A local leader of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was killed in clashes with other rebels in the Syrian province of Idlib on Sunday, a monitoring group said.

Abu Abdullah al-Libi, a local chief of the group, was killed along with 12 other fighters from the jihadist organisation, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"He was killed in clashes with a group of rebel fighters near the town of Hazano," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

He said six people from Hazano were also reported killed on Sunday, but it was unclear if they were civilians or fighters participating in the clashes.

The town lies in northwestern Idlib province, large parts of which lie under control of the Syrian opposition.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Al-Qaeda's Iraqi branch which has expanded into Syria, has clashed with other rebel groups elsewhere in the country in recent days.

Violence between the group and rebels affiliated with the mainstream Free Syrian Army broke out this week in the town of Azaz in northern Aleppo province close to the Turkish border.

Syrian rebel fighters initially welcomed the arrival of hardened jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda, but have turned against the hardline fighters in several places after abuses and disputes over tactics and ideology.

When ISIS announced it would expand into Syria, it initially said it planned to merge with an existing jihadist rebel force -- the Al-Nusra Front.

But Nusra, which has pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri, rejected the merger and there were reports that it had clashed with ISIS in northeastern Hasakeh province on Saturday.

NOW: Learn about Al Shabab, the group behind the deadly attack at a Kenyan shopping mall

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Breaking Bad's cancerous chemist Walter White is the most popular guy nowadays on TV. On the flip side, the world is grappling over how to deal with Bashar Al Assad allegedly gassing his own people with chemical weapons.

So The New Yorker cover should take everyone by surprise: TV's most popular chemist Walter White has been usurped by the world's most unpopular dictator.

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The British charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) has published an investigation detailing the 12 deadliest conventional weapons being used in the Syrian war.

In July AOAV researcher Robert Perkins found that 40% of all deaths recorded in Syria were caused by explosive weapons and that 93% of fatalities due to explosive weapons were civilians.

"There's been a lot of press on chemical weapons and unconventional warfare, but the vast majority of the deaths in Syria have been from relatively conventional weapons," Jacob Parakilas, a senior weapons researcher at AOAV who work on the project, told Business Insider. "We really wanted to highlight the harms that those [weapons] do, especially the indiscriminate harm to civilians and noncombatants."

Parakilas noted that air-dropped munitions (e.g. S-25 OFM, OFAB 100-120, ODAB 500) as well as the larger launcher systems (e.g. larger Grads, SAKR, LUNA-M/FROG 7) are exclusive to troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The regime's air war on rebel-held territories began in July 2012.

Furthermore, Parakilas said that weapons used by both sides have been used more by the government because it has had superior quantities throughout the war.

Here's each of the weapons, along with a video (linked) and an infographic:

Note: The research is based on open source reporting, non-governmental agencies such as the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights, and confirmed media reports.

BM-21 Grad rocket: An inherently indiscriminate weapon, this rocket is designed to blanket an entire area with high explosives. The system can fire 40 unguided rockets in less than 20 seconds.

Sakr rockets: The only ground-launched cluster bomb in Syria, the Egyptian-made Sakr scatters as many as 100 explosive submunitions across an extremely wide area.

SEE ALSO: With These Improvised Weapons, It's Incredible The Syrian Rebels Have Lasted So Long [PHOTOS]

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He's a father of five with back pain. He "respects" his wife, and takes her on trips. Though he can't seem to control his daughter — she has been "deviating from the ways of Islam" and fled to Malaysia — it seems he's got a pretty good handle on this Syrian civil war thing.

Iran's Qassem Suleimani is a family man who happens to be the most powerful operative in the Middle East, according to an outstanding post by The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins called "The Shadow Commander."

Suleimani runs the Quds force, a para-military/intelligence/special operations group that has been central to America's security headaches for the last 30 years.

Filkins explains how he has taken charge in Syria:

Suleimani began flying into Damascus frequently so that he could assume personal control of the Iranian intervention. “He’s running the war himself,” an American defense official told me. In Damascus, he is said to work out of a heavily fortified command post in a nondescript building, where he has installed a multinational array of officers: the heads of the Syrian military, a Hezbollah commander, and a coöcoordinator of Iraqi Shiite militias, which Suleimani mobilized and brought to the fight.

Late last year, Western officials began to notice a sharp increase in Iranian supply flights into the Damascus airport. Instead of a handful a week, planes were coming every day, carrying weapons and ammunition—“tons of it,” the Middle Eastern security official told me—along with officers from the Quds Force. According to American officials, the officers coordinated attacks, trained militias, and set up an elaborate system to monitor rebel communications.

Clearly, Suleimani is a hardworking and talented guy. He grew up poor. Started working at 13. Took a job with a water purification plant. Found his way into the Iranian revolution in the late '70s, then the Iran-Iraq War, eventually scratching his way to the top of Iran's most specialized fighting force.

He also has something of a warrior poet reputation. Filkins writes:

Among spies in the West, he appears to exist in a special category, an enemy both hated and admired: a Middle Eastern equivalent of Karla, the elusive Soviet master spy in John le Carré’s novels. When I called Dagan, the former Mossad chief, and mentioned Suleimani’s name, there was a long pause on the line. “Ah,” he said, in a tone of weary irony, “a very good friend.”

His true story even inspired a Spartacus-like moment: Following the botched attempt to assassinate a Saudi Arabian diplomat on U.S. soil, officials advised Congress to take him out; "In Iran, more than two hundred dignitaries signed an outraged letter in his defense; a social-media campaign proclaimed, 'We are all Qassem Suleimani,'" wrote Filkins.

Later, recounting lost soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War, Suleimani explains his almost Eastern philosophy of war.

“The battlefield is mankind’s lost paradise—the paradise in which morality and human conduct are at their highest,” he says. “One type of paradise that men imagine is about streams, beautiful maidens, and lush landscape. But there is another kind of paradise—the battlefield.”

Check out the full article at The New Yorker »

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President Barack Obama called the United States "exceptional" and defended its strong role in global affairs during a sweeping speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, a comment that directly rebuked a controversial assertion from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The speech provided important developments on a large swath of world affairs — with an almost exclusive focus on the Middle East.

Obama pressed for a U.N. Security Council Resolution that threatens "consequences" if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad does not surrender his chemical weapons. And as he was speaking, the White House announced an additional $339 million in humanitarian aid to Syria, bringing the country's total to $1.4 billion over the course of the Syrian crisis.

"It is an insult to human reason — and to the legitimacy of this institution — to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack," Obama said, in another shot at Putin, who has suggested that Syrian rebels could be responsible for an Aug. 21 chemical-weapons attack that spurred U.S. and U.N. involvement.

Just more than a week ago, the U.S. and Russia agreed to the framework of a deal that would force Syria to turn over its chemical weapons to international control, after which they would be destroyed.

"Now, there must be a strong Security Council Resolution to verify that the Assad regime is keeping its commitments, and there must be consequences if they fail to do so," Obama said. "If we cannot agree even on this, then it will show that the U.N. is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws."

Obama also signaled the highest level of engagement between the U.S. and Iran in three decades. He said that he has directed Secretary of State John Kerry to pursue a "diplomatic path" with Iran's government, which comes after overtures and "conciliatory" statements from Iranian President Hasan Rouhani on the country's nuclear program.

Obama said that he believes Iran has the right to pursue "peaceful nuclear energy."

"The roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe the diplomatic path must be tested," he said. "For while the status quo will only deepen Iran’s isolation, Iran’s genuine commitment to go down a different path will be good for the region and the world, and will help the Iranian people meet their extraordinary potential — in commerce and culture; in science and education." 

Finally, Obama pressed for a resolution in the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis — doubling down on restarted talks that have been spearheaded, recently, by Kerry. He said that real breakthroughs on Iran and the Israel-Palestine situation would have a profoundly good effect on the Middle East and on North Africa.

"The time is now ripe for the entire international community to get behind the pursuit of peace," Obama said, adding that it is necessary even in the face of risks. 

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Russian political activist (and grand chessmaster) Garry Kasparov has been a fierce critic of the way President Barack Obama approached the conflict in Syria — and of how Obama propped up both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in negotiations surrounding Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

As a former chess world champion, Kasparov has often been asked about the chess game between Obama and Putin. But he thinks a different game is more analogous in this situation: Poker.

"Putin, with a poker face, played with a very weak hand," Kasparov said in a recent interview with Business Insider. 

"Say, a pair of 10s. But he acted as if he had a royal flush. And Obama had a Full House — but he chickened out. And that's a problem, because the moment you show your weakness, it leads to dramatic consequences if you're dealing with dictators.

Watch the clip below in which Kasparov discusses his issues with Obama's strategy on Syria:

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Syria rebel groups reject Western-backed opposition; UN team returns to probe chemical arms

BEIRUT (AP) — Several Syrian rebel groups, including a powerful al-Qaida-linked faction, said Wednesday they reject the authority of the Western-backed opposition coalition, as U.N. inspectors returned to the country to continue their probe into chemical weapons attacks.

In a joint statement, 13 rebel groups led by the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front slammed the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition, saying it no longer represents their interests.

The statement reflects the lack of unity between the political opposition, based in exile, and the disparate rebel groups fighting President Bashar Assad's regime. Syria's civil war has killed over 100,000 people so far.

The statement also called on all those trying to topple Assad's government to unite under a "clear Islamic framework"— an apparent reference to the al-Qaida faction's aspirations to create an Islamic state in Syria.

It said the rebels do "not recognize" any future government formed outside Syria, insisting that forces fighting on the ground should be represented by "those who suffered and took part in the sacrifices."

Meanwhile, a team of U.N. chemical weapons arrived in Damascus on Wednesday to continue investigating what officials from the world organization have described as "pending credible allegations" of the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war.

The visit of the six-member team, led by Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom, follows a report by the inspectors after their previous trip in September, which said nerve agent sarin was used in an Aug. 21, attack near the capital, Damascus.

The U.S. and its allies say Assad's regime was behind the attack, and Washington said it killed 1,400 people. Syrian activist groups gave significantly lower death tolls, but still in the hundreds.

Damascus blames the rebels for the attack, and Russia, a close ally of Assad, said the U.N. report did not provide enough evidence to blame the Syrian government. It has also demanded that U.N. inspectors probe other attacks that allegedly included chemical agents.

The United States and Russia brokered an agreement for Syria to give up its chemical weapons but U.N. diplomats say they are at odds on details of a Security Council resolution spelling out how it should be done and the possible consequences if Syria doesn't comply.

In a speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, President Barack Obama challenged the Security Council to hold Syria accountable if it fails to live up to its pledges.

"If we cannot agree even on this," Obama said, "then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws."

A statement by the U.N. on Tuesday said the inspectors will use their new visit to gather evidence from the alleged chemical weapons attack on March 19 on the village of Khan al Assal outside the city of Aleppo, which was captured by the rebels in July.

Wednesday's rebel announcement, carried by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, came almost two weeks after the SNC, the main Western-backed opposition coalition, in Turkey elected Ahmad Saleh Touma as the opposition's interim prime minister.

Syrian rebels have been deeply divided and clashes between rival groups over the past months left hundreds of people dead, mostly in northern and eastern Syria. Al-Qaida gunmen have been on the offensive against members of the more mainstream Free Syrian Army, though some of the groups that signed on to Wednesday's statement also belong to the FSA umbrella.

Syria's conflict has taken on increasingly sectarian tones in the past year, pitting predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels against members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

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On Tuesday evening, after President Barack Obama speech to the U.N. general assembly, America's strategy for Syria began to unravel.

At about 4 PM ET, 13 of the largest Islamist brigades in Syria formed the "Islamic Coalition," rejecting the Western-backed Syrian National Council (SNC) and the opposition's planned exile government.

Two hours later the State Department wasn't prepared to talk about the announcement, and instead discussed the Syrian coalition's preparations for the upcoming Geneva II peace talks.

However, those plans were inherently muddled after "nearly all armed factions that matter in Syria just issued statement saying [the] political opposition doesn't represent them," as explained by Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa.

Furthermore, the Syrian government also doubtsthe relevance of SNC leaders — meaning that the two strongest forces on the ground do not recognize the government-in-exile backed by the West, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

Basically, the failure of America's Syria strategy of building up moderate rebel forces to back a Syrian government-in-exile has left its plan in shambles.

The significance of the new rebel alliance arises from the fact that "swing Islamists"— rebels fighters with good relations jihadi and moderate groups — appear to have chosen to side with more extremist factions.

Researcher and journalist Aron Lund explains that "it represents the rebellion of a large part of the 'mainstream FSA' against its purported political leadership, and openly aligns these factions with more hardline Islamist forces."

The Islamic Coalition announcement was read by the political leader of the Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo, meaning that the new alliance controls Syria's largest city and much of the country's north.

(Even the FSA's Northern Storm brigade — a moderate group who was fighting the most extreme al Qaeda fighters last week near the Turkish border — issued a statement in support of the new coalition.)

In his UN speech, Obama urged tough consequences for Syria if it doesn't comply with chemical weapons disarmament, adding that the agreement should "should energize a larger diplomatic effort to reach a political settlement within Syria."

Russia, which can veto any resolution, says it won't support language that would trigger punitive measures if Assad fails to comply with the U.S.-Russian deal. And disregarding the SNC as a viable negotiating partner would be a nonstarter for the America and its allies.

SEE ALSO: The Chemical Weapons Deal Is A Huge Gift To Assad, Russia, And Iran

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Residents from a small rebel held town in Syria have enacted a satirical pantomime that mocks the West's response to last month's chemical weapons attack in Damascus.

As President Barack Obama pursues a diplomatic track, demanding that the Syrian regime give up its chemical stockpiles, residents from the northern town of Kafranbel have posted online a sardonic sketch designed to remind the international community that the war in Syria, which has so far claimed more than 100,000 lives, will continue even without the presence noxious gas.

The short video, titled 'The Syrian Revolution in three minutes', that was published on YouTube last week and that has since gone viral, depicts the evolution of the Syrian uprising - from peaceful protests and bloody government crackdowns 2011 to the current war - and the response of the US and EU to its various phases.

The film opens with a group of young men and children dressed for the Stone Age in brown rags, emerging from a cave and unfurling rudimentary protest banners. Then a man with a Syrian flag taped to his bare chest, representing the Syrian regime, guns down the crowd. The protests continue and grow larger.

The Syrian attacker is joined by men bearing the Iranian and Russian flags. All the while two men, one dressed in the American stars and stripes, and the other bearing the logo of the EU, watch from the sidelines. They chew on nuts and look on passively as the attackers scale up from Kalashnikov, firing TNT bombs on the protestors (all this is depicted in the style of a pantomime, where the word "boom!" fills the screen as the TNT explodes).

It is only when the Syrian attacker uses a chemical barrel against the demonstrators that America stands up from his rock, grunting and waving his arms. Russia takes the barrel from Syria and gives it to America who sits down again and continues to watch as the attackers revert to using TNT.

The message at the end of the film reads: 'Death is death, regardless of the way it is done. Assad has killed more than 150,000. Stop him'.

Raed Fares, a media activist in Kafranbel and the mastermind behind the film told the Telegraph: "It was on my mind, how bad the US reaction was to chemical weapons. They don't care about the 150,000 people who have already died. They just thought about the type of weapon that Assad used to kill the last 1,400".

Mr Fares said he decided to use cavemen because "there was no humanity in those ages" and that his "message is so clear [to the international community] that it only requires simple tools".

Using stone-agers who have not yet harnessed the power of language and can only grunt also means that the film can be understood anywhere in the world.

Though Mr Fares says it was not intentional, the short film also makes a mockery of the criticism of the opposition frequently iterated by pro-government supporters, that "these people want to take us back to the stone age" - referring to the presence of hardline jihadists fighting the regime with the desire to impose hardline Islamic law on Syria.

Whereas in many cities in rebel held Syria civilian activism and public protests have been supplanted by armed factions, and in some areas the hardline leadership of al-Qaeda, Kafranbel has continued to hold regular peaceful demonstrations. From this small village in northern Idlib province, half destroyed by near constant shelling attacks and government airstrikes, Mr Fares and other political activists have worked ceaselessly to affect change at the highest echelons of international diplomacy, inspiring support for the Syrian revolt.

The hundreds of banners, published on Kafranbel opposition website, are always in English and are designed to reach out to the West. They caricature of President Assad, President Obama and other world leaders and reference western films, television programs and books. One sketch depicts Mr Assad as Gollum from J R R Tolkein's 'Lord of the Rings'; another shows Mr Assad at the helm of a war ship wearing a pink dress, being held by Russian President Vladimir Putin, picking up on the romantic scene in the film Titanic.

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A powerful new piece by renowned street artist Eduardo Relero is on display near the ongoing U.N. General Assembly in New York.

It depicts U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin having coffee over the state of Syria amid war while Syrian refugees look on from outside a fence.

People looking at the 3D art serve as the world watching from afar.

The faces of the world leaders are interesting too: Obama, sitting on the Iraqi side of the border, looks like he is deep in thought while Putin, sitting on the side of Lebanon, leans forward in anticipation.

That certainly fits with what has happened over the last month as Syria has served as a geopolitical chessboard after a large-scale chemical weapons attack near the capital.

Check it out:

 Here's Relero and another angle of the piece:

SEE ALSO: The US Strategy In Syria Is Unraveling

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The last couple weeks have witnessed one of the most significant periods in decades in the annals of diplomatic history.

Having deeply mishandled the domestic side of the Syrian crisis, the Obama administration proceeded to worsen matters by, in effect, outsourcing the problem to Vladimir Putin. As I’ve written elsewhere, I’m pessimistic about any Moscow-brokered WMD deal having the effects that the West desires. That said, much remains to be seen, as this issue is really only in the first chapter of diplomatic resolution.

However, I’m confident in stating that the United States backing off from overt military intervention in Syria’s civil war has important implications, already visible, for the U.S. military. That diplomats, not generals and admirals, were walking point in the White House on this issue has been widely noted, as has a budding civil-military conundrum that will very likely get worse in the years ahead.

Looming over all this, though, is the reality that the U.S. military may have simply priced itself out of the market. After the thrashing of Saddam’s forces in early 1991 by a U.S.-led coalition in Operation DESERT STORM, it was evident to nearly everyone that facing America’s military in a stand-up fight was a losing proposition. Our technological lead, coupled with superb command-and-control (C2), gave the United States a remarkable competitive edge in the tactical-to-operational realm of warfare. Strategy, however, would prove a much tougher nut for the Pentagon to crack. Even Saddam, in the years after his 1991 defeat, never seriously planned for conventional resistance against any future U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which even the man from Tikrit realized was a fool’s errand.

In the heady time of Blitzkrieg triumphs early in World War II, Hitler famously proclaimed “nothing is impossible for the German soldier” (dem deutschen Soldaten ist nichts unmöglich) and in the salad days of U.S. hegemony after 1991 that Nazi mirage seemed to have been realized, at last, by the Americans. Yet tactical awesomeness does not equal strategic competence, and any serious analysis of U.S. military performance since 9/11, in the era of the Global War on Terror, must conclude that Americans arms failed to deliver promised political outcomes in either Iraq or Afghanistan. While there is much blame for this to be laid at the feet of barmy politicos, U.S. top military leadership is equally culpable for the strategic setbacks. History will not be kind to the likes of Generals Tommy Franks and Ricardo Sanchez, to cite only two particularly egregious examples, and any attempt to dodge this truth can fester into a kind of “stab in the back legend” (to allow a second Germanism in one paragraph), a fate to be avoided at all costs.

Above all, the U.S. is broke. This week, while addressing the baleful impact of sequestration on the Pentagon, three of our four service chiefs bluntly informed Congress, in open session, that they could not execute even one Major Theater War under current financial conditions. Since the end of the Cold War, the MTW has been the military’s gold standard. Down to 9/11, the Pentagon’s positions was that it could fight two MTWs simultaneously; now, with readiness in trouble due to wars and empty coffers, the reality has set in that the Pentagon is facing a crisis. The post-modern American war of warfare, which very few if any countries could hope to match in complexity and cost, is now so expensive that even Americans can no longer afford it. The strategic impact of this realization promises to be vast and far-reaching.

Conflict, though, shows no signs of evaporating. We can expect a gradual move away from the high-intensity warfare that the U.S. has perfected in the tactical-operational realm. Which may be just as well, given the current state of the U.S. military, particularly our ground forces, which are tired after 12 years of counterinsurgency in CENTCOM. Although the possibility of force-on-force conflict with China seems plausible, particularly given rising tensions in East Asian waters, the rest of the world appears uninterested in fighting the United States the way the U.S. likes to fight.

This, paradoxically, may not actually be good news in the long run, as the United States is seriously unready for other forms of conflict. Worse, the U.S. Government has persuaded itself that it is more ready for lower-intensity forms of conflict than it actually is. To be fair, in recent years the Pentagon, in collaboration with the Intelligence Community, has made UAVs a serious threat to terrorists around the world, while DoD’s Special Operations Forces – as large as the entire militaries of many Western countries – are the envy of the world in terms of their size, budgets, and capabilities. Yet all these are really just somewhat more subtle forms of traditional military applications of force.

What is needed instead is a serious capability in what some Eastern intelligence services term “special war,” an amalgam of espionage, subversion, even forms of terrorism to attain political ends without actually going to war in any conventional sense. Special war is the default setting for countries that are unable or unwilling to fight major wars, but there are prerequisites, above all a degree of cunning and a willingness to accept operational risk to achieve strategic aims. I’m afraid the U.S. Government falls quite short in those two departments.

The apparently total inability of the U.S. Government to keep secrets these days indicates a basic unreadiness for special war. Just as serious an obstacle is the mindset of most U.S. warfighters, which remains vividly conventional and unimaginative. No less, the risk aversion that characterizes too many American military and intelligence operations, caused by having lawyers oversee everything the Pentagon and the IC do, will have to be dispensed with if America wants to develop any real capabilities in special war.

There are templates to follow. Britain and France are more proficient in aspects of special war than we are, in part due to a legacy of colonial-era operations that lingers in London and Paris. Israel in particular is comfortable with the nuts and bolts of special war – aggressive espionage, subversion of hostile foreign factions, and even assassinations  - but the Israeli model has its limits. In the first place, it’s questionable how much a system developed for a small state with a defined set of foes can be expanded to meet the needs of a huge global power. Moreover, Israeli political culture is tolerant of special war, including the mistakes that inevitably accompany it, showing a degree of public maturity about such messy matters that seems seriously lacking in the United States.

Unfortunately there is one country that excels at special war, and that’s Russia. Moscow’s proficiency in these dark arts goes back to the late Tsarist period, when the regime’s solution to a rising terrorism problem was to penetrate terrorist groups while creating some of their own: a politically tricky strategy that worked nearly perfectly, as long as one is willing to close one’s eyes at key moments. Proficiency in espionage, subversion, and terrorism was perfected under the Soviets, yet the skills of Russian intelligence in this domain have, if anything, increased under the rule of President Putin who, by virtue of being a onetime KGB counterintelligence officer, fully comprehends the power of special war.

Putin’s years in power have witnessed a blossoming of special war in Chechnya, where intelligence-led counterinsurgency has worked where blunter military methods failed to subdue the rebellion; in the Baltic states, where Russian intelligence successfully influences and intimdates these small NATO countries; and especially in Georgia, where the full range of Russian secret tricks has been employed intensely. The August 2008 Russian military intervention got the world’s attention, while the day-in, day-out activities waged by Moscow against Tbilisi, encompassing a rough form of spywar, get little press outside the region. The lead-up to the Obama administration’s agreement to a Russian offer to settle the Syrian WMD issue is a classic case of Moscow’s active measures - a key aspect of special war – setting the field for a big Russian diplomatic win.

Special war works when competently handled. It’s very cheap compared to any conventional military operations, and if executed properly it offers states a degree of plausible deniability while achieving state interests without fighting. The United States at present is not ready – organizationally, legally, politically, or culturally – to compete in special war. But getting proficient in special war will soon not be a choice, but a necessity. We’re already losing at it, whether we realize it or not, and the current trajectory is worrying. Over 2,500 years ago Sun Tzu, an early advocate of special war, argued that the acme of skill is not winning battles, rather subduing your enemy without actually fighting. It’s about time the Pentagon caught on.

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Russian Foreign Minister told David Ignatius of The Washington Post that he has presented U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with evidence that Syrian rebels used chemical weapons on August 21 in the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus, adding that the information is "available on the Internet."

He went on to cite several dubious accounts and theories, including:

• A report by Mint Press that rebels were given chemical weapons by Saudi Arabia and then mishandled them, leading to the deadly attack that killed more than a thousand people.

Several chemical weapons experts thoroughly refuted this claim when interviewed by Syrian weapons specialist and blogger Eliot Higgins.

Furthermore the report's "primary author,"Dale Galvak, said Mint Press incorrectly used her byline but wouldn't publish a retraction. The other author is a bit of a mystery and has since deleted his LinkedIn account.

• This report by a Catholic nun from the area who claimed that the images and videos from the attack are staged using Syrian civilians that were abducted by Syrian rebels hundreds of miles away.

No government, not even Syria and Russia, have claimed that the attacks were a complete fabrication.

• Lavrov then cited an open letter sent to President Obama by former operatives of the CIA that cites the Mint Press report and states that they are "unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area."

The UN chemical inspectors investigation described the size and structure of two rocket delivery systems used and report the direction some of the rockets likely came from. The report doesn't ascribe blame but present evidence that is damning for Assad.

Higgns independently collected evidence of the munitions and concluded that "the Syrian government was capable of the attack, and had a history of using the munitions linked to the attack" while evidence against the rebels is spurious.

• Lavrov also claimed that the sarin was homemade, which directly contradicts the idea that the chemicals came from Saudi Arabia — meaning that even Russian claims contradict the theories it cites.

• Kremlin-funded Russia Today also falsely cited Higgins to bolster claims that there are videos of rebels firing chemical rockets. These videos are highly dubious.

Lavrov concluded to Ignatius that "you don’t need to have any spy reports to make your own conclusions, you only need to carefully watch what is available in public."

He is right. But based on publicly available information, Russia's claim that the rebels were responsible for the August 21 attack are based on conspiracy theories.

SEE ALSO: The Chemical Weapons Deal Is A Huge Gift To Assad, Russia, And Iran

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This week President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly that military action cannot end the Syrian war and advocated the need for a political settlement.

But a deal needs two sides.

And the Western idea of how peace would play out is unraveling after the largest Islamist brigades in Syria rejected the Western-backed Syrian National Council (SNC) and the opposition's planned exile government.

From The New York Times:

“At this stage, the political opposition does not have the credibility with or the leverage over the armed groups on the ground to enforce an agreement that the armed groups reject,” said Noah Bonsey, who studies the Syrian opposition for the International Crisis Group.

“You need two parties for an agreement, and there is no viable political alternative to the coalition,” he said, defining a disconnect between the diplomatic efforts taking shaping in New York and the reality across Syria.

The most powerful forces on the ground (including Syria's government) don't recognize the opposition government-in-exile. America and its allies say any peace process must involve that government.

As it stands, the process can't even start (much less decide the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad).

Basically, a political settlement is a pipe dream at this point — much like the unprecedented task of securing and destroying a massive chemical weapons stockpile in an active warzone within a year.

SEE ALSO: The US Strategy In Syria Is Unraveling

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Syrian snipers appear to be targeting pregnant women, a British surgeon said Saturday after returning from the conflict zone.

David Nott, who spent five weeks volunteering at a Syrian hospital, told The Times newspaper the gunshot wounds he had treated also indicated that bored snipers were targeting particular parts of civilians' bodies in a bid to entertain themselves.

"One day it would be shots to the groin. The next, it would only be the left chest," he told the newspaper.

"From the first patients that came in in the morning, you could almost tell what you would see for the rest of the day. It was a game."

Nott, a prominent surgeon who counts former prime minister Tony Blair as an ex-patient, said he had treated more than half a dozen shot pregnant women on one day in the Syrian city, which he did not identify for security reasons.

On another day, two consecutive gunshot patients were heavily pregnant women, both of whom lost their babies.

"The women were all shot through the uterus, so that must have been where they were aiming for," he told The Times.

"I can't even begin to tell you how awful it was. Usually, civilians are caught in the crossfire. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this. This was deliberate. It was hell beyond hell."

Nott, who usually works as a vascular surgeon at London's Westminster and Chelsea hospital, has been volunteering as an emergency surgeon in warzones for 20 years, including Bosnia, Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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A Tribute to Marie Colvin

By Paul Conroy, Author of "Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment" 

How does one pay tribute to a friend and colleague lost in such terrible circumstances? It would be an easy option to say she died doing the job she loved, but that isn't strictly true. For Marie, reporting was never a job in the truest sense of the word, it was her life, the driving force behind her very being.

I remember the evening before her death last February, we were trapped in Baba Amr, Homs, and the shelling had reached a crescendo which neither of us, in our combined experience, had ever witnessed. Wrapped in a think blanket against the biting cold Marie asked me, "Would you still be here if you weren't being paid?" I nodded I would. Marie replied, "I thought so." I never had to ask her the same question -- I already knew the answer.

That exchange reaffirmed what I had known for many years. For Marie it wasn't the money, I'm not sure I know any wealthy foreign correspondents, nor the prestige. It was purely a passion for a the story that pushed her, not only to enter the most hostile and dangerous of environments to report, but also to remain there when the odds were seemingly stacked against her. Many editors will attest to Marie's ability to become 'un reachable' when it suited her purpose, normally when asking her to get out of a clearly deteriorating situation.

In Baba Amr, whilst trapped in the media centre due to the ferocious bombardment, I heard a Skype call coming through, it was Sean Ryan, Foreign editor of The Sunday Times. Marie looked mortified, she knew the call would be a plea for us to get out as soon as was possible. "Tell him I'm not in," quipped Marie. I asked her, "Should I tell him you are out shopping?" Marie laughed, "tell him anything,"

I have worked with many conflict reporters, photographers, cameramen, security guards and local fixers over the years, each and every one of them brave, honest and noble in their own right. It seems somewhat unfair to single out any individual out for special praise. I'm sure though that to a person everyone of those who put their lives of the line daily, would attest to the fact that Marie Colvin was an exemplary case and to pay her special tribute is a fitting act.

She understood, and felt, fear in a way that few people ever will. I could read it on her face, I recognised the same fear within myself, yet Marie understood her fears were not the story. In her own words, she was there to bear witness, to share the fear, horrors and  suffering, felt by the innocent victims of war, with a world a thousand miles away.

Her tenacity was the stuff of legend, her interview technique involved teasing out information strand by strand, until she was completely satisfied there was no more to be had. She would then move on to the next person and start the whole process again. As a photographer this would often give me palpitations, I would sit and listen, one ear on the interview, one eye looking apprehensively at the fading light of the setting sun.

Often, whilst reporting from the frontline, she would sidle up to me and say, "Hey Paul, shall we go interview some local committee members?" the horror that registered on my face sent her in fits of hysterical laughter, I fell for it every time.

Marie Colvin Left a lasting impression on all whose paths she crossed, from Yasser Arafat to Colonel Gadaffi and on all of the godforsaken refugees and innocent victims of war, to whom she gave a voice. She was never hard to spot, and even harder to forget.

Marie has inspired a whole new generation of foreign correspondents, possibly the greatest legacy she could have left the world. With her loss, many of the darker corners of this planet, where once she would single-handedly shine a light, will remain in darkness. This is our loss, and the greatest tribute that we can pay her, is to ensure that we encourage the next generation of correspondents continue to go out into the world and to bear witness.

Marie Colvin didn't die working, she died living.

© 2013 Paul Conroy, author of Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment

Paul Conroy, author of "Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment," is a former British soldier. As a photographer and filmmaker whose work spans 15 years, he has reported on the conflicts in Iraq, Congo, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria.

SEE ALSO: War Correspondent Marie Colvin's $1.85 Million Diss Makes Us Miss Her Even More

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The Syrian war, now in its 31st month, has transformed into a full-blown proxy war.

The conflict not only involves Syria's neighbors and regional powers, but also Western countries and numerous fighters from more than 25 countries.

We've put together a chart to make sense of the major players backing each side and the infighting that has plagued the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It's an oversimplication, especially on the rebel side, but provides a basic idea of who's with who:

The side of the Syrian regime is pretty straightforward. Russia has supported them in various forms even before protests began in March 2011.

Iraq has facilitated Iranian supply flights through its territory and placed elite Shia militias under the command of the Qods force (i.e., international wing) of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Iran, seeking to protect the Shia crescent that extends from Tehran to Beirut, has been sending troops from its Revolutionary Guards and from its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah while also training Shia militias from Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. Iranian commanders are increasingly calling the shots on the ground.

Part of Assad's strategy seemingly involved pulling out of northern towns to allow Kurdish fighters to take over, thereby weakening his Sunni enemies.

But some Kurds have chosen to fight the Syrian Arab Army alongside the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and the Kurdish National Council (KNC) formally joined the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC) in August.

Kurdish fighters affiliated with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), meanwhile, have spent much of their time recently fighting al-Qaeda fighters and other Islamic rebels in the north of the country.

After the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) overran FSA rebels in the town of Azaz near the Turkish border, Kurdish fighters fought ISIS with the ousted rebels. (Jabhat al-Nusra is considered a separate al-Qaeda affiliate within Syria.)

Interestingly, though it is not listed on the graphic, many in the opposition believe that the Syrian regime have helped bolstered al-Qaeda's presence in Syria to counter the less radical rebels.

Most of the largest Islamist factions recently denounced the SNC and formed Jaish al-Islam ("the Army of Islam") with the blessing of Saudi Arabia. The SNC-affiliated Free Syrian Army was dealt a significant blow by the formation of the Army of Islam but still works with the Army of Islam.

Gulf states, led by Qatar and the Saudis, have been supporting Islamic factions since at least early last year. Private donors in Kuwait also contribute.

There are some rebel groups, most notably Ahrar al-Sham, which fall outside of the bubbles above but also benefit from Gulf donors (primarily via Qatar and Kuwait) and work with other rebel factions.

The SNC remains the only viable political opposition, but almost no one on the ground supports the coalition. Furthermore, the SNC recently rejected peace talks while the Assad's regime doesn't recognize its legitimacy anyway, so a political solution is not an option at this point.

The Israel Defense Force has bombed targets in Syria on several occasions in relation to its own interests. In July 2011 President Shimon Peres said that "Assad must go," but the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said that the country's position involves "not intervening in internal Syrian affairs."

Here's the arena where all of these countries and groups are vying for control:

SEE ALSO: Obama's Failed Syria Strategy In One Sentence

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The New York Times recently published a deep dive into the Obama administration's policy in Syria, detailing a deeply conflicted cabinet and a disengaged president over the last two years.

The result has been a hesitant strategy that has largely backfired.

The Times quotes a classified State Department briefing paper from June 10 that painted a grim picture of the rebellion as led by the West's preferred rebel commander, Gen. Salim Idris of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA):

“We are headed toward our worst case scenario: rebel gains evaporating, the moderate opposition — including Salim Idriss — imploding, large ungoverned spaces, [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] holding on indefinitely, neighbors endangered, and Iran, Hizbollah, and Iraqi militias taking root,” the paper concluded.

More than four months later, the U.S. has reached its definition of the worst case.

The overall war continues to be largely a military stalemate, but the FSA is losing ground and fighters to better-funded and better-equipped jihadists. Even in the south, where the FSA has been dominant, there are signs that jihadists are increasingly leading the fight.

After the August 22 chemical weapons attack and the chemical weapons deal that revitalized Assad, the Idris-led moderate opposition has imploded as many of the Islamist fighting forces formed a new coalition, dubbed Jaish al-Islam ("the Army of Islam"), with the blessing of Saudi Arabia.

Large swaths of territory are not ungoverned but increasingly governed by the likes of al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), especially on the Turkish border in the north. And the revelation from the Times that Jordan offered the U.S. a base for drone strikes in Syria has not gone over well with Islamist factions.

Assad is more confident than ever and allied fighters from Iran, Hezbollah, and Iraq are very much entrenched in the war.

Taking all that into account, America is left with few options besides what it has been reluctant to do up to this point (i.e., actively support the SMC).

Yochi Dreazen of Foreign Policy reportsa diplomatic push for peace talks, led by Secretary of State John Kerry,"is about all Washington is willing to provide"— even though several senior State Department officials consider that to be more bad policy.

“The only person who wants the Geneva conference to happen is the secretary,” a senior U.S. official told FP. “Who’s going to show up? Will they actually represent anyone? If not, why take the risk?”

All in all, the U.S. strategy in Syria has gone as badly as Assad and his allies would hope.

SEE ALSO: The Madness Of The Syria Proxy War In One Chart

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The Baghdad government wants the immediate delivery of U.S. drones and F-16 fighter jets in order to combat al Qaeda insurgents, who are making swift advances in the west of the Iraq, a senior Iraqi security official said.

Washington agreed in August to supply a $2.6 billion integrated air defense system and F-16 fighter jets, with delivery due in autumn 2014.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who will meets U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington next week, has also requested drones to carry out surveillance of Iraq's desert border with Syria.

But Deputy National Security Adviser Safa al-Sheikh Hussein said Iraq needs them now.

"The first thing the Prime Minister will ask for is to accelerate the processes for the shipment of drones and F-16s," said Safa al-Sheikh Hussein in an interview with Reuters.

"The initial response from the U.S. was positive, but it depends on the delivery time. We want them immediately."

Al Qaeda's Iraqi wing was forced underground in 2007 during a troop build-up ordered by then U.S. President George W. Bush.

But almost two years after the last U.S. troops withdrew, the Sunni Islamist group has regained momentum in its war against the Shi'ite-led government that came to power after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Around 7,000 civilians have been killed in acts of violence so far in 2013, according to monitoring group IraqBody Count.

At the same time Baghdad is struggling to control spillover from the civil war next door in Syria.

Hussein said that if Washington drags its feet, Iraq will turn elsewhere for help.

"Iraq will not die if it doesn't get American weapons. Many countries are offering military equipment," he said.

One of those countries is Russia, with which Iraq has already signed a $4 billion deal to supply helicopters and surveillance equipment.

The conflict in Syria has drawn hardline Sunni Islamists from across the region and beyond into battle against President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.

Al Qaeda's Syrian and Iraqi affiliates merged this year to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which views Shi'ite Muslims as apostates and has claimed responsibility for attacks on both sides of the border.

"The Iraqi government doesn't have the capacity to control the border," said Hussein, a former brigadier general in Iraq's Air Force. "During Saddam's time, he had 10 divisions of border guards, roughly 100,000 men. Now it is far less and we don't have an air force."

Concern over the rise of al Qaeda in Syria and the war there is also pushing Iraq and Turkey to repair their strained relations.

The two countries' foreign ministers met in Ankara on Friday and said they would cooperate more closely to limit the spillover from Syria.

MORE ADVANCED

In the early stages of the Syrian war, arms were being smuggled into the country from Iraq. Now the flow has reversed, said Hussein, who is deputy of the National Security Council.

"Some of them are more advanced weapons than al Qaeda usually had in Iraq - for example, anti-aircraft weapons which have been used against our helicopters," he said.

They also included arms purchased by Saudi Arabia, which along with other Sunni-ruled Gulf states has thrown its weight behind the Syrian rebels in a proxy war against Shi'ite Iran, which backs Assad.

There are also indications that Riyadh is financing Sunni groups in Iraq, Hussein said, as well as funding from private donors in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

Insurgents have exploited deteriorating relations between the government and Iraq's Sunni minority, which has been protesting since last year against what they perceive as the marginalization of their sect.

A raid by security forces on a protest camp in April touched off a backlash by militants that shows no sign of abating.

"Al Qaeda has intentions to escalate even more," said Hussein. "But the government is also re-organizing security operations and doing some work on intelligence. So I don't think there will be a collapse in the security situation."

Still, many challenges lay ahead, he said.

"Al Qaeda's main objective is to form areas under their control - maybe not full control, but partial control. This is what the battle is about."

Insurgents have also set their sights on an export pipeline that runs from the oilfields in Iraq's north to Turkeyand has been repeatedly sabotaged this year.

While the strategic network in the relatively secure south - which provides roughly 90 percent of Iraq's 2.4 million barrels a day of oil exports - is under control, Hussein said steps are being taken to boost security along the Kirkuk-Ceyhan line.

(Additional reporting by Suadad al-Salhy, Editing by Isabel Coles and Angus MacSwan; )

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The Obama administration came up maddeningly short on Syrian airstrikes just a month ago, despite having its finger on the trigger.

The decision initially seemed a result of political pressure, but there may be a more obvious reason: the unclear and very likely messy outcome had Syrian President Bashar al-Assad been toppled.

Just look at what has happened to Libya since the fall of President Muammar Gaddafi.

The headline of a recent Al Arabiya article reads, "Report: Al-Qaeda seeks Qaddafi’s leftover uranium and missiles."

Inside the post, a colonel in the Libyan Army expounds further:

“Al-Qaeda was terrified of Qaddafi,” says Colonel Faraj Adem, a senior army officer. “None would dare try to enter Libya’s borders. But now Qaddafi has gone, and with him our border security, al-Qaeda is free to come and go as they please. They are choosing this area to rebuild their weapon stocks and become strong once more. There is no control of weapons stocks here. You want to buy a MANPADS? It’s easy.”

So not only is there 6,400 pounds of yellowcake uranium (which requires a lot of processing to make a bomb, thankfully) in locations around Libya, but there are several tons of surface-to-air missiles.

Yes, the type that can take out civilian airliners.

Since Gaddafi's fall, the CIA — with help from local militias — and Al Qaeda have been competing to get a hold of these missiles.

Also in Gaddafi's vacuum, Al Qaeda has grown in Libya and Northern Africa as a whole, spilling in Mali and Syria. (And while the West whacks a mole in one area of Africa, others seem to rise up.)

What this has to do with Assad is almost analogous, except worse.

Already Islamic extremists have spilled Syria's conflict into neighboring Lebanon and Iraq. There have also been incidental potshots into Turkey and Israel.

Every day that America slows its financial and materiel support of so-called "moderate" rebel groups, the well-backed jihadi groups fatten with new recruits.

Assad's chemical stockpile is, by some estimates, one of the largest in the world. Not to mention all the over-the-table, totally legit, open-air support they've gotten from Moscow in terms of missile and tank technology.

All of those weapons would be up for grabs.

Should Assad fall without an immediate, stable coalition ready to take his place, the results would likely be catastrophic.

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A Twitter account claiming to be an official representative of the Syrian Electronic Army — a loose group of hackers who support Bashar Al Assad — alleges they have hacked into the Twitter and Facebook accounts of Barack Obama, Fran Berkman of Mashable reports.

They also claim to have hacked the emails of White House staffers.

The Twitter and Facebook hacks exploited the link shortener, which posted links that led back to a Syrian Electronic Army Website.

"All the the links that Barack Obama account tweeted it and post it on Facebook was redirected to a video showing the truth about Syria," an SEA spokesperson wrote in an email to Berkman.

Berkman verified their claims: 

The altered links in Obama's profile lead to a 24-minute video titled "Syria facing terrorism." Be warned, however: The video contains graphic violence.

Ryan Broderick of Buzzfeed notes that the SEA also Tweeted these images; one of the control panel for a user named Anatole and one of the inbox of ssnurpus@barackobama.com.

Broderick reports that they respectively belong to Anatole Jenkins, a Fundraising Manager for Barack Obama, and Suzanne Snurpus, a state climate organizer for Organizing for Action, Barack Obama's, a nonprofit formed from the Obama campaign.

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