Iranian Atomic Urgency
• How often do you see headlines or tweets like this?
• Tehran’s letting the Taliban set up an office in eastern Iran, and is even considering providing them with surface-to-air missiles. The Wall Street Journal (via Google News) explains the rivals’ common interest:
Iran, a Shiite theocracy, wasn’t friendly with the Sunni Taliban government ousted by the U.S. in 2001 and hasn’t permitted an official Taliban presence in the country until now. But these days both sides “see America as the bigger enemy” a Western official in Kabul said.
“Iran is willing to put aside ideology and put aside deeply held religious values . . . for their ultimate goal: accelerating the departure of U.S. forces from Afghanistan,” the official said.
Arab Spring Winter
• LA Times: Syria rebels check passports at border crossing from Turkey.
• The Assad regime’s targeting medics who treat injured rebels. But the Christian Science Monitor finds that the heionous deaths of colleagues has boosted their resolve.
Three Aleppo University students, who had been helping treat demonstrators shot by Syrian security forces, were arrested at a checkpoint in mid-June. Their mutilated and charred bodies were found in a burned out car a week later.
• Syrian rebels acquiring shoulder-fired surface to air missiles is an important story. But I think NBC News correspondent Richard Engel was overly breathless about a scoop that hasn’t been independently verified. Breath in and count to 10 before watching the NBC News video.
• Time’s Tony Karon wonders if Bashar Assad will be replaced by a “Junta in a Box.”
• AFP: The army and rebels are clashing in two Christian districts of Damascus.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Good news in Israel-India relations. See my Shout Out to India.
• CNET: Google and Apple removed streaming apps for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV from their apps stores.
• Worth reading: Stephen Walt’s Expanding Definition of the Israel Lobby (via David Frum)
• The Times of Israel on this morning’s border incident:
IDF soldiers traveling near the Egyptian border fired into the neighboring country after thinking their bus had been shot at by terrorists, Wednesday morning.
It was not immediately clear if the bus was fired upon or if soldiers responded to hearing a nearby firefight.
The shooting, near Motzav Karmit, reportedly came as Egyptian security forces were engaged in a firefight with smugglers along the border.
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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