The news came as Kerry's efforts to rekindle the Middle East peace talks appear to have bogged down, and as a flow of Hezbollah fighters into Syria is helping the regime win a string of victories against the rebels.

"The secretary will be in Washington this week. He had planned a trip that was widely reported across the region," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday.

She confirmed Kerry would be taking part in White House meetings on Syria, describing them as "routine" talks in which President Barack Obama's national security team explores "all possible options that would accomplish our objective of helping the Syrian opposition."

But Psaki refuted the notion that Washington was getting close to bending to pressure and dropping its refusal to arm the Syrian opposition.

"There's been a long conversation about how to continue to aid the opposition and what we can do to strengthen their position on the ground while also planning a political transition. Many of these options have been discussed and they will continue to be," she stressed.

Kerry is also trying with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to organize a peace conference bringing together the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels in a bid to end the fighting that has claimed 94,000 lives.

Amid wrangling between opposition leaders and a fierce debate over exactly who should attend, the date for the talks initially slated for May has now slipped into July at the earliest.

"We have prepared a wide range of options for the president's consideration," National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told AFP, adding there were "no new announcements at this time."

The postponement of Kerry's Israel trip will raise fears that it could spell trouble for his peace-making efforts, even though the visit -- which would have been his fifth in four months -- had never been officially announced.

Psaki said the postponement was due to Kerry's need "to balance foreign travel and foreign diplomacy and that part of his job... with the need to be here in Washington from time to time."

She stressed, though, that he remained focused on Middle East peace efforts, offering assurances the trip would happen "soon, in the short term."

Last week, Kerry warned that if his efforts to kickstart the peace negotiations, frozen since 2010, fail there may never be another chance.

"We are running out of time. We're running out of possibilities... If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance," Kerry told the American Jewish Community Global Forum.

He has warned leaders on both sides that they now need to take the "tough decisions" to get back to the negotiating table.

In another sign of the difficulties, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Palestinian preconditions made a return to negotiations impossible for Israel.

"To me, the setting of preconditions is an insurmountable obstacle," Netanyahu told the foreign affairs and defense committee.

The Palestinians say they will only return to negotiations if Israel stops building on land they want for their future state and if the Jewish state agrees to negotiate on the basis of the borders that existed before the Six-Day War in 1967.

Israel demands talks "without preconditions" and refuses publicly to freeze settlement building. But Palestinians say the Israeli demands are themselves a precondition.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Netanyahu was trying to paint Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas into a diplomatic corner.

"This is the start of trying to shift responsibility for the non-resumption of negotiations to the president and the Palestinian leadership," he said in an interview.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Benghazi, Libya (UPI) Jun 10, 2013 - The weekend killing of 31 protesters in Benghazi by one of Libya's rogue militias emphasizes how the out-of-control armed groups terrorizing the country are keeping it in turmoil and blocking restoration of its all-important energy industry.

But arguably more dangerous than that is Libya's emergence as a jihadist stronghold, from where attacks are launched against neighboring states like Niger and Algeria, including vital energy targets.

"The continuing insecurity in southern Libya, especially in the vast area bordering Algeria and Niger, is allowing jihadists to operate freely in the wide region where border security is lacking and geography and diverging national interests hamper multilateral cooperation to contain militants," observed the U.S. private intelligence consultancy Stratfor.

"The activity of jihadist groups is not new across the Sahel region, but the lack of security in Libya since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime has given militants greater access to weapons and sanctuary."

Libya is in political chaos, awash in weapons after the 2011 civil war against Gadhafi and the steady growth of jihadist strength in the long-turbulent east and the desert wastes of the lawless south.

But, amid frequent clashes between myriad militias, most of them only nominally under state control, the Tripoli government getting ready to launch a new oil licensing round to boost oil and gas production,

However, there's widespread skepticism the major African producer will be able to pull it off with the heavily armed militias still running wild 18 months after Gadhafi was killed and his quirky, unpredictable 42-year rule came to an end.

Security insiders say jihadists of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, pushed out of Mali by the French-led military intervention launched Jan. 11, have established at least three bases in the desert of southern Libyan.

The bombing of the French Embassy in Tripoli April 23 rammed that home. Other foreign missions in Benghazi, capital of eastern Libya and long a jihadist stronghold that was a thorn in Gadhafi's side, have been attacked.

They include the U.S. Consulate, which was hit Sept. 11, 2012, the anniversary of al-Qaida's 2001 suicide attacks on the United States.

The visiting US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was killed along with three other Americans.

U.S. security officials say they've identified five men who may have participated in the killing of the Americans. All are thought to be members of Ansar al-Sharia, a Libyan jihadist militia whose fighters were seen at the U.S. consulate before it was attacked.

The French Embassy bombing was the first such terrorist strike in Tripoli and diplomats believe it was a reprisal for Paris' decision the day before to extend the military intervention in Mali it launched in January.

There's a cruel irony in this.

AQIM's seizure of northern Mali, as a vast jihadist base, followed a rebellion by Malian Tuareg tribesmen who had fought as mercenaries for Gadhafi then returned with a vast arsenal of weapons plundered from his armories.

It was these weapons, now proliferating across Mediterranean Africa, that ignited the Mali war.

"The Mali War was blowback from the Libya War," observed analyst Walter Russell Mead. "Now we have blowback from the Mali War in Libya."

Diplomats report that jihadists are now trekking across the Sahara Desert to join groups in Benghazi and Derna, another jihadist bastion in eastern Libya, to undermine the dangerously fragile democracy struggling to emerge in Libya.

"Libya's become the headquarters for AQIM," a former Libyan intelligence official said.

The deadly Jan. 16 attack on Algeria's In Amenas gas complex was carried out from southern Libya by an AQIM splinter group, the Those Who Sign In Blood Brigade headed by veteran Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

Then on May 23, coordinated suicide bombings against a French-owned uranium plant and a military base in neighboring Niger killed 36 people, including 10 terrorists.

Another AQIM regional ally, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, claimed responsibility for the attacks in conjunction with Belmokhtar's group.

Niger's government said the attacks were carried out from southern Libya.

Tripoli denies that, but Belmokhtar, a one-eyed veteran of the 1980s Afghan war, is currently operating from there.

The swelling violence, and Libya's lack of security has raised concerns that if the regional crisis deepens, as everyone believes it will, oil and gas installations in Libya and across the region will inevitably be attacked.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Beirut (AFP) June 07, 2013 - The Lebanese army warned on Friday that a plot was afoot to embroil the country in the 26-month conflict in neighbouring Syria, as deadly clashes between Damascus supporters and opponents inside Lebanon multiply.

"The army command... calls on citizens to be wary of plots aimed at taking Lebanon backwards and dragging it into an absurd war," a statement said, adding that it would give an "armed response to any armed action".

"The army command has been trying for several months to work firmly, determinedly and patiently to prevent Lebanon being turned into a battlefield for regional conflicts and to prevent any spillover of the events in Syria," it said.

"But in recent days, some groups have seemed determined to stoke security tensions... against the backdrop of the political divisions in Lebanon over military developments in Syria."

It was the strongest statement from the Lebanese army since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule erupted in March 2011.

It came after the public intervention of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement alongside Assad's troops in the battle for the border town of Qusayr which culminated in its recapture on Wednesday and deepened political divisions.

Sunni communities in Lebanon have been sending arms and fighters to the mainly Sunni rebels inside Syria.

One person was killed and seven wounded in a clash in the heart of Lebanon's second-largest city Tripoli on Thursday in the latest in a spate of deadly violence between Lebanese supporters and opponents of the Damascus regime.

Syria army prepares for Aleppo battle: security source
Damascus (AFP) June 09, 2013 - Syria's army prepared Sunday to launch an assault on Aleppo aimed at driving rebels out of the northern city and surrounding province, a security source told AFP.

The preparations came five days after the army and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah seized Qusayr in centre-west Syria, a year after the strategic region had fallen into rebel hands.

"It is likely the battle for Aleppo will start in the coming hours or days, and its aim is to reclaim the towns and villages (under rebel control) in the province," the source said on condition of anonymity.

"The Syrian Arab army is ready to carry out its mission in this province," the source said, without giving further details.

Analysts say its success in Qusayr has given the army the confidence to try to suppress the insurgency elsewhere in the strife-torn country.

Pro-regime daily Al-Watan said Sunday the army has "started to deploy at a large scale in Aleppo province, in preparation for a battle that will be fought in the city and its outskirts".

Rebels in July 2012 launched a massive assault on Aleppo, once Syria's commercial hub. The city has suffered daily regime bombardment and clashes pitting insurgents against troops.

Al-Watan also said "the Syrian army will take advantage of its experience in Qusayr and Eastern Ghouta (near Damascus) to advance in the (central) province of Hama and Homs" nearby.

"The consequences of the battle for Qusayr will... map out the contours of Syria's political future," the daily added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Friday that the regime was deploying "thousands of soldiers" in the Aleppo region, who aimed to recapture rebel positions and to cut off their weapons supply routes from Turkey.

The Britain-based monitoring group also said Hezbollah had sent "dozens of its cadres to train hundreds of Syrian Shiites in combat".

President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite community is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the majority of rebels are Sunnis.

Activists in Homs, where an army siege of rebel-held areas entered its second year on Sunday, said the city may be next in line for army operations.

"Qusayr was the regime's main focus in the province. Now, we fear they may shift their attention to Homs city," said Yazan, a Homs-based activist who spoke to AFP via the Internet.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Istanbul, Turkey (UPI) Jun 7, 2013 - Europeans are worried Turkey's handling of protests over a minor urban development in Istanbul is damaging the whole EU-NATO peacemaking and security project in Syria.

Turkey has staked its reputation as a non-partisan, non-Arab arbiter of disputes and flare-ups in its neighborhood and as the modern inheritor of the mantle of the old Ottoman Empire.

Arabs tolerated Turkey's role as a mediator and facilitator despite strong reservations about Ottoman rule over their lands before independence or creation of modern Arab states, preferring it to British and French mandates.

But Turkey bared new ambitions during the turmoil in Iraq after the 2003 allied invasion that brought down Saddam Hussein and more recently in Syria, both former colonies of its Ottoman predecessors.

As Syria plunged deeper into strife and thousands of Syrians sought refuge in southeastern Turkey, Ankara could convincingly argue it had a stake in Syria's future.

Europe saw Turkey as a valuable rear guard as it tried to shield itself from political and security fallout from Syria. As the Syrian conflict threatened to spill over into Turkey along with the fleeing multitudes, European defense commanders promptly sent and installed Patriot missile batteries along Turkey's Syrian border.

But it all appeared to be going wrong as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, riding high approval ratings amid what Turks saw as their country's resurgence as a regional power, began to implement a long-cherished Islamization of the country's deeply entrenched secular society.

Last month authorities began shutting down establishments that served alcohol or what Erdogan aides saw as the lewd westernization of society. With his popularity on the rise, Erdogan easily silenced critics who saw his measures as an attempt to recast Turkey after his own Islamist model.

Turks in general are not against some Islamic elements marking day-to-day pursuits and lifestyle that link them to their heritage and tradition, but most draw a line at what they see as going beyond "moderation" -- a term open to heated debate over the decades since Kemal Ataturk ushered in the republic in 1922.

Erdogan is adamant that forces inimical to his rule rather than Turkish masses turned the Istanbul protests into a movement increasingly questioning his legitimacy.

He also shocked European partners by insisting his handling of the protests was mild compared to what EU partners would have done in similar circumstances.

European criticism of Erdogan has been sharp but cautiously coded.

The protests have also demonstrated that, through years of exposure to mainland Europe and yearning for Turkey's eventual entry into the club of nations, Turks are more Europeanized than the ruling party's ideologues.

Most Turks see the government's conduct as indicative of its eastward push rather than a westward reach to Europe and democratic values enshrined in EU rules for letting new members in.

Turkey has been vying for EU entry since 2005 but lags behind almost everyone being considered as part of EU enlargement. The eight new potential entrants are Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Iceland, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

EU Enlargement Minister Stefan Fuele, who was in Istanbul for talks, delivered a public reproach.

"Peaceful demonstrations constitute a legitimate way for groups to express their views in a democratic society," Fuele said.

"Excessive use of force by police against these demonstrations has no place in such a democracy."

The widely publicized chastisement was music to the ears of Erdogan's many foes on the right, left and center of Turkey's volatile political spectrum. The civil strife complicates Turkey's overt support for Syria's armed opposition, based in Istanbul, and a dangerous balancing act with eastern Kurdish factions known to have strong links with armed groups in Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Turkey is a major player in international peacemaking efforts now under way in Syria, involving negotiators from the EU, the United Nations, Russia, the United States and the Arab world.

Erdogan has banked on continued popularity, a robust economy and a strong power base within the political establishment, but his response to the protests threatens to change all that.

Istanbul and the southwestern tourism belt were the worst hit after the protests, with hotels reporting mass cancellations. Turkey's service sector provides the bulk of the national earnings -- up to 63 percent according to latest data.

As the sixth most popular tourism destination in the world, Turkey drew 31 million tourists in 2011. This week the Turkish stock market was reeling under the impact of the protests. Analysts predicted job losses in the service sector, a potent new flashpoint.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Jerusalem (AFP) June 09, 2013 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated his commitment to a Palestinian state, after his deputy defence minister said the government would not support a two-state solution.

Speaking at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu -- who in 2009 declared his support of a two-state solution -- said he and US Secretary of State John Kerry will "try to make progress to find the opening for negotiations with the Palestinians, with the goal of reaching an agreement".

"This agreement will be based on a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises the Jewish state, and on firm security arrangements based on the IDF (Israeli military)," he said.

His remarks came just days after Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, rejected the notion that the government was serious about reaching a peace agreement that would lead to the formation of a Palestinian state.

"There was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution," Danon said in an interview with The Times of Israel news website on Thursday.

If it were put to a vote, "the majority of Likud ministers, along with Jewish Home will be against it," he said, referring to a far-right nationalist faction within the government.

"Today, we are not fighting it, but if there will be a move to promote a two-state solution, you will see forces blocking it within the party and the government," he said.

"Today there is no partner, no negotiations, so it's a discussion. It's more of an academic discussion," he said, adding that Netanyahu "knows that in the near future it's not possible" to create a Palestinian state.

Although Netanyahu made no direct mention of Danon's remarks, which made headlines in the press on Sunday, he stressed the need for unity within his cabinet.

"In order to face these challenges and many others, the government has to function as one unit," he said.

The Palestinians expressed little surprise at Danon's remarks.

"What the Israeli government is doing affirms these statements, and that it is trying to do whatever it can to prevent us from reaching an independent Palestinian state," senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio.

"No-one in the current Israeli government wants the establishment of a Palestinian state, on the contrary, all members of the coalition try to prevent this through practices on ground," he charged.

"Kerry does not have all the time in the world, and I believe he also wants to see results," he said.

"Unfortunately, there is no evidence there have been any changes or developments in the Israeli positions that might lead to the resumption of the negotiations."

Kerry, who last week warned time was running out for a possible peace deal, is due in the region this week for his fifth visit since taking office in February in a bid to revive direct peace talks after a nearly three-year hiatus.

Palestinians say they will resume negotiations only if Israel stops building on land it wants for a future state and if the Jewish state agrees to negotiate on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.

Israel demands talks "without preconditions" and refuses publicly to freeze settlement building.

Yitzhak Herzog, chairman of the opposition Labour party, slammed Danon's remarks as causing "shocking damage" to Kerry's diplomatic efforts.

"The time has arrived for the government to decide what its real position is on this critical issue and that it clarify it to the Israeli people and the international community," he was quoted as saying by Maariv newspaper.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UPI) Jun 7, 2013 - Colombia's defense ministry is alarmed about an exodus of top soldiers to the United Arab Emirates to join a highly paid U.S.-led mercenary force organized by Erik Prince, billionaire founder of the security firm Blackwater.

Prince, who sold Blackwater in 2010 after it was involved in killings and scandals in Iraq, went to Abu Dhabi, capital of the Persian Gulf federation, in 2011.

He signed on to form an 800-man battalion of mercenaries for what emirati officials termed "anti-terrorism operations" inside and outside the country.

But it's widely believed in Gulf security circles the force, being assembled under considerable secrecy by Prince's Reflex Responses registered in the emirates, will be used for undisclosed special operations for the seven desert emirates that make up the federation.

That's expected to include putting down "internal unrest" that might challenge the ruling families, as happened in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, and which is growing in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Reflex Responses force, which is officially described in a contract leaked to the New York Times in 2011 as "independent of formal command and support structures throughout the United Arab Emirates," will have its own air wing, with fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, plus its own private navy.

The naval wing's tasks will primarily be "small boat operations ... maritime interdiction operations and securing oil delivery platforms."

The mercenaries have a custom-built high-security base in the desert where troops live and train.

U.S. military analyst Spencer Ackerman says Prince's new project "might run afoul of U.S. laws prohibiting citizens from training foreign militaries," which requires a government license. The State Department has not said whether Reflex Responses has one.

But it's unlikely that Prince, who sold off Blackwater amid a blizzard of adverse publicity over his men's excesses in Iraq where the company was accused of wantonly killing civilians, would embark on this new project without making sure he wasn't open to legal action, particularly if he found himself having to send troops to fight Muslims seeking sweeping democratic reform from rulers who are U.S. allies.

The Sunni Muslim Arab monarchies of the gulf are increasingly concerned about their future amid the political upheaval and conflict sweeping the Arab world, fueled, they claim, by Shiite Iran.

The emirates currently are trying 94 citizens for sedition and seeking to overthrow the political system. The defendants, including two prominent human rights lawyers, face a possible 15 years in prison.

But the over-riding security threat is widely perceived to be Iran, 100 miles across the gulf and which occupies several islands claimed by the Emirates.

Prince's mercenary force is made up largely of Colombian soldiers, including senior officers and men with a Special Forces background

There are also many veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African security firm that became notorious in the 1990s for suppressing rebellions in mineral-rich African dictatorships and staging coups to gain control of such assets.

EO personnel included many veterans of Britain's Special Air Service and special operations units in South Africa's apartheid-era military.

Prince, an ex-U.S. Navy SEAL, is setting up his new force under a reputed $529 million contract with the royal family of oil-rich Abu Dhabi, the emirates' leader and economic powerhouse. The contract expires in 2015.

Analysts say soldiers from Colombia's 450,000-strong U.S.-trained military are held in high regard in the emirates and other gulf states because of their combat experience fighting leftist guerrillas and because they're not as expensive as Western veterans.

Colombian officials estimate 500 soldiers, including pilots of Black Hawk helicopters widely used in special operations, have gone to join Prince's force, where they earn $3,000 a month against $600 back home.

Bogota has complained to Abu Dhabi to stop hiring its best soldiers, so far without any apparent result.

"These are soldiers with a lot of experience, and it took a great effort to train them," Jorge Bedoya,Colombia's deputy defense minister, told The Financial Times.

The gulf monarchies are used to paying foreigners to do their dirty work. They have traditionally hired foreigners, mainly Pakistanis and Baluchis, to stiffen their armed forces.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Cleveland OH (SPX) Jun 07, 2013 - Combat troops must minimize the humanness of their enemies in order to kill them. They can't be effective fighters if they're distracted by feelings of empathy for opponents. But indifference to the enemy, rather than loathing, may help prevent war crimes and provide troops with a better path back to healthy civilian lives, researchers at Case Western Reserve University propose.

Their hypothesis is based on new work showing how the brain operates when people objectify-that is, think of others as mere objects - or dehumanize, which entails seeing others as disgusting animals.

These two ways of suspending humanity are common. Think of being treated like a number by an insurance company or enduring a boss who deems subordinates incompetent baboons.

"Whether a person objectifies another or views another as a subhuman animal, he suspends his moral concern for that other person," said Anthony Jack, assistant professor of cognitive science at Case Western Reserve and leader of the recently published neuroimaging study.

But how the brain is activated in each case is far different-the key to their premise.

To think of another as an object, people deactivate the empathetic network in their brain, and sometimes also activate the analytical network, depending on the complexity of their thought. This seesawing between the two networks is a natural function of the healthy brain. Jack's earlier research shows the adult brain naturally cycles between the two networks at rest and chooses the appropriate network depending on the task at hand.

To dehumanize another as so animal-like as to evoke disgust causes both networks to become active. But rather than leading to a good mix of empathy and analytics, this kind of thinking is used in anti-social, manipulative behavior and is most closely associated with mental illnesses, from depression to schizophrenia.

But it's easy to do.

"It's built in from infancy, and ranges in intensity from a mild feeling of revulsion when we see people eating something we don't like...," Jack said.

"...Up to utter contempt and the conclusion that it's OK to kill them," said Shannon French, the Inamori Professor of Ethics, associate professor of philosophy at Case Western Reserve and a specialist in military ethics.

Jack and two former Case Western Reserve undergraduate students, Abigail J. Dawson, currently a graduate student at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand and Megan E. Norr, currently at Georgetown and recently accepted to a Clinical Psychology PhD at UC Berkeley, describe the brain's workings in this week's online issue of NeuroImage. Jack and French propose how the findings could be applied to the military in a preprint released of a paper due to appear in the book: Responsibilities to Protect: Different Perspectives, edited by David Whetham, King's College London. The papers can be found here.

Dehumanizing has preceded atrocities throughout history, from the Nazis comparing Jews to rats before systematically murdering them to Tamerlan Tsarnaev saying he didn't understand Americans-that they can't control themselves-before planting a bomb at the Boston Marathon this spring, the researchers said.

"There's a kernel of hope in this," French said, "because it suggests you first have to develop a certain mindset before you can get past the moral reservations we naturally have about killing another human. Killing is harder than some might think."

To learn what happens in the brain when someone dehumanizes another or does the opposite by focusing on the humanity of another, Jack's team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain activity of healthy adults.

The adults, who ranged in age from 19-59 years, were shown photographs with narrations designed to evoke the two recognized types of dehumanizing and humanizing, labeled as mechanistic (objectifying) and animalistic.

A runner who forgot her water bottle and was on all fours drinking from a puddle in the middle of the road evoked animalistic dehumanization, while a narrative of a student who rejected an easy chance to cheat on a hard test evoked animalistic humanization. An accountant who had no contact with others and spent his day working on spreadsheets evoked mechanistic dehumanization, while a basketball player lifting an opponent from the floor after a hard-fought game evoked mechanistic humanization.

While both forms of humanization are marked by sympathy, mechanistic dehumanizing is marked by indifference and animalistic dehumanizing by disgust.

Each image was followed by a text question: "How does this make you feel?" Images that evoked animalistic dehumanization made participants feel the worst, while those that evoked mechanistic humanization made them feel the best.

Looking at overall activity in the brain networks, the fMRIs showed that relative to both forms of humanizing, mechanistic dehumanizing (or objectification) deactivated the social reasoning network while maintaining the same level of analytic reasoning activity. Three more complex stimuli in this category-scientific descriptions explaining a working heart, brain patterns and a psychological phenomenon did take up analytic reasoning resources.

Animalistic dehumanizing produced high levels of activity in both the social and the analytic reasoning network.

"Our evidence shows that objectification frees up mental resources, whereas animalistic dehumanization uses up all our resources, both empathetic and analytic" Jack said.

Objectifying can be useful in everyday life, he explained. "We want surgeons to think of a person as a biological machine that they are cutting into to fix, rather than being distracted by emotions." He continued, "But they also have to switch back to thinking of the person as a human so they have a genuine appreciation of what the patient needs and cares about. Studies show this sort of empathetic connection is also critically important for optimal outcomes."

In the military, "We should train our troops to objectify the enemy for the purposes of combat," French said. "Because we believe this is the only mode that frees their cognitive resources to deal with the strategic and performance demands of intense combat situations." She was quick to add, "However, we also need to counterbalance a powerful psychological tendency to dehumanize the enemy."

"One way we can do that is by training tropps to think analytically in response to specific threats, so they objectify in response to a circumstance rather than a person." Jack explained.

"Another way to limit dehumanizing of the people involved in a conflict is to increase discipline around the issue and also improve cultural understanding," French said. "That is also useful for other strategic purposes, such as peacekeeping and rebuilding."

Americans have been fighting in two wars in which they're at the same time trying to build positive relations with civilians in the conflict regions. This often requires the brains of our troops to switch quickly between analytic and empathetic modes, French said. "And the vast majority of our troops manage this amazingly well."

Dehumanizing the enemy, on the other hand, creates a vicious cycle of hatred that prolongs the conflict and can cause troops to underestimate their enemies through lack of respect.

Indications are strong that those involved in headline-grabbing violations of the rules of war, including jailers mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib, U.S. troops urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters, and Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who admitted to yesterday that he murdered 16 Afghan civilians-mostly women and children- were using animalistic dehumanization.

Not only were the killings and mistreatment morally wrong, they served as a billboard for enemy recruiting efforts, French said. When dehumanization occurs on both sides of a conflict, it can lead to cycles of escalating atrocities.

Even if they don't participate in an atrocity, troops who generate intense disgust and contempt to help them kill will have a harder time readjusting to civilian life after the violence is over, French said.

"It is important for our troops to know that they have fought honorably. But there is no honor in killing subhumans. Those who encourage dehumanization of the enemy are not really acting in the troops' best interest."

Training troops to objectify with language such as "neutralizing threats" and "taking down targets" is less damaging,the researchers contend.

That's not to say that objectifying in order to kill is a free pass to a clear conscience. "We believe only psychopaths can permanently avoid re-examination of their actions from an empathetic perspective," Jack said.

"Objectifying is a necessary but temporary fix. To feel fully human ourselves, we need to be able to reconcile our actions towards our fellow humans. That is easier to achieve if you have objectified in a limited way for a good reason, although it often still requires some readjustment and sorrow. The situation is much harder psychologically if you have descended into hatred and contempt."

Post-conflict reconciliation is vital to veterans. As a recent National Public Radio story reported, even drone pilots, who face no personal danger, often suffer from PTSD and can struggle with reconciling the deaths they caused or viewed through cameras from thousands of miles away.

A core principle in military ethics is that it matters who you kill, and why. Killing can be reconciled as an honorable act of defending against a real threat, whether to one's own life, or to the lives of others you are defending, French said. "This warriors' code is what protects our troops from crossing the line from warrior to murderer and sacrificing their own humanity."

Jack said that more research is needed but that this work suggests they can develop psychological tests to check that troops are battle-ready, "Before we ask them to fight for us in battle," he said, "we need to be sure our troops are ready to switch between the two major networks in the brain just as you and I can do in our much gentler civilian lives."

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Beirut (AFP) June 06, 2013 - Scores of homes in central Syria's Qusayr are razed to the ground, its shops are smashed, and the smell of gunpowder still hangs heavy in the air.

After Syrian troops and Hezbollah took control of the symbolic insurgent bastion on Wednesday, Qusayr has become a ghost town, a witness told AFP.

In the central square, once a hub for the sale of agricultural and industrial products, bulldozers work to clear away the debris.

Smiling soldiers carry flags imprinted with the image of President Bashar al-Assad.

"By our blood and our souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, O Assad," they chant, as some fire shots into the air.

Nearby stand groups of fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement, all armed and in military gear.

But Hezbollah loyalists who joined the army's vast assault on Qusayr are not shown in footage broadcast by Syrian state television or the Lebanese party's Al-Manar channel, the first to arrive on the scene after Qusayr's fall.

The regime forces have taken over a dead town.

The once tall municipality building has been shattered, and on the main square the broken leaves of palm trees point to the ground.

The square's watchtower has survived, but its bodywork is now blackened by flames.

As soon as the army claimed victory, its troops raised the flag over the clock.

A vehicle carrying boxes of food marked "Gift of the Syrian army" drives into Qusayr, followed by a pick-up truck carrying two families.

State television broadcast scenes showing a crowd of men arriving at the square. Viewers were told the footage was of "the return of residents to Qusayr".

Most houses have been damaged by the fighting, and trees have been scythed onto pavements.

Shop windows are smashed and goods have been stolen in a town that was under army siege for a year.

On Qusayr's streets, there is no sign of where the residents' furniture or goods have gone.

Roads have been destroyed by army bombardment, gaping holes in the ground bearing witness to the ferocity of the air raids.

A church in the town is pockmarked with bullets, and a bridge at the entrance of Qusayr has been completely destroyed.

In the town's hospital, there are bloodstains on the floor, as well as cotton and gauze used to treat the wounded.

Hundreds of wounded people were treated there, activists say.

"The injured have been evacuated from Qusayr for the (nearby town of) Eastern Bweida," said one activist near Qusayr who identified himself as Jad al-Yamani.

"Some (rebel) groups took charge of evacuating the wounded, but it was hard.

"They evacuated the wounded on foot, and walked all night. The sun rose, and now some are waiting until nightfall to continue the walk," Yamani told AFP by Internet link.

Even as the rebels and civilians fled, the army bombardments did not cease, said the activist.

The final hours before the army and Hezbollah took complete control of Qusayr were "unbearable", said Yamani.

Insurgent "fighters were torn between being on the front lines and taking care of the women and the injured", he said.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Beirut (AFP) June 06, 2013 - One person was killed and seven others were wounded in a clash in the heart of Tripoli in northern Lebanon on Thursday, a security official told AFP, in the latest in a string of Syria-related incidents.

The army deployed in the souk area, restoring a tense calm four hours after the clash broke out between Salafists who support the revolt in Syria and pro-Damascus fighters, the source said.

Two of the wounded were soldiers, though the identity of the man killed in the firefight in the markets of central Tripoli had not been confirmed, the official said on condition of anonymity.

It was the first battle since 2008 in central Tripoli, although frequent Syria-related violence has raged in other districts.

It comes after some three weeks of sectarian fighting in the flashpoint Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh neighbourhoods, during which around 40 people were killed.

An AFP journalist saw artillery and military vehicles deployed at the entrance to Tripoli, which has seen escalating violence since the March 2011 outbreak of a revolt in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad.

Thursday's battle saw Salafists pitted against members of the Syrian National Socialist Party, which supports the Assad regime.

It came a day after two gunmen, including a Syrian, were killed in a firefight with Lebanese soldiers near Arsal on the border with Syria, the army said.

On Wednesday night, "a group of armed men driving a pick-up truck assaulted and opened fire on a Lebanese army checkpoint in the Wadi Hmeid area near Arsal," the army said, adding that two attackers were killed.

Hours earlier a Syrian army helicopter bombarded areas near Arsal, which is home to a majority Sunni population that supports the revolt against Assad.

The Lebanese army is working to stop the smuggling of weapons and fighters across the border into Syria.

On Wednesday, the strategic Syrian town of Qusayr near the border fell to troops loyal to Assad, including fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

Hours after Qusayr's capture, 10 rockets fired from inside Syria hit the Hezbollah bastion of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, the army said.

President Michel Sleiman on Thursday condemned the violence and called for "a firm and strong response to the sources of fire".

Although Lebanon has officially adopted a position of neutrality in Syria's raging conflict, it is sharply divided.

The Shiite movement Hezbollah backs Assad's regime, with fighters on the ground, while the Sunni-led March 14 bloc supports the revolt.

]]> Wed, 12 JUN 2013 00:51:49 AEST Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Jun 6, 2013 - Israeli forces went on alert early Thursday as fighting broke out on the disputed Golan Heights in southern Syria, where Israel occupies part of the strategic plateau, between Syrian rebels and forces loyal to embattled President Bashar Assad.

The fighting centered on the main crossing point between Syrian territory and the occupation zone on the heights' western flank at Quneitra, the largely abandoned regional capital.

Many of the rebels "are foreign jihadists, many of them Iraqis," said analyst David Nisan who monitors the region for Israel's Max Security Solutions.

"This is the most tense the situation has been since 1973. Even a very tiny provocation could result in a regional deterioration."

Israel has been bracing for serious trouble on the 1973 war armistice line, which divides the Golan, for several weeks since Syrian rebel forces, including jihadist fighters sworn to eradicate the Jewish state, launched a southern offensive to outflank regime forces holding Damascus.

But one of Israel's worst fears is that Assad's key ally, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement from Lebanon, which drove Israeli forces out of south Lebanon in May 2000 to end a 22-year occupation, will launch a "liberation offensive" in the Golan.

Since the end of January, the Israeli air force has mounted three airstrikes against targets in Syria where advanced weapons, reportedly Russian-built SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles and Iranian Fateh 110 surface-to-surface missiles, were being transferred to Hezbollah by the Syrians.

Israel, keen to avoid a clash with Syria, has gotten word to Assad it's not seeking to harm his regime, only Hezbollah.

Syria hasn't retaliated for the airstrikes. Assad doesn't want Israel on his back as he struggles for survival though he has threatened action.

Indeed, in many ways Israel would have been content to leave Assad in power in Damascus.

His regime, and that of his late father, deliberately maintained quiet on the Golan, captured by Israel in 1967, since the 1973 war when Syrian forces came within an ace of driving the Israelis off the volcanic plateau.

Instead, Assad has used Hezbollah to maintain military pressure on Israel from Lebanon.

In July 2006, Hezbollah initiated a 34-day war with Israel that ended in a stalemate, but was seen as a defeat for Israel's mighty military.

Jihadist rebels operating in southern Syria are seen as a possible threat to Israel, most notably the al-Nusra Front, affiliated with al-Qaida, and the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade.

But Hezbollah, heroes of the regime after its Iranian-trained fighters spearheaded the capture of the strategic town of Qusair in western Syria Tuesday, are widely seen as the most serious threat because it represents Tehran's military arm against Israel.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has deployed thousands of fighters to prop up Assad, which meant Arabs fighting other Arabs, and that has not gone down well regionally.

The movement has lost much of the luster it acquired by driving Israel out of Lebanon, then battling it to a standstill in 2006 -- the first Arab organization ever to liberate Arab territory through force of arms.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has found himself facing heavy criticism for aiding a regime that's tormented Lebanon for decades.

But he's sought to get around this by portraying Hezbollah's growing involvement in Assad's war as an extension of the long-running conflict with Israel.

It's questionable whether Arabs at large believe that. Certainly few Lebanese do.

But more ominously for Israel -- and probably for tiny, dangerously vulnerable Lebanon as well -- Nasrallah said in a fiery May 10 speech Hezbollah, armed with advanced Iranian and Syrian weaponry, was being given free rein by Damascus to reignite the long-dormant Golan front.

He said Hezbollah would back "resistance groups" seeking to liberate the Golan while the weapons systems he'd get from Syria would upset the balance of power with Israel.

Portraying the Israeli airstrikes as proof the anti-Assad uprising is an Israeli-led plot, he said: "Syria's ... strategic response is to open the Golan front and to open the door to popular resistance in the Golan."

Israel doesn't particularly want a fight while a bigger crisis is brewing in Syria and Iran threatens the Jewish state.

It is hoping Hezbollah is too preoccupied saving Assad's hide to launch a new war.

The problem is Nasrallah, wily operator though he is, may have talked himself into crossing swords with Israel again.

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