Syrian rebel offensive in Golan jolts Israel

An Israeli soldier walks atop a tank near the Quneitra crossing to Syria, Thursday, June 6, 2013. Syrian rebels on Thursday captured a crossing point along a cease-fire line with Israel in the contested Golan Heights, a development that could deepen Israeli concerns over the growing role of Islamic radicals in the civil war near its northern frontier.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

QUNEITRA, Golan Heights (AP) — Syrian rebels briefly seized control of a border crossing along the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Thursday, prompting the withdrawal of a major Austrian peacekeeping contingent and heightening fears in Israelthat it could soon be dragged into the neighboring country's civil war.

From the Israeli side of the Golan, Syrian tanks and armored vehicles could be seen across the border. Large explosions could be heard throughout the day, and thick smoke and flames rose from the area. Israeli TV stations showed images of Israeli tourists flocking to the Golan to look across the frontier and gawk at the fighting.

Israeli troops along the border were on high alert, although the military said no special actions had been taken in response to the escalation.

By nightfall, the situation appeared to be quieting down. Israel's deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, said forces remained on high alert, but no special actions had been taken.

"We are following very carefully what's happening in Syria," Danon told The Associated Press. "We will do whatever is necessary to protect the interests of Israel."

Israel fears that Islamic militants who have joined the rebel ranks in trying to oust President Bashar Assad will turn their guns toward Israel if they topple the Syrian leader. Islamic groups are believed to be active in the fighting in the Golan area. Israel has also expressed concerns that Assad's sophisticated weapons, could slip into the hands of hostile groups, including Assad's ally, Hezbollah.

The Jewish state has kept a wary eye on the fighting next door since the conflict erupted in March 2011 and in recent months has been bolstering its forces in the area and reinforcing a fence along the frontier.

The rebels overran the border position near the abandoned town of Quneitra early Thursday, holding their positions for several hours before Syrian government troops retook it. The international peacekeepers who maintain a 40-year-old truce receive most of their supplies through that position from Israel.

Fierce gunbattles forced peacekeepers to seek shelter in a nearby base, and the Philippine military said one of its men serving in the force was wounded in the leg when a mortar or artillery shell struck the area. U.N. diplomats said an Indian peacekeeper also was injured.

In Vienna, Austrian leaders said the fighting made it necessary to withdraw their troops.

Defense Minister Gerhard Klug said he expected the withdrawal to be done within two to four weeks, but it is possible to complete it "within a few hours" if new violence threatened the soldiers' security.

"For the first time, it was not possible for the Syrian government to guarantee proper support of the U.N.," he said.

The decision dealt a heavy to blow to the 911-member U.N. force, which includes the 377 Austrian peacekeepers as well as 341 from the Philippines and 193 from India. Croatia withdrew its contingent in March amid fears they would be targeted.

Israel and Syria agreed to creation of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force after Syria launched military action in 1973 in a failed effort to retake the Golan, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations is urgently looking for troops to replace Austrians and warned that any military activity in the zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces could jeopardize the long-held cease-fire.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it regretted Austria's decision and hoped that it would not lead to "further escalation in the region." It said it expected the U.N. to uphold its commitment.

Israeli military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under military protocol, said several Syrians wounded in fighting were brought into Israel for medical treatment. Others who entered Israel were returned through alternative sites. It was not clear whether the wounded were fighters or civilians.

Israeli military officials said several errant shells landed in Israeli-controlled territory. Although no injuries were reported, the military restricted access to a main road running along the border for several hours and ordered farmers with fields in the area to remain indoors.

Nadav Katz, 65, of Kibbutz Merom Golan, a communal farm near the crossing, said the area was covered with smoke and residents could hear gunfire and mortar shells exploding nearby.

"We are concerned that things might evolve into something much harsher that will affect us," said Katz. "We like the idea that for 40 years the area was peaceful and quiet. Tourists have been coming, fields have been cultivated and children were born," he said.

Katz said he trusted Israel's army to defend the area, but residents felt betrayed by the fleeing U.N. troops. More than anything, though, he said people viewed the Syrian fighting as a terrible event. "People are simply sad over the slaughter," he said.

Israeli military officials played down the significance of Thursday's fighting. They said that Quneitra is important symbolically to Syria, given its history and location along a main route to Damascus. The town has been largely abandoned since the 1967 war, though the crossing is sometimes opened to allow Druse residents to export produce or cross into Syria to study or to marry their brethren.

Israeli officials say they have no interest in taking sides or getting involved in the fighting.

But the military has intervened on several occasions, firing at targets inside Syria in response to shelling that landed in the Israeli-side of the Golan.

In one such incident last month, Syrian troops targeted an Israeli jeep they said had crossed the cease-fire line into the Syria-controlled sector. Syria said it launched two missiles in self-defense, accusing Israel of violating the cease-fire deal.

The Israeli air force has also carried out several airstrikes in recent months on weapons shipments believed to be headed to Hezbollah.

Fighting between Assad's forces and mainly Sunni rebels has already spilled over Syria's borders into Turkey and Lebanon, where factions that support opposing sides have frequently clashed.

Moshe Maoz, a Syria expert at the Hebrew University, played down Thursday's incident. He called it a small victory for the Surian military and said little would change even if the rebels gained control of the crossing.

"It's symbolic, but neither al Qaida nor the mainstream groups are going to shoot at Israel because they know Israel will retaliate very heavily," he said.

___

Federman reported from Jerusalem. Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem and George Jahn in Vienna also contributed to this report.

Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov Is Latest Russian to Flee

Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has fled his country because he says he fears political persecution if he stays.

"I kept traveling back and forth until late February, where it became clear that I might be part of this ongoing investigation of the activities of the political protesters," Kasparov told a press conference at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday, where he was receiving an award.

"Right now I have serious doubts that if I return to Moscow I may be able to travel back. So for the time being I refrain from returning to Russia," he said.

Kasparov's departures is just the latest in a string of prominent Russian who have left the country because they fear prosecution. In a statement posted later on his website, Kasparov insisted he had not emigrated permanently from Russia.

"Russia is and will always be my country," he wrote, adding that he would continue his democracy advocacy from abroad.

Kasparov was ranked the number one chess player in the world for a record 20 years, but retired from professional chess in 2005. In recent years Kasparov, who famously defeated IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer in a series of chess matches in 1996, had become a strident opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin's government. He co-founded a pro-democracy party and has been a prominent speaker at anti-Putin rallies that have been held over the past year and a half.

Since Putin returned to the Kremlin last year for a third term in office, authorities have begun what opposition leaders say is a calculated effort to squash dissent and intimidate opposition leaders. Russia's legislature has followed the Kremlin's lead in passing a series of new laws that make it harder for people to organize and severely increased penalties for those who hold what are deemed unsanctioned rallies. Some protest leaders had their homes searched. Last August, a trio of Russian punk feminists were sentenced to two years in prison for performing an anti-Putin stunt in a Moscow cathedral in a case that was widely seen as a message that dissent would not be tolerated.

Russian elites who have dared to fund opposition, or even independent efforts, have reportedly pulled back amid fears that they will be targeted. Indeed, two other prominent protest leaders are facing charges that they insist are trumped up in order to silence them.

Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has been called the face of the protest movement, is facing corruption charges that had previously been dismissed. Sergei Udaltsov, a left-wing activist, is under house arrest after being charged with instigating violence at a rally on the eve of Putin's inauguration last spring.

Today, a trial began against a dozen Russians accused of fighting police during that rally. Exactly who started the fighting in Bolotnaya Square is unclear. Kasparov was at the front of that march and was detained, but has not yet been charged with anything. But riot police clashed with the protesters on the eve of Putin's inauguration. By the end of the afternoon, hundreds of protesters had been arrested and several police helmets were bobbing in the nearby river.

Other high profile Russians who have fled the country fearing they are about to be targeted for what they say are political reasons include Sergei Guriev.

Chess Superstar Garry Kasparov Flees Russia

Guriev, the head of Russia's New Economic School and a top liberal economist, dashed off to France last week after investigators stepped up their inquiries into his support for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, who has been in jail since 2003 after he announced plans to challenge Putin politically. Guriev was considered a political insider in Russia, closely aligned with Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, Putin's one-time protégé who appears to have also fallen out of the Kremlin's favor.

In an op-ed article in the New York Times on Wednesday entitled "Why I Am Not Returning To Russia," Guriev explained that he "feared losing my freedom."

"I bought a one-way ticket from Russia and will not return to my country," he wrote.

Pavel Durov, the founder of Russia's dominant social network VKontakte, has also reportedly left the country because he fears authorities are targeting him. Earlier this year, police say Durov hit a policeman with a car and drove off and video eventually emerged as evidence. Durov insists he does not even own a car. His company had rebuffed efforts by authorities to access VKontakte's databases for fear they would target the opposition which used the site to plan the anti-Putin protests.

The fear appears to have trickled down. According to a new poll conducted by the independent Levada Center (which itself is under pressure from authorities), over a fifth of Russians want to leave the country. The poll found that 22 percent said they wanted to leave, up from 13 percent in 2009. The poll found that students, entrepreneurs, and particularly young males were most likely to express a desire to leave the country.

Meanwhile, it appears that Russia is not only in danger of a brain drain. The head of Russia's central bank said Wednesday that Russians continue to send their money out of the country at an alarming rate. In the first quarter of 2013, $25.8 billion was sent overseas. That capital flight continues a worrying trend. Last year, an estimated $49 billion left the country. In February, Sergei Ignatyev, the central bank chief, made waves when he said that a small, politically-connected group was responsible for sending about half of that money.

Also Read

The American Tourist in India Has ID'd Her Gang-Rapers but India Is No Safer

The American Tourist in India Has ID'd Her Gang-Rapers but India Is No Safer

The American tourist who reported yet another gang rape in Indiaearly Tuesday morning, after she couldn't get a cab back to her guest house in the popular resort town of Manali, has already picked all three of her attackers out of a lineup following an extensive police lockdown. And while Indian authorities were efficient this time, the unfolding horror of the country's latest rape case isn't exactly making tourists feel any safer. "Investigators obtained a cellphone number believed to belong to the principal suspect and used it to track down the men," reports NBC News's John Newland, citing a police official in the mountainous northern province and adding that all the three suspects will be taken to court, officially identified, and charged on Thursday afternoon.

RELATED: Swiss Cycling Tourist Gang Raped In India

The men appear to have picked up the woman, now identified as 31 years old and hailing from California, at around 1:15 a.m. after she had visited her friends but failed to hail a cab back to her temporary lodging in Manali and began hitchhiking. They promised her a ride home in their truck but allegedly drove her to a secluded area and proceeded to rape her for an hour, police said. "I'm warning all tourists who are coming here. She should have avoided the truck. If she wanted any help, she should seek police," B. Kamal Kumar, the police official in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, told reporters. The suspects, according to the Associated Press, are between the ages of 22 and 24.

RELATED: India's Rape Problem Is Bad Enough to Jump Out a Window

The alleged attack, of course, would be just one of many to surface amidst nationwide outrage over the last six months — and one of several in which a tourist was the victim. On Wednesday, a businessman man was arrested in Kolkata for raping an Irish woman who volunteered at a children's charity. In March, a Swiss cyclist was gang-raped in front of her husband. All the rapes and gang rapeshave become, for much of the rest of the world, the only major stories to emerge from the country, and that's crippling India's tourism business.

RELATED: 7-Year-Old Victim in School Bathroom at Center of India's Growing Rape Protests

"Foreign tourist arrivals have dropped 25 percent since the December gang rape in New Delhi, and the number of female travelers fell by 35 percent, according to the study by the New Delhi-based Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry," the AP reported last month. And tourists who do go there, as the Wall Street Journal reports, are bringing defensive weapons like tasers and pepper spray. "Tuesday's attack is the last straw," a tourist who is traveling to India with her fiancé told theJournal. "I would advise my friends to lay off from India."

Massachusetts Governor Got Hammered After Catching the Boston Bomber

Massachusetts Governor Got Hammered After Catching the Boston Bomber

In a new interview with the Boston Herald, Governor Deval Patrick offers some interesting behind-the-scenes details of the Boston Marathon manhunt, including his day-after attempt to unwind when it was all over. Patrick says that on the Saturday afterDzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended, he went out the Berkshires (the popular vacation area in Western Massachusetts) alone. He went to a local restaurant, asked for a table where no one would bother him, and then proceded to get "quite drunk, by myself."

RELATED: Before Boston, the Tsarnaev Brothers Planned a Fourth of July Attack

The restaurant's owner was also kind enough to let Patrick skip out on the bill after he realized he forgot his wallet. (Patrick came back the next day to settle up.)

RELATED: After 'Misinformation Flying Around,' New Video May Be Break in Boston Case

Patrick also recounted what we imagine was tense conversation with Barack Obama, when the Friday lockdown had essentially closed Boston for a full day.

"(Then) the phone rang. It was the president. ... And he said, “Deval, I’m briefed. ... What are you going to do about the city? You can’t keep it locked down indefinitely.’

“I said, ‘Mr. President, I know that. ... I’m trying to sort that out now.’ ... Basically the state police had said we should end this ... when we finish the door-to-door in Watertown. So if we haven’t found him, we should say to people, ‘Look, live your lives, but please be careful because he’s still at large.’”

Patrick defended the decision to temporarily lock down the city, but admitted that the outcome made a big difference in the post-game analysis: "Look, the reason why it worked out in the end is because we found him. If we didn’t find him then people would be *****ing and moaning about how we kept them indoors all day."

Iran leader's election bid: Taming the presidency