Elite Iranian general assassinated near Syria-Lebanon border

[Aratus]

Because Assad is about as close to a secular leader
as you will find in the Middle East. Same thing happened with
Saddam and Gaddafi and to a lesser extent Mubarak.

agreed...

[BlackTerrel]

Because Assad is about as close to a secular leader as you will find in the Middle East. Same thing happened with Saddam and Gaddafi and to a lesser extent Mubarak.

agreed...

Assad is an Alawite, while most of the Syrian population (over 70%) is Sunni (as is Al-Quaida). Assad is primarily backed by minorities in Syria, like Alawites, Shiites and Christians, as well as wealthier Sunnites. He has alliances with Iran (which is the primal shiite force in the middle east), as well as Russia, which fears Sunni influence in the region, mainly because of radical Sunnite terrorists in the Russian Caucasus regions. All the major Sunnite "players", like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. back or at least cheer for the rebells in Syria.

In short: It's a mainly religiously founded civil war.

So it's religious extremism and hate that cause people to hate attack Syria. Makes sense.

1. Is it possible that some of the hatred and attacks against the US are caused then by religious extremism and hatred rather than blowback and falseflags?

And/Or

2. Is it possible that some of the hatred and against Syria are caused by blowback and falseflags rather than 100% Islamist terrorists?

I ask because there appears to be such a consensus on this for this forum. Whereas those who attack the US are rarely on this forum considered to be solely motivated by religious extremism.

[Danan]

So it's religious extremism and hate that cause people to hate attack Syria. Makes sense.

1. Is it possible that some of the hatred and attacks against the US are caused then by religious extremism and hatred rather than blowback and falseflags?

And/Or

2. Is it possible that some of the hatred and against Syria are caused by blowback and falseflags rather than 100% Islamist terrorists?

I ask because there appears to be such a consensus on this for this forum. Whereas those who attack the US are rarely on this forum considered to be solely motivated by religious extremism.

It's mainly a civil war, which is entirely different than the agression between the US and Middle Eastern terrorists. One main cause for that civil war is religion, but there are also other factors, like poverty, oppression, etc. Of course Syrian Sunnites are more likely to see Assad as the reason for their mischief than Syrian Alawites are.

There has always been tension and aggression between the different Islamic denominations, but also wars and skirmishes between various people with the same religion. In fact, that's also true all other regions of the world.

Much of that intra-Islamic aggression cooled down when the West started to intervene in the Middle East and nowadays it seems to be the case that all denominations and cultures are more or less unified in their hostility or hatred against Israel and all forces backing it, especially the US because of the huge military presence in the region. The blowback theory is 100% accurate in so far as that there would be no Islamic aggression against the US had there never been a US soldier in the Middle East. Since there are soldiers there, some of the hatred might be religously motivated too. But Switzerland is a Christian country too, yet no radical Islamist from the Middle East seems to hate them particularly. Or at least not enough to go over there and fly plains into their buildings.

Also it's not as if the US doesn't play a big role in the religious conflict between Sunnites and Shiites either. The US is allied with all the major Sunnite governments and is actively playing a role in this conflict, helping them out with weapons and military power all the time (the backing of Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War against Iran, backing the Mujahedin against Russia, sanctions against Iran, heavy ties to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, foreign aid for Egypt, etc.). However, many people hate their own governments there too. They believe the US is trying to rule them with "unfaithful" sock puppet dictators. Thus, not only do Shiites hate the US, many radical Sunnites hate them too, despite being allied with all the Sunnite governments, or probably exactly because of that fact.

[COpatriot]

They're now saying he's as big a deal as Imad Mugniyah was so he must have been pretty important.

[HOLLYWOOD]

They're now saying he's as big a deal as Imad Mugniyah was so he must have been pretty important.

Of Course... do you think some FSA dirtbags could do this damage?

It is WWIII via proxy... US/UK governments have a century of running wars/destruction through proxy agents.

DUBAI | Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:55am EST

(Reuters) - Iran will soon exact revenge on Israel for the recent killing of a Revolutionary Guards commander in Syria, an aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted on Saturday as saying.

Iran said on Thursday that an Iranian military commander named Hessam Khoshnevis, also called Hassan Shateri in some news accounts, had been killed in Syria by rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Tehran.
Syrian rebels accuse Iran's Revolutionary Guard of sending forces to help Assad crush their 22-month-old uprising, a charge denied by the Islamic Republic.
Details of Khoshnevis's killing are sketchy and various accounts have emerged. But Iran's envoy to Beirut Ghazanfar Roknabadi on Thursday drew a link between his killing and Israel.
Ali Shirazi, the representative of Khamenei to the Guards' elite Quds force, said on Friday evening Iran's "resolve against Israel" had only grown stronger with Khoshnevis's killing.
"Our enemies should also know that we will quickly get revenge for (the death of) Haj Hassan (Shateri) from the Israelis, and the enemies cannot shut off the Iranian people with such stupid acts," Shirazi was by the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) on Saturday as saying.
Israel has not commented on the killing.
Israel has hinted at military action against Iran if Tehran continues with a nuclear program which Israel says is aimed at developing a weapon. Iran says its program is peaceful.
Israel is believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state.
The Revolutionary Guards media office said this week that Khoshnevis had been "martyred on his way from Damascus to Beirut by mercenaries".
The state news agency IRNA said Khoshnevis was a military engineer during the 1980-88 conflict between Iran and Iraq, and had later worked in Afghanistan.
Officials stressed Khoshnevis had been engaged in civilian reconstruction in Lebanon for the last seven years. Iran backs the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, which fought a brief war with Israel seven years ago and allied with Assad.