WarSclerotic

The Media Line.

Written by Arieh O’Sullivan Published Thursday, May 12, 2011

TML Photo/Arieh O’Sullivan Still basking in first historic interception of rockets last month PALMACHIM AIR BASE, Israel — “Two Scuds launched from Syria,” says an Israeli Air Force lieutenant colonel in command of an Arrow 2 anti-ballistic fire control center. “This is a drill, this is a drill,” a female voice crackles over the loudspeakers. Nevertheless, the young officers at the control panels eagerly follow the radar tracking of the rockets closing in on central Israel and prepare an air defense response to launch interceptors.  “The fire button is not so sexy,” says the commanding officer, who could only be identified as Lt.-Col. O. “It’s the F-2 button on the keyboard. Once I press it, I give authorization for the system to do what I have programmed it to do.” Israel’s air defense network is arguably one of the densest in the world. Not only are all aircraft in the region monitored, but also every drone, rocket and missile launch is detected and monitored from as close as the Gaza Strip to as distant as Iran, some 1.300 kilometers (810 miles) away. “It‘s not a secret that Israel is being threatened by rockets and missiles from a very short range to a very long range,” says Brig.-Gen. Doron Gavish, head of the IAF Air Defenses. “The Israeli Defense Forces came up with a concept in order to counter this threat based on attack, early warning, active defense and passive defense.” Officers and soldiers were still euphoric a month after the successful interception of an incoming rocket fired by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Iron Dome system, a home-grown anti-rocket weapon designed to shoot down short-range missiles. In March, two Iron Dome batteries were rushed in to field operation before the system had completed its final development to meet an escalation of tensions along the border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Last month, the batteries successfully intercepted eight out of nine Grad-type rockets fired at Israeli cities.  “This is the first time in history that such a system was being deployed and it is the first time in history that a missile shot one of the rockets,” Gavish told The Media Line on a visit to air defense installations. The Air Force recently integrated a national Ballistic Picture Control Center (BPCC) in order to enhance its early warning capabilities. It was part of a reorganization of the Air Defense Corps, which also changed its name from Anti-Aircraft Corps to reflect its role in shooting down rockets and missiles. (The last time it shot down an aircraft was during the 1982 Lebanon War.) While Israel’s traditional enemies like Syria and Lebanon have most outdated combat air craft, other states in the region such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel, are equipped with top-of-the-line warplanes. Asked if the recent upheaval in Egypt was changing the focus of Israel’s air defense strategy, the senior officer said Israel was constantly on alert for all possible threats. “The weather here is beautiful. The view fantastic, but the neighborhood is challenging,” he quipped. “This is why we need a strong air force with a classic anti-aircraft defense. We have even increased the number of anti-aircraft batteries and built up our battle order to meet against any scenario.” The Israeli active defense against missiles included the Arrow 2 for long-range ballistic missiles, U.S.-made Patriot batteries for anti-aircraft and mid-range missiles and the Iron Dome to intercept short-range rockets like Grad, Katyushas and Qassams fired by the Hizbullah in Lebanon or the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. “Israel and the IDF will introduce in the coming years some new systems, one of them is David’s Sling and the other one is the Arrow next generation,” Gavish said.  Each Iron Dome battery costs some $80 million. A senior officer said Israel is planning to procure another six to 11 batteries so that the entire area under missile threat is covered. A top Israeli defense official was quoted as saying last week that the Ministry of Defense planned to invest $1 billion for development and manufacturing of Iron Dome defenses. This reportedly included a U.S. grant of $205 million. The officer, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said that last month’s successful interception had created deterrence against further rocket strikes. “If the ones who are firing the rockets understand that you can now intercept them, it is more problematic for them,” he said. “They will understand that there would be an act of active defense (by Israel) so I think it’s helping deterrence.” The Israeli defense establishment’s expensive focus on building an anti-missile shield was given great impetus by the 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006. During that conflict, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel, putting nearly one million Israelis under threat.

NTI: Global Security Newswire – U.S. Seen Boosting Covert Action’s Role Against Iran.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Israel Allows Glimpse of Defense Advances – NYTimes.com.

PALMACHIM AIR FORCE BASE, Israel — The Israeli military allowed foreign reporters rare access to this heavily guarded Mediterranean base south of Tel Aviv on Thursday in what military officials described as an effort to showcase Israel’s technological advancements in the field of air defense and to underscore the array of threats to the country from rockets and missiles.

The invitation came soon after the unveiling of Israel’s new Iron Dome antirocket missile defense system. Two batteries successfully intercepted and destroyed midair most of the Katyusha-type rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza against cities in southern Israel during a flare-up of hostilities last month.

The reporters were also given access for the first time to one of the base’s inner sanctums: the main command-and-control center of the Arrow system that is designed to identify, locate and destroy ballistic missiles from enemies farther afield, such as Syria and Iran.

Against a backdrop of various batteries, launchers and missiles on display in a courtyard of the base, Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of the Air Defense Corps, said that over the last 10 years Israel has been developing a “basket of tools” and a new security concept to contend with the changing threats. He added that last month’s operation of the radar-guided Iron Dome system, which is still under evaluation, was the first time in military history that a missile destroyed a short-range rocket.

The system, developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an Israeli company, is also being marketed abroad.

The multitier battle against rockets and missiles represents a shift in Israel’s military doctrine, officials here said, with the threat ranging from relatively crude, short-range rockets fired out of Gaza with a 12- to 25-mile capability to long-range ballistic missiles to be intercepted in the atmosphere or in space.

Senior military officers described a “new era” in defense, now that rockets and missiles have become the “main effort” of Israel’s enemies and the civilian population is on the front line. About 4,000 rockets were fired into Israel by the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah organization during the monthlong war in 2006, and rocket fire from Gaza is a persistent danger.

Alongside the traditional pillars of Israeli overall military doctrine, including deterrence and attack capabilities, the new focus is on active air defense, early warning and passive defense, exemplified by bomb-proof secure rooms inside individual homes. A new Ballistic Picture Control Center, responsible for detecting incoming threats and alerting the population, became fully operational at the end of 2010.

In general, Israel has about a minute’s warning for every 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, a rocket travels. That means that when rockets fly short distances from Gaza into southern Israel, the warning time is mere seconds.

Israel shot down its first enemy plane, an Egyptian Spitfire, in the hours after its declaration of independence in May 1948. The last plane it shot down was in 1982.

The nature of the battlefield began to change in 1991 when, during the Persian Gulf war, Iraq fired 41 Scud missiles at Israel. The American Patriot surface-to-air missile system was deployed in Israel. But the Patriot was originally built as an antiaircraft system and was quickly modified to deal with incoming missiles, initially with poor results.

The Arrow has its origins in President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. After Mr. Reagan began his “Star Wars” program, Israel joined in the research and development effort. The Arrow system, which is made at Israel Aerospace Industries, has been partly financed by the United States.

The Arrow 2 intercepts missiles higher up, and one battery can cover major parts of Israel. The latest generation, known as Arrow 3, is now being developed.

The Arrow has been successful in intercepting ballistic missiles in live-fire tests, but has not yet been used in a real field of battle.

Inside the command and control center, known as the Cube, officers practice intercepting incoming missiles in simulations on large computer screens. One officer demonstrated a simulated interception of incoming ballistic missiles from Lebanon and Syria. The mostly radar-based system identifies the incoming missiles, heading for central Israel, and a defense plan is drawn up, determining the type of response and the point of interception.

If a missile is identified as heading for an unpopulated area, or the sea, no action is taken. But if a response is required, the officer approves the defense plan and authorizes the system to carry it out by the deceptively mundane act of pressing the F2 button.

Russian official: Iran atomic plant to operate in weeks.

  MOSCOW – Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant will be fully operational within weeks, local news agencies quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Thursday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke two days after the company that built the plant, a politically charged project that faced repeated delays, said the reactor had begun operating at a low level for tests before bringing it on line.

“The final launch of Bushehr is a matter of the coming weeks,” state-run RIA quoted Ryabkov as saying.

“But this is a longstanding project and so I would refrain from naming concrete dates — but we are already on the threshold of the final launch of the reactor.”

Begun in the 1970s by a German consortium, construction of the plant was abandoned after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and has faced repeated delays since the mid-1990s, when Russia began work to complete it under a $1 billion deal with Tehran.

The United States and other Western nations for years urged Russia to abandon the project, fearing it would help Iran develop nuclear weapons. But an agreement obliging Tehran to repatriate spent nuclear fuel to Russia eased those concerns.

On Monday, a member of an Iranian parliamentary commission monitoring Bushehr said “final tests” were being conducted, and Iran’s Fars news agency said the plant would start providing power to the national grid within two months.

Bochkov said the reactor’s operational and safety systems were being tested at the low power level. This will be increased gradually and brought to full capacity, “and after that it will be integrated into Iran’s power grid,” he said.

Bochkov gave no time frame for that.

Syria troops surround city of Hama, known for 1982 revolt – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

President Assad’s father and predecessor leveled Hama to crush a Sunni uprising there in 1982, killing an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 people.

Syrian soldiers and tanks executing a nationwide crackdown on regime opponents surrounded the city of Hama on Thursday, which President Bashar Assad’s father laid waste to in 1982 to stamp out an earlier uprising, an activist said. Forces also used clubs to disperse 2,000 demonstrators on a northern university campus.

Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, is trying to crush an uprising that exploded nearly two months ago and is now posing the gravest threat to his family’s 40-year ruling dynasty. The level of violence is intensifying as forces move into more volatile areas, and the United States called the crackdown “barbaric.”

	A man throws a rock at a passing tank in a location given as Deraa on April 25, 2011, in this still image from an amateur video
	Photo by: Reuters

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso said troops backed by tanks have deployed around the central city of Hama, known for the bloody 1982 revolt crushed by the regime, and security forces were detaining people.

In another echo of that earlier uprising, the Syrian army shelled residential areas in central and southern Syria on Wednesday, killing 18 people, a human rights group said.

The shelling of neighborhoods evoked memories of Assad’s father and predecessor, Hafez, whose most notorious act was shelling Hama in 1982.

He leveled the city to crush a Sunni uprising there, killing 10,000 to 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates. Conflicting figures exist and Syria has made no official estimate.

Other activists said security forces used clubs to disperse about 2,000 demonstrators late Wednesday at the university campus in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

The intensifying military operation and arrest raids seemed to be an effort to pre-empt another day of expected protests throughout the country on Friday.

More than 750 people have been killed and thousands detained since the uprising against Assad’s autocratic rule began in mid-March. The revolt was touched off by the arrest of teenagers, inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall.

Syria’s private Al-Watan newspaper reported Thursday that Assad met for four hours with a delegation of Sunni clerics from Hama. It said the clerics asked the president to solve some problems pending since 1982, such as people who have been living in exile since then.

“President Assad accepted to study the case as long as it includes people who are known to be loyal to the nation,” the paper said.

Since the uprising began, authorities have been making announcements about reforms on Thursdays in an attempt to head off protests on Friday, the main day for demonstrations in the Arab world.

This week was no different: The state-run news agency, SANA, said Prime Minister Adel Safar introduced a new program to employ 10,000 university graduates annually at government institutions.

Unemployment in Syria stands at about 20 percent.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Thursday that arrests are continuing throughout the country before expected protests on Friday.

“Authorities are detaining any person who might demonstrate,” he said.

In the northern city of Deir el-Zor, authorities placed cameras inside and outside the Osman bin Afan mosque, where many worshippers were demonstrating after the Friday prayers, he said.

Abdul-Rahman added that many former detainees were forced to sign documents reading that they were not subjected to torture and that they will not take part in future “riots.”

Assad is determined to crush the uprising despite international pressure and sanctions from Europe and the United States.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney condemned the violence. “The Syrian government continues to follow the lead of its Iranian ally in resorting to brute force and flagrant violations of human rights and suppressing peaceful protests,” he said, “and history is not on the side of this kind of action.”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner called the Syrian attacks “barbaric,” adding, “We don’t throw the word ‘barbaric’ around here very often.”

Officials in the Obama administration, which had sought to engage Syria after it was shunned under former President George W. Bush, said Tuesday the U.S. is edging closer to calling for an end to the long rule of the Assad family.

The officials said the first step would be to say for the first time that Assad has forfeited his legitimacy to rule, a major policy shift.

BBC News – Syria protests: Thousands of students rally in Aleppo.

Security forces have broken up a demonstration by thousands of students in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, witnesses and activists say.

The dormitory protest is thought to be the city’s biggest so far.

The students demanded an end to the military siege of other cities in Syria including Homs, Deraa and Banias, the main flashpoints of dissent against President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Eighteen people were reported killed on Wednesday amid an ongoing crackdown.

Tanks shelled Homs, the country’s third city, and clashes were reported in towns and villages around Deraa, where the protests began in March.

Thousands of people have reportedly been arrested and hundreds killed in the government crackdown.

The Syrian government insists it is pursuing “armed terrorist gangs”.

On Wednesday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on President Assad to “heed calls for reform and freedom and to desist from excessive force and mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators”.

So far untouched

There have been several student demonstrations at Aleppo in past weeks, but they have usually only involved a few hundred people and been swiftly dispersed.

This seems to have been the biggest so far, with several thousand students gathering on the campus on the western side of the city, and chanting slogans in solidarity with Deraa.

As has happened in the past, fellow students loyal to the Assad regime and security agents with batons moved in and dispersed the crowds.

One report said police closed the main road leading from the centre of the city to the campus, in an attempt to keep the crowd from spilling over into the city centre.

Aleppo itself has been largely untouched by the unrest so far.

Analysts say that unless Aleppo, and the Syrian capital Damascus, are fully caught up in the revolt, the protesters’ chances of toppling the regime are slim.

The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut, Lebanon, says the authorities know that and have done everything possible to ensure the flames of protest do not take hold in the two big cities.

Arrests

However, Homs, the third-biggest city in Syria, is still in the grip of a harsh crackdown by troops and tanks.

One resident there told the BBC that the Bab Amr district had been under siege since Saturday, with no water, electricity or access to medical care.

Shelling began early on Wednesday, and hundreds of troops were reported to have moved in.

Activists told the BBC that about 500 people had been arrested in Homs since Wednesday, including more than 100 on Tuesday night.

It has not been possible to verify the accounts because foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter Syria.

The state news agency, Sana, reported that troops and security agents had “arrested dozens of wanted men and seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition in Bab Amr”, as well as in Deraa.

It cited sources as saying that one soldier was killed and four were injured in Bab Amr, while one was killed and another injured in rural Deraa. A number of “terrorists” were killed and injured, it added.

Deraa, where the unrest began in mid-March, has been cut off by troops for more than two weeks, with dozens killed and hundreds arrested.

The government says the situation there is now normal, but it has refused to allow UN humanitarian teams in.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 647 civilians have been killed since pro-democracy protests began on 18 March. Another rights group, Sawasiah, says more than 800 civilians have died.

Officials dispute the civilian toll and say about 100 soldiers have died.

Russia delivers 30 tons of fuel for Iran’s first nuclear plant at Bushehr on the Gulf.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

A general view shows the reactor building at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran, 1200 kms south of Tehran. (File Photo)

Assad kills 19 protesters, including boy, 8, infant, as Syrian regime arrests 10,000.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Syrian army troops in southern protest hub of Deraa. (File photo)

10,000 Syrians reportedly in custody as death toll hits 750.

  At least 10,000 protesters have been detained across Syria over the past few days in a mass arrest campaign the government hopes will help stem an uprising poised to enter its third month.

Syrian tanks shelled residential districts in two towns on Wednesday and at least 19 people were killed across the country, rights campaigners said.

It was one of the bloodiest days apart from the main Friday protest days, as President Bashar Assad’s regime intensifies its campaign to quell unrest in Homs, a city emerging as the country’s most populous center of defiance. Most of the violence occurred in the southern Deraa province, where the unrest first erupted on March 18.

Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, said 13 people were killed in the town of Harra, about 60 kilometers northwest of Deraa city.

Most were killed when tanks shelled four houses. Two people – a child and a nurse – died in gunfire, he said.

Tanks also shelled a residential district in Homs, Syria’s third largest city, and at least five people were killed, a rights campaigner in the city said. A sixth person was killed by a sniper shot to the head as he stood in front of his house.

“The security forces are terrorizing urban centers,” said Najati Tayara, the activist in Homs.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities, who have banned most international media from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

As Western criticism of the crackdown grows, a former mediator between Syria and Israel said Jerusalem would benefit from Assad staying in power, and the embattled president must be given a chance to show he has learned from his mistakes.

“It’s in the interest of Israel and the entire world that Bashar stay in power, because we don’t know what might replace him. There were many, many mistakes made, but these mistakes can be corrected,” said Ibrahim Soliman, a Syrian-American businessman who mediated secret, unofficial negotiations between the countries from 2004 to 2006.

By phone from the US, Soliman said the crackdown was being conducted by corrupt officials who must be purged from the Syrian government.

Assad “must be given a chance to get rid of these corrupt people, and I think he will. But he must be given a chance,” Soliman said.

The former mediator said he didn’t expect Syria to descend into a Libya-style stalemate in which neither side had the upper hand.

“If they continue what they’re doing, it’ll mean the destruction of their way of life.

I think within a few weeks the situation will cool down,” said Soliman, who has met Assad personally and has ties to the Syrian regime. “I think Syria will move toward more democratic ways than it has been over the last 40 years. Bashar and his advisers know that.”

Soliman said he is convinced that Assad and the Syrian public are ready for peace with Israel. “Syrians are ready for peace, but not peace at any price.

The Golan has to be returned, no question about it,” he said. “The key to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is peace between Israel and Syria…

Peace with Syria is the key to peace in the Middle East.”

In Homs, an activist told Reuters that a Syrian Christian was killed by a shot from a sniper to the head, and that the authorities were trying to increase sectarian tensions to undermine prodemocracy demonstrations. “Homs is shaking with the sound of explosions from tank shelling and heavy machine guns,” Najati Tayara said.

The offensive came a day after two senior officials told Western media that the Syrian uprising was nearing an end, and that authorities would not stand down under any circumstances.

Rami Makhlouf, a powerful cousin of the president, said the Assad family was not going to capitulate. “We will sit here. We call it a fight until the end…

They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone,” Makhlouf said in a New York Times interview published on Tuesday.

The same day, presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told the paper, “we’ve passed the most dangerous moment… I hope we are witnessing the end of the story.”

Anthony Shadid, the Times reporter who conducted both interviews, was only allowed into the country for a few hours. The timing of the exceedingly rare US media interviews by Syrian officials suggests the Assad regime is taking extra measures to calm Western concerns about mounting bloodshed.

At least 750 people have been killed since protests began on March 18, rights activists said.

Syrian first lady Asma Assad may be living in a safe house in or near London, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday, quoting a high-ranking Arab diplomat. “Her evacuation was carried out under conditions of immense secrecy, but she is now safely there with her three young children and surrounded by security guards,” the source said.

“Clearly her presence could cause huge embarrassment to the British, so none of this has been made public.”

Syrian security forces have released 300 people detained in Banias and restored basic services in the coastal city stormed by tanks last week, Reuters reported, quoting a human rights group.

Water, telecommunications and electricity had been restored, but tanks remained in major streets, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday. Two hundred people, including pro-democracy protest leaders, were still in jail, it said.

Demonstrators in Banias had raised posters of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who has had close ties to Assad, but disputed the official Syrian account of the violence.

Erdogan said more than 1,000 civilians had died and he did not want to see a repeat of the 1982 violence in Hama, Syria, or the 1988 gassing of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja, when 5,000 people were killed.

In southern Syria, four civilians in Tafas were killed as security forces widened a campaign of arrests, a human rights campaigner in the region said, adding that 300 people had been detained since tanks entered the town on Saturday.

Authorities have effectively barred foreign journalists from Syria, but Martin Fletcher, chief foreign correspondent for Britain’s The Times, was able to enter the country this week by posing as a tourist.

He was detained in Homs and for six hours was held in a windowless basement underneath an apartment building on a barricaded side street. He was not mistreated, but Fletcher’s experience gave him a rare view into the workings of the Assad security apparatus.

“Quite clearly what was happening, was the regime was rounding up any young man of fighting age it could find on the streets and locking them up,” he told the BBC. Dozens of young men were huddled on the basement floor, he said, and piles of belts and shoelaces nearby, apparently for use in interrogation.

Homs was clearly under martial law, Fletcher said, with police and armed thugs on every corner and tanks guarding every major intersection.

Outside of Homs, at least 100 tanks were deployed in anticipation of further unrest, he said.