Shiites Targeted for Terror as SAA Rolls

As predicted, Saudi Arabia, reported yesterday by Richard Spencer in the Telegraph, is going to supply the Syrian opposition with antiaircraft weapons. The strategy of government forces seems to be first to sever Aleppo from supply routes to Turkey:

Regime tanks pounded Kafra Hamra, on the northern Aleppo outskirts and near an important intersection and regime base overlooking the city, activists and opposition television said.

A regime advance in this area would threaten the supply of weapons to Aleppo along the roads from the Turkish border 25 miles away, just as the rebels' allies promised to increase their provision.

Car bombs targeting Shiites rocked Iraq yesterday, killing more than 30 people, mostly civilians. This from Duraid Adnan's story, "Dozens Killed In Attacks Targeting Iraqi Shiites":

Several bombs exploded in five southern Shiite-dominated provinces, killing civilians. Other attacks, near Tikrit and Mosul, struck security forces, officials said. 

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Sunni extremists have stepped up their efforts to undermine the Shiite-led government and to stoke sectarian divisions since the beginning of the year. Nearly 2,000 Iraqis have been killed since April, according to the Interior Ministry, making it the country’s most violent period since 2008. Sunday’s attacks also came a day after the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, threatened Shiites with more violence.

Something to watch as this Middle East war accelerates is the relationship between the success of government forces within Syria to attacks on Shiites in neighboring nations. As the rebels were defeated in Qusayr, attacks on Shiite communities in Lebanon proliferated. The same is true of Iraq. Though Hezbollah gets all the attention for sending fighters to Syria, there are plenty of Iraqi Shiites there as well. They're fighting to defend the sacred places of their religion.

Israel seems to have, for the time being at least, decided to stand down from further direct military participation in the fast-approaching catastrophe. Putin got the best of Cameron yesterday:

The G-8 meeting in Northern Ireland should be the place where a deal is brokered to prevent the Middle East from falling apart in burning pieces. But there is no indication that this is going to happen. The big players in the West still insist that any agreement include the removal of al-Assad. So there will be more war, more death.