Israel is an artificial "outgrowth" in the Middle East that "will disappear," Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said ahead of rallies on Friday against the Jewish state and supporting the Palestinians.
The annual Quds Day marches were started in 1979 after the founding of the Islamic republic. The protests use the word Quds, derived from Arabic, to designate the city of Jerusalem.Khamenei, in a speech late
Wednesday, said the "star of hope" that shined on Iran during its
Islamic revolution, and in its 1980-1988 war with Iraq "will also shine for Palestine and its Islamic land will definitely be returned to the Palestinian nation."He railed against Israel, saying: "This bogus and fake Zionist outgrowth will disappear off the landscape of geography."Friday's rallies, he said, would
be "a blow to the enemies of Islam and Palestine" and added that Iran
views supporting the Palestinian cause "a religious duty."This year's Quds Day marches will take place amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel.The Jewish state
has greatly raised bellicose rhetoric threatening air strikes against
the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities, which Israel believe are
being used to develop atomic weapons that could destroy it.Iran denies its nuclear programme is anything but peaceful.ISAIAH 17:1,12-14
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
12 Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations,(USELESS U.N) that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14 And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not.(ASSAD) This is the portion of them that spoil us,(ISRAEL) and the lot of them that rob us.
JEREMEIAH 49:23-27
23 Concerning Damascus.(SYRIA) Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea;(WAR SHIPS WITH NUKES COMING ON SYRIA) it cannot be quiet.
24 Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.
25 How is the city of praise not left, the city of my joy!
26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD of hosts.
27 And I will kindle a fire (NUKES OR BOMBS) in the wall of Damascus, and it shall consume the palaces of Benhadad.(ASSADS PALACES POSSIBLY IN DAMASCUS)
Syria: Clashes near airport in contested Aleppo
By | Associated Press – 20 mins ago AUG 17,12
BEIRUT
(AP) — Syrian forces battled rebels near the airport in war-battered
Aleppo, Syria's state media said Friday, in the first official
acknowledgment that fighting has reached the doorstep of the strategic
site in the country's largest city.Rebel footholds in Aleppo have been the target of weeks of Syrian shelling and air attacks as part of wider offensives by President Bashar Assad's
regime. Rebels have been driven from some areas, but the report of
clashes near the airport suggests the battles could be shifting to new
fronts.Syria's official SANA news agency said "armed terrorist
groups" — the regime's phrase for rebels — had been pushed out from
areas on both sides of the airport, which is located about 15 kilometers
(9 miles) southeast of Aleppo's historical center.The report did
not make it clear whether the fighting was closer to the international
airport or the adjacent military airfield, a hub for air strike missions
on rebel sites in the north.
Aleppo carries major symbolic and strategic value. It's the hub of northern Syria and close to rebel-held territory and critical supply corridors to the Turkish border.Rebels have sought control of the ancient center, dominated by a medieval Crusader castle. That would deal an embarrassing blow to the regime's claim that its overwhelming firepower can halt opposition advances.Civilians, meanwhile, have been increasingly caught in the crossfire. At dawn Thursday, shells fired by the Syrian military hit a bread line outside a bakery in Aleppo, killing at least 10 people, activists said."Those who think that the Syrian Arab army will be defeated are dreaming," said Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in a state TV interview late Thursday.The core of Assad's military and political power appears to remain in place, but major cracks have emerged in the wider reaches of his regime. They include high-level military and political defections and the ability of rebel guerrillas to stage bombings and abductions in the heart of the capital, Damascus.French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who visited Syria's neighbors Jordan and Lebanon this week, told France's Europe-1 radio Friday that he was told "there will be new defections on a large scale." He gave no other details.Fabius also defended France's refusal to send weapons to the Syrian rebels, despite their appeals for military help. He claimed rebel backers Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others are sending arms to the rebels — although there has been no evidence of sharply enhanced military firepower by the anti-Assad forces."We Europeans decided on an arms embargo," he said. "We are not going to contradict our own positions."In Damascus, U.N. officials in Syria were starting to close down their military observer mission after failed international attempts to broker a cease-fire. The U.N. plans to keep a small liaison office to support any future peace efforts to end the more than 17-month civil war, which activists say has left more than 20,000 people dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.The U.N.'s assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, Edmond Mulet, said both sides have "chosen the path of war."In Lebanon, tensions from Syria have slipped over into the volatile patchwork of factions backing the rebels and others firmly behind Assad's regime, such as Iranian-backed Hezbollah.A powerful Shiite Muslim clan in Lebanon claims to hold more than 20 Syrian nationals and a Turk in retaliation for the seizure of a family member by rebels in Syria this week. The clan said Thursday it was calling off "military operations" and would halt abductions for now.Another captive was taken by unknown gunmen. Police officials said a Turkish truck driver, Abdel Basit Erslan, was seized as he was driving in the Beirut suburb of Choueifat. The officials said it was unclear who was behind the abduction Thursday night.
Aleppo carries major symbolic and strategic value. It's the hub of northern Syria and close to rebel-held territory and critical supply corridors to the Turkish border.Rebels have sought control of the ancient center, dominated by a medieval Crusader castle. That would deal an embarrassing blow to the regime's claim that its overwhelming firepower can halt opposition advances.Civilians, meanwhile, have been increasingly caught in the crossfire. At dawn Thursday, shells fired by the Syrian military hit a bread line outside a bakery in Aleppo, killing at least 10 people, activists said."Those who think that the Syrian Arab army will be defeated are dreaming," said Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in a state TV interview late Thursday.The core of Assad's military and political power appears to remain in place, but major cracks have emerged in the wider reaches of his regime. They include high-level military and political defections and the ability of rebel guerrillas to stage bombings and abductions in the heart of the capital, Damascus.French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who visited Syria's neighbors Jordan and Lebanon this week, told France's Europe-1 radio Friday that he was told "there will be new defections on a large scale." He gave no other details.Fabius also defended France's refusal to send weapons to the Syrian rebels, despite their appeals for military help. He claimed rebel backers Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others are sending arms to the rebels — although there has been no evidence of sharply enhanced military firepower by the anti-Assad forces."We Europeans decided on an arms embargo," he said. "We are not going to contradict our own positions."In Damascus, U.N. officials in Syria were starting to close down their military observer mission after failed international attempts to broker a cease-fire. The U.N. plans to keep a small liaison office to support any future peace efforts to end the more than 17-month civil war, which activists say has left more than 20,000 people dead and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.The U.N.'s assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, Edmond Mulet, said both sides have "chosen the path of war."In Lebanon, tensions from Syria have slipped over into the volatile patchwork of factions backing the rebels and others firmly behind Assad's regime, such as Iranian-backed Hezbollah.A powerful Shiite Muslim clan in Lebanon claims to hold more than 20 Syrian nationals and a Turk in retaliation for the seizure of a family member by rebels in Syria this week. The clan said Thursday it was calling off "military operations" and would halt abductions for now.Another captive was taken by unknown gunmen. Police officials said a Turkish truck driver, Abdel Basit Erslan, was seized as he was driving in the Beirut suburb of Choueifat. The officials said it was unclear who was behind the abduction Thursday night.
In Pursuit of the Truth...
