By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The Syrian Army, officially called the Syrian Arab Army, is the ground defence force of Syria; it is the dominant military service in the country, controlling the seniormost posts in the armed forces, and has the most manpower, approximately 80 percent of the combined services. In 2010 army regulars were estimated at 220,000, with an additional 300,000 in reserve. The army had eleven divisional units. The major development in force organization was establishment of an additional divisional framework based on the special forces and the organization of ground formations into three corps. The army's active manpower served in three all-arms army corps, eight armored divisions (with one independent armored brigade), three mechanized divisions, one Republican Guard division, a special forces division and ten independent airborne-special forces regiments. - Source: Wikipedia
Shortly after Israeli warplanes struck inside Syria to take out Iranian missiles intended for Hezbollah, Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said, "The attack carried out by the Zionist regime will shorten this fake regime's life."
The leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement on Tuesday publicly acknowledged for the first time that fighters from the group were aiding the Syrian regime in its bloody war with armed rebel groups.
Syrian opposition leaders are accusing President Obama of emboldening the embattled Syrian regime by backing away from his "red line" on the use of chemical weapons in the 2-year-old war against President Bashar Assad.
A powerful bomb ripped through a bustling commercial district of Damascus on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people, shattering store fronts and bringing Syria's civil war to the heart of the capital for the second consecutive day.
Israel's army said it fired a guided missile into Syria on Sunday, destroying a military post after gunfire flew across the border and struck an Israeli vehicle.
A high-ranking general in the Syrian army says he has defected with the help of rebel fighters. Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ezz al-Din Khalouf said in an interview Saturday with Al-Arabiya TV that he had left the regime and that morale inside the armed forces was bad.
Syrian army officials say troops have regained control of several villages along a strategic highway near the embattled northern city of Aleppo.
Intense clashes between the Syrian army and rebel fighters near the country's second-largest airport killed around 150 people in recent days, anti-regime activists said Friday, pointing to the significance both sides in the country's civil war place on controlling key infrastructure.
TIBERIAS, ISRAEL
Israel is warning of possible military intervention in Syria to prevent chemical or biological weapons from falling into the hands of militant groups.
Syrian troops stepped up an offensive against rebels in the north on Wednesday, following explosions targeting security forces and a university campus that killed more than 100 people in two days.
Rebels attacked a sprawling air base in northern Syria on Wednesday as the opposition expanded its offensive on military airports in an attempt to sideline a major weapon in the hands of President Bashar Assad's forces.
The international envoy to Syria warned Sunday that as many as 100,000 could die in the next year if a way cannot be found quickly to end the country's civil war.
The international envoy to Syria warned Sunday that as many as 100,000 people could die in the next year if a way cannot be found quickly to end the country's civil war.
The international envoy to Syria said after talks with the country's leader Monday that the situation was "worrying" and gave no indication of progress toward a negotiated solution for the civil war.
