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Saturday 2 March 2013

Iraq enters the Syria fray to help Assad



The Iraqi army is said to be shelling Free Syrian Army (FSA) positions inside Syria near the border with Iraq.
After helping Syrian government forces regain control of the Iraq-Syria al-Ya’robia border crossing from Syrian rebel forces overnight, Iraqi artillery is at this writing pounding FSA forces in al-Hasakah governorate in the far northeastern corner of Syria.
Hasan Sari, a respected Jordanian commentator on Middle East affairs, global activist, filmmaker and founder of CIFF, reports on his Twitter account, “Hasakah in Syria is under heavy Iraqi artillery shelling now. [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki is waging war on FSA.”
Maliki and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – both Shiites and unabashed surrogates of Shiite Iran – openly warned this week of regional sectarian conflict if Syria’s quasi-Shiite President Bashar al-Assad is ousted (see my earlier post, “Iran proxies growl: Hands off Assad.”)