WarSclerotic

Syria’s youth coalition accuses Hezbollah of role in Assad’s brutal crackdown.

Al Arabiya

Friday, 26 August 2011

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivering a televised speech at an undisclosed location in Lebanon on August 26, 2011.

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Syrian Weapons Sites Worry U.S., Israel – WSJ.com.

Intelligence Services Allege Significant Stockpiles of Gases, Missiles at Military Bases Could Be Targets Amid Unrest

ByJAY SOLOMON

WASHINGTON—The U.S. and Israel are closely monitoring Syria’s suspected cache of weapons of mass destruction, fearing that terror groups could take advantage of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad to obtain blistering agents, nerve gas and long-range missiles, according to officials from both countries.

United Nations investigators also recently concluded that Damascus had been secretly constructing a nuclear reactor with North Korean help before Israeli jets destroyed the site in late 2007. U.S. and U.N. nonproliferation officials continue to worry that Pyongyang may have provided Syria with additional nuclear-related equipment.

“We are very concerned about the status of Syria’s WMD, including chemical weapons,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, said in an interview. “Together with the U.S. administration, we are watching this situation very carefully.”

Israel has historically held concerns about the fall of the Assad regime, which has largely kept the Syria-Israel border quiet for the past 40 years. Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has increasingly voiced support for democratic change in Damascus.

“We see a lot of opportunity emerging from the end of the Assad regime,” Mr. Oren said.

A senior U.S. official said Syria’s suspected chemical weapons arsenal “is of great importance and…under intense study.”

U.S. and Israeli officials won’t disclose exactly how they are keeping tabs on Syrian weaponry. But in the past, the U.S. and Israel have tracked activities at Syrian military installations using satellites and human spies. In 2008, the George W. Bush administration released detailed photographs and other intelligence of a reactor allegedly set to produce weapons-grade plutonium on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria.

Washington’s concerns about Syria mirror in some ways those held about Libya, where U.S. intelligence agencies are trying to help rebels secure mustard gas, shoulder-fired missiles and light arms amassed by Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in recent decades. The Obama administration is concerned these weapons could fall into the hands of militant groups and terrorist organizations operating across North Africa and the Middle East.

During a short-lived détente with the U.S. that began in 2003, Col. Gadhafi gave up the equipment needed to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr. Assad’s government has repeatedly denied that it has developed any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. It accuses Israel of having developed the largest nuclear and chemical weapons arsenal in the Middle East, a charge Israel neither confirms nor denies.

Syria is one of six nations that isn’t a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the production and stockpiling of chemical weapons.

U.S. and Western intelligence services view Damascus as a central player in a global proliferation network that includes North Korea, Iran and the militant groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

U.S. officials believe North Korea has assisted both Damascus and Tehran in developing medium- and long-range missile systems. U.N. investigators also concluded in a recent report that Syria and Iran oversee sophisticated smuggling networks that move light arms and Katyusha missiles into Lebanon and the Palestinian territories via sea and land. Last year, the U.S. charged Syria with transferring long-range missile technologies to Hezbollah, a charge Damascus has denied.

A 2009 report by the Central Intelligence Agency said: “Syria has had a [chemical weapons] program for many years and already has a stockpile of CW agents, which can be delivered by aircraft, ballistic missiles and artillery rockets.”

Current and former U.S. officials said Syria has at least five sites where it produces chemical-weapons agents, including mustard gas, Sarin and VX. Mustard gas is a blistering agent used extensively in World War I. Sarin and VX are nerve agents that are considered more lethal.

But the officials said these facilities are difficult to track as they are spread across Syria and centered in such cities as Damascus, Hama, Latakia and Aleppo. Some production facilities are at military facilities that also store Syria’s Scud missiles.

U.S. officials said there are no indications that the Assad regime has transferred chemical weapons to Hezbollah or Hamas. They also stressed that there are no indications that any Syrian weapons facilities have been compromised or are vulnerable.

Still, U.S. officials said there are worries that this situation could change if Syria follows Libya into a period of prolonged unrest or civil war. There have already been reports of some Syrian military units splintering into pro- and antiregime elements, although the overall structure of the armed forces appears intact, U.S. officials said.

The level of U.S. concern about the stockpiles would grow should Syria descend into even deeper chaos or full-blown civil war, a U.S. official said. “That scenario is on the radar screen, and a lot of people are watching this closely, but we’re not there right now,” the official said.

Nonproliferation experts are particularly concerned that Syrian army units could be diverted away from guarding the weapons sites if the instability in the country continues. There are also fears that elements of the Syrian army could seek to sell artillery shells tipped with chemical or agents.

“The fear is fragmentation,” said Leonard Spector, head of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, an independent think tank in Washington. “If you have a situation where the military fragments, or where some of the locations are overrun, then you have all these other contingencies you have to plan for.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 26, 2011, 9:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

Kuwait’s Grand Mubarak Port under construction

Ahmadinejad: Palestinian stateho… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – The creation of a universally-recognized Palestinian state would be just a first step towards wiping out Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday.

He spoke weeks ahead of a UN General Assembly in New York where the Arab League plans to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state.

Ahmadinejad, restating a position expressed soon after taking office in 2005 that Israel was a “tumor” to be wiped off the map, urged Palestinians not to settle for a two-state solution that is backed by [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas but to strive for a complete return of what they consider their land.

“Recognizing the Palestinian state is not the last goal. It is only one step forward towards liberating the whole of Palestine,” Ahmadinejad told worshippers at Friday prayers on international Qods Day — an annual show of support for the Palestinian cause.

“The Zionist regime is a center of microbes, a cancer cell and if it exists in one iota of Palestine it will mobilize again and hurt everyone.”

“It is not enough for them to have a weak, powerless state in a very small piece of Palestine. They should unite to establish a state but the ultimate goal is the liberation of the whole of Palestine,” he said.

“I urge the Palestinians never to forget this ideal. Forgetting this ideal is equal to committing suicide. It would be giving an opportunity to an enemy which is on the verge of collapse and disappearance.”

Back to surgical strikes – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Israel resumes pinpoint eliminations of terrorists, the most effective anti-terror weapon

Since last Thursday there has been a change in the IDF’s modus operandi in the Gaza Strip. The political leadership granted the army and Shin Bet much more leeway and much more flexibility with regard to undertaking pinpoint eliminations of wanted terrorists: Whether they are ticking time bombs or hostile parties planning to perpetrate terror attacks at a later point.

Hamas sought a ceasefire, albeit nothing was put down in writing, and Israel rushed to establish the substance of this truce. One of its principles, as of today, is that if they fire rockets we will return to pinpoint eliminations according to a master list, along the same lines of the fugitive lists in the days of the Second Intifada.

Since Operation Cast Lead Israel has refrained from executing pinpoint eliminations against terror group leaders. Israel has also refrained from eliminations of terrorists in the field involved in planning attacks. At times we saw reports about a terror cell that left the Gaza Strip and was struck even before it crossed the border into Sinai, but for the most part pinpoint eliminations were reserved for ticking time bombs: that is, rocket launching cells eliminated before or after firing into Israel.

In other words, most terrorists could wander around the Gaza Strip with relative safety. Even when the infrastructure of the Popular Resistance Committees came together for executing the attack near Eilat – via Sinai – there was an opportunity to strike it. Some defense officials proposed doing just that. Yet senior officials decided not to execute such surgical strike due to political and operational reasons.

Prepare for escalation

When referring to the elimination of terror infrastructure the objective is not just to strike the men who directly execute the attack. Striking the planners and the men responsible for logistics can also affect execution of an attack. For example, there were cases where terror cells embarked on an attack, their infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was exposed and hit, and the cells returned without undertaking the planned attack.

The pinpoint elimination was and remains the most effective weapon in coping with terrorism and striking fear in its perpetrators. The IDF learned this in the Second Intifada, when it curbed the spread of terror networks by constantly cutting back the lists of wanted terrorists. In contrast to the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank it was also possible to make arrests. But in Gaza, cutting back the list can only be done by physically neutralizing the targets.

The defense minister hinted at the change in policy regarding surgical strikes at the beginning of the week in Ashkelon, when he mentioned cutting off terrorists’ heads. However, the pinpoint elimination is also a weapon that invites a quick reaction. Hamas and Islamic Jihad can accept a strike against the tunnels, store rooms or buildings. But a strike on their command structure, for example, forces them to react in an effort to deter Israel from continuing.

Hence, should Israel persist in the policy of eliminations now – which has since Thursday cut down five terrorists from the Popular Resistance Committees, five terrorists from Islamic Jihad and two Hamas terrorists – we can assume that the ceasefire declared by terrorist organizations will not last very long, and we shall find ourselves very quickly in the midst of a military operation.

Activists: Syrian forces kill 8, protester… JPost – Middle East.

    AMMAN – Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad killed eight people across Syria overnight, activists said on Friday, in a sustained campaign to crush street protests against his rule buoyed by the demise of Muammar Gaddafi’s power in Libya.

Many of the deaths occurred as a result of attacks on street demonstrations demanding an end to 41 years of Assad family domination that have been breaking out daily after Ramadan prayers that follow the breaking of the fast, they said.

“Congratulations to the Libyan people,” read signs carried by protesters who marched at night demanding Assad’s removal in the town of Kisweh, south of Damascus.

“God is with us. The revolution is bringing together the free,” shouted demonstrators in the resort town of Zabadani, west of the capital and near the border with Lebanon.

The activists said on Friday seven of the protesters were killed in the city of Hama, which has been besieged by the military since the beginning of Ramadan on Aug. 1, in the countryside of Aleppo to the north, in the northwestern province of Idlib and in Homs, hometown of Assad’s wife Asma.

“The best response to Assad is the peaceful street protests we are seeing as another Arab autocrat falls in Libya,” said dissident Adib Shishakli, grandson of one of Syria’s earliest presidents after independence from France in 1946.

The eighth civilian casualty was a Turkish truck driver killed by a pro-Assad militia on the main highway leading to Turkey in the town of Rastan just north of Damascus, which has been scene of daily assaults to end street protests, the activists said.

KAHLILI: Luring Israel into war – Washington Times.

Are Iranian leaders seeking Arab war with Israel to protect Assad?

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has ordered the Revolutionary Guards to draw Israel into another Middle East war through their Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah proxies in an effort to save Bashar Assad’s brutal regime in Syria, sources report.

The ploy appears to be working, as Israeli opposition leaders are demanding the Netanyahu government launch a major military campaign against the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip.

Just in the past few days, militants in the Hamas-ruled strip have bombarded southern Israel with more than 100 rockets and mortars. The instability in Cairo with the fall of the Mubarak regime has helped the Iranian-backed terrorists in the Sinai area attack Israel from within Egypt’s borders and has enabled Iran to smuggle in thousands of rockets to arm the militants. On Aug. 18, gunmen infiltrated Israel and killed six civilians and two soldiers. And at least one civilian was killed and 20 others were wounded in the rocket attacks.

The Iranian leader had previously sent a letter to President Obama warning him that unless he avoided interfering in Syria’s affairs, consequences would take place in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the White House continued its condemnation of the atrocities in Syria, attacks against U.S. forces picked up in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with several U.S. fatalities.

When Mr. Obama openly called for the ouster of Mr. Assad last week, Iran retaliated by handing out eight-year sentences to the two American hikers held since 2009 on charges of espionage.

The Iranian regime apparently is willing to start a similar Arab-Israeli war like the one in 2006 initiated by the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. At that time, the Iranian regime feared that President George W. Bush had decided to attack Iran, and therefore it created a diversion not only to flex its muscle in the region but also to keep America busy with yet another crisis. Now fearing the fall of Mr. Assad, who has been complicit in many of Iran’s terrorist plots in the region over the years, it sees the need for another war to divert attention from Syria’s suppression of its people.

Ever since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Syrian regime has provided the kind of gateway for the radicals ruling Iran to create Hezbollah, arm Hamas, sabotage any peace activity between the Palestinian authorities and Israel, and push for the destruction of Israel through its proxies.

Syria is the most important ally of the Iranian regime, and the fall of Mr. Assad would drastically decrease Iran’s influence in the region. It also would threaten the demise of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Iran has done everything at its disposal to help suppress the months-long uprising in Syria. The Iranian supreme leader has called the Syrians involved in the unrest enemies of God and agents of Israel. Back in May, Ayatollah Khamenei held a covert meeting in Tehran with commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, representatives of the Syrian Embassy, members of Hezbollah and leaders of the Sadr movement in Iraq. There, he demanded that all operational and logistic forces be applied to stamp out the blaze of sedition in Syria and destroy those who were enemies of Allah in that country.

The guards also have warned Turkey and any other country that might interfere in Syrian affairs of consequences and that Iranian missiles would be used to retaliate against any interfering force.

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a marja scholar in the city of Qom, announced on Sunday that Israel has had a direct hand in the unrest in Syria and issued a fatwa that any change in Syria will be against Islam.

The Iranian regime is determined to save Mr. Assad, and in doing so it will not hesitate to destabilize the region. Mr. Obama, who has rightly called for Mr. Assad to step down, must make clear that Iran will not be allowed to continue with its adventurous policy in the region and that any instigation of war will come back to haunt the Iranian leaders themselves.

The dual tracks of negotiations and sanctions have failed to stop the radicals ruling Iran in their nuclear-bomb ambitions. Just today, Iran announced it has moved some of its centrifuges to an underground uranium-enrichment site that offers better protection from possible airstrikes. It is critical to global security that we act in time to stop the jihadists in Tehran from checkmating the world.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who is a fellow with EMPact America and the author of “A Time to Betray,” about his double life in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, 2010).

Ahmadinejad: Iran is determined to eradicate Israel – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iranian president says those who are for humanity should also be for eradicating Israel, since the ‘Zionist regime is a symbol of suppression and discrimination.’

By DPA

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran was determined to eradicate Israel, ISNA news agency reported Thursday.

“Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime (Israel) as symbol of suppression and discrimination,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with a Lebanese television network, carried by ISNA.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 20, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

“Iran follows this issue (the eradication of Israel) with determination and decisiveness and will never ever withdraw from this standpoint and policy,” the Iranian president added in the interview with the Al-Manar network.

The remarks by Ahmadinejad came one day before the annual anti-Israeli rallies named Qods (Jerusalem) Day, which are held nationwide in Iran on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Ahmadinejad on Monday said that Iranians and Muslim nations worldwide should hold Qods rallies and show their willingness to dispose of this “infectious tumor and this regime full of rascality.”

The Iranian president provoked international condemnation in 2005 when he said that Israel should be eliminated from the map of the Middle East and transferred to Europe or North America.

Ahmadinejad to Syria: Killings ‘serves Zionist interests’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Iranian President calls Assad’s regime to engage in dialogue with Syrian people, stop violence, reach understanding so as to avoid western intervention in favor of ‘Zionist entity’

Roee Nahmias

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadcalled the Damascus regime to engage in dialogue with the Syrian people in order to put a stop to the violence and reach an understanding regarding the political reforms in the country, Lebanese Al-Manar television reported on Thrusday.  “The people and government of Syria must come together to reach an understanding,” he told the station, which is run by the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollahmovement.  The online website “Now Lebanon” quoted Ahmadinejad’s interview in Al-Manar, saying that the Iranian president claimed the violence in Syria only “serves Zionist interests.”   Syrians under fire (Photo: AFP)  “When there is a problem between the people and their leaders they must sit down together to reach a solution, away from violence,” he said. “One must not kill the other.”  Despite these declarations, Ahmadinejad conveyed a different messageback in 2009, when thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest against his re-election. YouTube videos appeared online, showing the regime’s militia firing at the masses, killing dozens and injuring thousands.  Riots in Iran in 2009 (Photo: AP)  The Iranian president linked between NATO’s assistance to the Libyan upheaval and the Syrian situation. He claimed the West seeks to attack Syria just as they intervened in Libya, therefore concluding that the people of Syria and its government must come to an understanding soon.   Ahmadinejad added that the West was not interested in reforms, but only wishes to encourage a national conflict.   “We need freedom, justice and free elections,” Ahmadinejad declared, adding that the people of Syria have a right to demand these privilages while setting a clear timeline. He further inferred that all of the tragedies of “its people” result from Western intervention in favor of “the Zionist entity.”

IDF strikes Gaza after more than 20 rockets hit southern Israel – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Palestinians report two killed, some 20 wounded from IDF strikes; nine-month-old baby lightly wounded after rocket hits Ashkelon region on Wednesday night.

By Avi Issacharoff, Yanir Yagna and The Associated Press

A renewed barrage of rockets hit Israel’s south overnight Wednesday, prompting Israel Defense Forces planes to carry out strikes on the Gaza Strip on Thursday morning, killing two and wounding about 20, according to Palestinian reports.

 

	Palestinians inspect the damage to the Islamic Jihad club after an Israeli air strike in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, early Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

Click here for full Haaretz coverage on the escalation on Israel’s southern border

Five grad rockets fell in open areas on Wednesday night, one near Ofakim, one south of Ashkelon and three in Be’er Sheva. Rockets also fell in the Eshkol Regional Council. A nine-month-old baby was lightly wounded after a rocket hit a private car in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council.

Rocket fire continued late into Wednesday night, with two rockets also landing in Sderot.
In response to rocket attacks, Israel Air Force aircraft targeted a weapons storage facility in the northern Gaza Strip as well as a smuggling tunnel and weapons manufacturing site in the southern Gaza Strip overnight on Wednesday. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that “direct hits were confirmed.”

Earlier Wednesday, IAF aircraft targeted two militants in separate locations on Wednesday in northern Gaza, who had launched projectiles at Israel shortly before, the IDF said in a statement.

The military branch of Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks later on Wednesday night, saying that they were a response to the killing of an Islamic Jihad operative, Ismael al-Asmar, early on Wednesday morning, according to a report by Israel Radio.

Palestinian sources reported on Wednesday evening that a member of the Islamic Jihad was killed by an IDF strike in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in the Gaza Strip. Shortly afterwards a Grad rocket was launched toward Be’er Sheva and was intercepted by the Iron Dome system.