SYRIEN - En sammanställning av konflikten

The US government has made repeated covert attempts to block arms and oil shipments to Syria, the Wall Street Journal reports. Officials said Washington also provided rebel forces with key military intelligence against President Bashar al-Assad.

The WSJ cites unnamed government officials in its report, which claims that the US has tried to coerce Iraq into blocking flights crossing through its airspace that are suspected of carrying weapons and supplies to the Assad government.

In addition, US intelligence agencies have moved to block ships believed to be transporting military equipment to Syria from traversing the Suez Canal.

Washington has recently intensified its covert efforts against Syria, in line with its stated aim of removing of President Bashar Assad.

"There is a renewed effort to crack down in any way possible," a US official told the WSJ, referencing Washington’s plan to control transit on the Suez Canal.

Officials stated that Washington had been feeding key intelligence, including satellite imagery, to the Turkish and Jordanian militaries, which support the Syrian rebel army.

There were also reports of the CIA coordinating and sharing intelligence with certain Syrian opposition groups.

The WSJ report cites the US troop withdrawal from Iraq in November of last year as the strategic opening for a possible arms supply route into Syria. The CIA tracked 76 cargo flights from Iran crossing Iraqi airspace en route to Syria in January and February.

The CIA claimed that the Iranian and Syrian governments disguised the alleged military equipment as farming materials and cut flowers.

German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed


by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question.

In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted that the content of these reports was to remain classified "by reason of national interest", Like many other Western governments, Germany expelled Syria's ambassador in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence.

Meanwhile, at least three major German newspapers - Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild - have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario.

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – A Information Ministry source on Sunday warned that Western intelligence are planning in cooperation with some Arab parties to hijack the frequencies of Syrian satellite channels for some time to broadcast false news on alleged coup d'etat or certain military defections or the fall of certain cities and the like.

The Ministry source added that the frequencies of Syrian channels are to be hijacked through broadcast control stations in neighboring countries, noting that false news might be broadcast by Syrian presenters and journalists who work for Arab and Western channels or who might be or have been abducted and pressured to present such false news.

The Ministry stressed that any news that might be broadcast with regard to such alleged information are completely baseless and should be regarded by the citizens as being part of the misleading and fabrication campaign launched against Syria.

Information Source: News Broadcast by Some Satellite Channels on Aerial Bombardment of Some Places in Damascus Baseless

Earlier, an information source refuted as baseless the news broadcast by some satellite channels on aerial bombardment of some areas in Damascus.

The source stressed normal life in Damascus, adding that the authorities, in cooperation with locals, are chasing vanquished terrorists in certain streets.

"Some groups pulled out," he told AFP as he prepared to leave for Paris to attend a Friends of Syria meeting.

The Syrian Kurdish National Council stormed out of the meeting late on Tuesday, protesting that the final document failed to specifically mention the Kurds, a senior Arab League official told AFP.

There were also disagreements on the follow-up mechanism for the conference, as some groups accused others of trying to monopolise the process.

"Bring all these people together and there will be disagreements," the official said.

"But they did agree on the final documents, which include an end to the Assad regime, support of the Free Syrian Army, and they agreed on basic constitutional principles of justice, democracy and pluralism," he said.