The real shadow over Syria is cast by the mullahs of Iran

By Christopher Booker

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

In all the coverage given to unravelling who is for or against whom in the unspeakable shambles of Syria, one key bit of the jigsaw too often gets forgotten. We know Russia is pro-Assad but anti-Isil and other assorted Syrian rebels. Turkey is anti-Assad and Isil, but also Russia and the Kurds. The Kurds are anti-Assad, Isil and Turkey. The US-led coalition is anti-Isil but pro the Kurds, Turkey and the other Syrian rebels.

The other crucial player too easily overlooked, however, is that major power in the region without whose military support Assad would long ago have vanished: the dictatorship run by the Shia mullahs in Tehran. Ever since his country fell apart, Assad’s main support has been the Quds Force, the extra-territorial arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. For years it has been fomenting terror across the Middle East, from Lebanon to Afghanistan and not least in Iraq, where its backing for Shia militias posed the most deadly threat to US and British forces throughout their post-2003 occupation.

At the forefront of the fighting since Assad’s army crumbled has been the Quds Force, led by some of its most senior officers, along with 25,000 of the Hizbollah allies they support in Lebanon and paid mercenaries from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their main target, as in the ongoing battle for Aleppo, has not been Isil but those other Syrian rebels.

But in recent months, as we learn from the well-informed National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the main group working in and outside Iran to replace the tyranny in Tehran with a secular, democratic government, the Quds Force in Syria has taken a very serious hit. Many of its senior officers, including its commander, Brigadier-General Hossein Hamedani, have been killed – and even the Force’s overall commander, Qassem Suleiman, has reportedly been injured.

The NCRI is adamant that Syria cannot return to peace until Assad is ousted. The Western allies claim that this can only be done by the “Free Syrian Army”. But they have to equivocate over the “Free Syrians’” chief enemy, Iran, because they were so bucked by the recent pledge of Iran’s “moderate” President Rouhani that his country would no longer pursue its plans to build nuclear weapons: a deal by which the NCRI (which first alerted the West to Iran’s nuclear plans in 2002) claims the West was hoodwinked. Nor can we afford to risk further conflict with Assad’s other main ally, Russia. So we continue just to bomb Isil, while the Syrian people continue to endure the most terrifying and dangerous tragedy of our time.

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NCRI -Iran regime’s secret committee to deceive IAEA on PMD Probe revealed

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) network inside Iran has obtained reliable information that a top-secret committee is in charge of drafting the answers to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of Tehran’s nuclear program, according to the revelations made by Iranian opposition in a conference in Washington on Wednesday.

Top officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Defense Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) comprise the committee’s key members, said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the U.S. representative office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

According to the revelations, the officials have been tasked with drafting the responses to IAEA’s PMD inquiries working to cover up the military dimensions, thus resolving and terminating the PMD dispute by forging suitable scenarios for non-military usage of the program, which would seem plausible to the IAEA, and to falsely convince the international community that Iran has never been after the nuclear bomb.

This committee prepared the PMD answers delivered to the IAEA on August 15, 2015.

Among the foremost issues related to the PMD question are the explosive detonators called EBW (Exploding Bridge Wire) detonator, which is an integral part of a program to develop an implosion type nuclear device.

In its September 2014 report, IAEA stated that Iran has offered “information and explanations to the Agency on Iran’s work after 2007 related to the application of EBW detonators in the oil and gas industry which was not inconsistent with specialized industry practices.”

Tehran forged documents and exchanged communication between the Oil Ministry and the Defense Ministry to prove that the EBWs were produced and used by the oil industry.

But according to an exhaustive investigation by the Iranian Resistance involving dozens of sources, the National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC), which is responsible for all oil and gas drilling, has not received even one of EBW detonators that had been produced by the Ministry of Defense. This renders the regime’s claims utterly false.

16 Die in Riot at Guatemalan Prison

GUATEMALA CITY – At least 16 inmates died in a riot at the Canada prison farm on Guatemala’s southwestern Pacific coast, authorities said Monday.

Penitentiary system spokesman Rudy Esquivel told reporters that up to now the deaths of 16 prisoners have been confirmed.

Esquivel said that in the early hours, security forces regained control of the prison, located 59 kilometers (37 miles) south of the capital, in Escuintla province.

The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon and the possibility that some of the victims were prison guards has been dismissed.

Security forces did not enter the facility Sunday night because of the danger it represented, not only for them but also for the inmates, Deputy Security Minister Elmer Sosa told reporters outside the prison.

Up to now authorities have taken 12 bodies to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences, or Inacif, in Escuintla, while several police units remain posted outside the prison.

Family members of the inmates have also gathered at the scene and are waiting to hear a report on exactly what is happening.

Guatemala’s penitentiary system has responsibility for operating 22 prisons, in which some 4,000 guards keep watch on more than 19,000 inmates.

Eight People Found with Throats Slit in Southern Mexico

VERACRUZ, Mexico – The bodies of eight people were found with their throats slit inside a vehicle in the violence-racked southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, local authorities told EFE, noting that a threatening message was found at the crime scene.

The bodies of the males aged 17-20 were found Friday afternoon inside a gray Honda SUV with a Mexico City license plate in Cosolapa, a rural municipality located in northern Oaxaca.

A “narco-message” was found alongside the victims with a threat directed at the Los Zetas drug cartel.

Agents with Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office arrived at the scene to remove the bodies of the slain individuals, who are believed to have been residents of a highland area of the neighboring state of Veracruz.

Three Arrested for Murder of Venezuelan Opposition Leader

CARACAS – Three men have been arrested in connection with last week’s murder of opposition leader Luis Manuel Diaz following a campaign rally in the central state of Guarico, the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office said Monday.

William Mendez Quiaro, 28, Jose Enrique Abad, 25, and Ronald Ender Hernandez, 22, were detained Monday morning.

The suspects were to be arraigned “in the coming hours” on charges they were involved with the Nov. 25 shooting death of Diaz after a political event in Altagracia de Orituco, the AG Office said.

Diaz was among several speakers at the rally to drum up support for opposition candidates in the Dec. 6 legislative elections.

Lilian Tintori, wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, was also present.

Diaz’s murder spurred strong reactions both inside Venezuela and abroad, with Amnesty International, the Organization of American States and the Union of South American Nations calling for a peaceful political process in the Andean nation.