WarSclerotic

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DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 23, 2011, 10:04 PM (GMT+02:00)

Qaddafi knocked off his pedestal

Muammar Qaddafi, his sons and military and political elite are reported by debkafile‘s military sources to have abandoned their Bab al Aziziya fortress early Tuesday, Aug. 23, using his son Saif al-Islam’s surreal appearance before foreign reporters earlier in the day to cover their escape.
Our sources believe they exited the compound through one of the underground tunnels of the compound’s military complex. But regional intelligence experts are baffled by the enigma of the mysterious sudden disappearance of Qaddafi’s divisions overnight. It’s as though the ground swallowed them up leaving no trace.

No one knows Qaddafi’s destination but informed observers expect him to make for Sebha in southern Libya where the local tribes are loyal to whom and where he established a whole range of subterranean military facilities. And that is where he located Libyan nuclear facilities in 2000, which he later agreed to dismantle. Qaddafi may have equipped a place of asylum at Sebha with military and residential facilities form which to launch a guerilla war against whomsoever takes power in Tripoli and against NATO targets in Libya and Europe, as punishment for his downfall.
Thousands of fighters from the tribes loyal to Qaddafi are reported by debkafile‘s military sources to have been streaming to the desert town in recent weeks. Prominent among them were members of his own Gaddadfa tribe which numbers some 100,000 members and is based in Sirte, a town lying on the Mediterranean coast in the north between Tripoli and the rebel base of Benghazi. Qaddafi will need the help of tribes other than his own in a region 800 kilometers south of his home town on the fringes of the Sahara, for waging a guerrilla war against the new rulers in Tripoli.
debkafile reported earlier Tuesday:

debkafile‘s military sources report that British, French, Jordanian and Qatari Special Operations forces Tuesday, Aug. 23, spearheaded the rebel “killer strike” on Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and Tripoli fortress at Bab al-Azaziya, Tripoli.  This was the first time Western and Arab ground troops had fought together on the same battlefield in any of the Arab revolts of the last nine months and the first time Arab soldiers took part in a NATO operation.
Our military sources report that the British deployed SAS commandoes and France, 2REP (Groupe des commando parachutiste), which is similar to the US Navy DELTA unit, as well as DINOP commandos. Fighting too were Jordan’s Royal Special Forces, specialists in urban combat and capturing fortified installations like the Qaddafi compound in Tripoli, and the Qatari Special Forces, which were transferred from Benghazi where they guarded rebel Transitional National Council leaders.
According to our military experts, even after getting through into the compound, this combined force faced four obstacles to before reaching its military heart which is largely underground:
1. Because it is too small to carry the two tasks of breaking into the heart of the Bab al-Azaziya complex which covers some 6 square kilometers and at the same time overwhelm Qaddafi’s 12th Tank Division also underground, this force needed to be backed by larger trained contingents armed with anti-tank weapons, which would advance into the labyrinth under close air cover from assault helicopters.
Britain and France transferred Apaches to Libya two months ago but never used them in Tripoli where they would be vulnerable to Qaddafi’s anti-air missiles.
2.  The main body of the rebels to the rear of the combined foreign force was nowhere near being a unified military force.

The rebels who took part in the first major push into Tripoli Sunday, Aug. 21, turned out to be mostly Berber tribal fighters from the Nafusa Mountains in the West, divided into small groups of no more than 100, each representing a different village. They have never trained together or acquired experience in urban warfare. NATO imported better-trained fighters by sea from Benghazi and Misrata.
3.  The great black clouds seen over the compound and caused by NATO jet bombardments and anti-tank fire may look menacing but they are not evidence of heavy fighting in or around the compound. And indeed it was soon over. As the rebel forces burst in, there was no sign of Qaddafi himself or his family and commanders.  They were presumed to have fled.
4.  NATO was short of specific intelligence about the military nucleus of Bab al-Aziziya. Most of its key facilities are underground and proof against bombardment.
Western alliance warplanes pummelled the compound month after month from March 19. They flattened the surface residential buildings and command centers, but their ordnance never reached the buried facilities. Our military sources say these chambers are interconnected by a network of corridors, some broad enough to accommodate tanks. The network branches out to the sea and locations outside Tripoli.
Sunday, Aug. 21, debkafile‘s military sources reported that the Qaddafi regime has fallen in Tripoli, but there is quite a way to go before the war is over.

Report: UN nuclear watchdog visits Iran’s main atomic sites – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) representative spends five days in Iran, according to semi-official Fars news agency; alleged rare visit comes as Russia tries to restart talks.

By Reuters

A senior United Nations official visited all of Iran’s main atomic sites last week, an Iranian news agency reported, as the Islamic Republic looks to restart talks with world powers about its nuclear program.

Herman Nackaerts, the head of the “safeguards” department of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), spent five days in Iran on a rare visit that coincided with a new push by Russia to re-start diplomatic talks.

	The reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is seen, just outside the southern city of Bushehr, Iran.
	Photo by: AP

The trip also happened as Iran started to move some of its uranium centrifuges to an underground bunker that would be less exposed to any strike by Israel or the United States.

Both countries say military action is a possible last resort to stop Iran getting the bomb. Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful.

“During this trip, the delegation visited Bushehr nuclear plant, enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow, nuclear sites in Isfahan … and also the Arak heavy water reactor,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as saying.

Nackaerts, whose department is responsible for ensuring that nuclear material is not used for weapons, met Iran’s nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani.

“There were talks on how to expand cooperations with the Agency and how to answer some of the Agency’s questions,” Soltanieh said.

Iran is subject to four rounds of UN sanctions, as well as much tighter U.S. and European Union measures, due to its refusal to halt enriching uranium, a process that produces fuel for power stations but can also make nuclear bombs.

The IAEA was not immediately available to comment

Mideast Expert: Syria’s WMD Could Fall to Islamists.
Monday, 22 Aug 2011 07:30 PM

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to Yaakov Katz, Israeli military expert and defense correspondent for the Jerusalem Post.

Syria Kills 10 as Demonstrators Cite Libya – Bloomberg.

Syrian security forces killed at least 10 people during demonstrations as the protesters, emboldened by rebel advances in Libya, called for President Bashar al-Assad to bow to international pressure to resign.

About 300 people were detained in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour and authorities also carried out many arrests in other cities, Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said today by phone. Security forces conducted raids in Hama, deployed tanks in Deir al-Zour and positioned forces around Damascus, Al Jazeera television reported.

Assad has used tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and helicopters to crush the most serious threat to his family’s 40- year rule. The uprisings began in mid-March after revolts ousted the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and sparked a conflict in Libya. In the Libyan capital, Tripoli, rebels were fighting Muammar Qaddafi’s loyalists today in an effort to consolidate their control over the city after declaring his regime over.

“Qaddafi is gone, gone and it’s now your turn, Bashar,” today’s London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper cited Syrians as chanting. At least 10 protesters died yesterday in the governorates of Hama, Homs, Aleppo and the southern area of Daraa, where rallies against Assad’s rule began, according to Merhi and Ammar Qurabi of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

The United Nations Human Rights Council today ordered a probe into Syria’s crackdown on anti-government protesters, including possible crimes against humanity.

Systematic Violations

The council condemned what it called “continued grave and systematic human-rights violations by Syrian authorities, such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and the killing and persecution of protesters and human-rights defenders.”

The resolution to “urgently dispatch an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate violations of international human-rights law in Syria since July 2011” passed in Geneva by a 33-4 vote, with nine abstentions, on the second day of a special session on Syria. The European Union, the U.S. and Arab countries including Saudi Arabia sponsored the resolution.

China, Russia, Cuba and Ecuador voted against the resolution while India, Mauritania, Angola, the Philippines, Cameroon, Uganda, Bangladesh, Djibouti and Malaysia abstained.

Assad told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Aug. 18 that security operations had stopped. A day later 40 protesters were killed in Homs, Daraa and a suburb of Damascus, according to Merhi and Qurabi.

“It’s troubling that he has not kept his word,” Ban told reporters yesterday in New York.

Russian Warning

In Russia, the foreign-affairs committee chief in the lower house of parliament warned yesterday that efforts by western nations to force regime change in Syria after intervening to oust Qaddafi risk triggering the country’s collapse. Russia this week rejected demands from the U.S. and the EU for Assad to step down.

“I would advise all countries thinking about Syria to keep in mind the negative example of Libya,”Konstantin Kosachyov said in telephone interview in Moscow yesterday. “The risk of civil war there is even greater than in Libya, which would lead to the collapse of the country.”

At least 2,400 people have been killed since the protests started, according to Merhi’s and Qurabi’s organizations. The UN puts the death toll at more than 2,200. At least 500 members of the security forces have died, the government has said.

“Colonialist” Powers

Assad, who succeeded his father as president after his death in 2000, said security has improved and that Syrian forces had foiled efforts to undermine the country. He has blamed the protests on foreign-inspired plots.

Assad, in an interview on state television from Damascus on Aug. 21, rejected U.S. and European demands to step down and pledged to schedule parliamentary elections by February and review the constitution. He called the U.S. and European nations “colonialist” powers that want to violate Syria’s sovereignty.

The U.S., Britain and France are preparing to ask the UN Security Council this week to freeze Assad’s foreign financial assets, a western diplomat said yesterday. The measure would also bar foreign travel by the Syrian leader and call for an arms embargo on Syria, the diplomat said.

The three nations are planning to introduce the draft resolution that targets Assad and about five other government and military leaders, according to the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the text hasn’t been made public.

U.S. President Barack Obama, in a coordinated move with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, issued a statement on Aug. 18 saying Assad should leave and let Syrians chart their own political future.

Iranian man pleads guilty to mur… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN  – An Iranian man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the murder of a scientist that prosecutors said was an assassination ordered by Israel to halt Tehran’s race for nuclear technology.

Majid Jamali-Fashi, a man who looked in his mid-20s, appeared in court to confess the murder of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in January 2010, the first of several attacks on scientists which Iran has blamed on foreign agents, state television said.

Ali-Mohammadi, an elementary-particle physicist, was leaving his Tehran home to go to work on Jan. 12, 2010, when a bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded and killed him.

Two similar attacks on one morning in November killed nuclear scientist Majid Shahriyari and wounded another, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who has since become Iran’s atomic energy chief.

Iran blamed Israel and the United States for the attacks, saying the aim was to derail its nuclear program. Tehran denies Western accusations it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told state TV the prosecution was a blow to Israel, which has not ruled out military action against Iran to stop it getting the bomb.

“We managed to make a good penetration into Mossad’s intelligence system which bore very good results for us,” he said, referring to the Israeli spy service.

“We will soon have good news to inform the public in connection to the large number of (Iranian) Mossad spies whose covers have been blown.”

Tehran’s chief prosecutor told reporters earlier this week that Jamali-Fashi had been trained and paid by Israel.

“The defendant had travelled to Israel to receive training from Mossad and had agreed to assassinate Dr Ali-Mohammadi in return for $120,000 dollars,” Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told a news conference, according to the Tehran Times daily.

Some people have expressed doubt over Tehran’s version of events.

Shortly after his death, an Iranian opposition website said Ali-Mohammadi, was an opposition supporter who backed moderate candidate Mirhossein Mousavi in the disputed June 2009 presidential election, suggesting there may be other possible motives for his murder.

Western analysts said the a 50-year-old Tehran University professor had little, if any, role in Iran’s sensitive nuclear work. A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said at the time he had not played a role in the body’s activities.

Jamali-Fashi could face the death penalty as he has been charged with “war against God” as well as cooperating with Israel and possession of drugs, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

He told the court he was supposed to kill five other people but did not because: “I was by nature not a criminal person.”

The Coming Arab-Israeli War | Spero News.

(The best analysis I’ve found. – JW)

By George Friedman

In September, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on whether to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state with full rights in the United Nations. In many ways, this would appear to be a reasonable and logical step. Whatever the Palestinians once were, they are clearly a nation in the simplest and most important sense — namely, they think of themselves as a nation. Nations are created by historical circumstances, and those circumstances have given rise to a Palestinian nation. Under the principle of the United Nations and the theory of the right to national self-determination, which is the moral foundation of the modern theory of nationalism, a nation has a right to a state, and that state has a place in the family of nations. In this sense, the U.N. vote will be unexceptional.

However, when the United Nations votes on Palestinian statehood, it will intersect with other realities and other historical processes. First, it is one thing to declare a Palestinian state; it is quite another thing to create one. The Palestinians are deeply divided between two views of what the Palestinian nation ought to be, a division not easily overcome. Second, this vote will come at a time when two of Israel’s neighbors are coping with their own internal issues. Syria is in chaos, with an extended and significant resistance against the regime having emerged. Meanwhile, Egypt is struggling with internal tension over the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the future of the military junta that replaced him. Add to this the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the potential rise of Iranian power, and the potential recognition of a Palestinian state — while perfectly logical in an abstract sense — becomes an event that can force a regional crisis in the midst of ongoing regional crises. It thus is a vote that could have significant consequences.

The Palestinian Divide
Let’s begin with the issue not of the right of a nation to have a state but of the nature of a Palestinian state under current circumstances. The Palestinians are split into two major factions. The first, Fatah, dominates the West Bank. Fatah derives its ideology from the older, secular Pan-Arab movement. Historically, Fatah saw the Palestinians as a state within the Arab nation. The second, Hamas, dominates Gaza. Unlike Fatah, it sees the Palestinians as forming part of a broader Islamist uprising, one in which Hamas is the dominant Islamist force of the Palestinian people.

The Pan-Arab rising is moribund. Where it once threatened the existence of Muslim states, like the Arab monarchies, it is now itself threatened. Mubarak, Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi all represented the old Pan-Arab vision. A much better way to understand the “Arab Spring” is that it represented the decay of such regimes that were vibrant when they came to power in the late 1960s and early 1970s but have fallen into ideological meaninglessness.

Fatah is part of this grouping, and while it still speaks for Palestinian nationalism as a secular movement, beyond that it is isolated from broader trends in the region. It is both at odds with rising religiosity and simultaneously mistrusted by the monarchies it tried to overthrow. Yet it controls the Palestinian proto-state, the Palestinian National Authority, and thus will be claiming a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood. Hamas, on the other hand, is very much representative of current trends in the Islamic world and holds significant popular support, yet it is not clear that it holds a majority position in the Palestinian nation.

All nations have ideological divisions, but the Palestinians are divided over the fundamental question of the Palestinian nation’s identity. Fatah sees itself as part of a secular Arab world that is on the defensive. Hamas envisions the Palestinian nation as an Islamic state forming in the context of a region-wide Islamist rising. Neither is in a position to speak authoritatively for the Palestinian people, and the things that divide them cut to the heart of the nation. As important, each has a different view of its future relations with Israel. Fatah has accepted, in practice, the idea of Israel’s permanence as a state and the need of the Palestinians to accommodate themselves to the reality. Hamas has rejected it.

The U.N. decision raises the stakes in this debate within the Palestinian nation that could lead to intense conflict. As vicious as the battle between Hamas and Fatah has been, an uneasy truce has existed over recent years. Now, there could emerge an internationally legitimized state, and control of that state will matter more than ever before. Whoever controls the state defines what the Palestinians are, and it becomes increasingly difficult to suspend the argument for a temporary truce. Rather than settling anything, or putting Israel on the defensive, the vote will compel a Palestinian crisis.
Fatah has an advantage in any vote on Palestinian statehood: It enjoys far more international support than Hamas does. Europeans and Americans see it as friendly to their interests and less hostile to Israel. The Saudis and others may distrust Fatah from past conflicts, but in the end they fear radical Islamists and Iran and so require American support at a time when the Americans have tired of playing in what some Americans call the “sandbox.” However reluctantly, while aiding Hamas, the Saudis are more comfortable with Fatah. And of course, the embattled Arabist regimes, whatever tactical shifts there may have been, spring from the same soil as Fatah. While Fatah is the preferred Palestinian partner for many, Hamas can also use that reality to portray Fatah as colluding with Israel against the Palestinian people during a confrontation.

For its part, Hamas has the support of Islamists in the region, including Shiite Iranians, but that is an explosive mix to base a strategy on. Hamas must break its isolation if it is to counter the tired but real power of Fatah. Symbolic flotillas from Turkey are comforting, but Hamas needs an end to Egyptian hostility to Hamas more than anything.

Egypt’s Role and Fatah on the Defensive
Egypt is the power that geographically isolates Hamas through its treaty with Israel and with its still-functional blockade on Gaza. More than anyone, Hamas needs genuine regime change in Egypt. The new regime it needs is not a liberal democracy but one in which Islamist forces supportive of Hamas, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, come to power.

At the moment, that is not likely. Egypt’s military has retained a remarkable degree of control, its opposition groups are divided between secular and religious elements, and the religious elements are further divided among themselves — as well as penetrated by an Egyptian security apparatus that has made war on them for years. As it stands, Egypt is not likely to evolve in a direction favorable to Hamas. Therefore, Hamas needs to redefine the political situation in Egypt to convert a powerful enemy into a powerful friend.

Though it is not easy for a small movement to redefine a large nation, in this case, it could perhaps happen. There is a broad sense of unhappiness in Egypt over Egypt’s treaty with Israel, an issue that comes to the fore when Israel and the Palestinians are fighting. As in other Arab countries, passions surge in Egypt when the Palestinians are fighting the Israelis.

Under Mubarak, these passions were readily contained in Egypt. Now the Egyptian regime unquestionably is vulnerable, and pro-Palestinian feelings cut across most, if not all, opposition groups. It is a singular, unifying force that might suffice to break the military’s power, or at least to force the military to shift its Israeli policy.

Hamas in conflict with Israel as the United Nations votes for a Palestinian state also places Fatah on the political defensive among the Palestinians. Fatah cooperation with Israel while Gaza is at war would undermine Fatah, possibly pushing Fatah to align with Hamas. Having the U.N. vote take place while Gaza is at war, a vote possibly accompanied by General Assembly condemnation of Israel, could redefine the region.

Last week’s attack on the Eilat road should be understood in this context. Some are hypothesizing that new Islamist groups forming in the Sinai or Palestinian groups in Gaza operating outside Hamas’ control carried out the attack. But while such organizations might formally be separate from Hamas, I find it difficult to believe that Hamas, with an excellent intelligence service inside Gaza and among the Islamist groups in the Sinai, would not at least have known these groups’ broad intentions and would not have been in a position to stop them. Just as Fatah created Black September in the 1970s, a group that appeared separate from Fatah but was in fact covertly part of it, the strategy of creating new organizations to take the blame for conflicts is an old tactic both for the Palestinians and throughout the world.

Hamas’ ideal attack would offer it plausible deniability — allowing it to argue it did not even know an attack was imminent, much less carry it out — and trigger an Israeli attack on Gaza. Such a scenario casts Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim, permitting Hamas to frame the war to maximum effect in Egypt and among the Palestinians, as well as in the wider Islamic world and in Europe.

Regional Implications and Israel’s Dilemma
The matter goes beyond Hamas. The Syrian regime is currently fighting for its life against its majority Sunni population. It has survived thus far, but it needs to redefine the conflict. The Iranians and Hezbollah are among those most concerned with the fall of the Syrian regime. Syria has been Iran’s one significant ally, one strategically positioned to enhance Iranian influence in the Levant. Its fall would be a strategic setback for Iran at a time when Tehran is looking to enhance its position with the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Iran, which sees the uprising as engineered by its enemies — the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — understandably wants al Assad to survive.

Meanwhile, the fall of Syria would leave Hezbollah — which is highly dependent on the current Syrian regime and is in large part an extension of Syrian policy in Lebanon — wholly dependent on Iran. And Iran without its Syrian ally is very far away from Hezbollah. Like Tehran, Hezbollah thus also wants al Assad to survive. Hezbollah joining Hamas in a confrontation with Israel would take the focus off the al Assad regime and portray his opponents as undermining resistance to Israel. Joining a war with Israel also would make it easier for Hezbollah to weather the fall of al Assad should his opponents prevail. It would help Hezbollah create a moral foundation for itself independent of Syria. Hezbollah’s ability to force a draw with Israel in 2006 constituted a victory for the radical Islamist group that increased its credibility dramatically.

The 2006 military confrontation was also a victory for Damascus, as it showed the Islamic world that Syria was the only nation-state supporting effective resistance to Israel. It also showed Israel and the United States that Syria alone could control Hezbollah and that forcing Syria out of Lebanon was a strategic error on the part of Israel and the United States.

Faced with this dynamic, it will be difficult for Fatah to maintain its relationship with Israel. Indeed, Fatah could be forced to initiate an intifada, something it would greatly prefer to avoid, as this would undermine what economic development the West Bank has experienced.

Israel therefore conceivably could face conflict in Gaza, a conflict along the Lebanese border and a rising in the West Bank, something it clearly knows. In a rare move, Israel announced plans to call up reserves in September. Though preannouncements of such things are not common, Israel wants to signal resolution.

Israel has two strategies in the face of the potential storm. One is a devastating attack on Gaza followed by rotating forces to the north to deal with Hezbollah and intense suppression of an intifada. Dealing with Gaza fast and hard is the key if the intention is to abort the evolution I laid out. But the problem here is that the three-front scenario I laid out is simply a possibility; there is no certainty here. If Israel initiates conflict in Gaza and fails, it risks making a possibility into a certainty — and Israel has not had many stunning victories for several decades. It could also create a crisis for Egypt’s military rulers, not something the Israelis want.

Israel also simply could absorb the attacks from Hamas to make Israel appear the victim. But seeking sympathy is not likely to work given how Palestinians have managed to shape global opinion. Moreover, we would expect Hamas to repeat its attacks to the point that Israel no longer could decline combat.

War thus benefits Hamas (even if Hamas maintains plausible deniability by having others commit the attacks), a war Hezbollah has good reason to enter at such a stage and that Fatah does not want but could be forced into. Such a war could shift the Egyptian dynamic significantly to Hamas’ advantage, while Iran would certainly want al-Assad to be able to say to Syrians that a war with Israel is no time for a civil war in Syria. Israel would thus find itself fighting three battles simultaneously. The only way to do that is to be intensely aggressive, making moderation strategically difficult.

Israel responded modestly compared to the past after the Eilat incident, mounting only limited attacks on Gaza against mostly members of the Palestinian Resistance Committees, an umbrella group known to have links with Hamas. Nevertheless, Hamas has made clear that its de facto truce with Israel was no longer assured. The issue now is what Hamas is prepared to do and whether Hamas supporters, Saudi Arabia in particular, can force them to control anti-Israeli activities in the region. The Saudis want al Assad to fall, and they do not want a radical regime in Egypt. Above all, they do not want Iran’s hand strengthened. But it is never clear how much influence the Saudis or Egyptians have over Hamas. For Hamas, this is emerging as the perfect moment, and it is hard to believe that even the Saudis can restrain them. As for the Israelis, what will happen depends on what others decide — which is the fundamental strategic problem that Israel has.

George Friedman is the founder and editor of STRATFOR .

Al Qaeda linked to Israeli bus ambush – Washington Times.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Gunmen ambushed a civilian Israeli bus near the resort town of Eilat last week. U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating reports that al Qaeda-aligned groups played a key role in the attack that emanated from the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

By Eli Lake

–

The Washington Times

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating reports that al Qaeda-aligned groups played a key role in the deadly commando-style attack near the Israeli resort town of Eilat last week.

A U.S. government assessment of the incident Thursday concludes that either the Palestinian group Popular Resistance Committees or the Gaza-based Army of Islam (or Jaish al Islam), a Palestinian group sympathetic to al Qaeda, carried out the commando assault and bombing raid that emanated from the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

One intelligence official who focuses on al Qaeda said an initial assessment identified a new group, al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, as a key perpetrator of the attack.

“There has been a history of close operational coordination between Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and Jaish al Islam, which is the most important of the al Qaeda affiliates in the Gaza Strip,” said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who now is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

“There have been al Qaeda affiliates that have gotten into an exchange of fire with Hamas that were not Jaish al Islam, though.”

Mr. Gold added, “These organizations all work together, and Sinai is a place where they all meet.”

U.S. officials told The Washington Times there is no confirmation identifying the attacker conclusively.

One intelligence official who focuses on al Qaeda said the majority of all source intelligence points to al Qaeda.

The Popular Resistance Committees group, formed in 2000 and operated out of Gaza, has at times aligned with Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that is the sovereign of Gaza.

Over the weekend, however, as more information was gathered about the attack near Eilat, some Israeli official sources also began to acknowledge that a group known as Jaish al Islam, an extremist Muslim organization, also played a role in the attack.

If confirmed, the involvement of a new Sinai-based al Qaeda group would be yet another extremist group aligned with the goals of the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that spawned more formal affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and North Africa.

One of the intelligence officials said the recent attack also highlighted how Egypt’s military government is losing control of the Sinai Peninsula, the strategically important territory that Israel captured from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War and then returned to Egyptian control after the two states signed the Camp David Accords in 1979.

Gunmen launched the midday raid after moving in from the Sinai near Eilat and ambushed a civilian Israeli bus. The attackers also detonated a roadside bomb that blew up military vehicles responding to the carnage.

In all, eight civilians were killed by up to 24 attackers armed with automatic weapons, suicide bomb belts and grenades. Five of the attackers were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers.

The method used in an assault-style raid evoked al Qaeda-backed attack on Mumbai in November 2008 that killed 168 people. It also set off a new round of fighting between Israel and Palestinians over the weekend.

On Friday, Hamas announced that it would break its cease-fire with Israel, but Palestinian sources said Monday evening the cease-fire was back in effect.

The intelligence official who said there are signs of a new Sinai-based group said initial assessments indicated the Popular Resistance Committees‘ role was limited to providing advance scouting of locations for the attack.

“PRC was clearly involved, [but] they were not the brains or the brawn of the operation. They were the scouts,” the official said. “Because the PRC squawked after the operation, they became an immediate target. It is not an unjustifiable reaction.”

A U.S. counterterrorism official said initial U.S. reports on the attack also blamed al Qaeda in the Sinai. This official also said the U.S. government had no information to suggest al Qaeda’s core leadership – thought to be based in Pakistan – ordered or supported the attack.

“This is an example of Salafi extremists who tried to link themselves to al Qaeda and use that brand name,” the counterterrorism official said, adding that it would be premature to say al Qaeda in the Sinai is an al Qaeda affiliate the way others, like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or al-Shabab in Somalia, are direct affiliates of al Qaeda.

U.S. intelligence reports have said the Sinai terrorist group has a few rudimentary training facilities in the region, as well as strategic control of some towns. The group also is suspected of conducting other recent attacks on a natural gas pipeline in Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The Sinai al Qaeda group is thought to have been bolstered by the release this year of between 200 and 300 prisoners freed in Egypt.

While Israel has said al Qaeda-linked groups maintain a small presence in the Sinai since 2005 and 2006, the capability of such groups has increased in recent months.

In late July, commandos stormed the police station at the northernSinai regional capital of al-Arish. The attackers then produced a manifesto announcing an Islamic emirate in Sinai, calling themselves al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula.

“After the attack on al-Arish, there was no longer any doubt that al Qaeda had some kind of potent presence in the peninsula,” another U.S. official told The Washington Times.

The success of the new group prompted Egypt’s military this month to launch what it called Operation Eagle, a deployment of up to 2,500 troops and 250 military vehicles, according to news reports from the region.

Israel has coordinated the movement of Egyptian troops in the peninsula with the ruling military junta in Cairo since February, allowing up to five battalions in the peninsula. The terms of Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt prohibit Egyptian troops in the Sinai unless Israel gives its approval.