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FrontPage Magazine » Second Cyber Attack on Iran?

The Stuxnet cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear program was a defining moment in the history of war, and now, the “Son of Stuxnet” has been discovered. Cyber security experts say the creator of the original worm, widely believed to be Israel and probably the U.S., also designed this one and “there is nothing out there available to stop it.”

The Stuxnet cyber attack rendered thousands of Iran’s centrifuges, around a fifth of all of them, useless. Over 1,000 damaged units were replaced at the Natanz centrifuge farm, and damaged the steam turbine at the Bushehr nuclear reactor. In 2009, only half of Iran’s centrifuges were being used and some of those operating were only enriching half as much uranium as they should. The Iranians have to replace all of the computers at Natanz, and it may take up to two years. It was later found out that Israel tested Stuxnet on centrifuges identical to those used by Iran at its nuclear site in Dimona.

The Iranians later announced in April 2011 that a second cyber attack was discovered, which they called “Stars.” All that the regime said was that it was found on government computers and caused little damage. Iran soon replaced its centrifuges at Natanz and began manufacturing more sophisticated centrifuges that can significantly speed up the nuclear program. The centrifuges were moved to an underground site in the mountains near Qom. In February, experts determined that Iran had recovered from the damage wrought by Stuxnet. And now, the “Son of Stuxnet” has emerged.

The new virus, also called Stuxnet 2.0 and Duqu, is broader in scope. It opens up a back door in the compromised computer systems for 36 days, and then disappears. It has been doing this as far back as last December, though the victims have not been publicly identified. The virus allows the creator to hijack the controlling computer systems, permitting the attacker to direct their operations or to even self-destruct. It also records keystrokes and sends back critical information about system vulnerabilities. The back doors have not been exploited, leading experts to conclude that a cyber attack is on its way.

“The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility,” Symanetec said in its announcement of the discovery. It called it a “precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack.”

“It’s my personal belief that the guys who wrote Stuxnet knew exactly what they were doing, and if you thought they were good guys then, you probably don’t have anything more to worry about now. But if you didn’t, you probably have a lot to worry about,” said Vikrum Thakur of Symantec.

At the same time, sanctions and other likely covert operations are taking a heavy toll on the Iranian nuclear program. One issue still confronting Iran is faulty equipment. This may be connected to CIA-Mossad operations that began as early as 1998 to sell Iran booby-trapped equipment. Nuclear-related tools that the Iranians admitted were “manipulated” caused the destruction of 50 centrifuges in 2006, and the director of the Atomic Energy Organization was sacked in 2009 after a similar explosion happened at Natanz.

The creation of enriched uranium is still decreasing despite Iran’s use of newly-made centrifuges to replace the old and damaged ones. This is being attributed to the type of metal used in them, but covert operations cannot be ruled out given the history. The Institute for Science and International Security and U.N. inspectors say that Iran is producing more uranium than it did before the Stuxnet attack, but U.N. inspectors say this amount is declining as centrifuges break.

Iran must also overcome a critical shortage of raw uranium, a problem that has forced it to look to foreign suppliers such as Venezuela, Zimbabwe and North Korea. The black market equipment at the Isfahan uranium conversion site, which turns the raw uranium into gas so it can go into the centrifuges, has also suffered from technical errors. The facility must remove impurities from the uranium before it can be safely inserted into the units without damaging them. In a problem possibly related to covert operations, the equipment failed to do so.

There are a number of other mysterious incidents that have undermined Iran’s nuclear efforts. In the past two years, four Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. In October 2010, a Revolutionary Guards base that housed Shahab-3 missiles suffered a massive explosion at an ammunition depot. There have been repeated explosions at important gas pipelines over the past year.

The problems that Iran is encountering are encouraging, but there is still not much room for comfort. It is still believed that Iran could make a nuclear weapon within 6 months if it tried. The scale of the Iranian nuclear program shows that the regime wants the ability to quickly produce multiple nuclear weapons, and does not want to build one and call it quits.

The “Son of Stuxnet” is almost certainly Israel’s answer to this continued threat. For once, it is Iran that is sitting, feeling helpless as it awaits the next attack.

‘Iran to soon move nuclear mater… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    VIENNA – Iran plans to soon start moving nuclear material to an underground site for the pursuit of sensitive atomic activities, diplomatic sources say, a move likely to add to Western fears about Tehran’s intentions.

They said a first batch of uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) — material which is fed into machines used to refine uranium — would be transferred to the Fordow site near the holy city of Qom in preparation for launching enrichment work there.

Enriched uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, Iran’s stated aim, or provide material for bombs if processed to a higher degree, which the West suspects is its ultimate goal.

Iran’s main enrichment plant is located near the central town of Natanz. But the country announced in June it would move its higher-grade activity to Fordow, a subterranean facility offering better protection against any military attacks.

“For the first time they will have nuclear material in Fordow,” one diplomatic source said. The step to bring a first cylinder of UF6 to a site is usually taken as part of the final preparatory work before starting production, the source said.

Iranian diplomats were not immediately available for comment on this information.

It would be a further sign of the Islamic Republic’s determination to press ahead with a nuclear program the West fears is geared towards developing atomic weapons but which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only.

It comes at a time of heightened tension over an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, a US charge that Tehran rejects as a cynical attempt by its arch foe to further isolate the Islamic Republic.

Next month the UN nuclear watchdog is expected to publish a report that is likely to heighten suspicions that Iran has been carrying out nuclear work with possible military aspects.

Analysts say the findings in the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could bolster the West’s case for imposing additional sanctions on the major oil producer.

“The IAEA has a lot of information that would allow the agency to come to clear findings on the issue of possible military dimensions,” one Western official said.

Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and answer IAEA questions about allegations over the nature of its nuclear work has drawn four rounds of UN sanctions as well as separate US and European punitive measures.

Israel and the United States have not ruled out pre-emptive strikes to prevent Iran producing nuclear weapons.

Iran only disclosed the existence of Fordow — tucked deep inside a mountain on a former military base — to the IAEA in September 2009 after learning that Western intelligence agencies had detected it.

Four months ago, Iran said it would shift its operation to enrich to a fissile purity of 20 percent from Natanz to Fordow and triple production capacity of the material — an announcement that was condemned by its Western adversaries.

In its last report on Iran’s nuclear program, in early September, the IAEA said Iran had installed one of two planned cascades, or interlinked networks, of 174 centrifuges each at Fordow. Such machines spin at supersonic speeds to increase the fissile isotope ratio.

Iran’s decision in early 2010 to raise the level of some enrichment from the 3.5 percent purity needed for normal power plant fuel to 20 percent worried Western states that saw this as bringing it closer to the 90 percent needed for bombs.

“That’s a significant step closer to making an atomic bomb because it takes only a few months to turn that into weapons-grade material,” former IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen told Der Spiegel magazine.

Tehran says it will use 20 percent uranium to convert into fuel for a research reactor making isotopes to treat cancer patients, but Western officials say they doubt that the country has the technical capability to do that.

Some analysts believe Iran is still a few years away from being able to build a nuclear-armed missile, if it decided to.

Nasrallah: ‘Next time, we’ll begin with at… JPost – Middle East.

    Should Israel enter into another war with Lebanon, Hezbollah will start by attacking Tel Aviv and not north of the country, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened on Friday, according to Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar.

The Hezbollah strongman also addressed recent reports of foreign agents operating within the Lebanese terror organization. In a meeting with Hezbollah leaders, Nasrallah admitted that information passed to the CIA and Mossad by three of Hezbollah’s members hurt the organization.

However, Hezbollah will be able to recover from the incident, he asserted, saying that the organization has the courage necessary to fix mistakes.

A month ago Hezbollah detained four of its own members on charges of spying for Israel while a fifth fled, the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat reported.

Quoting “well-informed Lebanese sources,” the paper said the fifth operative had gone missing amid suspicions he too had collaborated with Israel. The operative, named only as M.S., disappeared from his home in southern Beirut last week. Little is known about him other than that he is said to have testified in the UN Special Tribunal on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Computer virus poses threat to key installations – The National.

Tom Arnold and Gareth Van Zyl

A computer virus, dubbed Duqu, designed for espionage has emerged in the Middle East. E J vanHannen

 

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A computer virus designed for espionage has emerged in the Middle East, prompting fears of attacks on key energy installations and utilities in the region.

Security experts warn that the new virus, dubbed Duqu, could be used to steal information about power plants, water treatment facilities and chemical plants.

The stolen information could potentially be used to carry out cyber attacks or even physical assaults to disable facilities.

Designed for high-level espionage, the virus is said to be the successor to the Stuxnet cyber attack that targeted Iranian nuclear plants last year.

“We’re not only talking about a cyber war,” said Bulent Teksoz, the chief security strategist for emerging markets at Symantec. “The sky is the limit, if they know how a nationwide [electricity] grid system works, [how] a water system works.”

Security experts say the people behind Stuxnet, which cost an estimated US$1 million (Dh3.6m) to create, also coded the Duqu virus.

The Middle East, which has infrastructure such as oil and gas installations that supply much of the world’s energy needs, is among the regions where the virus is present, according to IT security companies.

Energy experts voiced alarm about the presence of the cyber threat in the region.

“It’s definitely a concern,” said Mohammed Al Zuhair, the general manager for global supply chain management at Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of chemicals, fertilisers, plastics and metals.

“As a company, you have to mitigate all the time against the risk of fire, loss of power and loss of connection. The question is what impact there will be on the company if you shut down for one day or one month,” Mr Al Zuhair said.

Duqu had already been found in a north-eastern African country after the virus first emerged in Europe this week, said Tarek Kuzbari, the managing director in the Middle East and Turkey for Kaspersky Lab.

He was unwilling to disclose the name of the country, company or the type of infrastructure that was targeted, but he said the virus was found on a user’s computer two days ago.

The Stuxnet virus – called a “worm” because it can self-replicate – was designed to sabotage Siemens management systems, which are most commonly used in industrial manufacturing facilities and utilities plants.

Officials in Iran last year said the virus infected 30,000 personal computers in the country.

“Stuxnet was clearly the most sophisticated computer attack that we had ever seen in the history of mankind,” said Mr Teksoz.

Iranian officials last year accused the US and Israel of creating Stuxnet. The West accuses Iran of enriching uranium to build weapons, but officials in the country say their nuclear technology is used only to generate energy.

Duqu could pave the way for another Stuxnet-style attack, with the potential to disable key infrastructure. Or it could even be the precursor of an attack that is not of the digital kind.

The virus is configured to run for 36 days, after which the threat automatically removes itself from a system. This is unlike the original Stuxnet version, which could multiply itself.

Duqu, given that name because it creates files with a .DQ extension, targets not just Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, as Stuxnet did last year, but also any custom-made operating system.

This means there is little that companies can do to combat the virus. Even anti-virus companies cannot offer protection to those organisations that are being spied on.

“With this kind of system, it is very rare to find such kind of solutions to protect [against] that,” said Mr Kuzbari.

New ‘Stuxnet-related’ virus m… JPost – Environment & Technology.

    A new powerful computer virus has been detected, which gathers information on industrial systems ahead of a potentially crippling cyber-attack, a US Internet security company announced this week, according to a Reuters report.

The Symantec Corporation said the virus, named “Duqu,” “must either have been created by the same group that authored Stuxnet, or by a group that somehow managed to obtain Stuxnet’s source code,” an MSNBC report added.

Stuxnet is the name of a computer worm that was detected last year, which reportedly caused significant damage to Iran’s uranium-enrichment program. It targeted Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), used by Iran to enrich uranium through spinning centrifuges. Foreign media reports speculated that Israel or the US, or both, were behind the attack.

Unlike Stuxnet, however, Duqu does not directly attack SCADA systems, but rather, sends back information that would help attackers prepare a future strike, Symantec said.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Gabi Siboni, director of the Neubauer Program on Cyber Warfare at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said, “Without relating at all to its origin and target, the Reuters report on Duqu shows a deepening of the attempt to find ways to penetrate industrial systems and to stay in them in order to collect information that could, in the future, allow an attack on a target, and disrupt command and control processes operated by the system.”

Siboni noted that SCADA forms the basis of most industrial control systems, adding that the controls receive information “from a range of sensors, for example: Pressure sensors, temperature, rate of flow and dozens of additional procedural parameters.”

“A cybernetic strike on these systems could damage the reading of the sensors, thereby significantly harming the control process – and in certain cases, could also cause real physical damage alongside environmental and health damages. For example, a cybernetic disruption of pressure readings in a large tank containing chemicals can cause it to explode,” Siboni explained.

Siboni said that in the past, industrial-control centers had been exposed to cyber-attacks, causing some plants to take protective measures, such as isolating them from external networks and installing programs that search for suspicious signs of infection.

Symantec said that “the attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility.”

Systems infected with Duqu are connected to a command computer that is in an unknown location in India, MSNBC added, quoting Symantec’s Vikrum Thakur.

“No marching orders have yet been given… But those who control the machines could do virtually anything they wanted,” he said.

Gaddafi dead: Obama warns Syrian President Bashar al-Assad | Mail Online.

Three down, two to go: Obama warns other Middle Eastern dictators as Libyan fighters set their sights on the the ‘germ of Syria’

By Rick Dewsbury

President Barack Obama hailed Muammar Gaddafi’s death yesterday as a warning to dictators across the Middle East that iron-fisted rule ‘inevitably comes to an end.

Obama said the fall of Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya in revolutions dubbed the Arab Spring proved that the leaders of Syria and Yemen should be fearful of similar endings.

Protests broke out in March in Syria and more than 3,000 people have been killed after a violent military response from the leadership.

Washington has demanded that Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad halt his crackdown on democracy protests in Syria and step down. The White House is also pressing Yemen’s longtime president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to leave office in the face of political upheaval.

Deposed dictators: Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, left, speaks with Gaddafi at the Kubba Palace in Cairo in 1999. Little did they know then that their days were numbered

Obama has also condemned Iran’s human rights record and is seeking further sanctions against Tehran over an alleged foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

‘For the region, today’s events prove once more that the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to an end,’ Obama said.

Obama stressed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had lost his legitimacy to rule.

The leader said the United States would be a partner to Libya’s interim government and urged a swift transition to democracy but made no specific promises of aid.

The warnings from Washington were backed up by Libyan revolutionaires themselves, who vowed to help their ‘brothers and sisters in Syria’ fight for freedom.

‘This is the fate of a leader who destroyed the lives of his people for decades and opened fire on them before his demise,’ said Mohamed Beltagy, senior member of Egypt’s influential Muslim Brotherhood.   

How it all began: Demonstrators throws stones at police during clashes in Tunisia in January as the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions started in the Middle East

Jubilant: Egyptians carry a flag through Tahrir Square earlier this year as it becomes clear that Mubarak’s reign had come to an end

‘Gaddafi’s fate should be a lesson for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and Yemen’s (Ali Abdullah) Saleh,’ he said.

The warnings were welcomed by Syrian dissidents who have continued their struggles.

‘If I were a member of the regime, Bashar or [his brother] Maher, I would start to feel rather concerned,’ said Amr al-Azm, a Syrian dissident in the United States and member of the opposition, told the Independent.

The presidents of Tunisia and then Egypt were the first to be ousted in the ‘Arab Spring’ that has brought ordinary people onto the streets to demand political change where many kings and presidents have ruled for decades.    

But Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak were driven out by protests with relatively little violence. Gaddafi, whose bloodied body was shown in footage carried by Arabic television channels, was ousted after months of fighting during which he turned the full might of his army against rebels, firing missiles, artillery and other heavy weapons at them.    

‘Hell awaits Gaddafi. I hate to rejoice in anyone’s death, but what he did to his people was atrocious,’ said Nancy El Kassab, an Egyptian television executive producer.   

 

In the firing lines: Defiant Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, left, and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, right, are being condemned for their violent crackdowns on people protests

Unrest: A dissident Yemeni soldier stands guard as protesters march in Sanaa, Yemen, during an anti-regime rally earlier this month

‘Gaddafi’s death will scare Arab dictators like Assad and Saleh, and make other Arab leaders more careful with their people after they recover from the shock of the news,’ said Alia Askalany, 27, an Egyptian marketing manager.    

In Libya, many could hardly contain their joy.    

‘Thank God … With the rebels will this was achieved and we thank everyone who helped us and we are so happy,’ said Khaled Al-Asoud, a 35-year-old Libyan fighter.    

In Jordan, Abdullah al-Khatib, former UN special envoy to Libya and one-time Jordanian foreign minister, said: ‘Other somehow similar systems in the region should draw their conclusions and listen to the voice of the people and should create the conditions whereby people of the region can freely and openly determine their future and destiny.’

Stark warning: U.S. President Barack Obama added pressure to Syria and Yemen

Activists in Syria’s central city of Homs told Avaaz, a campaigning rights organisation, that people celebrated Gaddafi’s death in the streets. Some held placards saying: ‘The rat of Libya has been caught, next is the germ of Syria.’

But some questioned how much of a domino effect Gaddafi’s demise might have elsewhere in a region, including Yemen where President Saleh has clung on to power in a nation riven by tribal conflicts even after he was wounded in an attack that prompted him to seek treatment in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.    

‘(Gaddafi) deserves it, he killed a lot of people. I don’t believe this will happen in Yemen because there are a lot of divisions there,’ said Omran Ahmed, a Yemeni living in Egypt.    

Saleh already has backed down three times from signing a Gulf initiative for a transfer of power, saying he would only hand over power to ‘safe hands.’    

Lebanon’s former prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, said in a statement that Gaddafi’s death should be a lesson to leaders who ‘have adopted oppression as a method to dominate their people.’    

‘Any Arab citizen, watching the course of events in Libya, cannot but think of the popular revolutionary movement that is taking place in Syria,’ he said.

The balance of power shifted dramatically against Gaddafi in March after his troops swept across rebel-held territory and threatened to launch a devastating attack on the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

A U.N. resolution was passed at the time that prompted NATO to launch air strikes.

Emad Gad from Egypt’s Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies said Gaddafi’s death could encourage the international community to be more proactive in other places.    

He said: ‘It will lead to more pressure by the international community to resolve the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

‘It shows that resisting reform will lead to escalating demands from reforms to overthrowing the regime.’    

Ahmed Montasser, a construction worker watching the news of Gaddafi’s death at a café in downtown Cairo, echoed those sentiments. His former president, Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years, is now on trial over the killing of protesters.    

‘This is the end of every tyrant. The message is that ruling people isn’t through force … It would have been better if he was prosecuted but it was out of the rebels’ hands as he was shot dead,’ Montasser said.

Turkey seeks Iran’s support against Kurdish rebels – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Turkish, Iranian foreign ministers met in Ankara to discuss closer cooperation against autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels.

By The Associated Press

Turkey is seeking Iran’s support for its fight against Kurdish rebels, as thousands of troops have launched an operation against militants in northern Iraq.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Ankara on Friday to discuss closer cooperation against the autonomy-seeking rebels, who have also fought Iran.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran, Iran, Monday, May 17, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

In the past, Turkey and Iran have staged coordinated attacks against the main rebel base on Qandil Mountain which sits on the Iraqi-Iranian border deep inside northern Iraq.

About 10,000 Turkish troops are going after Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey and across the border in Iraq since Wednesday after 24 soldiers were killed in suspected rebel attacks.

Changed perceptions – JPost – Features – Week in review.

    On June 21 1972, Israel launched “Operation Crate” to kidnap Syrian intelligence officers who it planned to use as bargaining chips to negotiate the release of three Israeli Air Force airmen who had been captured by Syria two years earlier.

The unit chosen for the operation was the IDF’s elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, otherwise known as Sayeret Matkal. It’s commander at the time was a young lieutenant colonel named Ehud Barak. One of his squad leaders was a young lieutenant named Binyamin Netanyahu.

The night of the operation, Barak stayed back at IDF headquarters to ensure that the General Staff would not cancel the raid as it had done on previous occasions. It ended successfully with the capture of five senior Syrian intelligence officers. A year later, the three IAF airmen were returned to Israel in a prisoner swap.

On Tuesday, Barak and Netanyahu again participated in an operation that led up to a prisoner swap although of a different kind. Gilad Schalit, who was kidnapped on June 25, 2006 – almost 34 years to the day of “Operation Crate” – was returned to Israel in a swap with Hamas which will end with 1,027 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons.

Something has changed in Israel. Once a country famous for daring and brave operations like the one in 1972 or others in more recent years such as the alleged bombing of a weapons convey on Sudan or a nuclear reactor in Syria, Israel is today – following the swap – perceived by some as a country that surrenders to terrorist demands.

While Jerusalem may preach to the world about the need to stand strong in face of the growing Islamic terror threat, it appears – on the surface – to be doing exactly the opposite.

That is why there is no question that at least in the short term, the deal will strengthen Hamas and most likely undermine Fatah. While the Palestinian Authority was able to enjoy some of the spotlight with the release of 96 convicted terrorists to Ramallah, the real celebration belonged to Khaled Mashal in Cairo and Ismail Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has proven to its people and to the larger “resistance” world which consists of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran that terror pays and that it’s use of force, even at the expense of military operations, sea blockades and diplomatic isolation ultimately pays off. Hamas has been able to do what Fatah couldn’t.

It is likely for this reason that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to make the deal now.

While the so-called “Arab Spring” and the fear that the current Egyptian mediator will not be in power in a few months to close the deal contributed to the decision to go ahead with the swap now, so did the fact that a new round of negotiations with the PA have not yet started. Had Israel been in the middle of peace talks with Fatah, a prisoner swap of this size and magnitude might have had to wait and as the whole world witnessed on Tuesday, Schalit did not look like time was on his side.

The first images that came out of Schalit were filmed by an Egyptian film crew that had been strategically placed at the Rafah Crossing. It showed him being pulled out of a white pickup truck and wearing a black baseball hat and a checkered shirt – apparently the latest in Gaza fashion – by two Hamas men and being half-dragged half-led into the Rafah Crossing.

One of the men was wearing a uniform and was armed. He was later identified as Ra’ad Atar, commander of the Hamas brigade in Rafah and one of the main planners of the June, 2006 attack near Kerem Shalom, during which Schalit was abducted.

The second man, wearing a blue shirt with the trimmed beard was Ahmed Jabar, commander-inchief of Hamas’s Military Wing and one of the mostwanted terrorists in the Gaza Strip today.

The fact that Schalit was accompanied by both of these top terror chiefs was an indication for Israel of just how involved they must have been in the prolonged captivity. In the coming weeks, when Schalit’s debriefing begins, the IDF will learn whether Schalit knew who they were and whether he was able to identify his different captors.

In general, the IDF was surprised by Schalit’s mental state. When he sat down minutes after crossing into Israel for his first conversation with an IDF psychologist, he smiled and said to the doctor: “I knew you would be surprised by my condition.”

He apparently had a television at some point and was allowed to regularly listen to the radio. Interaction with other people though was severely limited as Schalit told Egyptian State TV during the interview he was forced to undergo before being released to Israel.

With the Schalit chapter behind Israel, the Netanyahu-Barak duo can now move forward with plans to deal with some of the other strategic challenges Israel faces in the region, such as Iran’s nuclear program as one example.

While the two issues – Iran and Schalit – are not directly connected, it is likely that following an Israeli attack against Iran which would destabilize the Arab and Muslim world, the ability to reach a deal with Hamas would also be significantly delayed.

By reaching a deal now, Netanyahu clears his desk and is able to focus on Israel’s true strategic predicaments.

With that said, an attack on Iran is not likely to happen so soon. More immediately, Israel might start to feel an improvement in its ties with Egypt which played the key role in mediating the deal with Hamas. David Meidan, the former Mossad operative turned chief Schalit negotiator, declared more than once that without the Egyptians there would not have been a deal.

That is also why Israel was willing to let the uncoordinated interview with Egyptian TV slide by with just minor criticism. The hundreds of journalists and IDF officers gathered at the Tel Nof Air Force Base awaiting Schalit’s arrival and watching the interview on a large screen let out a joint sound of disgust when journalist Shahira Amin asked Schalit if he would now campaign for the release of the Palestinians who remain in Israeli jails.

For Egypt, the interview was its way of taking credit for the deal and being able to show it off to the world. It comes at a time when the world looks at Egypt as a country in complete disarray. By mediating the deal and overseeing the prisoner swap, Egypt positions itself as the country it was known as under Hosni Mubarak – a regional superpower.

When it comes to he potential risk that the released prisoners pose to Israel, the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) are not overly concerned. While statistics accumulated by the Shin Bet show that 60 percent of Palestinians released in previous swaps have returned to terror activity, in this case, the fact that only 96 terrorists were released to the West Bank dramatically minimizes the threat. The hundreds released to Gaza will be a boost for existing Hamas capabilities but the Izz a Din al-Kassam Brigades already numbers 20,000 soldiers.

The main problem is the same dilemma that Israel faced when Schalit was originally abducted in 2006 – to negotiate a prisoner swap or not. This question will come up again if and when another soldier is abducted. The possibility that the government will simply declare now that from now on it will not negotiate for kidnapped soldiers is a bit extreme considering that it will be going from 1,027 to zero.

There is no question that Israel needs to formulate a clear policy for dealing with instances of kidnapped soldiers. This was made clear by the Winograd Commission which probed the failures of the Second Lebanon War and dedicated a chapter called “Kidnapping – A Strategic Threat” in its report.

In the beginning of the chapter, the members of the war panel stressed the sensitivity of the issue but claimed that lack of a formulated policy on how to deal with a kidnapped soldier was harmful for Israel’s national security.

“The lack of a clear and detailed policy – at all the different levels – for dealing with the kidnapping threat is a strategic mistake and even weakens Israel,” the report read. “It is clear that as long as we appear vulnerable… the price for the return of the soldier is higher and the motivation to kidnap additional soldiers increases.”

While not mentioning names, the committee criticized then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the chapter, claiming that his initial declaration that Israel will not negotiate the release of Schalit and then engaging in talks with Hamas “weakened Israel as well as its ability to deal with a kidnapping incident.”

In the report, the committee members mentioned the US’s declared policy of not negotiating with terrorists as an example which the panel said was partially responsible for minimizing the number of attempts to kidnap American soldiers.

Since then though, not much has changed. Israel has not established an official policy, nor has it set criteria for who can and cannot be released from among the thousands of Palestinian prisoners it holds in its prisons.

What has happened is that Defense Minister Ehud Barak appointed a committee led by former Supreme Court Justice Meir Shamgar to issue a series of recommendations of what to do. These recommendations have not been made public and like a number of committees set up by Barak, this one to was likely set up for appearances.

There is still much that Israel itself can do. All one had to do was watch the release of Schalit from captivity and the release of the Palestinians from Israel.

While Schalit walked out pale, skinny and shaking, many of the Palestinian prisoners appeared to be quite “healthy,” in the weight context of the word. While Schalit was apparently provided a radio and at times a TV, he was not allowed to enroll in university studies like the Palestinian prisoners are allowed in Israeli jails.

Some defense officials wondered this week whether it might be time for this all to change.

US accusations turn up heat in simmering G… JPost – Middle East.

    Many analysts in the Middle East remain skeptical about US charges that Iran plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, but in Riyadh officials are taking the accusations seriously and have already begun to employ them in a diplomatic assault against Tehran.

On Sunday, Riyadh’s permanent mission to the United Nations formally requested that the secretary-general notify the Security Council of the “heinous conspiracy” against it, Saudi-owned newspapers reported on Sunday. The move that could be used to impose fresh sanctions on Iran.

“Tension is already high and is going to skyrocket in the days and weeks to come,” Abdelkhaleq Abdalla, professor of political science at Emirates University in Dubai, told The Media Line. “How far will the Saudis go? Maybe as far as recalling their ambassador from Tehran. I think this is the limit.”

A long-standing rivalry between the two countries has grown more acrimonious as the turmoil of the Arab Spring topples governments and threatens others. The unrest has raised deep fears in Saudi Arabia that it or its Gulf neighbors could be next. In Iran, the initial euphoria of seeing old adversaries like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak fall has given away to concerns that allies like Syria’s Bashar Assad are also at jeopardy.

The US charges, leveled last week, involve a plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir in a conspiracy involving a secret Iranian military unit, the Quds force, and an Iranian living in the US Critics have termed the charges implausible because the operation as described by the US government appears so ham-fisted and without any obvious benefit to the Iranian regime.

Tehran has vehemently denied the charges, but in Saudi Arabia, officials have expressed deep anger.

“Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price,” Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal, often seen as an unofficial foreign policy voice for the royal family, said in London on Wednesday. “The burden of proof and the amount of evidence in the case is overwhelming and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for it.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Saturday urged Riyadh to exercise caution in moving against Iran, asserting that “the [US] enemy always seeks to sow discord” in the region even while conceding that Tehran has differences with Riyadh. “We have no problem with Saudi Arabia, but there are some differences of opinion as to regional developments,” he said in an interview with a local radio station and reported in the Tehran Times.

Abdalla said Tehran may retaliate by recalling its ambassador to Riyadh, but is likely to be careful not to ratchet up the situation anymore than it has. Other Saudi actions could include limiting Iranian visas for the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, which begins later this month.

The two countries are divided by religion and politics, with Saudi Arabia seeing itself as the standard bearer of Sunni Islam and the defender of the Muslim world’s status quo while Shiite Iran’s leadership views itself as the vanguard of Islamic revolution. The two sides have bumped heads in places as far afield as Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, but the stakes have grown this year amid the chaos enveloping the Middle East.

Protests in February by the Shiite majority against a Sunni monarchy in Bahrain, an island emirate just off the Gulf coast from Saudi Arabia, were seen in Riyadh as evidence of Iranian meddling and prompted it to send it forces to quash the rebellion. Earlier this month, the Saudi Interior Ministry accused an unnamed foreign power – a codeword for Iran – of instigating riots by Shiites in the country’s eastern province.

Many analysts and governments have expressed doubt about the US allegations, which point at an Iranian-American used car salesman as they key figure in the case. Abdalla said he was withholding judgment until details are clarified. However, he also noted that US credibility had suffered from what ultimately proved to be false charges that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. Those charges were used as a justification for launching the war against Iraq in 2003.

But Michael Singh, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, termed the Iranian assassination plot “entirely plausible.” He cited the disbursed command structure of the Quds force, a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). That gives more room for lower-level commanders to make key – and perhaps amateurish – decisions, he said.

The humiliation Iran felt at not being able to counter Saudi moves in Bahrain would give Iran ample reason to strike out at the Saudi embassy, echoing tactics it employed in the 1990s when the IRGC allegedly attacked Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1994.

Saudi Arabia won’t be alone in its drive against Iran. US President Barack Obama said last week he would press for “the toughest possible sanctions” against Iran over the alleged plot and vowed not to take any options off the table, a phrase used to indicate the possibility of using force. Singh said the US could not rely solely on sanctions.

“Responding only with sanctions would be a mistake,” he wrote on Foreignpolicy.com last week. “By downplaying the US military option against Iran and ceasing military signaling activities in the Gulf, the Obama administration has allowed American deterrence of Iran to deteriorate. Reestablishing that deterrence is vital to discouraging IRGC activities such as this plot.”

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Obama is pressing UN nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology. Over the longer term, several senior Obama administration officials said in interviews, that they are mulling a ban on financial transactions with Iran’s central bank and an expansion of the ban on the purchase of petroleum products sold by IRGC-affiliated companies.

First Video of capturing Gaddafi in Sirte When He was wounded and Alive. – YouTube.

(Before being butchered by his captors and his body dragged through the streets of Misrata.  As you can hear in the video, “ALLAH HU ACHBAR !” – JW)