| They may want to reorient some if the ones aimed at Israel toward a more immediate threat... |
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
The rockets targeted the Baalbek region, the latest sign that Syria's civil war is increasingly destabilizing Leb. On Friday, the Lebanese parliament decided to put off general elections, originally scheduled for June, by 17 months, blaming a deteriorating security situation in the country.
In Qatar, an influential Sunni Mohammedan holy man whose TV show is watched by millions across the region, fanned the sectarian flames ignited by the Syria conflict and urged Sunnis everywhere to join the fight against Assad.
"I call on Mohammedans everywhere to help their brothers be victorious," Yusuf al-Qaradawi
...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program
Shariah and Lifeon Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including
Islam: The Future Civilization.Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving
Islam a bad name....
said in his Friday sermon in the Qatari capital of Doha. "If I had the ability I would go and fight with them."
"Everyone who has the ability and has training to kill ... is required to go," said al-Qaradawi, who is in his 80s. "We cannot ask our brothers to be killed while we watch."
He denounced Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, as "more infidel than Christians and Jews" and Shiite Mohammedan Hezbollah as "the party of the devil."
He said there is no more common ground between Shiites and Sunnis, alleging that Shiite Iran -- a longtime Syria ally that has supplied the regime with cash and weapons -- is trying to "devour" Sunnis.
The Syrian conflict, now in its third year, has taken on dark sectarian overtones. It has escalated from a local uprising into a civil war and is not increasingly shifting into a proxy war.
Predominantly Sunni rebels backed by Sunni states Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, Qatar and Turkey are fighting against a regime that relies on support from Alawites, Shiites and Christians at home, and is aided by Iran and Hezbollah. The Syria conflict is also part of a wider battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence.
Sunni fighters from Iraq and Leb have crossed into Syria to help those fighting Assad, while Shiites from Iraq have joined the battle on the regime's side.
Sectarian tensions rose sharply when Hezbollah stepped up its involvement in the war in mid-May by joining a regime offensive against the rebel-held Syrian town of Qusair, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from Leb. The town has since become one of the war's major military and political flashpoints, with international concern growing over civilians believed to be trapped there.
On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Thingy and the United Nation's two brass hats dealing with human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
and humanitarian issues said they were alarmed by reports that thousands of civilians are trapped in Qusair and that hundreds of maimed people are in urgent need of medical care.