US President Barack Obama said Tuesday he had both a moral and a national security obligation to stop the slaughter in Syria, but warned he could not just act on a "hope and a prayer."

Obama defended his government's actions in sending large quantities of humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees, providing non-lethal help to rebels and isolating President Bashar al-Assad in the international community.

"I think that understandably, there's a desire for easy answers," Obama said, referring to domestic critics who are demanding a more proactive US role, including an operation to arm rebel groups and a no-fly zone.

"My job is to constantly measure our very real and legitimate humanitarian and national security interests in Syria, but measuring those against my bottom line, which is, what's in the best interests of America's security."

Obama said that he could not make decisions "based on a hope and a prayer, but on hard-headed analysis in terms of what will actually make us safer and stabilize the region."

"I think that we have both a moral obligation and a national security interest in, A, ending the slaughter in Syria but, B, also ensuring that we've got a stable Syria that is representative of all the Syrian people and is not creating chaos for its neighbors," he said.

The president spoke as political critics complain that he has not acted more quickly on reports that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons, an action he had previously said would infringe a red line and be a game-changer.

He said that before acting, Washington must first establish exactly who had used chemical weapons and when, in an apparent reference to the flawed intelligence that led America into war with Iraq.

"I don't make decisions based on perceived," he said, when asked by a reporter about perceived violations of US red lines.

"I can't organize international coalitions around perceived. We've tried that in the past, by the way, and it didn't work out well."

"There have been several instances during the course of my presidency where I said I was going to do something, and it ended up getting done.

"In the end, whether it's bin Laden or Kadhafi, if we say we're taking a position, I would think at this point, the international community has a pretty good sense that we typically follow through on our commitments."

SEE ALSO: The US Doesn't Have Any Good Military Options In Syria

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There's a small group of Shia "Twelvers" who think that if they fight on the side of Bashar Al Assad in Syria, their messiah will appear and Armageddon will begin.

Hassan Hassan, a Middle East scholar and columnist blogged about these peculiar fellows recently and, in particular, a video they posted online:

[They posted a YouTube video] showing a crowd of Iraqi Shia beating their chests and chanting.

The chants suggest that there are signs that Shia's hidden imamis due to appear. The signs include the Syrian uprising and the rise of the Syrian rebels. The chants seem to call on Shia worshipers to go to Syria to fight alongside the Assad regime. 

This small sect of Shia fighters believe that Mahdi, the lost twelfth imam, will reappear during the fight against Assad. This makes the Free Syrian Army and any Sunni extremists (Jabhat al Nusra) kind of like the army of evil, fighting against the forces of good.

Hassan says he thinks powerful political forces are at play here, in order to delude and recruit fighters to keep Assad in power:

Young men from Lebanon and Iraq are being dragged into this bloody war to defend the pathological criminal that is Bashar Al Assad. These are still a tiny minority that do not represent Shia but they are dangerous because they are deranged band of savages that are sparking a dangerous civil war across the region.

The civil war in Syria began two years ago as a part of the Arab Spring, and has since turned into the bloodiest ongoing conflict in the region. Clashes between Bashar Al Assad's army and the fractious rebels have resulted in the deaths of 70,000 people thus far.

SEE ALSO: Israel has a few good reasons for it's bombing runs in Syria >

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Twice between May 3 and 5, the Israeli Air Force conducted air strikes in Syria using Precision Guided Munitions.

The first raid hit a convoy believed to be moving Fateh-110 missiles destined for Hezbollah, whereas the second one hit several ground targets located near Damascus:  the Jamraya scientific research center (the only one officially confirmed by Syrian TV), some missile fuel storage depot as well as the 4th Brigade of the Republican Guard’s barracks.

After an open source imagery analysis of Al-Manar TV (a Lebanese satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah), The Aviationist’s contributor and military expert Giuliano Ranieri was able to locate the site of the attack near the Jamraya research center.

Actually, it’s is still not clear whether the center, attacked in January, was hit again or not. Still, the building complex targeted during the night between May 4 and 5 could have been the research center’s back-up structure — used to continue scientific work.

Images of the site seem to show that no penetrating weapons were employed. No ventilation systems — typical of underground bunkers — can be seen, a sign that, quite likely, the target could have been a mysterious facility operating under cover, rather than a military installation.

“It’s hard to understand what the facility was: just dead hens and collapsed walls can be seen in the photos published by the media outlets … ” Ranieri explains.

Regardless of what the facility might have hidden, the attack seem to have been accurate and quite far from populated areas.

Another sortie was made against a munition depot near Al-Dimaas, 15 km from Jamraya.

SEE ALSO: Israel's Huge Airstrike On Damascus Is As Much About Iran As It Is Syria >

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Western diplomats, politicians and analysts have combined to float quite a few options to supposedly resolve the two-year civil war engulfing much of Syria right now.

Talk of everything from a no-fly zone to an all-out intervention has flown around the digital media and political sphere, and yet, it seems a very few have stated the obvious option: do nothing.

Miles Copeland Jr., a famed CIA Agent who helped the Agency stage a coup in Syria decades ago, suggested exactly that during an interview with the BBC ... in 1967.

'Do nothing,' Copeland says, partly because interventions are messy ordeals that don't always work out as planned (kind of like what Army General Martin Dempsey said recently).

Copeland told the BBC, that spotting an "imbalance" in another nation doesn't necessitate a response, "It's better to let a country stew in its own juice, if a country doesn't have what it takes to get rid of a corrupt leader, the hell with them, let them keep him."

He also talks about "meddling" in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

Here's the video:

Now certainly Copeland's prediction about the end of American interventionism was less than accurate — Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Kosovo, etc — but it goes without saying that Obama's  Syrian "red line" on chemical weapons has not exactly elicited an immediate military response.

For good reason, Obama said this when it came to "perceived" use of chemical weapons, according to USA Today:

"I don't make decisions based on 'perceived.' We tried that in the past, by the way, and it didn't work out well," Obama said, referring to Iraq. "So we want to make sure that, you know, we have the best analysis possible." 

That's just in terms of possible military action. When it comes to openly arming the rebels — a decidedly lesser of two ... possibilities — Rep. Peter King toldCNN this:

"If we are going to arm the rebels, we have to make sure that those arms are not going to end up in the possession of al Qaeda supporters, nor at the end game is al Qaeda going to be in a position to take over this movement."

For now, it's just been a lot of talk and a lot of investigating, and not a whole lot of action — certainly not overt action.

So it certainly looks as if the American government is following Copeland's advice ... at least for the time being.

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Israel has warned the United States that Russia plans to sell sophisticated missile systems to Syria that would complicate any foreign intervention there, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Journal reported late Wednesday that Israel had provided information to Washington about the imminent sale to Syria of Russian S-300 missile batteries, advanced ground-to-air weapons that can take out aircraft or guided missiles.

Syria has been a close military ally of Moscow for decades, and Russia has blocked international efforts to isolate President Bashar al-Assad's regime over its brutal crackdown on a two-year-old rebellion.

The Israeli report said Syria has been making payments on a 2010 deal to buy four batteries from Russia for $900 million, according to the Journal.

The package includes six launchers and 144 missiles, each with a range of 125 miles (200 kilometers), it said.

The missile batteries would complicate any future effort by the United States or its allies to carry out air strikes against Assad's regime, establish a no-fly zone or intervene to secure and dismantle chemical weapons.

The report comes days after Israel carried out massive air strikes near Damascus, an attack a senior Israeli source said was aimed at preventing the transfer of sophisticated weapons to the Lebanese Hezbollah, an Assad ally.

It also comes as Washington is under mounting pressure to act following reports of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, which President Barack Obama had repeatedly insisted was a "red line" in the conflict.

Syria's civil war has claimed more than 70,000 lives since the outbreak of an initially peaceful uprising in March 2011, according to UN figures.

US officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the Journal report, but the New York Times cited senior US officials as expressing similar fears about the possibility of an S-300 sale.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in Rome for talks with senior Middle East officials on the Syria crisis and efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

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About six months ago, U.S. intelligence officers in Jordan told Syrian rebel commanders that the opposition should fight radical rebel group Jabhat al Nusra before fighting Syria's army, a commander present at the meeting told Phil Sands of The National.

"We'd prefer you fight al Nusra now, and then fight Assad's army,"The Syrian commander said he was told. "You should kill these Nusra people. We'll do it if you don't."

America has not acknowledged such an action or commented on the report, but the notion is plausible.

The U.S. has officially provided non-lethal aid and humanitarian assistance to rebels, while expressing reluctance about greater military entanglements in the 26-month-old conflict.

Unofficially, the CIA is reportedly working with elite counterterrorism units in Iraq, funneling U.S.-made weapons to Syrian rebels from southern Turkey, feeding intelligence to moderate rebels, training rebels in Jordan to safeguard chemical weapons and potentially to establish a buffer zone along Syria’s southern border, and scoping out targets for potential drone strikes inside Syria.

West powers have been wary of providing sophisticated weapons out of fear that Nusra, which has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, could get a hold of them.

“The last thing anyone wants to see is al-Qaeda gaining a foothold in southern Syria next to Israel," an unnamed U.S. diplomat in Jordan told The Washington Post. "That is a doomsday scenario.”

According to the Syrian commander who spoke to Sands, six months ago the U.S. intelligence officer said America "can train 30 of your fighters a month, and we want you to fight Al Nusra."

The glaring problem with that idea, if true, is that members of the poorly-equipped and fractured Free Syrian Army (FSA) continue to defect to Nusra — which has long been the opposition's most effective,most organized, and best-equipped fighters.

"Fighters are heading to al-Nusra because of its Islamic doctrine, sincerity, good funding and advanced weapons," FSA fighter Abu Islam told The Guardian.

Another obvious problem with rebel infighting is that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has regained the upper hand in the war with a blistering counteroffensive.

Lastly, if the FSA turns on Nusra, they are playing into Assad's hand.

This week Moaz Al Khatib, the respected moderate Sunni cleric who stepped down as Syrian National Council president last month, advocated reaching out to Islamic hardliners to strengthen the fight against Assad's regime.

SEE ALSO: CIA Is Feeding Intel To The Friendlier Syrian Rebels To Counter The Jihadists

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British Prime Minister David Cameron, in DC to meet with President Barack Obama, told reporters today that Syria’s history was being written in the blood of her people — and that it’s happening on our watch.

It's hard to argue with the figures — as many as 80,000 people have been killed over 2 years of conflict, the BBC reports.

There's perhaps no more visceral sign of this destruction than the image at the top of this article from Syrian photographers Lens Young Homsi (which has been authenticated by the Associated Press).

This image is from today, May 13 2013, and shows the level of devastation in the city of Homs. As Max Fisher of the Washington Post notes, it shows a city in "total ruin".

Here's another image from today, featuring a destroyed tank:

This isn't the first time we've seen devastation in the city of Homs, which is now largely in control of the Syrian army after a long and bloody siege.

The city, near the highway that links the capital Damascus with Jordan, has seen extensive shelling and bombing during the Syrian conflict. It was also the city where American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remy Ochelik died in 2012.

Lens Young Homsi, a group of photographers based in the city, have been documenting the devastation. According to Global Voices, the group is all volunteers and have no formal training, but the photos they have produced are startling.

Here's one image from March 6, 2013:

And here's another from November 29, 2012.

Homs was a major city in Syria, the third largest in Syria and an important industrial hub. It was one of the first cities to join the anti-Assad Syrian rebels, and after more than 300 days besieged parts look virtually unrecognizable to what it once was.

This image from 2011, taken at the beginning of anti-Assad protests in the city's center, Quwatli Street, show what the city looks like full of life:

SEE ALSO: This Scary Video Was Smuggled Out Of Syria's Most Devastated City >

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Monday a video circulated around the web showing a Syrian rebel biting into pieces of another dead Syrian guy.

Now Time magazine reporters who initially saw the video in April have had it confirmed, and they've also talked directly to the star of the show, Khalid al Hamad, to find out exactly why he did it.

“We opened (the dead fighter's) cell phone and I found a clip of a woman and her two daughters fully naked and he was humiliating them, and sticking a stick here and there,” Hamad told Time.

What Hamad describes is a common symptom of war: the tit-for-tat desecration or mutilation of remains. One instance of battlefield disrespect doesn't excuse the other, of course, but it's hard not to see a bit of the bigger picture.

Hamad, as it turns out, isn't a big study on anatomy: he thought he was biting into a liver, when a surgeon working with Time later confirmed it was a lung.

Needless to say, several organizations — Human rights watch and the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army — are calling for the arrest of Hamad. Some groups have called for even worse.

From Time: 

The [Free Syran Army] Supreme Military Council, which according to the leadership oversees about 90% of the fighting groups in Syria, has issued a poster—circulated on Facebook—calling for al Hamad’s arrest, saying it wants him “dead or alive.” In response, supporters have posted stylized portraits of al Hamad cradling a rifle. “We Love You,” reads the inscription.

You can read Time's whole report here >

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In sharp contrast to Israel's committed secrecy regarding military operations, an official from the Israeli government contacted the New York Times on Wednesday to warn of another possible strike on Syria.

The official, who was "briefed by high-level officials on the Syria situation in the past two days," said that Israel is "considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants."

From The Times:

“The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region. If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”

Mark Lander of the Times notes that the "precise motives for Israel’s warning were uncertain."

Israel still hasn't officially taken credit for previous airstrikes — which include one in January that targeted a major military research facility outside of Damascus and two earlier this month targeting a warehouse near Damascus International Airport and the Syrian military's fortress on Qasioun Mountain.

Following the most recent strikes, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Agence-France Press that Syria "will respond immediately and harshly to any additional attack by Israel."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was quoted saying that he would turn the Golan Heights — the contested land between Syria and Israel — into a "resistance front."

Today the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported that Iran has persuaded Assad to allow Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — currently reinforcing Assad in Syria — to open another front against Israel in Golan.

The Israeli military largely expected this outcome, as the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nassrallah said just last week that Syria will supply them with "game changing weapons"— notably, exactly what Israel was trying to prevent.

The unnamed official noted to the Times that “Israel will continue its policy of interdicting attempts to strengthen Hezbollah, but will not intercede in the Syrian civil war as long as Assad desists from direct or indirect attacks against Israel.”

SEE ALSO: Israel's Huge Airstrike On Damascus Is As Much About Iran As It Is Syria

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Russian foreign minister Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed criticism over reports that Moscow sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

"I do not understand why the media is trying to create a sensation out of this,"Lavrov saidduring a press conference with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. "We have not hidden that we supply weapons to Syria under signed contracts, without violating any international agreements, or our own legislation."

The New York Times reports that Syria sent a shipment of upgraded Yakhonts anti-ship missiles, which Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt describe as"a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes."

“It’s a real ship killer,” which Nick Brown, editor in chief of IHS Jane’s International Defense Review, told The Times.

Russia says it's business as usual.

"We are first and foremost supplying defense weapons related to air defense," he said. "This does not in any way alter the balance of forces in this region or give any advantage in the fight against the opposition."

That last claim is certainly debatable, based on the assessment by the Times.

Nevertheless, Russia's latest moves, including sending their Pacific Fleet to the region for the first time since the Cold War, reinforce Moscow's support for Assad.

SEE ALSO: Russian Pacific Fleet Warships Enter The Mediterranean For First Time Since The Cold War

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The website and Twitter feed of the Financial Times have been attacked by members of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a pro-regime group that has carried out a number of attacks on Western media groups.

SEA member Th3 Pr0 (who claims to be just 18-years-old) has confirmed to Business Insider the group was behind the attack.

The hackers were apparently able to gain access to the FT's Tech Blog, posting a number of articles titled"Hacked By The Syrian Electronic Army."

The articles now appear to have been removed, but their titles can be seen via search:

The group also appeared to have compromised some of the media group's Twitter accounts. While the tweets from the SEA appear to have been deleted, Twitter users have caught some screenshots:

Th3 Pr0 sent screenshots that appeared to show he had access to some of the FT's Twitter accounts:

Th3 Pr0 also sent screenshots that appeared to show he had access to at least one FT email account:

The SEA has been behind a number of attacks on Western media groups, including the AP, E! Online and the Onion.

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In eight months since an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead, a Republican-led investigation has focused on potential missteps by the White House — and come away with nothing significant.

There has been little attention given, however, to covert actions by the Central Intelligence Agency that were partially uncovered during the September 11, 2012 attack.

That may be changing.

CNN's Jake Tapper argued this week that we should give more scrutiny to the CIA's presence in the Libyan port city.

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said the same, according to CNN: "There are questions that must be asked of the CIA and this must be done in a public way."

Among the questions are whether CIA missteps contributed to the security failure in Benghazi and, more importantly, whether the Agency's Benghazi operation had anything to do with reported heavy weapons shipments from the local port to Syrian rebels.

In short, the CIA operation is the most intriguing thing about Benghazi.

Here's what we know:

The attack

At about 9:40 p.m. local time on Sept. 11, a mob of Libyans attacked a building housing U.S. State Department personnel. At 10:20 p.m. Americans arrived from a CIA annex located 1.2 miles away, to help the besieged Americans. At 11:15 p.m. they fled with survivors back to the secret outpost.

Armed Libyans followed them and attacked the annex with rockets and small arms from around midnight to 1:00 a.m., when there was a lull in the fighting.

Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL and CIA security contractor, was with a team of Joint Special Operations Command military operators and CIA agents in Tripoli at the time of the attack. When they received word of the assault on the mission, Doherty and six others bribed the pilots of small jet with $30,000 cash for a ride to Benghazi.

At about 5:15 a.m., right after Doherty's group arrived, the attackers began shooting mortars at the annex, leading to the death of Doherty and fellow former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Tyrone Woods.

At 6 a.m. Libyan forces from the military intelligence service arrived and subsequently took more than 30 Americans — only seven of whom were from the State Department — to the Benghazi airport.

So the CIA's response to go to the annex (after being held back for 20 minutes) saved American lives, but it also ended up exposing the annex.

And according to Paula Broadwell, the mistress of David Petraeus when he was CIA director, the CIA may have provided an impetus for the attack by holding prisoners: "Now I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back."

'At its heart a CIA operation'

In November The Wall Street Journalreported that the U.S. mission in Benghazi "was at its heart a CIA operation."

In January, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress that the CIA was leading a "concerted effort to try to track down and find and recover ... MANPADS [man-portable air defense systems]" looted from the stockpiles of toppled Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi.

The State Department "consulate" served as diplomatic cover for the previously-hidden annex.

The top-secret presence and location of the CIA outpost was first acknowledged by Charlene Lamb, a top official in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, during Congressional testimony in October.

Representatives Jason Chaffetz and Darrell Issa immediately called a point of order when Lamb exposed the location of the annex, and asked for the revelation to be stricken from the record.

“I totally object to the use of that photo,” Chaffetz. said. “I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.”

Weapons from Benghazi to Syria

Also in October we reported the connection between Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who died in the attack, and a reported September shipment of SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles (i.e. MANPADS) and rocket-propelled grenades from Benghazi to Syria through southern Turkey.

That 400-ton shipment — "the largest consignment of weapons" yet for Syrian rebels — was organized by Abdelhakim Belhadj, who was the newly-appointed head of the Tripoli Military Council.

In March 2011 Stevens, the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan rebels, worked directly with Belhadj while he headed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

Stevens' last meeting on Sept. 11 was with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi "to negotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists."

Syrian rebels subsequently began shooting down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets with SA-7s akin to those in Qaddafi's looted stock. (The interim Libyan government also sent money and fighters to Syria.)

What did the CIA know?

Collectively these details raise the question of what the CIA knew, given that Agency operatives in Libya were rounding up SA-7s, ostensibly to destroy them, while operatives in southern Turkey were funneling weapons to the rebels.

Ambassador Stevens certainly would have known if the new Libyan government was sending 400 tons of heavy weapons to Turkey from Benghazi's port.

Just like the CIA would know if those the weapons arrived in Turkey and began showing up in Syria.

Journalist Damien Spleeters created this sourced map, drawing info shared on social media such as YouTube, that gives an idea of the MANPADS presence in Syria.

We've added red tag noting the Turkish port, Iskenderun, where the massive SA-7 shipment docked.

And this map of nearby Turkish highways shows that the heavy weapons could have been transported from the port to the Syrian city of Aleppo in three hours.

Other intriguing details

This week Nancy Youssef of McClatchy reported that Ambassador Stevens twice turned down offers for additional security, despite specifically asking for more men in cables to the State Department.

Right after the attack American Matthew VanDyke, who fought with Libyan rebels during their revolution, told us he suspected that extremist groups in the nearby mountains — who felt marginalized by the new Libyan government — "saw their opportunity to pounce."

Earlier this month Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kent.) told CNN: “I’ve actually always suspected that, although I have no evidence, that maybe we were facilitating arms leaving Libya going through Turkey into Syria. ... Were they trying to obscure that there was an arms operation going on at the CIA annex? I’m not sure exactly what was going on, but I think questions ought to be asked and answered."

So now that the White House has released more than 100 pages of Benghazi emails, and the State Department's role during and after the attack have been probed ad nauseam, it's time for someone to explain what the exposed CIA operation in Benghazi was all about.

SEE ALSO: There's A Reason Why All Of The Reports About Benghazi Are So Confusing

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Note: The commandos report begins at 1:00.

Fox News has published a video which it says "captured, for the very first time, Israeli commandos coming back from inside Syria on a mission."

While not very surprising (if accurate), the video raises some interesting aspects of Israel's role in the 26-month-old conflict on its northern border.

First, Israeli soldiers returning from Syria highlights what the country means by intervention, as apparently sending commandos into Syria doesn't count.

The official Israeli position on Syria is that “Israel has so far refrained from intervening in Syria’s civil war and will maintain this policy as long as Assad refrains from attacking Israel directly or indirectly,” which is what a senior Israeli official told the New York Times this week.

Israel has executed three unilateral airstrikes inside Syria since January — one of which hit Assad's mountain stronghold in Damascus — based on the conviction that it will not allow sophisticated weaponry to be transferred to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Second, the appearance of Israeli commandos on the border would show how Syria's southern neighbor is facing an increasingly dangerous situation as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad loses grip on territories in and around the Golan heights.

"We see terror organizations that are increasingly gaining footholds in the territory and they are fighting against Assad. Guess what? We’ll be next in line," Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz told Richard Engel of NBC News.

Israel has already deployed a third Iron Dome missile defense system near its northern borders, strengthened its border fence while upgrading intelligence-gathering capabilities in the area, and placed Golan forces on high alert as the Syrian civil war rages on in front of them.

The New York Timesnotes that analysts have raised the possibility of Israel creating a buffer zone and arming a proxy force inside Syria, "similar to what it did beginning in the 1970s with the South Lebanon Army."

Third, intelligence collection — both through spy tools as well as human intel — is becoming increasingly important as Israel and other international actors analyze the state of Assad's chemical weapons stockpiles as well as the increasing presence of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah inside Syria.

An example of the Iran-Hezbollah-Israel stakes inside Syria were exemplified by the assassination of Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) senior commanderGeneral Hassan Shateri (aka Hessam Khosnevis).

Shateri served as Iranian President Mahmoud "Ahmadinejad's personal representative in Lebanon" while leading "the Iranian-financed reconstruction projects in the south of Lebanon." No doubt Israel had tabs on him.

Shateri's work involved controlling banks and hotels and building a sophisticated communications network. Also, he allegedly"controlled several funds amounting to $200 million a year used to replace Hezbollah’s lost arsenal and rebuild its missile sites" after they were decimated in its war with Israel in the summer of 2006.

All in all, Israeli commandos working inside Syria would reinforce how engaged Israel is with the Syria conflict, even if all of their moves aren't obvious.

“This is the new reality of the Golan Heights,” Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch, an active reservist who is deputy commander of a unit focused on long-range operations in enemy territory, told The New York Times. “Inside the bush, we have units that are ready to jump and open fire. You can see here tanks, you can see forces — and there are many things you cannot see.”

SEE ALSO: Israeli Official Contacts The New York Times To Warn Of Another Strike On Syria

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Israel's Channel 2released satellite images of at least two locations struck in a reported Israeli airstrike at Damascus International Airport on May 3.

Israel is suspected of targeting Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that were allegedly on their way to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The bombings look very precise, and the targets completely destroyed.

Israel has reportedly carried out at least three airstrikes in Syria this year.

The first, in January, targeted a convoy located at a major military research facility outside of Damascus (satellite photos here).

Satellite images of the third, carried out the same weekend as the one shown in these images, would be very interesting to see since that strike didn't seem to target missile supplies.

Instead, the strike on May 5 blastedthe Syrian military's fortress on Qasioun Mountain — hitting the headquarters of the army’s Fourth Division, the elite and feared unit run by the president’s brother Maher, as well as the command of the government’s elite Republican Guard. The strike killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers.

The Long War Journal notes that Channel 2 released the images on the same day that an unnamed senior Israeli official contacted The New York Times to warnof another possible strike on Syria.

Israel hasn't explicitly taken credit for the strikes, but has repeatedly warned that they will act if they suspect sophisticated weapons are being transferred to Hezbollah via Syria.

In the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with the BBC: "We are prepared to defend ourselves if the need arises and I think people know that what I say is both measured and serious."

(h/t Michael Weiss)

SEE ALSO: Israel's Huge Airstrike On Damascus Is As Much About Iran As It Is Syria

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Syrian President Bashar-al Assad gave a hard line interview with Argentina’s Clarín newspaper, dismissing international peace efforts and blaming the West for supporting “terrorists” fighting his government.

“No state talks to terrorists," he said, according to a transcript in English provided to The New York Times. "When they put down their arms and join the dialogue, then we will have no objections. Believing that a political conference will stop terrorism on the ground is unreal.”

Interviewer Marcelo Cantelmi said Assad appeared “severe” and “rigid” while he struck a defiant and confident tone throughout their conversation in his Damascus palace.

The U.S. and Russia have pledged to work together to broker peace talks, but their official polices disagree on whether or not Assad must relinquish power.

That's not even a question for Assad, who said he would run for election as scheduled in 2014 and would accept election monitors from “friendly countries such as Russia or China.”

“We do not believe that many Western countries really want a solution in Syria,” Assad said.

Meanwhile the rebels are demanding weapons in exchange for sitting down at the negotiating table.

“We’re not going to sit at the table while Assad continues to kill, supported by Russia and Hezbollah,” a spokesman for the Syrian Opposition Coalition told the Washington Post. “What we are asking for is arming the Free Syrian Army or Supreme Military Council — before the talks.”

Assad’s forces have launched a successful counteroffensive in recent weeks that stemmed rebel momentum in the south and led to state gains in the north and major cities in the country's west.

On Sunday Syrian troops and militants from the Shia Lebanese militant group Hezbollah moved to retake Qusair, a major town near Lebanon that would provide Assad with a route from Hezbollah's strongholds to his Alawite (i.e. Shia) homeland on the Mediterranean coast.

“The battlefield will decide who is strong when they enter negotiations,” he said during a meeting with supporters, according to Abdelrahim Mourad, a former Parliament member whose party is allied with Hezbollah. “America is pragmatic. If they found out they were defeated and the regime is the winner, the Americans will deal with the facts.”

Assad accused Israel, which has performed at least three air strikes in Syria this year, of directly supporting extreme rebel factions by sharing intelligence with them.

“Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he said. “Firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them.”

More than 1.5 million people, many of whom lived in rebel-held villages bombed by Syria's Air Force, have been forced to flee their homes in the 26-month-old conflict.

The Times notes that Assad disputed UN estimates that more than 80,000 people have died so far.

When asked if he had a "self-criticisms," Assad replied: “It’s illogical to carry out self-criticism before the events have been completed. If you go to watch a film you don’t criticize it until it ends.”

SEE ALSO: Israel's Huge Airstrike On Damascus Is As Much About Iran As It Is Syria

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The Telegraph has put together some amateur footage that shows Syrian aircraft dropping bombs on what is said to be the town of Yabroud, located about 49 miles north of Damascus.

It's unclear if there were any casualties. Nevertheless the town is irrevocably changed the moment munitions hit it.

Since July Syrian President Bashar al-Assadhas used his air superiority to relentlessly bomb newly "liberated" areas in the country to create dire conditions for the opposition and the population.

"The air force is extremely important for Assad right now," said Joseph Holliday, a Syria analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, told The Associated Press. "It has allowed Assad to prevent rebels from establishing a part of Syria where people can be safe and the opposition can focus on governing the place."

A recent investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found the Syrian Air Force "has repeatedly carried out indiscriminate, and in some cases deliberate, air strikes against civilians."

The video also shows damage to buildings and the rescuing of children after airstrikes in the nearby town of Douma.

The video cannot be independently verified.

SEE ALSO: Satellite Images Show The Utter Precision Of Israel's Airstrike On Damascus International Airport

If You Missed It: ASSAD: Peace Talks Will Fail And America Will 'Deal With' Regime Victory

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Twitter accounts linked to the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph appear to have been taken over by Syrian hackers who call themselves the Syrian Electronic Army.

A number of Twitter accounts have begun tweeting the pro-regime messages that have become an all-too-familiar sight over the last few weeks:

The Telegraph's main account, @Telegraph, doesn't appear to have been compromised. It has tweeted a message acknowledging the hack:

We are aware that some of our accounts have been compromised and are working to resolve the issue. Many thanks for your patience.

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 20, 2013

SEA member Th3 Pr0 told Business Insider that the group had gained access to @TelegraphNews, @TeleTheatre, @TelegraphOpera, @TelegraphArt, @TelegraphFilm, @Tele_Comedy, @TelegraphSport, @TelegraphBooks and the official Facebook page.

The tweets sent by the SEA appear to have since been deleted.

A screen-grab sent by Th3 Pr0 appears to show the group has access to a Hootsuite account used by the Telegraph:

The attack is just the latest from the mysterious group of pro-Assad hackers (Th3 Pr0 claims to be just 18-year-old). Other victims have included the AP, the Onion, the Financial Times, and E! Online.

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Syrian forces fired upon and at the very least damaged an Israeli vehicle in the Golan heights, reports the Associated Press.

Syria claimed to have destroyed a vehicles, where Israel claimed the vehicle was only damaged and that the fracas was minor in nature.

As the AP notes, sporadic fire from Syria has often hit Golan, but this time it seems the Syrians openly targeted an Israeli patrol:

Tuesday's incident, however, marked the first time that the Syrian army has acknowledged firing at Israeli troops across the frontier, and appeared to be an attempt by President Bashar Assad's regime to project toughness following three Israeli airstrikes near Damascus this year.

Concurrent with a few high-visibility bombing Israeli bombing runs in Syria, Bashar Al Assad launched his own — some would say succesful— assaults into rebel-held territory in Syria. He then held a presser to announce that the west would have to "deal with" a regime victory.

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The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Tuesday to pass a bill that will be highly unpopular in Moscow, not to mention Damascus.

The bill heads first to the Senate, then to the House (where it will meet opposition), and finally to the president.

The Syrian Transition Support Act would provide arms to Syrian rebels in support of a regime change — a precedent Russia deeply opposes. Moscow has already been overtly sending weapons to Assad (more intensely so as of late), so Washington's move to overtly arm the rebels could easily paint Syria as the battleground of a blossoming proxy war.

Russia won't like that idea, but it also won't like the paragraph in the bill about sanctions on anyone shipping arms or oil to the Syrian regime:

Sanctions on arms and oil sales to Assad:  Targeting any person that the President of the United States determines has knowingly participated in or facilitated a transaction related to the sale or transfer of military equipment, arms, petroleum, or petroleum products to the Assad regime.

Person is defined within the actual text of the bill as any "person or entity."

Arguably this also targets Iran — giving at least some political cover for the idea — nonetheless it also lumps Russia in for stiff U.S. sanctions.

Russia has become a huge exporter of fuel and weapons to Syria, and Syria one of its biggest customers.

"Russia’s economic interests in Syria extend far beyond the military sphere, with a
total value of approximately $20 billion,"Business Insider contributor and Russia expert Dmitry Gorenburg wrote late last year.

The U.S. is well aware of the relationship as well.

As Time's Simon Schuster recently put it:

The U.S. and its allies have done just about everything short of getting down on their collective knees and begging Russia to stop delivering weapons to the Syrian government.

Well, the begging could be just about over.

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So this happened:

Militants in Lebanon got a little girl to shoot an AK-47 around a corner at ... something.

Lebanon is the small country south of Syria. Lebanon's militants have been reinforcing President Bashar Al-Assad in his now-two-year campaign against Syrian rebel groups. 

Update: An earlier version of this story indicated that these were Shia militants, they are actually Sunnis.

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