WarSclerotic

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Enemy vessels Gaza blockade Hizballah Lebanese PM Hariri

The stop-go Lebanese Julia

Ominous clouds gathered over the Mediterranean Thursday, June 24 after Israel announced that ships bound for Gaza would be deemed “enemy vessels” and halted by its navy by whatever means were necessary. Hizballah shot back with a threat of violent retaliation, while Israel’s northern commander warned that the IDF was prepared to deal with threats from Lebanon by “appropriate means.”

With two ships, one Lebanese and one Iranian, already at sea, the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was reported by debkafile‘s intelligence sources as coupling his public support for the sea campaign to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza with a quiet bid to stall it.

He privately asked Cypriot President Demetris Christofias, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and the Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to deny Lebanese ships bound for Gaza permission to drop anchor, refuel or load provisions at their ports, in order to prevent them from proceeding to Gaza.
Hariri explained that he feared the flotilla campaign to break the Israeli blockade would precipitate a new Middle East war.

Last week, the freighter “Julia,” docked at the North Lebanese port of Tripoli was denied permission to head to Gaza Port. Refusing to be put off, the activists decided to sail first to Cyprus and then head for Gaza. Permission was granted by the Lebanese Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi Wednesday, June 23.
On Thursday, June 24, Israel repeated its warning that ships trying to breach its blockade against the Gaza Strip would be deemed “enemy vessels.” The Israeli Navy has been instructed to employ every available means to bar their access to Gaza’s shore. Israel OC Northern Command Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said: “The Lebanese side is issuing threats against Israel and we are confident that the Israeli army is preparing to confront these threats in an appropriate manner.”
He was referring to Hizballah’s announcement: “We will not stand by idly if Israel attacks ships bound for Gaza. Detainees taken into Israeli custody (aboard those vessels) will be deemed prisoners of war who must be released.
As the climate over the Mediterranean heats up, two ships are either at sea or hours away from embarkation – the Julia from Lebanon and an Iranian ship, which is said to be making for the Suez Canal from the Persian Gulf port of Khorramshahr.
In his calls to the Greek, Turkish, Cypriot and Maltese leaders, the Lebanese prime minister admitted that the embarkation of the pro-Palestinian vessels from his ports violates US Resolution 1701 enforcing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire which ended the 2006 war, but he was helpless to stop them because they were backed by powerful elements. Hariri did not say who they were, but  they were understood to be Syria and Hizballah.
He stressed that more urgent issues confronted Beirut than the Gaza blockade, such as the Shaaba Farms on the Hermon slopes, which he said, “Hizballah only talks about liberating but has not fired a single shell.” Hariri made it clear that by sponsoring the ships for Gaza, Hizballah is bringing Lebanon dangerously close to a clash with Israel.
Unlike the May 31 episode, when the activists who resisted Israel’s raid of a Turkish ship to prevent if from reaching Gaza were unknown quantities, this time, on Thursday, Israeli intelligence sources released the identities of the ships’ owners and the organizations mounting the expeditions.
The Lebanese “Julia” belongs to a Syrian shipping firm headed by a cousin of President Bashar Assad, who made it available to Hizballah for the challenge to Israel. The Lebanese flotilla effort is funded by a Palestinian by the name of Yasser Kashlak who, posing as a wealthy businessman, serves as Tehran’s secret channel for remitting funds to Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
Therefore, Israel’s designation of these ships and those of Iran as enemy vessels meets the case.
From Washington, debkafile reports that when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on June 22, he voiced extreme concern about the Lebanese Prime Minister’s inability to rein in Hizballah. Because of this, the situation in the region could rapidly deteriorate, said Barak.

Right after the meeting, the US issued a statement about the “aid” flotillas saying, “Direct delivery by sea is neither appropriate nor responsible, and certainly not effective, under the circumstances. There is no need for unnecessary confrontations, and we, along with our partners in the Quartet, call on all parties to act responsibly in meeting the needs of the people of Gaza.”

Hizbollah is playing a dirty game with Israel over the Gaza blockade – Telegraph Blogs.

Experts: Ofek 9 will detect Iranian activity – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Following successful launch of spy satellite, chairman of Israel Space Agency tells Ynet no country will be able to conduct secret operations in Middle East Aviel Magnezi

Aviel Magnezi

Where’s Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ on Iran?.

Acataclysmic concern has been dominating both the minds of world leaders and media airtime in recent months. Politicians and pundits have bombarded us with assessments, statements and catchphrases.

But through all the rhetoric, a key question is yet to be answered: Is the US truly committed to preventing Iran from reaching nuclear weapon capabilities? The answer is unfortunately unclear, for we hear contradictory tones from Washington. On some days, officials defiantly state “no option is off the table” or call for sanctions, using words like “tougher” and “crippling” to emphasize their intent. On other days, we hear the Obama administration make reference to “containment,” an alarming word that implies the US will not or cannot prevent Iran from its path to the bomb.

Through all this, one major element has been missing from President Barack Obama’s personal rhetoric: a clear declaration that the US is determined to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The lingering question is whether the absence of such points is due to poor communication, or perhaps to a lack of American vision in solving the Iranian time bomb.

AFTER THE UN approved another round of sanctions against Iran last week, the Obama administration cried victory. However, we once again heard no clear announcement that the US is determined to keep Iran from going nuclear.

While sanctions are certainly important, we have yet to see whether the latest round is an isolated victory with no clear end goal, or whether it fits into a larger American strategy of determination in stopping Iran.

If the latter is true, then why did Obama not accompany the resolution with a strong statement declaring his intention to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities? We are left to wonder whether the recent US-led UN sanctions package is a hollow promise without real expectations of achieving this goal. Could it simply have been a method to better prepare for some future commission tasked with investigating why the US and the rest of the world failed to stop Iran and why a strike back against Teheran following an Iranian attack was legitimate? Iran is at a nuclear crossroads and the world absolutely cannot adopt a policy of containment. With apocalyptic leaders who have voiced clear deadly and vicious intentions against the West, Iran must be stopped. An evil regime with violent intentions must never gain access to such devastating weapons.

A radical anti-democratic regime that builds itself up on a megalomaniac vision at the cost of other nations arises once in a generation. Such was the case with the German Nazi regime during the 1930s.

Undoubtedly, the leadership in place to confront Nazi Europe in the 1930s and 1940s was quite unique. The fact that the United States, the United Kingdom and the former Soviet Union came together to fight the threat can be seen as a coincidence, or as divine intervention.

The challenge facing Barack Obama and other leaders of free nations is reminiscent of the challenge facing the world in the 1930s, a challenge with which then UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain and others failed to handle.

We need a leadership of the same caliber today, one that is smart and daring, to bring back sanity to our world Hence, when leaders failed at this task in the past, we found ourselves in the midst of bloody wars that lasted for years and changed the face of history. These brought forth the development and use of new weapons of mass destruction.

The opportunity, and challenge, has now been stowed upon US President Barak Obama to be on guard, and during his “shift,” the “sane” world will have to decide on the destiny of the destructive nuclear weapon that a dangerous country that has the most lethal statements wants to acquire – Iran.

If Iran were to start producing a nuclear bomb, the result would end with environmental contamination and the death of hundreds of marine and wildlife creatures and habitats, like the outcome, so far, of an unprecedented, disastrous oil spill. It would end with the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings, in addition to a disastrous radioactive contamination.

The cement on the Iranian “oil well” must be in place before drilling and prior to that we all hope to hear the president say the inevitable statement: Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons! The road from here is clear: The US can either stop Iran through preventive measures or it can wait until the regime has passed the nuclear threshold.

At that point, the only protection against potential mass catastrophe would be a policy of containment, a clearly unacceptable policy. The best defense is always a proactive one, not reactive, or as the famous Arabic proverb says, “Before he has you for dinner, have him for lunch”.

Fortunately, we know that the goal is achievable. Iran can still be stopped. It is not too late. It is time for Obama to step up and provide the strong leadership that is needed to stop Iran. The day has come for the leader of the free world to finally state unequivocally that he is determined and ready to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The writer is a Kadima MK and a former head of the Shin Bet.

Focus U.S.A. / ‘The U.S. will have to confront Iran or give up the Middle East’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Amitai Etzioni, professor of International Relations at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., believes the only option available to contain Iran’s atomic ambitions is a series of assaults on its non-nuclear facilities.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

Amitai Etzioni, professor of International Relations at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., believes the only option available to contain Iran’s atomic ambitions is a series of assaults on its non-nuclear facilities. He maintains that President Obama’s attempts at dialogue have failed, and drastic steps must be taken to prevent the U.S. losing its Middle East dominance to Tehran.

Writing in the U.S. Army’s “Military Review” journal, Etzioni lists four possible responses to Iran’s nuclear program – engagement, sanctions, military strikes and deterrence. He concludes that engagement has failed, sanctions are not likely to work, military strikes on Iran’s suspected nuclear sites are unlikely to be effective either and might only delay the program (Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes this would probably be by one to three years), and deterrence works with rational actors, but it’s a gamble to rely on it with non-rational actors. This, he hypothesizes, leaves strikes on Iranian infrastructure that is not necessarily related to its nuclear program.

Speaking to Haaretz on Wednesday, Etzioni concedes that such a move could be interpreted by Iran as a declaration of full-scale war.

“That’s a fair point,” he says, “but what’s the alternative? The best way will be to sit at the table and solve all our problems peacefully. I was in war, I was in the Palmach [the pre-state Jewish fighting units that became the basis for the Israel Defense Forces], and I don’t like shooting anybody. It comes to the declaration that there are no other alternatives. Sanctions are not going to work, everybody knows that. Assuming that if they have nuclear weapons we are going to contain them – it’s a very risky assumption.”

This option is not mentioned in the mainstream discourse.

“But it was published in the official U.S. army publication as a cover story. It says something, no? It’s not simply what a professor says. I agree that the White House is far from it, but somebody considered it worth discussing. You must assume that the military option covers several options”.

One of the strategic assets of Israel today vis-à-vis Iran is the fact that the Arab countries are on its side. Wouldn’t that vanish in the event of such an attack?

“We do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon and there is no way you can damage nuclear sites sufficiently by attacking them. There is only one alternative left. I should hasten to add – it’s not a policy Israel has to follow, it’s a policy the U.S. can follow because there are too many missions involved. Some people say Israel should do it and then the U.S. can enter under the excuse that it’s its ally, and some people think coalition is better. Coalition is always better, but in this case it’s very unlikely that many other nations would like to join the Administration.

	Professor of International Relations Amitai Etzioni

What’s happening in the Middle East is that the countries are assuming that the U.S. is going to fold and retreat. It’s obviously going to get out of Iraq. The Pakistanis are very suspicious of the US commitments. Syria is moving toward Iran, Turkey is moving toward Iran. So the underlying text in the Middle East is that the next superpower in the Middle East is Iran. So even if you for a moment put aside the nuclear issue – to keep the U.S. credibility to protects its resources and oil, the issue will not be settled in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will finally come down to the confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. So maybe the U.S. should get out of Afghanistan, because it’s not the real war anymore. But if the U.S. is going to let Iran to become a nuclear power – all the other countries, including the Sunni ones, will run to it. The U.S. will have to confront Iran or give up the Middle East”.

So the hope that the Iranian opposition might still bring an inner change is lost?

“I think by now the tyrannical regime succeeded in suppressing the opposition. And another point – I was their guest in Iran in 2002, of the Center for Dialogue Among Civilizations. And I met many leaders in this movement. They were the first to start the nuclear program. They are against religious domination, but there is not a slightest hint that they will stop the nuclear program if they come back to power. Democracy might be wonderful, but even though they are anti-clerical, they are very nationalistic.”

We have the cliché that the clock is ticking. What kind of timetable did you assume while writing this article?

“I don’t have any other information than everybody else has. But there is a rule in decision making – it’s extremely simplistic but very true – it’s better be safe than sorry. So if the option is to hit them one month too early or 10 days after they have a nuclear weapon – I’d rather take the first option. And obviously there is not much time left”.

President Obama offered to the world dialogue as a new paradigm, wouldn’t it shatter this premise?

“The time for engagement has run out. Obama tried it, offered to meet them any time, any place, with no conditions – and they spit in his face. So it’s not going anyplace, it’s not working. The Arab world is moving away from him, Turkey is moving away from him. The notion of engagement and turning another cheek is a wonderful idea, it’s just not working.”

But the damage of throwing it away after a year and a half might cause more damage and erase any credibility left. Then going back to torture sounds fine as well.

“It’s a good point. They should never torture and of course they shouldn’t go back to business as usual. But you cannot conduct international relations [on] goodwill only. And Iran is a very good test of that. Maybe 50 years from now this strategy will win, but in the short term it’s giving up on the Middle East. The U.S. army is exhausted and overstretched, that’s why I think they should get out of Afghanistan. And second, I think it’s an air force job and not an army job. There should be no boots on the ground”.

That’s what the Israeli high command thought at the beginning of the second war in Lebanon – that they could bomb some strategic sites and Hezbollah would fold. It didn’t happen.

“True, there are many studies showing that the air attacks are not as effective as people think they are. But we always come back to the question – if we might try and fail, should we not try? We are talking about the U.S. credibility as an international power. People might think: Iran is not going to attack the U.S., so let them create the bomb and if they get nasty we will drop a nuclear bomb on them. That is a logical position. But you cannot remain in the Middle East as a superpower unless you deal with Iran one way or another.”

Report: IAF aircraft land at Saudi base – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Islam Times says Israeli jets unloaded military equipment in Islamic country ahead of possible Iran strike

Dudi Cohen

The Next Lebanon War – by Lee Smith > Tablet Magazine – A New Read on Jewish Life.

A Lebanon-Israel conflict is a matter of when, not if, and the United States has an interest in the outcome

By Lee Smith | Jun 23, 2010 7:00 AM | Print | Email / Share

Israeli forces prepare to cross into Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War in August 2006.

Shaul Schwarz/Getty Images

In Washington the assumption is that it’s only a matter of time before Israel and Hezbollah will be at war again. But what’s worse is that, according to policymakers and analysts I’ve spoken to, the United States is sharply opposed to Israel finishing the work it failed to get done in its two previous Lebanon wars (1982-2000; 2006). This isn’t just because the Obama Administration wants to keep things cool in the region to allow for relatively peaceful U.S. withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan and to keep terrorists off the streets of U.S. cities. The more disturbing reason is that Israel is no longer trusted to do the job right.

Once regarded as a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Eastern Mediterranean, Israel is now perceived, correctly or not, as a strategic liability. Before the flotilla incident last month—an event that, yet again, earned Israel the opprobrium of the international community—there was the Gaza war in the winter of 2008 to 2009, an inconclusive battle that ended with Hamas still in control and with the Israelis ultimately having to face the Goldstone Report. In July 2006 there was the Second Lebanon War, popularly understood as a Hezbollah victory—or as its Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, describes it, a divine victory. But perhaps Israel’s largest strategic blunder was its 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon. Even while Defense Minister Ehud Barak continues to defend the decision he made as prime minister, the facts are clear: Israel abandoned its ally in the South Lebanese Army, made its citizens vulnerable to Hezbollah rockets, and effectively rewarded terrorism as a negotiating tool. Now Hezbollah has 40,000 missiles and rockets.

It is peculiar that most U.S. policymakers and bureaucrats do not believe that the United States has an interest in pushing back against an Iranian asset in the Eastern Mediterranean and going after a terrorist group that operates inside U.S. borders. But the fact is that if Israel has become a strategic liability, U.S. policymakers—from the Clinton Administration through the Bush and Obama Administrations—have helped make it one, forcing Jerusalem to accommodate terrorists and the states that support them, thereby putting our own interests and citizens under fire. Now, instead of asking how we can ensure that our ally wins its next war with the Shia militia, the question in Washington’s halls of power, its think tanks, and dining rooms is: How do we deter Israel from going to war against Hezbollah?

It seems they can’t. Perhaps the Syrians will cross another red line by sending advanced weapons across the border with Lebanon, maybe war will be in response to an Israeli attack on Hezbollah’s sponsor in Tehran, or maybe the casus belli will be another mishap in the wake of another freedom flotilla or a Hezbollah assassination of an Israel official. One likely excuse for Hezbollah’s next war against Israel is the discovery of sizable liquefied natural gas deposits off of Israel’s coast. Alongside the Tamar and Dalit fields, the recently discovered Leviathan field will make Israel a net exporter of energy. Since the fields are adjacent to Lebanon’s territorial waters, the Lebanese are already clamoring that the Israelis have stolen their resources.

“If Lebanon needed to pile up hundreds, thousands of rockets to protect our sovereignty, dignity, and hydraulic resources, then the need to protect our hydrocarbon assets motivates us to enhance the Resistance’s capacities,” says Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s executive council and a cousin to Secretary General Nasrallah. The idea that the United States should get Israel to relinquish its claims on the Shebaa Farms, an insignificant piece of land in the Golan Heights that the Shia militia uses as a cause to justify maintaining tens of thousands of rockets and other offensive weapons, is now off the table for the good. The LNG fields are Shebaa on steroids, and no one can afford to fool themselves that Hezbollah will ever willingly disarm.

Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Druze clan, understands both the logic of Hezbollah’s eternal resistance and the reluctance of Washington and Europe to confront it, which is why the former hero of Lebanon’s pro-democracy movement has jumped sides. Jumblatt is certain that there will be a renewal of hostilities. He assumes that as Israel pushes into Lebanon and drives the resistance northward, his fiefdom in the Shouf Mountains will be flooded with Hezbollah fighters. And so the man whose Druze community fought the Party of God to a standstill in May 2008 while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing now says: “The arms of the Resistance are crucial for defending Lebanon’s offshore petroleum resources.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is also convinced that war with Israel is inevitable. His patrons in Saudi Arabia convinced him to make his peace with Damascus, because Riyadh calculates that an Israeli attack on Iran and Hezbollah will reshuffle the deck at which time Hariri can put his house in order. The Israelis say that they will hold the Lebanese government responsible for Hezbollah’s actions and make the whole country pay, but they might as well blame Harry Potter’s magic wand, for the source of the problem is in Damascus and Tehran. Still, it is foolish for Hariri to side openly with the resistance, as he has, even as he imagines his governing partners in Hezbollah do not recognize that he is going from one Western capital to another asking the Europeans and Americans to tell the Israelis to target Hezbollah and leave the rest of Lebanon alone.

Hariri has staked the future of his country on the clarifying violence of war, a conflict waged on his behalf by an enemy state against a domestic enemy that has taken over Lebanon. But what if there is no war? After all, Hezbollah doesn’t want war right now; it can’t afford another conflict like 2006. To be sure, Nasrallah’s management of what he calls the divine victory counts as one of the most brilliant campaigns in the history of information warfare. A man bunkered for the rest of his life has convinced the world that he won while his wardens lost.

But of course, Lebanon’s Shia are like all other men—they bleed and die and know when they have been decimated. For instance, during Israel’s war with Gaza in the winter of 2008 to 2009, when a small quiver of rockets was fired against Israel from southern Lebanon, Shia left their homes in droves fearing Israeli retaliation. The Lebanese government was incapable of processing all the passport requests from southerners who wanted to leave the country and remove the targets from their heads for good. In spite of the quasi-hysterical pitch of Hezbollah’s rhetoric over the last few months, they will be careful about starting a war that may turn the Shia community of the south into permanent refugees.

As for Hezbollah’s sponsor in Tehran, the question is how the Islamic Republic conceives of its nuclear program. If a bomb is the regime’s grand prize and the historical patrimony of the Persian nation, then Tehran has no choice but to unleash Hezbollah in retaliation should the Israelis, or the United States, strike. However, if the Iranians conceive of the bomb as just one asset among others in the regime’s arsenal, then it may pause before spending Hezbollah, another expensive investment, at a moment when Israel’s response is likely to be particularly fierce.

Regardless of how Israel’s enemies game it out, sooner rather than later, Jerusalem is going to have to make war on Hezbollah, because the United States is withdrawing from the region, Israel is getting weaker, and its enemies are getting stronger. The only way to ratify or challenge a new balance of forces in the region is through war. Someone will miscalculate or decide that war serves their interests or both.

In the next round, says Nasrallah, Israeli ships will be targeted. In the next round, says Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the war will be widened and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his “family will lose power.” As the rhetoric becomes more expansive, strategic aims will shift. For instance, if Israeli ground forces cannot destroy the long-range missiles that Hezbollah has hidden under schools and hospitals in order to deter pre-emptive Israeli air strikes for fear of civilian casualties and Hezbollah fires on Israeli cities, then the rules will change.

Maybe Saad Hariri is right—that the cancer of Hezbollah can be excised and Lebanon will survive the operation. Or perhaps Lebanon at this point is no longer a country but merely a human shield, captive to Hezbollah and its own inability to imagine the limits of its mortality. In this regard, the Lebanese responses to the Gaza incident last month have been especially poignant. The organizer of the women’s “Freedom Flotilla,” scheduled to leave from the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli this week, is the wife of one of the Lebanese generals allegedly responsible for the murder of Saad’s father, Rafik Hariri, believed to have been killed on the orders of Bashar al-Assad. In other words, the inhabitants of an entity whose public officials murder each other for the benefit of foreign powers have censured a state that protects its citizens by controlling its borders.

Liquefied natural gas deposits have also been found in Lebanese territorial waters, which while not as large as Israel’s would go a long way to building up the finances of one of the world’s most indebted states. And yet for all the talent that the Lebanese have for doing business even under the worst of circumstances, those fields will never be developed. The equipment alone is too costly, the investment too dear to hazard on a state run by a terror organization working at the behest of two foreign powers.

In the end, this is why Israel will have to go to war once again. The issue is not merely in rolling back Iranian influence and disabling a terrorist organization whose tentacles reach U.S. shores. Rather, it is a conflict pitting two worldviews against each other, a conflict that has nothing to do with any putative war between the West and Islam, but with two differing forms of social and political organization. On one hand, there is a state with its attendant institutions that embody several thousand years’ worth of the principles and ideals that led to political modernity. On the other hand, there is the primordial chaos of tribal competition throughout a region where violence and obscurantism rule, where “national interest” is a euphemism for the bloody work that security services employ against their countrymen to keep tyrants in power. The United States has an interest in that war coming out right.

Report: Israel Air Force Planes Land in Saudi Arabian Military Base, Unload Military Equipment | Jewish News.

Posted by RafiF on Jun 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Israeli Air Force C130 Hercules

The report published today at the Israeli Globes, whose reliability is not clear, joins another report of American warships crossing the Suez Canal last Friday. Ten days ago, the Iranian News Agency reported a concentration of Israeli and American forces in Azerbaijan.

The Iranian News Agency is reporting on IDF activity on Saudi Arabian soil. According to the report, whose reliability remains unclear, Israel Air Force planes have been landing at a Saudi Arabian military base in the last few days to unload military equipment. According to the Iranian agency, the base in the city of Tabuk will become Israel’s front base for attacking Islamic countries.

The report, that came from the Iranian News Agency Fars, quotes an Islamic website that reported Israeli plans landing in the city of Tabuk, in northwest Saudi Arabia. According to the Iranians, the one responsible for Tabuk and directing its cooperation with Israel is Prince Fahd bin-Sultan. “The secret relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have become the talk of the town among Tabuk’s residents,” the Agency reported.

Also according to the report, at the time of the landing, civilian flights in the area were cancelled. A passenger on one of the flights recounted that no one provided an explanation for the cancellation, and noted that the authorities provided the passengers with financial compensation, and even put them up at four star hotels.

Some days ago: Reports on American Warships in the Persian Gulf

The reports on the Israeli planes’ landing come along with reports emerging last weekend about unusual American military activity in the area of the Persian Gulf. The London Based Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper reported on the movement of large US Army forces across the Persian Gulf which took place 24 hours beforehand in the afternoon.

According to the report, 12 American warships crossed the Suez Canal last Friday on their way to the Persian Gulf via the Mediterranean Sea. Eyewitnesses even told the paper that the naval convoy also included an American aircraft carrier.

It was also relayed that during the time the ships were crossing the Suez, civilian boat traffic was halted and Egyptian police were stationed on the canal’s banks to secure their passage. According to additional reports, along with American military forces, eye witnesses identified an Israeli warship escorted by the convoy.

Evil will Come from the North for Iran?

On the 16^th of June, the Iranian Press TV Agency reported that the Revolutionary Guards have moved military forces to the northeastern Iranian border, since they suspect a concentration of Israeli and American forces in Azerbaijan near the Iranian border there.

According to the report, the Revolutionary Guards fear a combined American-Israeli attack on Iran which may also come from the border with Azerbaijan. The report bases itself on statements made by General Mahdi Mo’ini of the Revolutionary Guards, who said that America and Israel are concentrating military forces in western Azerbaijan.

Reports: IAF Landed at Saudi Base, US Troops near Iran Border – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Azerbaijan Iranian war preparations US-Israel

Iran’s land forces on the ready

In a rare move, Iran has declared a state of war on its northwestern border, debkafile‘s military and Iranian sources report. Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps men and equipment units are being massed in the Caspian Sea region against what Tehran claims are US and Israeli forces concentrated on army and air bases in Azerbaijan ready to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The announcement came on Tuesday, June 22 from Brig.-Gen Mehdi Moini of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), commander of the forces tasked with “repelling” this American-Israeli offensive. He said: “The mobilization is due to the presence of American and Israeli forces on the western border,” adding, “Reinforcements are being dispatched to West Azerbaijan Province because some western countries are fueling ethnic conflicts to destabilize the situation in the region.”

In the past, Iranian officials have spoken of US and Israel attacks in general terms. debkafile‘s Iranian sources note that this is the first time that a specific location was mentioned and large reinforcements dispatched to give the threat substance.

Other Iranian sources report that in the last few days, Israel has secretly transferred a large number of bomber jets to bases in Azerbaijan, via Georgia, and that American special forces are also concentrated in Azerbaijan in preparation for a strike.

No comment has come from Azerbaijan about any of these reports. Iranian Azerbaijan, the destination of the Revolutionary Guards forces reinforcements, borders on Turkey, Iraq and Armenia. Witnesses say long IRGC convoys of tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft units and infantry are seen heading up the main highways to Azerbaijan and then further north to the Caspian Sea.

On Tuesday, June 22, Dr. Uzi Arad, head of Israel’s National Security Council and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest adviser, said “The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran is inadequate for thwarting its nuclear progress. A preemptive military strike might eventually be necessary.”

debkafile‘s intelligence and Iranian sources point to three other developments as setting off Iran’s war alert:
1.  A certain (limited) reinforcement of American and Israeli forces has taken place in Azerbaijan. Neither Washington nor Jerusalem has ever acknowledged a military presence in this country that borders on Iran, but Western intelligence sources say that both keep a wary eye on the goings-on inside Iran from electronic surveillance bases in that country.
2.  Iran feels moved to respond to certain US steps: The arrival of the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea and its war games with France and Israel, which included live-fire bombing practices against targets in Iran.
3.   The execution of Abdolmalek Rigi, head of the Sunni Baluchi rebel organization (including the Iranian Baluchis), on June 20 was intended as a deterrent for Iran’s other minorities. Instead, they are more restive than ever. Several Azeri breakaway movements operate in Iranian Azerbaijan in combination with their brethren across the border. Tehran decided a substantial buildup in the province would serve as a timely measure against possible upheavals.