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| Syria-Lebanon |
| Syrian support for Terrorism |
| 2003-04-14 |
| Since Syria is in the news a lot lately, I thought it would be handy to post these links which profess to describe the Syrian run terrorist infrastructure that supports almost every terror group in the region. Assuming this information is correct, Syria seems to me to be a lot like Pakistan, with anonymous intelligence agents and military men pulling the strings behind a multitude of terrorist groups that claim to act independately, but at best are kept on a tight leash by Damascus, and at worst are simply tools of that countries foreign policy interests. These articles are too long to post here, but if you are interested, you can find information on Syrian support for Hamas here. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Islamic Jihad and finally Hezbollah They also sponsor an alphabet soup of less important groups like the PKK, PFLP, DFLP and Asbat ul-Ansar; but the aformentioned groups are the most important. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #5 How about,pounding hell out of the Bekka Valley,then send in elements of the 4ID,and 10th Mountain Division to clean-up. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-04-15 10:00:27 |
| #4 I'm aware of that, but the fact is that no matter how one does the number crunching, the PKK has knocked off several thousand civilians. That puts them on par with Hezbollah in terms of sheer ruthlessness if not capabilities. I agree that they're relatively dormant now that Occalan is on ice in an effort to save their guru, but the same can be said of Abu Abbas for the most part. Also, there have been some skirmishes this year between them and the Turks and our brave socialists have said that they want to go kill Americans as well (cause we're imperialists, don't ya know?). This would tend to make Syria's support for them, like Iran's for the Kurdish Islamists, a matter of concern rather than a side issue. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2003-04-14 11:59:12 |
| #3 Dan, most of the stats you've cited for PKK deaths include their own people. Based on just your previous posts, PKK members have been killed at a rate 3-5 times that of non PKK members. I think that there's a lot of double counting in the PKK issue. And perhaps a decmil point issue, too, as is so often the case with numbers being reported from the Middle East. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-04-14 07:25:17 |
| #2 However the PKK has been operating under a cease fire ever since the Turks nabbed Ocalan, and they are unlikely to carry out any attacks in the meantime as long as Ocalan is desperate to avoid being executed. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-04-14 07:23:31 |
| #1 The PKK is quite large and I believe has racked up a larger body count in terms of the number of victims than any of these groups except Hezbollah. And Asbat al-Ansar is regional node of al-Qaeda and hence more than worth noting. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2003-04-14 06:58:36 |