Report checkpoints, snipers destabilize Syria

With 40,000 reported dead and 2.5 million displaced persons wandering the streets and highways of this troubled nation, reports are beginning to emerge that snipers who attack children are trained and fielded by CIA and Mossad.

Many more citizens displaced from their homes by artillery and aerial bombardment are said to have simply disappeared at checkpoints, or to have been cut down by sniper fire.

An oil-rich country with deep ties to American petroleum production companies, Syria borders Israel; its former territory in the Golan Heights overlooking Jerusalem, which was seized during the Six Day War of 1967, is peppered with settlements built for Israeli immigrants from eastern Europe.

The conflict between the dictatorship of Mr. Assad and the Free Syrian Army insurgents is fueled by an ethnic and religious dispute that is reportedly thousands of years old.

Such paramilitary forces are said to be favored in the upcoming budget years planned by CIA, a move which is said to be opposed by operations specialists who favor human and electronic intelligence gathering over shadow operations carried out by secret and private armies. According to numerous reports that have recently received wide attention in the neoconservative blogosphere and press, the conflict lies at the bottom of the current rift that led to the ouster and resignation of CIA Director General David Petraeus.

- The Legendary