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DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 7, 2011, 5:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Deir al-Zour under Syrian tank assault

After capturing the northern town of Hama in a bloody military assault, Syrian President Bashar Assad Sunday, Aug. 7, sent a whole division of 200 tanks and dozens of armored vehicles to blast their way into another rebellious city, Syria’s oil center of Deir el-Zour in the Euphrates Valley, a town of half a million inhabitants. At least 70 people were reported dead in one day.

debkafile‘s military sources report that while Hama is a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, Deir el-Zour is the urban center of some 2.1 million members of assorted nomadic Bedouin tribes. They too are Sunni Muslims though of different sects. The Baqqara tribal federation is the largest, numbering 1.2 million, followed by the Fadan Walad and the Fadan Kharsa of the Euphrates Valley and the al Shammar Karsah of Deir al Zour and its environs.
Unlike the protesters of Hama, these tribesmen lack anti-tank weapons for battling Syrian armor and so their town may not hold out against the Syrian onslaught beyond two or three days. The tribesmen have meanwhile run for cover to the dense papyrus groves of the river bank and the narrow wadis of the Iraqi al Anbar province just across the border. From these hiding places, our military sources expect them refugees to organize protracted guerrilla warfare against the Assad regime and Syrian army.
debkafile recalls that these are the very tribes which from 2003 to 2006 joined al Qaeda in bloody warfare on US forces in central Iraq, preventing Anbar and the central Iraqi towns of Falujja and Ramadi ever being completely subdued and constantly convulsed by suicide attacks.
It was only when President George W. Bush agreed to implement the Awakening Councils plan put forward by Gen. David Petraeus, the current CIA Director, which involved substantial monthly payments to the tribal chiefs for warfare against al Qaeda that, Al Anbar was pacified.
Aware of the menace posed by these tribes, Syrian security services last week – ahead of the Deir el-Zour offensive – captured the Baqqara tribal chief Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir as hostage against the tribes joining the uprising against the regime. Syrian military intelligence will find him a tough nut to crack – even for a heavy bribe.
The upshot may well be that although the Syrian army finally subjugates Deir al-Zour and Abu Kemal on the Iraqi border its forces will be cornered by Sunni tribes which control the road networks around the two eastern towns and prey to their raids.
Assad’s offensive against the two towns also places at risk Syria’s small oil fields and pipeline system. Their daily product of $8-10 million is his primary source of revenue for sustaining his war on the uprising and they will certainly become a prime strategic target for the resistance.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan decided to send his foreign minister Ahmed Davutoglu to Damascus Tuesday, Aug. 9, after declaring Saturday that Turkey’s patience with its neighbor “was running thin and his country could not remain a bystander to the violence… but must do what is necessary.”

Davutoglu will “deliver our message in a more determined way,” said Erdogan. “…a new process will take shape according to their response and actions.”

“We do not see Syria as a foreign problem, Syria is our domestic problem because we have a 850-kilometer border with this country, we have historical and cultural ties, we have kinship,” Erdogan said.

This was the last warning from Ankara – and therefore NATO – that Turkey was about to intervene militarily in Syria, after maintain army units on the Syrian border for weeks.
Friday, Aug. 5, Russia’s NATO ambassador Dmitry Rogozin accused NATO, of which Turkey is a member, of planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the Assad regime “with the long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran.” Click here for debkafile report

Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

Activists say casualties escalating by the hour as security forces launch attack on the city of Homs; Arab League chief says Syria government must expedite steps toward reform.

Arab League Chief Nabil al-Arabi on Sunday called on Syrian authorities to “immediately halt” a violent crackdown on anti-government protests and expedite steps to preserve the country’s unity.

“The chance is still available for fulfilling the reforms, which President Bashar Assad promised to respond to the Syrian people’s ambitions and legal demands for freedom and change,” added al-Arabi in a statement.

	Syrian anti-government protesters gather in Al Malaab street in Homs, 165 km north of Damascus, in this still image taken from video posted on a social media website on August 4, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

He made the remarks as the Syrian army was continuing attacks against two restive cities, resulting in at least 60 deaths, according to opposition activists.

Al-Arabi also called on the Syrian government to set up an independent team to investigate violence and human rights abuses in the country.

“The Syrian government and national powers should take all necessary steps to provide a favorable climate for serious engagement in a comprehensive national dialogue,” added al-Arabi.

	A tank at Al-Bahra roundabout in Hama in a still image taken from video made available on August 3, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

He warned against what he termed as risks of sliding into sectarian sedition and chaos in Syria.

During a visit to Damascus last month, al-Arabi criticized foreign “interference” in Syrian affairs.

At least 60 Syrian civilians were killed in armored military assaults by President Bashar Assad’s forces on Sunday to crush a five-month uprising against his rule, a grassroots activists’ organization said.

Among them were 38 in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and 13 in the Houla Plain, 30 km (19 miles) north of the city of Homs, which were stormed by tanks and armored vehicles early on Sunday, the Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union said.

“These are preliminary figures. The numbers of casualties are escalating by the hour,” activist Suhair al-Atassi, a SRCU member, told Reuters by phone from Damascus.

Sri Lanka Guardian: Mossad hunts down Iran’s nuclear scientists.

Syrian troops storm eastern city – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Army launches pre-dawn raid on Deir el-Zour, attacking it from four sides and so far taking control of eight neighborhoods

Associated Press

Activists say Syrian troops have stormed parts of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour and explosions can be heard throughout the area.

An activist in the city told The Associated Press the military launched a pre-dawn raid Sunday on the city, attacking it from four sides and so far taking control of eight neighborhoods.

On Saturday, Syrian forces tightened a siege on the city of Hama, the main center of the nearly five-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime. At least 250 people have been killed in Hama Since last Sunday.

The activist said the military raid on Deir el-Zour began at 4 a.m. Sunday. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group tracking the uprising, confirmed parts of the city were taken over by troops.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

Israeli Military Plotting to Cripple Iran in Cyberspace – FoxNews.com.

TEL AVIV –  Israel has set up a military cyber command to wage a computer war against Iran as senior officers become increasingly concerned that a conventional attack on Tehran’s nuclear sites could end in failure, London’s The Sunday Times reported.

The new cyber command will report directly to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who has placed the program at the heart of Israel’s defense capability.

“Israel must turn into a global cyber superpower,” he told a meeting of cyber warfare experts recently.

The center, which has been set up under the auspices of military intelligence unit 8200 has already conducted a series of “soft” espionage missions, including hacking into Iran’s version of Facebook and other social networking sites.

The Stuxnet malware virus, which dramatically affected Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 by sabotaging the delicate centrifuges needed to enrich uranium, is widely believed to have been developed by Israeli and American technicians.

In April, Iranian government offices came under attack from a hitherto unknown malware virus to which Tehran officials gave the name Stars. They claimed the damage had been contained but admitted it was the second mysterious virus found since the Stuxnet attack.

“Israel has two principal targets in Iran’s cyberspace,” said a defense source with close knowledge of the cyber war preparations. “The first is its military nuclear program and its military establishment. The second is Iran’s civil infrastructure. Attacking both, we hope, will cripple the entire country’s cyberspace.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report August 5, 2011, 12:39 PM (GMT+02:00)

Russia’s NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin

Twelve hours after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Assad he faced a “sad fate” if he failed to introduce reforms, Moscow’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin accused the Western alliance of planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the Assad regime “with the long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran.”
In an interview published by Izvestia Friday, Aug. 5, the knowledgeable and high-placed Rogozin added: “This statement means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa.”

Thursday, as the Syrian military crackdown in Hama reached a new level of ferocity with public executions in the town square, the Russian president warned Assad: “We are watching how the situation is developing. It’s changing and our approach is changing as well.”

debkafile‘s Moscow sources note that the Rogozin added Yemen to his remarks on NATO: He said he agreed with the opinion that Syria and later Yemen could be NATO’s last steps on the way to launching an attack on Iran.

“The noose around Iran is tightening,” he said. “Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region.”
The Russian envoy made a point of citing NATO – never once mentioning the United States in his remarks. However, they were definitely meant to clarify to Washington that Moscow is fully updated on the next American military steps in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.

debkafile‘s military sources add: The Libyan campaign taught NATO that without US military strength, alliance members were incapable of defeating even a small army on the scale of Muammar Qaddafi’s six brigades, much less muster the ground, air and sea forces for striking Syria and Iran. The only power with the requisite military strength is the United States, which was therefore the unspoken address of Rogozin’s warning.
Russian diplomats have repeatedly cautioned Tehran that it incurs the danger of American attack on its nuclear facilities. Now Syria has been included. Rogozin remarked that having “learned the Libyan lesson, Russia will continue to oppose a forcible resolution of the situation in Syria.”

Iron Dome battery moved south after Gaza-rocke… JPost – Defense.

    Due to escalation in rocket fire from Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided Friday to deploy a battery from the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system outside the southern city of Ashkelon.

Barak’s decision came after close to thirty rockets have been fired into Israel since the beginning of July.

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) currently has two operation Iron Dome batteries and is expected to receive a third by the end of the year.

On Friday morning, the Air Force struck five targets in the Gaza Strip following several strikes earlier Thursday, coming in response to increased rocket fire emanating from the Strip in recent days, including one rocket which reportedly landed in the Lachish area but caused no damages or injuries.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office confirmed that the IAF struck four terror tunnels and one terror activity base in the central Gaza Strip. Another target was struck in the southern strip. A statement added that the precision strikes were identified as hitting their targets.

Palestinian sources reported that several buildings were on fire in Khan Yunis following the strike but there were no reports of injuries.

The IDF Spokesman noted that the attacks were precision strikes and came as a response to the rocket fire in recent days. It added that the IDF holds Hamas responsible for maintaining calm in Gaza.

According to IDF estimates, the rockets were fired by terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaida and global jihad elements, and not by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, even though the larger groups likely turned a blind eye to the rocket fire.

The Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system successfully intercepted 9 Katyusha and Kassam rockets fired from Gaza Strip in April and has since been moved throughout the country to different cities where the IAF is setting up potential deployment sites in the event of a larger scale conflict in the future.

DEBKA.

Bashar Assad

Despite the infighting in his regime, Syrian President Bashar Assad still counts on the allegiance of his key instruments of power: the General Intelligence Directorate, Military Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, the Political Security Directorate, the National Security Bureau, the ruling Baath Party security apparatus, the riot police, his own Alawite Shabiha militia and the still loyal elements of the army – the 4^th, 14^th, 15^th and Republican Guard Divisions.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Middle East sources report he will need every scrap of support he can muster to fight the four wars the four-month revolt against his regime has bred – even in the face of his barbaric crackdown:
Attrition of the North by slaughter
1. No holds are barred for the army to bring northern Syria’s 3.5 million inhabitants to heel at Ar-Raqqah, Latakia, Hama, Homs, Idlib and dozens of small locations over an area of 20,000 kilometers. Although backed by tanks, the soldiers are reluctant to venture into city centers and brave the protesters’ roadblocks, anti-tank traps and their machine guns and anti-tank rockets, which are fired from fortified positions.
Now and again, the soldiers will go in, first laying down a rolling screen of shell and machine-gun fire. But only when they spot a weak point in rebel defenses do they breach the opposition’s lines and reach town centers.
The tactics are simple: Rather than confronting armed rebels in face-to-face combat, the soldiers are targeting civilian populations, indiscriminately shooting dozens of men, women and children day by day and injuring hundreds.
(On the first day of Assad’s general offensive on the North, Sunday, July 31, more than 150 civilians were killed and more than 1,000 wounded.)
Assad hopes that when the population can’t take any more, the civilians will make the rebels take down the roadblocks and anti-tank positions, or else forfeit popular support.
Hama onslaught fueled by toothless UN condemnation, world indifference
However, Wednesday, the Syrian army saw its chance in Hama, a died-in-the-wool anti-Assad city of half a million inhabitants, whom Bashar’s father President Hafez Assad massacred into submission in 1982.
Taking advantage of the spectacle riveting world attention Wednesday, Aug. 3, of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in an iron cage on a stretcher, the Syrian ruler ordered his tank forces to beat their way into Hama city center. He armed them for the first time with ZU-23 automatic anti-aircraft artillery for battering residential buildings and streets.
The tank force made it into Orontes Square, but only at a horrendous cost in bloodshed. Bodies and limbs were later seen floating in the Orontes River as Hama’s citizens, pinned down indoors, threw their dead out of windows and off rooftops into the river.
Assad found encouragement to persevere in his savageries by the toothless condemnation issued Wednesday night by the UN Security Council with no penalties attached.
2. In Damascus, Assad’s forces have managed for two months to confine protest to the suburbs and their population of 3.5 million, and prevent it from leaching into the heart of the capital.
The effort has paid off: Life goes on as normal in Damascus heedless of the anti-regime uprising sweeping the rest of the country.
3. Syrian intelligence is fighting a covert war to keep smuggled fighters and weapons from reaching the protesters from four countries: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
By night, Syrian special operations forces creep across the borders to ambush smugglers. One such incursion into Lebanon was reported Tuesday, Aug. 2, together with the shelling of Lebanese targets by Syrian troops. Similar incidents on Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan this week have gone unreported.
Big Saudi plans for the Euphrates Valley
4. The battle to save the Euphrates Valley of eastern Syria is the most critical of them all, in the view of Assad and his Iranian strategic advisers, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military and intelligence sources report. He can’t afford to lose control of this rebellious region and its two flashpoint cities, Deir ez-Zour – Syria’s oil center and its fifth largest city with a population of over a half-million; and the smaller town of Abu Kamal with less than 60,000 inhabitants, which is important as the gateway into Iraq.
Even if only partially successful in subduing opposition in the north, Damascus and the border readions, Bashar Assad might conceivably hang onto power – but not if he loses the strategic Euphrates Valley.
There, he is not merely battling an uprising but a foreign attempt to seize land.
The rebels are heavily armed and funded by Saudi Arabia, which plans to capitalize on Syria’s unrest to promote its scheme to establish a separate Sunni Muslim state on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border.
This state would encompass the Syrian Euphrates region and the vast Al-Anbar province of central Iraq, which shares borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and whose approximately 1.5 million inhabitants are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Arab.
Deir al-Zour would be its capital.
A huge coup for Riyadh
If Syria can be ejected, the Euphrates Valley would be lopped off and attached to Al-Anbar to form a new Sunni state of three million people spanning Syrian-Iraqi borderlands.
Seasoned observers of the Syrian scene in Damascus, Tehran and Washington believe that this objective explains Saudi actions since the Syrian uprising erupted four months ago. In the past month, Riyadh’s intelligence agencies have been pumping out large consignments of arms and hundreds of millions of dollars to stiffen the resistance to Assad and buy the loyalty of local tribes and their chiefs.
Those observers reckon that if the Sunni entity does indeed rise, it would be placed under the military and intelligence umbrella of neighboring Jordan.
The Hashemite Kingdom, during the eight-year US military presence in Iraq, gained plenty of experience in cross-border interaction. Now, instead of the Americans, Jordan could easily learn to work with the Saudis – especially since the Jordanian army and clandestine services recently came under Saudi command when Amman joined the Persian Gulf States organization, the GCC.
Riyadh sees untold strategic benefits in a new pro-Saudi Sunni state straddling Syria and Iraq, such as extra leverage against Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad and Bashar Assad’s Alawite regime, which is close to the Shiites. The Saudis would have a forward base for keeping in check the spread of Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria; and the new entity would stand in the way of Hizballah’s access to Iraq for covert operations.
Washington is not thrilled
The Obama administration is not thrilled by the Saudi plan for biting off chunks of Iraq and Syria, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources report. One of the several reasons that the US is so cagy about military intervention in the Syrian conflict is that it would tend to hasten the rise of the Saudi protectorate rather than delaying it.
Monday, August 1, shortly before leaving Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied “any indication whatsoever that we would get involved directly (in Syria) with respect to this. I think politically and diplomatically, we want to bring as much pressure as we possibly can to effect the change that so many countries are calling for.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military experts believe that the Saudi plan for a Sunni state is too far advanced for the Americans, Iranians and Syrians to stop.
From 2003, the US army never achieved military control of Al Anbar, Iraq’s largest province. From 2003-2006, the US military controlled its own bases in the province while al Qaeda had free rein in most of the territory. In late 2006, the American command came up with a new strategy for fighting al Qaeda and struck a deal with paramount tribal chief Sheikh Abu Risha for establishing the “Awakening Councils,” later succeeded by the Iraqi Al Ikhwan police force.
US forces then undertook to withdraw from Al Anbar towns, release Sunni detainees and hand over control to the local Sunni tribes of Al Anbar, against their commitment to continue to fight Al Qaida to the finish.
Assad embarks on scorched earth policy to keep the Euphrates Valley
This strategy has cost the US budget billions of dollars in the last five years but it did bring them victory in that phase of the war on al Qaeda in Iraq.
Neither the Syrian President nor Tehran is rich enough to buy the tribes of Al Anbar. The Sunni chiefs would in any cause refuse to truck with Alawite and Shiite elements. So Assad’s only recourse for nixing the Saudi plan for a new Sunni state on Syria’s eastern borders is the total, uncompromising subjugation of Deir el-Zour and Abu Kamal.
His determination was evident Monday night, August 1, when the 7^th Division of the Syrian army attacking the outskirts of Abu Kamal blew up every building and facility in its path and set it on fire.
Assad’s scorched earth policy had gone into action.
Two days later, on August 3, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources disclose, the Syrian army beefed up the two brigades deployed at Deir el-Zour with a complete armored division of 6-8,000 men. Aside from fragmentary reports of clashes, information about the military actions in this town is hard to come by since its communications links were cut off.
The Syrian army, backed by Iranian advisers, is clearly going to extreme lengths to hang onto this stretch of the Euphrates Valley. It would not be the first time in its long history that this region has changed hands: Haran, a province of Mesopotamia, flourished there in the late 4^th millennium BCE – until 323 BCE when it was conquered by Alexander the Great.

Syrian city of Hama blacked out – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Phone lines, electricity cut as Assad’s forces continue brutal Hama crackdown

Associated Press

Dozens die, thousands flee Hama amid Syria… JPost – Middle East.

    Syrian troops killed at least 45 civilians in a tank assault to occupy the center of the besieged city of Hama, an activist said on Thursday, in a sharp escalation of a campaign to crush an uprising against President Bashar Assad’s rule.

Thousands of civilians were fleeing the city, a bastion of protest surrounded by a ring of steel of troops with tanks and heavy weapons.

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Electricity and communications have been cut off and as many as 130 people have been killed in a four-day military assault since Assad sent troops into the city on Sunday, activists say.

Reacting to the intensifying assaults on Hama and other Syrian districts, the UN Security Council condemned the use of force against civilians — its first substantive response to nearly five months of unrest in Syria.

In Hama, residents said tanks had advanced into the main Orontes Square, the site of some of the biggest protests against Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez Assad in 2000. Snipers spread onto rooftops and into a nearby citadel.

An activist who managed to leave the city told Reuters that 40 people were killed by heavy machinegun fire and shelling by tanks in al-Hader district on Wednesday and early on Thursday.

The activist, who gave his name as Thaer, said five more people from the Fakhri and Assa’ad families, including two children, were killed as they were trying to leave Hama by car on the al-Dhahirya highway.

Hama has been one of the main centers of protest against Assad, reviving memories of 1982, when Assad’s father sent troops to crush Islamist protests in the city, killing thousands of people and razing much of al-Hader district to the ground.

Last week tanks also moved into the eastern provincial capital of Deir al-Zor and the town of Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq’s Sunni heartland. Both towns have also witnessed large pro-democracy protests.

“The security apparatus thinks it can wrap this uprising up by relying on the security option and killing as many Syrians as it thinks it will take,” a diplomat in the Syrian capital said.

“Tanks are firing their guns at residential buildings in Hama and Deir al-Zor after the two cities were left for weeks to protest peacefully. This is the first time the regime is using tanks with such targeted ferocity,” the diplomat said.

Syrian authorities say the army has gone into Hama to confront armed groups trying to take control of the city. They say at least eight soldiers have been killed by gunmen.

The contrasting accounts from activists and state media are difficult to verify because Syria has barred most independent media since the beginning of the protests.

Rights groups said the lack of communication with the besieged city was alarming. There were also some reports that water supplies were blocked.

“Hama has been cut off. We’re in the dark and of course we’re very worried,” said Human Rights Watch’s Beirut-based senior Syria and Lebanon researcher, Nadim Houry.

Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 1,500 families managed to flee Hama in the last 48 hours, heading mainly to the east or the west of the besieged city. Other activists said authorities had blocked the road north toward Aleppo and Turkey.

“We are talking about hundreds of families leaving Hama since yesterday by cars and pick-up trucks,” said one activist in touch with the families which escaped.

“The Aleppo road is the most dangerous, with most ‘shabbiha’ (pro-Assad militia) stationed there to prevent movement up to Turkey,” he said. A resident of Aleppo said police were turning families from Hama back at roadblocks.

Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory said seven other people were killed across Syria during protests on Wednesday night, three of them in the southern Deraa province and two in the Damascus district of Midan.

Assad opens Syria to multi-party politics

Alongside the military crackdown, Assad has also lifted a state of emergency in place for nearly 50 years and promised constitutional changes to open Syria up to multi-party politics.

On Thursday he formally approved laws passed by the cabinet last week allowing the formation of political parties other than his ruling Baath Party and regulating elections to parliament, which has so far been a rubber-stamp assembly.

But most figures in Syria’s fractured opposition reject any dialogue with Assad while the repression continues.

The United States, which says Assad has lost legitimacy to rule, described him on Wednesday as the cause of instability in the country. “Syria would be a better place without President Assad,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

In New York, Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, president this month of the Security Council, read out a statement condemning “widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities”.
The UN document agreed after three days of hard bargaining urged Damascus to fully respect human rights and comply with its obligations under international law.

But it also urged all sides to act with restraint, reflecting divisions between the West on one hand, and China and Russia, which has a naval base in Syria. Russia said it was important that the U.N. document discouraged international involvement in Syria’s affairs.

“Moscow is convinced that a solution to the situation in that country must be brought about by the Syrians themselves without any outside interference in the all-Syrian dialogue,” the foreign ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

A Syrian pharmacist who managed to talk with her family in Hama told Reuters that they had tried to flee but that the “shabbiha” were randomly shooting residents.

The official Syrian news agency said “armed terrorist groups” had abducted three oil-well guards in Deir al-Zor on Wednesday, and killed one policeman.