Epstein Secrets

isting sanctions. Iranian concern was eased, Zarif said, after his contacts last week with Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the chief European Union negotiator, Lady Catherine Ashton. "What I have heard from Secretary Kerry and Lady Ashton is that they are committed

the bigger fight against Assad, allowing his forces to gain the upper hand and make tactical gains in Homs, Damascus and even the rebel stronghold Aleppo. Emboldened, Assad and his henchmen, with the backing of Iran and Russia, have repeatedly reminded the opposition they will not go to Geneva to han

, and in Moscow Vladimir Putin won't abandon the son of the Soviet Union's favorite Arab tyrant, Hafez Assad. Far from it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week rejected any talk of new U.N. sanctions or arms embargo on Syria. He even defended Moscow's right to arm Mr. Assad as he kills more civil

But he was then in the midst of a vicious sectarian war against the Muslim Brotherhood, with their power in the souks and the mosques of Hama and Aleppo and Damascus. For the Sunni artisans in the warrens of these old cities, the presidency of a peasant—and an Alawite peasant at that, hailing from a

nd they're opposed to that. The Russians have close relations with the Syrian government. Is that a major factor too? Absolutely. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was fairly clear about that when he talked about the role that Russia's played in protecting Syrian interests over the years. But the overriding f

lawite minority — begin. As a result, most Alawites are rallying to Assad, as are some Sunnis who have benefitted from his regime, particularly in Aleppo and Damascus, the capital. These pro-regime Alawites and Sunnis see the chaos and soccer riots in Egypt and say to themselves: "Assad or chaos? We'

Alexander Shumilin 04 June 2012 -- The Syrian problem has become a vicious vortex sucking the Russian ship downward into its maw. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week sent a few subtle signals that the Kremlin might be trying to distance itself from Syrian President Bashar Assad, but to no avail. Assad

ed Hasan Nasrallah, a seemingly die-hard supporter of the Assad regime, appealed for calm when some of his Shiite co-religionists were kidnapped in Aleppo while on their way to Lebanon from a pilgrimage in Iran. Still, despite its current attempts to stay out of the Syrian conflict, one should not di

sent chemical weapons east toward Iraq and west toward Lebanon. Sakat said planning for these movements began just before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's Sept. 9 proposal for international control of Syrian chemical weapons, when Hafez Makhlouf, the Syrian chief of intelligence, met with representa

passes to a group known as Unit 450, which coordinates logistics for chemical weapons, and to individual geographic commands, such as Unit 416 for Aleppo and Unit 417 for Damascus. When handling the weapons, Sakat said he was instructed to use a simple word-substitution code, known as the "Khaled 4"