REPORT: Iraq inspects Iranian jet en route to Syria, second this week

                         
Iraq inspected on Tuesday a Syrian-bound Iranian plane, but found only civilian goods on board during the second such search this week which came after Washington urged Baghdad to stop weapons reaching Tehran's ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.                               

Iran's support for Assad is politically delicate for Iraq, which balances its own close ties to Tehran against its relations with Washington and Sunni Muslim Arab Gulf neighbors who are opposed to the Syrian leader.                                      

Separately, a fresh delivery of Russian gas-oil has reached a government-controlled port in Syria this month, according to shipping sources and tracking data, adding to a string of cargoes that have flowed into the war-ravaged country this year.               

Delivering refined oil products to Syria is not explicitly prohibited by sanctions, but the European Union has blacklisted the state's oil trading and distribution firms.               

Meanwhile, opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will meet some Group of Eight foreign ministers in London on Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.                    

Opposition leaders including Ghassan Hitto and George Sabra will attend the meetings ahead of a formal meeting of G8 ministers, Hague said.                  

This comes after the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he would meet members of the Syrian opposition in London later this week, adding that Washington was looking at ways to help opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.                  

The U.S. chief diplomat is due to fly to London shortly following a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.                 

Earlier Tuesday, the Iraqi wing of al-Qaeda announced that a rebel group at the forefront of the rebellion in Syria was its branch in that country and that both groups would operate under one name, according to the US-based SITE Intelligence Group.                               

The leader of the Islamic State in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said his group and Syria's al-Nusra Front - which has been blacklisted by the United States - would now jointly go under the name of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the SITE Intelligence Group reported.                    

The predominant Islamist element in the Syrian uprising has created concern for regional and Western powers and deepened the Shi'ite-Sunni divide in the Middle East.                     

The authenticity of the statement could not immediately be verified. If confirmed it is likely to further deepen the political dilemma facing those countries who oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but fear the rise of al Qaeda and Islamist militancy in Syria.                     

Experts have long said that al-Nusra Front was receiving support from al Qaeda-linked insurgents in neighboring Iraq. The group has claimed responsibility for deadly bombings in Damascus and Aleppo, and its fighters have joined other rebel brigades in attacks on Assad's forces.                   

At least 70,000 people have been killed since protests led by Syria's Sunni Muslim majority broke out two years ago against Assad, who belongs to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.                

The demonstrations were met with bullets, sparking a Sunni backlash and a mostly Islamist armed insurgency increasingly led by the al-Nusra Front.                   

The US State Department in December designated the group a foreign terrorist organization.                           


REUTERS/LBCI


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