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Dublin: 9 °C Wednesday 22 May, 2013

Syrian TV presenter ‘kidnapped and executed’

The news comes as new fighting is reported in Aleppo and Damascus.

Homs: A citizen journalism image provided by Shaam News Network SNN, taken on Friday
Homs: A citizen journalism image provided by Shaam News Network SNN, taken on Friday
Image: AP Photo/Shaam News Network, SNN

A SYRIAN TV presenter, Mohammad al-Saeed, has been executed, it is being reported by AFP this afternoon.

Al-Saeed was kidnapped last month and it is believed that the Al-Nusra Front claimed it had carried out the execution.

Loans

Meanwhile, senior Syrian officials have pleaded with Russia for financial loans and supplies of oil products.

Meanwhile, the BBC says that new fighting has been reported in Damascus and Aleppo, where rebels are entrenched and being fought by government forces.

Yesterday, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution criticising the Security Council’s failure to act on the Syria conflict, which UN leader Ban Ki-moon said has become a “proxy war”.

Russia and China, which have vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, were among high profile opponents of the resolution. The resolution is not legally binding.

Russian warships

While the Syrian delegation was holding talks in Moscow, a squadron of Russian warships was approaching Syria’s port of Tartus, the only naval base Russia has outside the former Soviet Union.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that some of the ships may call on the port to replenish their supplies.

Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil, who led a delegation of several Cabinet ministers on a trip to Moscow, told reporters on Friday that they have asked for a Russian loan to replenish Syria’s hard currency reserves, which have been depleted by international embargoes on Syrian exports.

Jamil said Syria may get the loan within weeks. Russian authorities did not issue any comments about the requests.

He also said that Damascus wants to get diesel oil and other oil products from Russia in exchange for crude supplies.

Shortages

Syria blames US and European Union sanctions for shortages that have left Syrians standing in long lines to pay inflated prices for cooking gas, sugar and other staples.

Syrian Oil Minister Said Maza Hanidi said the EU embargo led to fuel shortages affecting 20 million Syrians and that a deal with Russia should fix the problem.

In May, the US ambassador to Damascus denied that the international sanctions were to blame for the shortages.

- Additional reporting AP

Read: UN assembly hits out at Security Council failure on Syria>

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Comments (38 Comments)

  • The main news broadcaster Mohammad Al Saeed has just been executed after torture by Al Quaeda millitants .If the Us keeps aligning itself with Al Quaeda then maybe it will have no choice but to attack itself someday.I wouldn’t like to be an Iranian right now.Waiting for the invasion.

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    • Tuff being a journalist in Syria.

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    • Even after the media has been forced, to finally tell the truth ,that NATO/Saudi backed terrorists are the one’s butchering men,women and kids they still try to justify it ! Any western journalists should now be considered combatants and treated accordingly .

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    • Al NUSRA FRONT= AL QUEDA just say it go on just say it.

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    • I see the Jim Corr Front have been allowed on the internet today. There are different sets fighting against the government. Rebels who are being supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and who rose from the original protests against Asad. There is also a newer Jihadi element who aim to set up an Islamic state and are loosely associated with All Qaeda. As for the claim of “thousands” of CIA and Mossad in Turkey, just how large an organisation do you think Mossad is? And though Israel has poor relations with Syria, they would far prefer a stable Syria ruled by him with an iron fist than a destabilised one with different factions controlling chemical weapons.

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    • Richard, Israel would prefer a chaotic and destabilised Syria when they attack Iran because Syria would be a gateway for Iranian retaliation.

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    • @Richard Mossad want one thing To take out Iran (with tactical nukes) Syria is the only regional alliance Iran has left .AL QUEDA backed by Nato/mossad and Saudi (as they always have been) will create a nice little controllable bogey man, to keep Israeli population controlled ,while they wipe out Iran.

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  • War by proxy is what is going on here. One side, unwilling to commit troops and suffer casualties will arm other groups to take down an enemy. This is what will happen in Iran in a year or two.
    The horror of this is that the existing despicable regimes will be replaced by disparate groups based along tribal and religious lines. The suffering will continue, but without the glare of the media highlighting it to the world. Out gaze will have moved onto the next ‘hotspot’ that needs some Western medicine.

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  • What ya getting from Santa Ed?

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  • How sad to see people on here defending a tyrant like Assad as his henchmen butcher thousands of innocent men, women and children, it’s not like the Assad family don’t have form for this, his father was an evil and ruthless dictator who killed thousands during his time and now his equally evil offspring is doing the same. The best place for Assad is swinging from a lamp post like Mussolini and that’s how it will end. The Syrians have had enough of dictatorship and want a normal elected government, they tried peaceful protest and were met with violence and and death meted out by the very man that people like Harrington and Egan on here are defending, they are both talking garbage about “western propaganda” and it’s typical of the kind of bullshit you hear from the anti Israeli and anti American bigots who frequently vent their spleens on this site, it is sickening when you only have to go to any decent reliable media outlet including Al Jazzera to see the history of this conflict and the atrocities that the Assad regime have committed, the dead children with their throats cut, their little bodies riddles with bullets the sectarianism which is being used by Assad to terrorise those who are against him. The Syrian people will win out in the end and Assad will end up like Gaddafy or Saddam Hussein. The US, UK, Turkey, EU and Israel are on hand to ensure that no jihadis end up running Syria and to ensure that any Al Qaida terrorists are rooted out and dealt with before they have any chance to turn Syria into another Iraq or Afghanistan. Lets hope that they have special forces operating there now ensuring that the right people are being supplied with what they need to end the Assad regime and free the people of Syria from the Assad family’s tyranny.

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    • Assad is a lame duck, it is only a matter of time before he goes. But to think that the collective group you mentioned are going to help Syria towards democracy is just a fairytale for a number of important points.

      1. They cannot control an election.

      2. If the Muslim Brotherhood win an election or some group like th do you think Israel or the US will accept the result. If not then so much for democracy.

      3. To insure a facade of peace, a coalition will have to hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground. There is just no appetite for that. As I said before, war by proxy. It is cheaper and it can be denied.

      4. Where is the profit?

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  • Yes, I’ve just discovered that that poor man has been executed by one of the ‘rebel’ groups. Let’s see will AP or any of the other Western media outlets report this act of terrorism by the so called ‘rebels’. People need to wake and realise what is happening here.

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  • I hope the Syrian government gets that oil and aid soon. The people of Syria are undergoing extreme hardship. Petrol has quadrupled in price and there are shortages of commodities. Syria will be in big trouble in a few months time as a result of US sponsored terrorism. Farmers in Syria are not able to harvest crops as they fear for their lives. They are afraid the ‘rebels’ will execute them if they harvest the crops. This will lead to food shortages and further hard currency problems for Syria. We had a Turkish member of parliament complaining of thousands of CIA and Mossad spies in his province.

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  • This is an interesting report from Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (AKA G. in Baghdad) who is in Deir el-Zour in Syria.

    Al-Qaida turns tide for rebels in battle for eastern Syria

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  • It’s tough standing up for reality. People in general, and I used to be one of them, believe without question the propaganda and brainwashing by Western media outlets.

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    • There is propaganda on both sides. Just because you read something on a conspiracy website doesn’t mean its true, likewise just because something is in the Western media doesn’t make it false. I tend to be sceptical of both until I can find multiple independent sources. However most of the extreme claims made here are as stupid as the ones that claim 9/11 was a Zionist plot.

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    • @Richard nobody knows what happened on 9/11 as everyone is to scared to actually find out ,but comparison to the geopolitical chess game being played across the middle east is fatuous and misleading .Nato/ Israeli Saudi involvement in mass murder in Libya ADMITTED !! transportation of those same Islamic terrorists to Turkey and Jordan were they were armed and sent into Syria ADMITTED !! Hama massacre .western media blamed government shouted it at every opportunity but when it turns out NATO forces did it silence ? So take you’re flying saucer shite and open you’re eyes and ears

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  • Brend most humans are too thick to understand much beyond their immediate needs

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  • Once again the conspiracy nuts will seize on this to slander the good people of Syria who are finally doing something after 40 years of brutal repression while simultaneously excusing and condoning the savagery of the regime.

    Check out this video of Assad’s troops yesterday organising a “pro-Assad demo” and look at the thug at 0:22 carrying two butcher’s knives…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klEyIJIbHJA

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    • There’s only on nut here Paul..Fox news always needs more viewers .The good people of Syria are stuck in the middle of yet another surge by the US to dominate the Middle East what are they doing in Afghanistan Iraq Libya and now Syria give me one explanation why they are there…link of guys with knives ya they had some journalist running around pretending to be shot at by the Syrian army and Fox News had it all over the airwaves until they messed up and got caught out he was actually in another country and all the gunshots were sound affects .check that out..

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    • And don’t forget the al jazera reporters from Lebanon who quit in disgust because they said only one side of the story was being told.

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    • Oh ya forgot about them Imran..Paul there and Ed would remind you of Bryan Dobson horsing out aload of shite that no one really believes but are too lazy to go find out for themselves.

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  • The propaganda is on par with Joseph Goebells it would make people if they knew sick

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  • Virtually no condemnation of this barbarity compared to other news stories copied and pasted from AP and Reuters.

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  • … (continuation of previous comment). This Turkish MP has said that so many foreign spies in the province is making the locals uneasy. It is now a proven fact that Turkey has established a base on the Turkey/Syrian border and with the help of Qatar and Saudi Arabia is training, paying and arming foreign fighters before sending them onto Syria. This base has been in use for months and has been described as the nerve centre for the ‘rebels’. This base is located close to a US military base so we have the US cooperating and aiding in regime change again and sponsoring terrorism as Al Qaeda are among these special called ‘rebels’.

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    • Do you really think the government want fuel to run cars and cook they need it to fuel their tanks and gunships to inflict as much casualty s as possible on people who started a peaceful protest and were forced to take up arms against a dictator who kills his own people wake up and see whats going on

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  • I suppose we are Westerners and they are Arabs and that’s the mindset George.Sure weren’t we over there slaughtering all around us hundreds of years ago on some mission for God its a mission for democracy now who’s the real extremists i dont think its them badbad Arab men women and children.Open up a sunday paper then and you get this big push for civil liberties for gay marriage.Anyone want to report the news it would be appreciated.

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  • Ed Appeleby is a C.I.A operative or else he must have his Stevie Wonder glasses on for the last 40 yrs .Why are the U.S involved in Afghanistan Iraq Libya Syria at this present moment answer me that the answer is as clear as your stupidity.Im a westerner im from the western world i dont hate westerners why would i have a problem il tell you why the invasion the ruination and murder of innocent people under the banner of freedom and liberty is something that me as a citizen of the western world cant justify it may be easy for you to believe that Arabs should die because their land is sitting on vast oil reserves you might be a person that wants something and will go to any length to get it but most of people are good natured and are sick of innocents been murdered for the greed of a certain few for god sake man have a look at the world under U.S control total mayhem..

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    • Yeah i’m a CIA operative in you crazy head maybe, you need to get back in the real world sunshine. Your loony ranting only shows how warped your view of the world really is, those killing innocent people are mainly the clan militia thugs and henchmen of the Assad regime, that’s not to say the rebels and various other groups aren’t above committing atrocities against Assad’s supporters, it’s Syrian against Syrian. The US or any of it’s allies have not killed any Syrians nor are they seeking to steal any Syrian oil (apart from in your conspiracy ridden mind). If it wasn’t for the US and NATO the world would be an even more dangerous place but then that notion is lost on you and your kind who only see what suits you and not what is real. The Iraqis and the Afghans are better off without Saddam and the Taliban, most of the killing in these countries is being carried out by terrorists and jihadists, Afghanistan has no oil reserves so that argument doesn’t hold up. Maybe you should go lie down in a darkened room for a while and think about it! I’m back off to Langley now, have a nice life!

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    • mattoid 04/08/12 #

      Brend, your tinfoil hat credentials are being exposed by coming out with something as bizarre as saying that someone with a different viewpoint to yours who posts on the Journal must be a CIA operative!

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    • Afghanistan is a transit country for natural resources, which means it’s just as important as the oil rich countries it borders.

      Syria must be brought to heel in order to isolate Iran, either to pour on more pressure on Iran to succumb to the demands of ‘the West’ without attacking, or in order to remove it as any sort of a threat to Israel prior to an attack by ‘the West’.

      And with a profile pic like that Matoid, one might be forgiven for thinking you had the ability to identify sarcasm when you see it

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    • I was been sarcastic ED and MATTOID ya ladies im bonkers and ye girls sound like a record that has been playing for the last 40 yrs a broken record ..The you take think langley would take you Ed dont be flattering yourself.I will have a nice life living in the real world not some world of illusion that ye ladies live in..

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    • mattoid 06/08/12 #

      Intelligent post Brend

      Reply

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