Obama Says No Plans for Imminent Escalation of Operations Against Islamic State – Wall Street Journalby wpjljron
Friday, August 29th, 2014.Obama Says No Plans for Imminent Escalation of Operations Against Islamic State – Wall Street JournalSpeaking at a news conference on Thursday, President Barack Obama said that the Islamic State poses a direct threat to Iraq and the region requiring a broad, comprehensive military strategy to confront it. President Barack Obama signaled the U.S. has no immediate plans to escalate military operations against Islamic State extremists in Iraq or Syria, […]
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, President Barack Obama said that the Islamic State poses a direct threat to Iraq and the region requiring a broad, comprehensive military strategy to confront it.
BEIRUT
On Nov. 13, 1970, a young air force officer from the coastal hills of Syria launched a bloodless coup. It was the latest in a succession of military takeovers since independence from France in 1946, and there was no reason to think it would be the last.
Yet 50 years later, Hafez Assad’s family still rules Syria.
The country is in ruins from a decade of civil war that has killed half a million people, displaced half the population and wiped out the economy. Entire regions are lost from government control. But Hafez’s son, Bashar Assad, has an unquestioned grip on what remains.
no, no, no. yesterday, four trucks tried to go in to deliver food, flour, medicine, and hygiene kits. and two made it in. two big trucks made it in. and two others were shot at and had to retreat and didn t make it in. so what they re doing now is the same, the same trucks that didn t go in are going to be the same stuff, is going to be put into a bunch of suvs that belong to the united nations. these are armored suvs and will be taken that way in like different batches, basically. throughout the day. so, sam, real quickly, one, was this, you know, team deliberately targeted? and two, do we know who s responsible, specifically? reporter: good, question. yes, it was, deliberately and consistently. i was just speaking this morning
one day after a humanitarian convoy came under a ferocious attack in syria, aid workers will try again to good food and medicine to help the civilians there. yeah, this convoy came under fire as it was rolling into the war-torn city of homs yesterday. take a look at this. oh, my goodness. it was shelled, there was gunfire, the taken had to break away for safety. sam dagher is the middle east correspondent for the wall street journal . he is there and we talked to him minutes ago about the situation. i m standing here now at the front line between the government health section of homs and the rebel-held section, which is in the center of the city. what s going to happen today is the united nations along with the syrians, is going to try to
but i speak to three, three people, including one senior u.n. official, who was part of this mission yesterday. they were part of that convoy. and they told me, there s no doubt in their mind that it was government forces that fired the at them. pro-government forces. then, again, of course, the authorities here dispute that and say that it was the work of a rebel factions. one of them, you know, one faction didn t want the civilians to get out and another faction wanted the civilians to get out in exchange for food. and they planted ieds along the path of the excuse me, improvised explosive devices along the path of the convoy. but mr. henny himself, the u.n. chief here in syria said no way these were ieds, these were mortars. and he s actually in charge of security himself for the whole syria operation. okay, sam dagher, middle east correspondent for the wall street journal, boy, you and your crew, take good care there. sam, it s really chaotic, but