Lebanon reports Syrian troop build-up on border

BEIRUT: The Lebanese army said on Monday that Syria had boosted troop numbers along the border but that Damascus had stressed the move was linked to a crackdown against smugglers.

“Nearly 10,000 Syrian special forces have been deployed in the Abbudiya region along the border between Lebanon and Syria,” an army spokesman told AFP. “We asked Damascus for clarification and we were told that the measures were strictly internal and on Syrian territory and that they were in no way directed against Lebanon,” he added. The spokesman said the Syrian authorities had assured the Lebanese army that the build-up was aimed at cracking down on smuggling activities and other crime along the border.

Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal, which is close to the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, said the troops had begun deploying along the northern border at the weekend. The report sparked concern among anti-Syrian parties in Lebanon which have accused Damascus of plotting to return troops to its smaller neighbour.

Damascus was forced to withdraw its forces from Lebanon in 2005 after three decades of military and political domination following the assassination of former billionaire premier Rafiq Hariri. It nevertheless continues to wield influence through its allies in Beirut. afp

George W Bush has rounded on Iran and Syria in his last speech to the UN as US president, accusing them of being state sponsors of terrorism....

Ahmadinejad says U.S. cause of main global problems...

Moscú, 23 de septiembre, RIA Novosti. Buques de la Flota rusa del Norte harán escala en 25 países durante la expedición que realizarán a la cabeza del crucero portamisiles "Piotr Veliki", comunicó hoy el ministro ruso de Defensa, Anatoli Serdiukov.

Los buques zarparon el lunes y se calcula que regresarán dentro de dos meses.

"La Flota estuvo preparándose más de un año para esa expedición", dijo Serdiukov.

El ministro comparó la expedición con el reciente vuelo de dos bombarderos estratégicos rusos Tu-160 a Venezuela.,

"Los aviones de la aviación estratégica rusa nunca antes habían volado a zonas tan lejanas", señaló.

kierevelos 23/07/09:
El fin de la crisis ha llegado, le pese a quien le pese

Iniciado por Doomsday

Aunque he abierto un hilo con este tema pongo el link aqui. Los acontecimientos se precipitan y la ley marcial parece cada vez mas cercana en los USA.

U.S. Troops In Homeland “Crowd Control” Patrols From October 1st
Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two NATO helicopters fired upon by Pakistani forces on Thursday were U.S. military aircraft operating inside Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.
(...)
A Pakistani military spokesman said the helicopters had crossed the border into Pakistani territory, while Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, denied troops had shot at the helicopters, insisting that only warning flares had been fired.

Since the September 3 U.S. commando raid in South Waziristan, there have been reports of two other incidents in which Pakistani forces were said to fire on U.S. helicopters crossing the border. In both cases, U.S. officials have denied the reports.

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WASHINGTON — Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters, ratcheting up tensions as the United States increases its attacks against militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are being sheltered in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas.

The two American OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance helicopters were not damaged and no casualties were reported on either side from the ground fire. But American and Pakistani officials agreed on little else about what happened in the fleeting mid-afternoon clash between the allied troops.

American and NATO officials said that the two helicopters were flying about one mile inside Afghan air space to protect an American and Afghan patrol on the ground when the aircraft were fired on by small-caliber arms fire from a Pakistani military checkpoint near Tanai district in Khost Province.

In response, the American ground troops shot short bursts of warning fire, which hit well shy of the rocky, hilltop checkpoint, and the Pakistanis fired back, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a spokesman for the Central Command.

But a spokesman for the Pakistani army, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said Pakistani forces fired warning shots at the American aircraft after they crossed into Pakistan’s territory in the area of Saidgai, in North Waziristan’s Ghulam Khan region. “On this, the helicopters returned fire and flew back,” General Abbas said.

Local residents said that one of the two helicopters had entered inside Pakistan territory by about a mile, while the other hovered on the Afghan side of the border.

“When our forces fired warning shots, we were a little scared of a possible retaliatory fire from the helicopters,” said one of the residents, Haji Said Rehman Gorbaz. “But we were happy to see the helicopter flying back into Afghanistan. We were happy that our forces fired at the helicopter.”

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, said Thursday that his nation’s military had fired only flares at the helicopters, seeming to draw a distinction with warning “shots,” which usually refers to bullets or other ordnance that could more seriously damage the helicopters.

“They are flares,” Mr. Zardari said as he sat down to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“They are flares just to make sure that they know they have crossed the borderline,” he added, noting that the Afghan-Pakistan frontier is a rugged, ill-marked division between the two nations.

“Sometimes the border is so mixed that they don’t realize that they crossed the border,” Mr. Zardari said.

Ms. Rice agreed that the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is “very, very unclear,” and “one of the most inhospitable places.”

But the clash drew immediate protest from Pentagon officials in Washington. “The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan,” a Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, told reporters at a briefing.

Mr. Whitman said United States and NATO military officials were speaking to their Pakistani counterparts to determine what happened and to ensure there was no repeat, adding, “The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding of why this took place.”

General Abbas, the Pakistani spokesman, said the clash had been reported to NATO headquarters in Kabul and was under investigation by both Pakistani and NATO officials.

Although it lasted just a few minutes, military officials and diplomats said the brief clash showed there was a risk of a much more serious, and lethal, misunderstanding along the border.

Pakistani civilian leaders have denounced an incursion by American Special Operations forces into Pakistan on Sept. 3, which was authorized under orders given by President Bush in July, and the Pakistani Army has vowed to defend its border “at all costs.”

“We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, told reporters on Wednesday. “We are fighting extremism and terror not for any other country, but our own country.”

The latest clash on Thursday comes after a week of claims by Pakistani intelligence officials that American helicopters had strayed across the border from Pakistan, and that an American remotely piloted surveillance aircraft had crashed, apparently due to mechanical failure, on Pakistani territory.

American officials denied these claims, saying they were being manufactured by Pakistani officials in response to rising anti-American sentiment in Pakistan following the increased American activities in the border area.

Thom Shanker contributed reporting from New York. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan.