WarSclerotic

Report from Congressional panel says Iran’s Revolutionary Guard helps Al-Qaeda.

Al Arabiya

Thursday, 05 May 2011

The Congressional report pointed out to strong links between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps force and Al-Qaeda. (File photo)

Israel finalizes purchase of sixth German-made submarine – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Price negotiations had balked last year when Berlin, beset by budgetary constraints, would not sell the submarine with the deep discount provided for the first three vessels of the Dolphin fleet.

By Reuters

Israel has finalized the purchase of a sixth submarine from Germany, with payment to be spread over several years, an Israeli official said on Thursday.

The proposed expansion of the diesel-powered Dolphin submarine fleet, considered Israel’s vanguard against foes like Iran, had been held up by wrangling with Berlin over the $500 million to $700 million price tag.

	One of the navy’s Dolphin submarines off the Israeli coast in 2008.
	Photo by: Tomer Appelbaum

Israel currently operates three Dolphins and has two more on order from Germany with delivery expected in the next two years.

Dedicated to the security of the Jewish state founded in the wake of the Holocaust, Germany had sold those submarines at deep discounts. But Berlin, beset by budgetary constraints, balked in talks last year at similarly underwriting the sixth Dolphin.

“It’s finalized – we will be getting another submarine from Germany, with payments spread over several years,” an Israeli official briefed on the negotiations said.

The official did not immediately say how much the Dolphin would cost Israel or whether Germany would arrange a discount.

The spokeswoman for the German embassy did not immediately return a call for comment. The Dolphins are manufactured by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW), which is owned by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.

Political turbulence in the Middle East and Iran’s nuclear program have led Israel to float higher defense spending, which may have allowed it to absorb more of Dolphin’s price.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, has been sympathetic to his regional concerns and championed international diplomatic campaigns to rein in Tehran.

But Berlin has in the past heard misgivings from German opposition parties about exporting weapons to crisis areas. Israel is reputed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, including submarine-fired nuclear missiles.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 5, 2011, 12:03 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israel keeps close watch on Syrian turbulence

Thursday, May 5, Israel augmented the units deployed on its border with Syria and the intersection of the Israel-Syria-Jordan frontiers in the Har Dov area against the spate of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in flight from President Bashar Assad’s bloody crackdown in Damascus and the Daraa region. The UN force on the Golan Heights – UNDOF – is likewise beefing up the contingents policing Israeli-Syrian ceasefire lines.

debkafile‘s military sources report the IDF has set up new lookout posts and is conducting aerial have been surveillance to keep track of movements across the border.  Special units with riot gear are posted on the Golan in since Wednesday.
Three developments led Israel to place its border contingents on a high state of preparedness, according to our military sources:
1. Israeli intelligence estimates that this coming Friday and Saturday, Assad will concentrate his harshest measures on rebel centers in Damascus and the Horon towns close to the Israeli border of which Daraa is the center.

Wednesday, large concentrations of Syrian forces with about 70 personnel carriers and 30 tanks took up position around Damascus. Thursday, they were reported raiding suburban homes and making dozens of arrests.

2. Word has been received that on Friday, Syrian security forces will move into Quneitra in the Syrian sector of Golan to back up Assad’s crackdown in Horon. They would be easily visible from the villages and towns of the Israeli sector.

The Syrian president is quoted as informing a meeting of ruling Baath activists Tuesday, May 3 that he is close to finishing off the Daraa revolt. The violence entailed in this operation would take place very close to the Israeli border. The IDF’s Northern Command responded by making preparations to keep it sealed.
debkafile‘s sources say that many of the protesters in and around Damascus hail from the Golan. In flight from Assad’s guns, they are beginning to return to their native region. It is feared that if Syrian government persecution continues, they may try and cross into Israel.

3.  Other large groups were turned away by Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, which closed their borders against refugees last month. They too are now heading for the Israel border in search of temporary shelter.

Shin Bet: Critical infrastructure targeted by cyber-warfare.

Photo by: Courtesy

By YAAKOV KATZ 
05/05/2011 03:58

“There are fingerprints and tracks that maybe there were attempts, and they were treated,” Shin Bet chief Diskin says.

  Israel has detected what appears to have been attempts to use cyber-warfare to attack critical state infrastructure, outgoing Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin said on Wednesday.

Speaking to military reporters ahead of his scheduled retirement later this month, Diskin said that the Shin Bet, which is responsible for defending state infrastructure – including the water system and electrical grid from cyber attacks – has detected “fingerprints” and “tracks” of attempted attacks.

“All over the world, including in Israel, there are cyber attacks,” Diskin said. “We can’t say for certain the attacks were against critical infrastructure, but there are fingerprints and tracks that maybe there were attempts, and they were treated.”

The Shin Bet, Diskin said, recently completed a major review of its technological and cyber capabilities, and has outlined a multi-year plan that will be implemented in the coming months by his successor Yoram Cohen, his former deputy.

“Israel needs to grow in this field since this is something that is happening today already – and is not waiting for tomorrow,” he said. “This is a threat that is already knocking on our door.”

The IDF recently organized its cyber capabilities by establishing a special division under the Military Intelligence’s signal intelligence unit 8200, which is responsible for cyber-warfare.

It has also reinforced its defensive capabilities, aimed at protecting military communication networks, which sits under the C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence) Directorate.

Israel’s cyber capabilities are presumed to be some of the most advanced in the world, and 8200 is suspected of developing the Stuxnet worm, which attacked Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility last year, reportedly causing extensive damage.

Barak to Haaretz: Iran won’t drop nuclear bomb on Israel – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News..

Though the Iranian government seems to have largely eluded the wave of revolutions in the Arab world, the defense minister thinks it too could collapse.

By Gidi Weitz

If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons, it is unlikely to bomb Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Haaretz in an Independence Day interview.

Barak said Israel should not spread public panic about the Iranian nuclear program − a position that seems to put him out of step with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has repeatedly compared the Iranian push to develop a nuclear bomb to the Third Reich’s development of increasingly sophisticated weapons.

	Defense Minister Ehud Barak on March 24, 2011
	Photo by: AP

When asked whether he thinks Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on Israel, Barak said: “Not on us and not on any other neighbor.”

“I don’t think in terms of panic,” he said. “What about Pakistan, some political meltdown happens there and four bombs wind up in Iran. So what? So you head for the airport? You close down the country? Just because they got a shortcut? No. We are still the most powerful in the Middle East.”

All the same, Barak said Iranian rulers could not be relied upon to remain clearheaded.

“I don’t think that anyone can say responsibly that these ayatollahs, if they have nuclear weapons, are something you can rely on, like the Politburo or the Pentagon,” he said. “It’s not the same thing. I don’t think they will do anything so long as they are in complete control of their senses, but to say that somebody really knows and understands what will happen with such a leadership sitting in a bunker in Tehran and thinking that it’s going to fall in a few days and it is capable of doing it? I don’t know what it would do.”

Though the Iranian government seems to have largely eluded the wave of revolutions in the Arab world, Barak said it too could collapse.

“I think we are seeing the beginning of the end of the dictatorships in the Arab world, including the Iranian one,” he said.

Speaking of Israel’s failure to secure the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit, despite having offered to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Barak said he thinks Shalit could have been freed three years ago.

Commenting on his wealth, he said he was indeed a millionaire but “not a tycoon.”

“I’m no wealthier than Bibi Netanyahu or Arik Sharon,” he said. “I don’t feel that I’m more hedonistic than Ehud Olmert, or Yitzhak Rabin, or Shimon Peres.”