Iraq Feature: Amid Rising Protests, CIA Expands Co-operation with "Anti-Terrorism" Units (Wall Street Journal)

The Central Intelligence Agency is ramping up support to elite Iraqi antiterrorism units to better fight al Qaeda affiliates, amid alarm in Washington about spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria, according to U.S. officials.

The stepped-up mission expands a covert U.S. presence on the edges of the two-year-old Syrian conflict, at a time of American concerns about the growing power of extremists in the Syrian rebellion.

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Syria Feature: Who Killed the 110 Men Found in the Quweig River? (Chulov/Solomon)

The bodies in the Quweig River in late January (Photo: Thomas Rassloff/EPA)

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In the days following the massacre, Syrian officials blamed "terrorist groups" for the deaths. State television broadcast a ‘confession’ from an alleged member of Jabhat al-Nusra, the jihadist group....

The confession was derided by every one of the 11 people interviewed by the Guardian as well as dozens of others that came and went from the Revolutionary Security centre during the week we were there.

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Syria Live Coverage: Regime Shelling Prevents Release of 21 UN Peacekeepers

Freed UN peacekeepers arrived in the Jordanian capital Amman today

See also Syria Feature: US, Britain, and France Train Insurgents in Jordan
Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Port Said Braces for Protests After Court Verdicts
Friday's Syria Live Coverage: Opposition Leaders Cancel Trip to Washington --- Why?

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1807 GMT: Captured Governor. Claimed footage of the Governor of al-Raqqa province, captured last week when insurgents took al-Raqqa city, under the flag of the Islamist insurgency Jabhat al-Nusra --- he is the figure on the right:

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Syria Feature: The Conflict --- and Truce --- Between Insurgents and Kurds in Ras al-Ain

Fighters in Ras al-Ain (Photo: Reuters)

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Kurdish and Arab militias waged a bitter battle for three months in the northern city of Ras Al Ayn, in Hassakeh province. Now, they’ve reached a truce that has managed to last into a third week, marking an early success for a nascent group of peacekeepers led by famed Christian dissident Michel Kilo....

The months of fighting in Ras Al Ain killed nearly 300 people. It took a diverse group of men and women, Kurds and Arabs, Alawites, Sunnis, Christians, tribal leaders and urbanites to broker Feb. 17’s tenuous peace.

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Syria Feature: The Surge in Foreign Weapons for the Insurgents (Higgins and Chivers/Schmitt)

Colonel Abdul-Jabber Mohammed Aqidi, a prominent insurgent commander in Aleppo, holds up an anti-tank M79 rocket launcher

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While Persian Gulf Arab nations have been sending military equipment and other assistance to the rebels for more than a year, the difference in the recent shipments has been partly of scale. Officials said multiple planeloads of weapons have left Croatia since December, when many Yugoslav weapons, previously unseen in the Syrian civil war, began to appear in videos posted by rebels on YouTube....

Officials familiar with the transfers said the arms were part of an undeclared surplus in Croatia remaining from the 1990s Balkan wars. One Western official said the shipments included “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns” and an unknown quantity of ammunition.

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Syria Live Coverage: At Least 53 Killed by Bombs in Damascus

See also Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Parliamentary Elections set for April-June
Thursday's Syria Live Coverage: Multiple Bombings in Damascus

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1815 GMT:Attacks in Aleppo. Activists now say that at least 12 people have been killed when three missiles or rockets hit house in eastern Aleppo.

1724 GMT:Attacks in Aleppo. Activists are reporting rockets have struck two eastern districts of Aleppo city on Friday, destroying dozens of houses.

One activist who visited the scene said a rocket fell in Ard al-Hamra neighborhood, causing widespread destruction. "There are families buried under the rubble. Nothing can describe it, it's a horrible sight."

Claims are also circulating that the attacks was by missiles --- possibly SCUDs --- rather than rockets.

The wounded after the attack:

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Syria Live Coverage: A "Humanitarian Tragedy"

2120 GMT: Jet Shot Down in Damascus? All day we've been tracking reports of a jet shot down in Damascus. The only problem is that it's unclear a jet ever crashed. However, a reader, Amir, finds this video. Much of it is a collection of videos from today that we have seen. The clip we had not seen is at about the 2:30 mark, when an explosion on the horizon, followed my a smoke cloud, reportedly shows the moment the jet crashed.

We're still not 100% sure what happened, though there are plenty of rumors that the pilot, a Russian, has been captured. We'd treat this as straight rumor until a video is released.

2105 GMT: Battle for Ashrafiyeh District of Aleppo. The rebels have set their sights on another district in norther-central in Aleppo, the Ashrafiyeh District. A microblogger finds several videos, including the one below which appear to show rebels firing mortars at Assad positions from the nearby railway (map):

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Syria Analysis: Dissecting The Washington Post's Scary "Iran-Hezbollah 50,000 Militiamen in Syria " Story

Head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Mohammad Ali Jafari announces Tehran's military support for Assad regime, 16 September 2012

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The real question beyond "50,000 militiamen": why is the US Government, backed by an Arab ally, feeding this story to the Post now?

Is this laying the ground for the revelation that the Obama Administration --- contrary to its recent denials --- has been involved in provision of arms to the insurgency, supposedly ensuring that it can block any rise of an Iran-Hezbollah-Assad force after the fall of the regime? Is it another volley in the campaign to separate "good" insurgents from "bad" insurgents such as Jabhat al-Nusra? Is it justification for the ever-increasing US sanctions on Iran, including the measures put in place last Wednesday? All three?

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Syria Live Coverage: Fighting Near Damascus and Its Airport

2200 GMT: Al Safira. Earlier we reported about heavy fighting on the outskirts of the Al Safira military base, a massive base east of Aleppo that houses a massive suspected chemical weapons stockpile (update 1526). The LCC reports that the people of the town have paid a heavy price:

The number of martyrs in the towns of Tal Aaran and Tal Hasel has risen to 20 martyrs and 40 wounded people during the air strikes by regime forces using cluster and vacuum bombs.

However, it's not just civilians who have paid a heavy price. According to various opposition sources, 7 armored vehicles and a jet fighter have been destroyed by the rebels. This video reportedly shows some of the destroyed vehicles, part of a larger convoy:

This video is entitled "Mujahideen heroes are targeting Assad tanks."

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Syria Live Coverage: "Darayya is Being Pounded to Dust"

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton on Syrians decimating forests to survive the winter

See also Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Gas Plant Siege Ends with 23 Hostages, 32 Attackers Killed
Saturday's Syria Live Coverage: UN Human Rights Chief Calls for War Crimes Investigation

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2029 GMT: A Town After the Bombardment. Al Jazeera English's Basma Atassi reports:

The centre of Salqin in northern Syria looked deceptively normal, just a day after the town came under lethal government air strikes.

Shops were open for business. Residents strolled through the main square. Children could be seen playing in the narrow streets.

Yet a closer look at the streets of Salqin revealed the brutal scars of war. Away from the square, sidewalks were stained with blood and littered with broken glass.

Residents said six people were killed when government forces attacked the rebel-held town bordering Turkey on Friday. Dozens of people were injured, locals said, including many children.

Three siblings --- Basel, 12, Doriyeh, 10, and Raghad, 8 --- were injured by shrapnel as a rocket detonated near their home while they played.

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