“We should name names, because time comes to tell the truth. There should be reaction to what has been done by the Hezbollah military wing in the region and elsewhere. I believe that it will not harm the overall process. We should establish rules; to have dialogue, rules should be followed,” Linkevičius said.

The decision to blacklist Hezbollah’s armed wing was complemented by the Foreign Affairs Council with the statement that the EU will continue dialogue with political forces in Lebanon and continue providing EU aid. Legislation on sanctions will be drafted by the Working Party of Foreign Relations Counsellors (RELEX), which is chaired by the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU Council.

The EU foreign ministers have also discussed the situation in Egypt. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister stressed that it was important for civil society of Egypt and for the entire region to return to the democratic process as soon as possible.

“Elected governments should not be removed by military force. This is not acceptable, nor legitimate. Egypt should get back as soon as possible to the democratic process and elect its leadership,” Linkevičius said.

The Foreign Affairs Council has also discussed the Middle East peace process. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister welcomed the U.S. efforts to renew peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and stressed that the EU should make its full contribution to the process.

The EU foreign ministers also discussed the preparations for the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November. Linkevičius stressed that the EU should actively support reforms in the neighbouring countries and do its best to ensure that countries signing association and free trade agreements could apply them provisionally without waiting for ratification.

Assad’s comments came in a pre-recorded interview with al Manar television, a Lebanese satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah.

Dozens of Hezbollah militants are said to be fighting alongside Syrian forces in Qusayr the since May 19, when government forces launched an offensive to recapture the strategic town near the Lebanese border. Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry said thousands of Hezbollah fighters were contributing significantly to the conflict in Syria.

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said earlier this week that Hezbollah would fight in Syria until Assad’s survival was assured.

Assad, however, downplayed Hezbollah’s presence in Syria in his interview, saying that the number of fighters the Lebanese group had sent to his country was a “drop in the ocean” compared with the “hundreds of thousands” of Syrian government troops fighting against rebels.

“Logically speaking, if Hezbollah or the resistance wanted to defend Syria by sending fighters, how many could they send – a few hundred, a thousand or two? We are talking about a battle in which hundreds of thousands of Syrian troops are involved against tens of thousands of terrorists.”

Reports have said up to 4,000 Hezbollah fighters have joined forces with the Syrian military, which has claimed to be winning the battle, Al Jazeera said.

He noted that the timing of the Qusayr battle is linked to the “Israeli escalation”.

President Bashar al-Assad also said Syria would be willing to attend peace talks with the opposition in principle with the condition that anything agreed upon would be subject to the approval of the Syrian people through a referendum.

“Simply put, our only condition is that anything agreed upon in any meeting inside or outside the country, including the conference, is subject to the approval of the Syrian people through a popular referendum. This is the only condition. Anything else doesn’t have any value. That is why we are comfortable with going to the conference. We have no complexes. Either side can propose anything, but nothing can be implemented without the approval of the Syrian people. And as long as we are the legitimate representatives of the people, we have nothing to fear.”

Assad was referring to talks, backed by Russia and the US  next month in Geneva. Peace talks aim at finding a political solution to the country’s civil war.

On the other hand, the National Coalition said it will not take part in would not participate in the Geneva talks until the international community intervened to end a siege in Qusayr, a town in Homs province near the Lebanese border.

Lebanese forces set up road blocks boosting security in the capital as thousands descended for the public funeral on Sunday, according to AFP.

Wissam al-Hassan, the intelligence chief of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) targeted Friday, had headed an investigation that led to the Aug. 9 arrest of former Information Minister Michel Samaha, one of Assad’s most loyal allies in Lebanon who was recently accused of trying to smuggle explosives into Lebanon from Syria, according to Al Arabiya.

Al-Hassan had also led an investigation that implicated Syria and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, in the assassination of former PM Rafiq al-Hariri.

Thousands of supporters of Lebanon’s opposition March 14 coalition poured into Beirut for today’s funeral of an assassinated security official and for a “day of rage” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Saad al-Hariri, leader of the opposition, urged all of Lebanon to attend the funeral in central Beirut.

Lebanon is divided between those that support Assad’s regime and those that back the rebels seeking his overthrow in the country’s bloody 20-month conflict.

The March 14 alliance called on Lebanon’s government to resign over the attack, which it blamed on the Syrian regime. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Saturday that he offered his resignation but that President Michel Suleiman asked him to stay on for a “period of time”, according to Naharet.

Friday’s blast, which also wounded at least 80 people, drew worldwide condemnation ,  as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday on French TV that Syria was probably involved in the Ashrafiyeh car bombing that killed Intelligence Bureau chief Maj. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan and at least three other people.

Omran al-Zohbi, the Syrian information minister, also condemned the “terrorist, cowardly” attack as he said.

However, both Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, the influential Druze leader, accused al-Assad of being behind the bombing.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon contacted on Saturday Prime Minister Najib Miqati to express his “solidarity with the Lebanese people” after the assassination al-Hasan.

It’s not clear where the drone came from, reports the Associated Press.  Israeli media reports suggest the drone was apparently launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah, or by the Iranians either testing Israeli defensive systems or targeting Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel.

The drone was first spotted by military officials while it was above the Mediterranean in the area of the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas, points out Reuters.

Lieutenant-Colonel Avital Leibovich said Israeli systems on the ground alerted the air force to the drone Saturday morning. She said it flew over the Gaza Strip but did not start off from the Palestinian territory. She said Israel did not know the drone’s starting point and an investigation was under way.

It is highly unlikely Hamas would be responsible for the operation and the “immediate suspect is Hezbollah,” points out a Haaretz analysis. The drone shot down Saturday is not believed to have been carrying explosives, notes Harretz, pointing out that it was likely gathering intelligence.

It is not the first time that Israel has shot down drones entering its airspace, but such cases are rare. The Lebanese group Hezbollah has launched several such aircrafts into Israel over the past few years.

In the 2006 war, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made drone capable of carrying explosives into Israel that was shot down.

Tensions are high between Iran and Israel over Tehran’s nuclear program. The west has accused Iran for developing atomic bombs but the Islamic Republic denies the allegations, and says its program is for peaceful purposes only. Israel has threatened to carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent Iran from acquiring such weapons.

Clinton traveled to Turkey after wrapping up a 11-day nine-nation Africa tour. In Istanbul, Clinton will have “lengthy and in-depth conversation” with Turkey’s president, prime minister and foreign minister that will focus on adding pressure and isolating the Syrian regime, extending humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees in Turkey and to discuss a democratic transition in post-Assad Syria a U.S. official said.

Clinton is expected to propose with Turkey’s leaders ways to effectively impose sanctions against the Syrian regime. Syria’s relations with Turkey have hit their lowest point after a Turkish fighter jet was shot down by Syrian fire in June.

In Istanbul, Clinton is also expected to announce an additional $5.5 million in aid for those fleeing fighting that monitoring groups say has now claimed over 21,000 lives. 

Turkey is currently home to more than 50,000 refugees living in camps along the Syrian border.
 The UN announced on Friday that there were more than 6,000 new arrivals in Turkey this week alone, many from the Syrian city of Aleppo and surrounding villages, while others came from Idlib and Latakia.

Meanwhile, the US on Friday imposed sanctions on the Syrian state-run oil company Sytrol for conducting business with Iran, in a bid to cut off revenues to the Iranian and Syrian regimes, according to a statement by the State Department.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the penalties against energy firm Sytrol come after it delivered $36 million worth of gasoline to Iran in April significantly exceeding the monetary thresholds for triggering sanctions under this law.

The U.S. Treasury also said it was adding the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has close ties with Iran and Syria, to a blacklist of organizations targeted under Syria-related sanctions.

Meanwhile, Fighting has spilled across the border, as Jordnanian and Syrian forces clashed in the Tel Shihab-Turra border region on Friday, according to Al Jazeera. 

A source in Jordan confirmed the fighting but said there seem to have been no Jordanian deaths.

Israel is preparing for possible military action in Syria in case the Syrian government gives missiles or chemical weapons to the Iranian and Syrian backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday.

“I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that … (if necessary) … we will be able to consider carrying out an operation,” Barak said in an interview on Channel 10 TV.

He went on to say that “the moment Syrian President Bashar al-Assad starts to fall we will conduct intelligence monitoring and will liaise with other agencies.”

Meanwhile, on Friday the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution extending the mandate of its observer mission in Syria for another 30 days.

Despite calls for new sanctions against the Syrian regime under Chapter seven of the UN charter, the Security Council on Thursday failed to adopt the resolution, owing once again to the negative votes of permanent members Russia and China.

Syrian rebels have killed four of Assad’s regime members including his brother-in-law and defense minister in Damascus and seized three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey this week, putting the Syrian leader under greater pressure in the 16-month uprising against his rule.

Meanwhile, activists claim that more than 17000 have been killed according since the unrest began in March 2011. The Syrian government blames the unrest on “armed terrorist gangs”.

Hezbollah is a powerful political party and militant group in Lebanon backed by Iran and Syria. In 2006 it fought a war with Israel in 2006

On Thursday, Barak toured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the Middle East war in 1967. Israeli defense officials fear that the deteriorating situation in their neighbor to the north, worried it could spill across the frontier. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that Israel would stop Syrian refugees from entering the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights if they try to flee there.

Israel’s Defence Minister told Israeli radio, “The immediate executors are people form Hezbollah, who of course have constant Iranian sponsorship.”

The tourists had arrived from Israel on a charter flight and were waiting in a bus in the car park at Burgas Airport, on the Black Sea, at the time the blast took place.

Just hours after the attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was to blame for the attack and that “Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror.”

A bombing on a bus with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria was likely carried out by a male suicide attacker, Bugaria’s interior minister said Thursday.

Earlier Thursday, it was reported that the death toll from the attack rose to six Israelis, after one of the wounded succumbed to his wounds in the hospital, the bus driver and the suicide bomber, according to Haaretz. 

Video surveillance in front of the airport and the investigation showed the bomber could not be distinguished among arriving Israeli tourists. “He looked like everybody else – a normal person with Bermuda shorts and a backpack,” Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said, according to Reuters.

 About 34 wounded Israeli tourists will be flown back to Israel in the next hours, Haaretz reported.

The blast came on the 18th anniversary of a 1994 bomb attack on the headquarters of Argentina’s main Jewish organization by a Hezbollah suicide bomber, which killed 85 people, Reuters writes.

Israel and Western powers have accused Iran for developing a nuclear weapons and have not rules out military action against the Islamic Republic, while Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Hezbollah is a powerful political party and militant group  in Lebanon backed by Iran and Syria. In 2006 it fought a war with Israel in 2006.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been bombarded with “Responsibility to Protect” rhetoric; we’ve been reminded of the (U.S.) need to intervene in Syria to weaken Iran, as well as Hezbollah and Hamas; we’ve been told of all the positive effects a new Syrian regime would have for the region; we’ve been pointed out how useful regional countries (e.g. Turkey) would be in a potential intervention; how Russia would care, but not so much as to cause problems, and so on. It is as if everyone stopped thinking rationally and stopped weighing the costs and benefits. To be honest though, depending on one’s perspective of the situation, the costs and benefits could be entirely different. What would be the objective of an intervention, really? Would it be Iran? Would it be Hamas and Hezbollah? Would it be the Russian interests in the Middle East? Would it be the protection of the Syrian people under the “Responsibility to Protect” umbrella? Or is the “Responsibility to Protect” just the moral cover-up – and the ultimate immoral means – for the achievement of all previous, and more, objectives? I would vote for the latter. In any case, an intervention – if it were to take place – should be about the people. But the fact is that there is no scenario in which the Syrian people – or the region, for that matter – would benefit from an intervention. There are at least five main reasons for that, briefly presented below, which are linked to the simplifications put forward by the intervention advocates.

1. The perspective: Most analyses about Syria come from a U.S., or European, (“moral”) perspective. It is easy to say “intervene” when you live half a world away (or if you are Israeli). It is easy not just because of the long distance (U.S.) but because of the geopolitical opportunity as well (for the U.S., E.U., and Israel). The “Iran-Syria-Hezbollah” triangle, and their comrade, Hamas, have been bothering the West for quite some time. Further, the Syrian crisis emerged at a time when the “westerners” are having serious problems with Iran and its nuclear program. How does that have anything to do with the suffering of the Syrian people, and how does that entail a plan for a just post-intervention transition in Syria? It doesn’t.

2. The Russian factor: Syria has been compared to Kosovo and to how Russia, despite its criticism of the NATO bombings, did not react in 1999. However, the U.S. is not the superpower it used to be, and Russia is now over the post-Soviet/post-traumatic stress. Moreover, Syria is very important for the Russian interests in the Middle East; much more important than Libya was. Downplaying the Russian factor, is a crucial mistake; one that would eventually have real costs only for the people of Syria.

3. Turkey: There is a widespread misconception that Turkey wants to intervene in Syria or that it would be unconditionally supportive of a western intervention. But what about the Kurds and the PKK in particular? Are you not seeing the mounting violence within Turkey and the government’s efforts for a political solution? Don’t you think that if Turkey wanted to intervene in Syria it would have already done so? Yes, Turkey wants Assad to go, but it realizes the dangers that come with an intervention. What Turkey is concerned about right now is the settlement of the Syrian crisis without further destabilization and without an intervention – which would again lead to destabilization. If Turkey, along with other regional countries, were to intervene in Syria, it would have to be under certain conditions: Turkey would have to take the lead, it would have to somehow justify the intervention to Iran so as to avoid another confrontation, and Russia would have to back down, or at least adopt a neutral stance. These are no simple conditions. And again, they have nothing to do with the moral need of helping the Syrians.

4. The “history of intervention”: Assuming there were no problems at all; what “successful” case of intervention should the West keep in mind as it carries out its intervention in Syria? Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Not to mention the Balkans. It is true that, for example, Saddam and Gaddafi are gone, while some argue that Iraq is now “a better place”. Need I remind you, though, that the “reconstruction” of Iraq was not the reason of the intervention in the first place? And is it so hard to see that Iraq is anything but a stable state? It is ridden by sectarian problems and the indirect control of external – mainly regional – powers. At least the Libyans called for an intervention, although the result is still a “new Iraq” in the making: secessionist movements, tribal fights, etc. It is time to realize that there is more to it than just toppling a dictator, which, again, is irrelevant to the real and long-term needs of the people, but rather relates to geopolitics and economics.

5. Operations: The final reason why there cannot be a military intervention, favorable for the Syrian people, regards the operational dimension of the debate. Indeed, the Free Syrian Army has no significant territory under its authority; its fight and man power is limited whereas the regime is still strong (unlike the case of Libya). The revolts have already spilled over into Lebanon which means that an intervention would not leave Hezbollah indifferent. Iran has already showed its support to the Syrian regime while it has been reported that arms are being transferred from Iran to the Syrian government through Iraq. The Russian interests have already been mentioned, let alone the reports for alleged Russian military assistance to the Assad regime. An intervention could easily initiate a large scale proxy, or even direct, war between all these actors. This would in no way benefit the Syrians or the countries of the region. The possibility alone of such a development should be enough for people to stop thinking of a military intervention in Syria.

Although no one outside Syria has the right to speak on behalf of the Syrians, it seems that an intervention would cause more harm than good. Because of what has been analyzed above, articles, as well as politicians, that advocate intervention in Syria, are rather dangerous. There is much more at stake here than just the western/U.S. interests in the Middle East, or the regional balance of power. The objective is the long-term well-being of the Syrian people. Again, unquestionably Assad must go. Preferably the infrastructure of the regime must go with him; but this is very difficult as the cases of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and even Libya, showed. There has to be a political/diplomatic solution which will result in regime change. Alternatively, if the Syrian revolt were to become a revolution, then, I humbly believe, the Syrians should be the ones to take the lead and be in control.

—

Zenonas Tziarras is a PhD Candidate in International Politics at the University of Warwick, UK, and a Junior Research Scholar at Strategy International. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of any organization.

Violence erupted hours after reports emerged that army troops had shot dead an anti Syrian regime Sunni cleric when his convoy failed to stop at a checkpoint in north Lebanon on Sunday, AFP reported.

The incident which raised fears of a repeat of sectarian conflict in 2008,  took place following a week of clashes in the northern port city of Tripoli between Sunnis hostile to the Syrian regime and Alawites who support President Bashar al-Assad.

The uprising in Syria has resulted in a deep split between Lebanon’s political parties where the opposition backs those leading the revolt against Assad and accuse the Lebanese government of following orders of the Syrian regime while a ruling coalition led by the Shia Hezbollah supports the regime, Al Jazeera reported.

Last week, clashes sparked by the Syrian crisis killed at least eight people in the northern city of Tripoli.

The Syrian National Council in a statement issued two days ago has called on Lebanese authorities to abide by the Arab League and International sanctions imposed on the Syrian regime and to prevent the wire fraud and money laundering conducted by Syrian regime in collaboration with some of its allies in Lebanon.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati tried calm tensions by stating, “The government is determined to continue to shoulder its national responsibilities amid this critical period in Lebanon and the region, and it will take all measures necessary to preserve civil peace,” he said in a statement.

More than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died in Syria since an anti-regime revolt broke out in March last year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.