| Syrian troops advance on Aleppo area: activists Posted: 11 Jan 2014 12:23 PM PST  Syrian troops seized a rebel-held town north of Aleppo Saturday and pushed toward part of Aleppo city, taking advantage of fighting between rebels and jihadists elsewhere, activists said. "Regime forces have taken over the area of Naqarin and are advancing towards the industrial area of Aleppo city," said the Aleppo Media Centre, a network of activists on the ground. "This advance is clearly a result of the rebels being busy fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant," activist Nazeer al-Khatib told AFP in a Skype call. The army's moves come eight days after Islamist and moderate rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad's regime launched a major offensive against ISIL.
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| Iraq would face huge challenge in Fallujah assault: experts Posted: 11 Jan 2014 11:40 AM PST  Assaulting militant-held Fallujah, which posed a significant challenge for American forces, would be even more difficult for Iraq and would likely cause significant civilian casualties, experts say. And an attack on the city 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Baghdad, where gunmen seized control last week, would almost certainly inflame already-high anti-government sentiment, and end any chances for a political solution to the standoff. "The US Marines had difficulty assaulting Fallujah in 2004. The Iraqi army is not prepared to sustain a comparable fight," said Jessica Lewis, a former US army intelligence officer who is now research director at the Institute for the Study of War.
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| Iraq: At least 60 killed in 2 weeks Anbar violence Posted: 11 Jan 2014 10:12 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Fighting between security forces and al-Qaida-linked militants in Iraq's Sunni-dominated Anbar province has killed at least 60 people over the past two weeks, an official said Saturday.
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| Weary Syrians flee new front in war without end Posted: 11 Jan 2014 09:31 AM PST  Akcakale (Turkey) (AFP) - He paces back and forth outside the Syrian border crossing, growing more tense with every echoing artillery thud and machinegun blast -- his 14-year-old daughter is still inside. When clashes erupted between two Islamist rebel groups in Tal Abyad she was across town at her aunt's house, he says. Now northern Syria is on fire, with powerful rebel groups fighting to dislodge the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an extremist group accused of horrific abuses rivalling those of the regime it is ostensibly trying to overthrow. Activists have hailed the latest battles as a second uprising mirroring the 2011 revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, but for the residents of Tal Abyad able to flee across the nearby border with Turkey, it is simply the latest bloody chapter in a war without end.
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| Entrepreneur: Boost Calif. wages to $12-an-hour Posted: 11 Jan 2014 09:31 AM PST  Democrats across the nation are eager to make increasing the minimum wage a defining campaign issue in 2014, but in California a proposal to boost the pay rate to $12 an hour is coming from a different ...
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| Rebels clash in north Syria, bodies pile up in hospital: monitors Posted: 11 Jan 2014 09:12 AM PST  An al Qaeda affiliate in Syria battled rival rebels across the country's north on Saturday and dozens of bodies piled up in a hospital in an insurgent-held city, a monitoring group said. A week of infighting between the al Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and other groups including another al Qaeda-affiliated faction has killed hundreds of fighters opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. But Assad faces little pressure to make concessions after consolidating his grip on Damascus and the center of Syria in recent fighting, and the main opposition National Coalition has yet to formally decide whether to attend the talks at all. The Britain-based monitoring group, which tracks developments in Syria through a network of military and medical sources, said five rebels were killed when their car hit a landmine outside the town, Saraqeb.
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| ANOMIE OR ACHIEVEMENT? Posted: 10 Jan 2014 09:00 PM PST The year is only a dozen days old and already changes are sweeping through Washington, the Middle East and Russia. Anomie has a cure, and it is serious engagement in vital questions. |
| Iraq, Syria tests Obama's Mideast logic Posted: 10 Jan 2014 08:46 PM PST  An Al-Qaeda surge and Sunni-Shiite tumult spanning Iraq and Syria are testing eroded US influence and the logic of a foreign policy built on antipathy to Middle East entanglements. The return of jihadists to cities like Fallujah and Ramadi, fabled battlefields for US soldiers, has left President Barack Obama facing charges he pulled troops home too soon from Iraq and squandered American sacrifices. US intelligence agencies meanwhile worry that expanding havens for Al-Qaeda extremists in splintered Syria could nurture jihadists destined for terror missions in the United States and Europe. Top US officials, led by Vice President Joe Biden, have been burning telephone lines to Baghdad, urging Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to reconcile with Sunni tribes in western Anbar province before assaulting jihadists from Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
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