being willing to deal with all relevant players—even “a hard-line Sunni Muslim rebel group,” as the Wall Street Journal describes its interlocutors in Homs—is actually able to accomplish things on the ground in Syria.So, which parties are in fact marginalizing themselves in regional affairs by unreservedly aligning themselves with one side—and refusing to have anything to do with the other side—in the Syrian conflict? ...."

"There's got to be something more than throwing weapons and suitcases of money,"

"... "If the Americans refuse to give us anti-aircraft (missiles), for example, why doesn't Saudi give it to us?" a Syrian rebel commander in Aleppo whose brigade fights alongside the extremist al-Nusra Front told Reuters by Skype.In private, American and Saudi officials defend a relationship that in many ways remains strong and broad-based...."The frustration with the Saudis was that they never gave us a plan," a former senior U.S. diplomat who worked in the region told Reuters. The former diplomat said there had to be a strategy that included pulling the opposition together into a political and military union dominated by moderates, while arm-twisting Assad's main backers in the Security Council: Russia and China. "There's got to be something more than throwing weapons and suitcases of money," the former diplomat said....."We want the Americans to use their Tomahawks and F16s and beat the hell out of Bashar al-Assad. But at the same time I can see the Americans saying to the Saudis 'You guys have F15s too'," said Jamal Khashoggi, head of a Saudi television news channel owned by a nephew of King Abdullah....Still, cooperation has improved in recent months, American officials believe, and U.S.-made rockets have started to appear on the battlefield. One reason for the better atmosphere between the allies may be the departure from office this year of intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was running Saudi policy on Syria. His abrasive manner and sometimes erratic way of working caused friction with the Americans. However, Washington still wants more openness on the Saudi side, said a diplomatic source in the Gulf, one of several interviewed for this article.But the source added that the Saudis still felt left out on a limb by last year's non-strike. "They see brush fires all around them and are concerned Washington is not doing more to help the Syrian opposition," the diplomatic source said....."

We can & should trust MSM: UBL as a 'warrior poet'

The President Strikes a Nerve |

"... It ought to be played—because the Iraq War was the biggest and costliest U.S. endeavor ever in the Middle East, because we continue to suffer from the domestic as well as the regional consequences of that misadventure, because what was bad about that war has parallels in what could easily happen with some current issues if they are not properly handled, and because it is astounding that the biggest promoters of the Iraq War somehow still seem to have an audience even though they have been proven to be guilty of gross malpractice as policy analysts.... 

On Syria, for example, McKeon says that “arming moderate rebel factions and restoring the U.S. military posture in the Mediterranean” could have prevented use of chemical weapons “or even shortened the conflict.” How? The divisions among opposition groups, the domination of the more extreme ones, and the fight-to-the-death determination of the regime's supporters make very unlikely that a further (beyond what Gulf Arabs were doing anyway) arming of the hard-to-identify “moderates” would have had such desired effects..."

The South Sudanese monsters are OURS to protect!

WaPo;

"... In 2012, the administration reportedly led an effort to block a U.N. Security Council proposal to impose sanctions on South Sudan for corruption and human rights abuses, Royce said at the hearing..."

'The bad old days of great-power security competition are coming back'

"... The first problem arose from hubris. Convinced that no one could stand up to America's daunting combination of might and right, members of the U.S. foreign-policy elite began expanding NATO in the mid-1990s, but without giving much thought to its potential costs and risks, most notably the possibility that this expansion would adversely affect relations with Russia. They also committed the United States to containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously and eventually decided to try to transform much of the Middle East essentially at gunpoint. The adverse results are painfully obvious: a heightened danger from terrorism, a costly debacle in Iraq, the quagmire in Afghanistan, and a deteriorating relationship with Moscow. Yet even a steady diet of setbacks did not end America's evangelical impulses entirely, as NATO's ill-fated intervention in Libya in 2011 and the protracted drone wars in Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere attest. Not only did these mistakes cost several trillion dollars and thousands of lives, but they also diverted attention from more fundamental long-term challenges..."

"Significant blow"

"... Rebels in Homs are to abandon their stronghold in the Old City area in a deal that means the Syrian military will control of all but one neighbourhood of the country's third city....
If the deal is honoured, it will place Syria's resurgent military in firm control of a strategically important strip from Latakia in the north-west to Damascus – a significant blow to the opposition's three-year campaign to oust Bashar al-Assad...."

For the long haul!

Via MoA, in Ynet

"... And then one of them added bitterly: "I guess we need another intifada to create the circumstances that would allow progress."

The stories & nightmares of the MSM

"... the Egyptian media “seems to be gunning for these youth activists and depicting them as either not loyal to the new order, or as potential Trojan horses for the Muslim Brotherhood, or as troublemakers and people responsible for the insecurity and upheaval over the last few years.” April 6 denies the claims that it takes foreign funding, printed regularly in the regime-friendly press and a frequent accusation used here to discredit political opponents...."

Crocker: "That is probably how this will end!"

"... Asked by Al-Monitor if Iranian-Saudi rapprochement might also be useful, as it was in ending Lebanon’s civil war in 1989, Crocker said the “sheer exhaustion of the participants” and the fact that Syria was victorious in shoring up its influence in Lebanon “ended that phase of the civil war. … Syrian forces were running the show. That is probably how this [the Syrian civil war] will end because of what happens on the ground, not because of some grand Saudi-Iranian bargain,” which Crocker thought is unlikely...."

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters & Nick Mason: Why Rolling Stones shouldn’t play in Israel

"...  we, the two surviving founders of Pink Floyd, have united in support of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a growing, nonviolent global human rights movement initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005 to end Israel’s occupation, racial discrimination and denial of basic Palestinian rights.The BDS movement is modeled on the successful nonviolent movements that helped end Jim Crow in the American South and apartheid in South Africa. Indeed, key figures who led the South African freedom struggle, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mandela’s close associate, Ahmed Kathrada, have come out in support of BDS for Palestinian rights. BDS offers us all a way to nonviolently pressure the Israeli government to fully realize that its injustices against the Palestinian people are legally and morally unacceptable and unsustainable...."