WarSclerotic

Davutoglu: Turkey ready for any scenario o… JPost – Middle East.

    ISTANBUL – Turkey does not want to consider a military option for intervention in neighboring Syria as Damascus cracks down on popular protest, but it is ready for any scenario, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday.

Davutoglu also said the international community may decide a buffer zone is needed in Syria if hundreds of thousands of people try to flee the violence there.

Syria is facing growing economic sanctions and condemnation over what the United Nations calls “gross human rights violations,” but President Bashar Assad shows no sign of buckling under pressure to end his military crackdown on protesters calling for his overthrow.

Davutoglu told Kanal 24 TV that the Syrian government needed to find a way to make peace with its own people, adding that Damascus still had a chance to accept international observers proposed by the Arab League.

“If the oppression continues, Turkey is ready for any scenario. We hope that a military intervention will never be necessary. The Syrian regime has to find a way of making peace with its own people,” he said, adding that a regime which tortures its own people has no chance of survival.

Another minister said Turkey would conduct trade with the Middle East via Iraq if the violence worsened in Syria.

Transport Minister Binali Yildirim made the comments after the Arab League imposed sanctions on Damascus over the crackdown, in which more than 3,500 people have been killed in eight months, according to the United Nations.

Turkey’s state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Yildirim on Tuesday as saying that Ankara would open new border gates with Iraq if necessary.

Ankara is expected to follow the Arab League in imposing sanctions on Syria, with which it has an 800-km (500 mile) border.

Yildirim said the sanctions would not harm the Syrian people. Turkey will selectively impose those sanctions announced by the Arab League to avoid harming the Syrian people, the Turkish newspaper Sabah reported on Tuesday.

The Arab League imposed the sanctions on Sunday and the European Union weighed in one day later.

Four Katyusha rockets from Lebanon hit northern Israel, gas tank struck – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Israel’s security services do not believe Hezbollah to be responsible for overnight attack, but rather a smaller faction; IDF calls incident serious and say responsibility lays with Lebanese government.

By Jack Khoury, Eli Ashkenazi, Gili Cohen and Reuters Tags: IDF Hassan Nasrallah Hezbollah

Four Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel on Monday night, causing damage to buildings and igniting a blaze that firefighters fought for hours. One of the 22-millimeter rockets struck a gas tank. No casualties were reported.

Police and IDF forces scanned the area in search of more rockets and were able to confirm that four rockets had fallen. While Northern District Police raised the alertness level it did not issue instructions for northern Israel’s residents to enter bomb shelters, and no alarm was sounded. The Israel Defense Forces said the incident is serious and that it holds the Lebanese government responsible for stopping rocket fire.

Israel’s security services do not believe Hezbollah is responsible for the overnight attack, but blame a smaller faction instead, likely to be linked to the global jihad movement. Those operating with the global jihad in southern Lebanon are known to be Palestinians.

This is the first disturbance of its type in almost two years and the eighth since the cease fire ended the Second Lebanon War. So far, one Israeli has been wounded in those incidents.

The Israel Defense Forces responded to the fire with artillery directed at the source of the attack.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hinted earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran or Western military involvement in Syria would lead to confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel. “I’m not issuing threats, but it’s plain to see that an Israel-American attack on Iran or military involvement in Syria will lead to a regional war,” Nasrallah said.

No organization has yet to take responsibility the rocket fire.

The Israeli-Lebanese border has been largely quiet in recent years, though some have worried about a possible spillover of tensions from a months-old revolt in Syria against President Bashar Assad and from a stiffening of Western sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

IDF fires on Lebanon after at least 3 rockets … JPost – Defense.

    IDF artillery cannons pounded Lebanese targets early Tuesday morning in response to at least three rockets fired into northern Israel.

Three 122 millimeter rockets fired from within Lebanon, just north of the border, landed in the Western Galilee shortly after midnight, with police searching for a possible fourth rocket. No injuries were reported in the attacks.

The rockets landed close to the Lebanese border , causing some damage to a chicken coop and a gas tank. Firefighting crews were called in to cool down a propane gas tank that was struck.

Police were searching for a possible fourth rocket in the Western Galilee after residents reported hearing an explosion in the area.

The IDF said in a statement that it views the rocket attacks as a severe incident and it holds the Lebanese government and the Lebanese military responsible for preventing such actions.

The IDF Northern Command has gone on full alert and is holding continuous evaluation in light of the events, the statement added.

The Western Galilee was a target of Hezbollah rocket attacks during the 2006 Lebanon War, but the front has been largely quiet for the past several years. A small number of isolated rocket attacks struck northern Israel in the years following the Second Lebanon War, but no attacks have been reported in the last two years.

The IDF assessment is that it is not Hezbollah, but rather al-Qaida or Palestinian terror groups who operate inside Lebanon that were behind the rocket fire, as has been the case in the past with isolated attacks.

The IDF planned to file an official complaint with UNIFIL over the attacks.

The IDF has confirmed that their was not an explosion near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre last week, as opposed to media reports claiming that a blast had occurred.The reports had claimed that a Hezbollah weapons cache had exploded in the area, but the IDF sent a drone over the village which did not detect any indication of an explosion.

The IDF in the past has used footage taken by drones to disseminate to the media information about Hezbollah’s continued violations of UN Resolution 1701 and its continued military buildup in the area.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 28, 2011, 7:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Coffin of Syrian elite pilot

A group of military officers from NATO and Persian Gulf nations have quietly established a mixed operational command at Iskenderun in the Turkish Hatay province on the border of North Syria, debkafile‘s military sources report. Hailing from the United States, France, Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Turkish officers providing liaison, they do not represent NATO but are self-designated “monitors.” Their mission is to set up “humanitarian corridors” inside Syria to serve the victims of Bashar Assad’s crackdown. Commanded by ground, naval, air force and engineering officers, the task force aims to move into most of northern Syria.

Laying the groundwork for the legitimacy of the combined NATO-Arab intervention in Syria, the UN Independent International Commission set up to assess the situation in Syria published a horrendous report Monday, Nov. 28 on the Assad regime’s brutalities. It documented “gross violations of human rights” and “patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture including sexual violence, as well as violations of children’s rights.”
Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem fought back by showing a press conference Monday photos of dismembered bodies of Syrian soldiers as proof of the atrocities he claimed were perpetrated by the anti-Assad opposition.  He also complained that “the Arab League and others refuse to believe that there is a foreign conspiracy targeting Syria.”

debkafile military sources report exclusively that the Western-Arab intervention in the Syrian crisis is in an advanced state of operational planning. It entails a buffer zone in northern Syria encompassing beleaguered towns, primarily Idlib, Rastan and Homs – but also Aleppo, Syria’s largest city (2.5 million mostly Sunni and Kurdish inhabitants).

The protest movement never caught on in Aleppo, home to the moneyed classes who run the country’s financial and trading sectors, and it was confined to the highway network feeding the city. Therefore, for the Assad regime, bringing Aleppo into the “humanitarian corridor” system under foreign military control will round of the damage caused by the economic sanctions approved this week by the Arab League. Losing Aleppo will fatally hammer the economy into the ground and rob the Syrian ruler of funding for sustaining his military crackdown to wipe out the unrest in the areas remaining under his control.

Aware of this threat, Foreign Minister al-Moallem accused the Arab League of declaring economic war on Syria.

Report: Explosion rocks Iran city of Isfahan, home to key nuclear facility – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Semi-official Fars news agency says blast heard distinctly in several parts of the western Iran city; a uranium conversion plant near Isfahan went online in 2004.

By Yossi Melman and Reuters Tags: Iran threat Iran nuclear

An explosion rocked the western Iranian city of Isfahan on Monday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, adding that the blast was heard in several parts of the city.

According to reports, frightened residents called the fire department after the blast, forcing the city authorities to admit there had been an explosion.

Speaking with Fars news agency, Isfahan’s deputy mayor confirmed the reports and said the authorities are investigating the matter. However, after the incident was reported in Israel, the report was taken off the Fars website.

It seems that city authorities and the Iranian government were embarrassed by the reports of a blasts, releasing contradictory versions of the alleged events. One example is a statement given by the same deputy mayor to the Mehr news agency, saying he had no reports of an explosion.

Another confirmation came from the head of the city’s judiciary, who said an explosion-like sound was heard. Meanwhile, the Mehr news agency reported there has been a blast at a petrol station near the city. Another report pointed to a training accident.

The reported incident occurred about two weeks after Gen. Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam was killed together with 20 other Guard members Nov. 12 at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 40 kilometers southwest of Tehran.

The Revolutionary Guard said the accidental explosion occurred while military personnel were transporting munitions.

It should be noted that Iran operates a uranium conversion plant near Isfahan, one with an important function in the chain of Iran’s nuclear program.

It first went into operation in 2004, taking uranium from mines and producing uranium fluoride gas, which then feeds the centrifuges that enrich the uranium.

Since 2004, thousands of kilograms of uranium flouride gas were stockpiled at Isfahan and subsequently sent to the enrichment plant in Natanz.

Earlier Monday, a top Israeli security official said that the recent explosion that rocked an Iranian missile base near Tehran could delay or stop further Iranian surface-to-surface missile development.

The official added, however that the Iranian nuclear program was continuing to gain ground, despite considerable international pressure and attempts to destabilize the Iranian regime.

‘Mysterious explosion rocks Iran… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    A large explosion rocked the western Iranian city of Isfahan, semi-official FARS news reported Monday afternoon.

According to the report, the blast occurred shortly after 2:00 p.m. FARS did not reveal the cause of the explosion, which was large enough to be heard throughout Iran’s third largest city.

The head of the judiciary in the province said a sound similar to an explosion was heard from Isfahan, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.

“In the afternoon, there was a noise like an explosion, but we don’t have any information from security forces on the source of the noise,” Gholamreza Ansari was quoted as saying.

The Mehr news agency said other unidentified Iranian news media had reported that the blast took place at a petrol station at a town near Isfahan city.

Isfahan is home to nuclear experimental reactors, and also a uranium enrichment facility for producing nuclear fuel.

The explosion occurred two weeks after a massive explosion west of Tehran which killed 17 troops, including an IRGC officer responsible for the development of some of Iran’s most advanced weapons.

The cause of the explosion was unknown and Iran claimed it occurred when soldiers were moving explosives between bases. There was some speculation on Sunday that sabotage had caused the blast and Israel was involved with the assistance of local Iranian opposition groups.

It was not the first time that mysterious explosions struck in Iran. In recent years, a number of scientists have been killed in car bombings and dozens of IRGC officers have also been killed in various plane crashes.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 28, 2011, 7:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Coffin of Syrian elite pilot

A group of military officers from NATO and Persian Gulf nations have quietly established a mixed operational command at Iskenderun in the Turkish Hatay province on the border of North Syria, debkafile‘s military sources report. Hailing from the United States, France, Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Turkish officers providing liaison, they do not represent NATO but are self-designated “monitors.” Their mission is to set up “humanitarian corridors” inside Syria to serve the victims of Bashar Assad’s crackdown. Commanded by ground, naval, air force and engineering officers, the task force aims to move into most of northern Syria.

Laying the groundwork for the legitimacy of the combined NATO-Arab intervention in Syria, the UN Independent International Commission set up to assess the situation in Syria published a horrendous report Monday, Nov. 28 on the Assad regime’s brutalities. It documented “gross violations of human rights” and “patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture including sexual violence, as well as violations of children’s rights.”
Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem fought back by showing a press conference Monday photos of dismembered bodies of Syrian soldiers as proof of the atrocities he claimed were perpetrated by the anti-Assad opposition.  He also complained that “the Arab League and others refuse to believe that there is a foreign conspiracy targeting Syria.”

debkafile military sources report exclusively that the Western-Arab intervention in the Syrian crisis is in an advanced state of operational planning. It entails a buffer zone in northern Syria encompassing beleaguered towns, primarily Idlib, Rastan and Homs – but also Aleppo, Syria’s largest city (2.5 million mostly Sunni and Kurdish inhabitants).

The protest movement never caught on in Aleppo, home to the moneyed classes who run the country’s financial and trading sectors, and it was confined to the highway network feeding the city. Therefore, for the Assad regime, bringing Aleppo into the “humanitarian corridor” system under foreign military control will round of the damage caused by the economic sanctions approved this week by the Arab League. Losing Aleppo will fatally hammer the economy into the ground and rob the Syrian ruler of funding for sustaining his military crackdown to wipe out the unrest in the areas remaining under his control.

Aware of this threat, Foreign Minister al-Moallem accused the Arab League of declaring economic war on Syria.

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France says Assad’s ‘days are numbered’; Russia to send warships to Syria in 2012.

Al Arabiya

Monday, 28 November 2011

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said that has country will ask European Union leaders to set up protected escape routes for Syrians wishing to flee the country. (Reuters)

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Report: North Korea supplying Syria, Iran, with prohibited nuclear technology – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

German newspaper Die Welt reports that Pyongyang has provided the countries with ‘maraging steel,’ used to upgrade missiles and centrifuges.

By Yossi Melman Tags: Iran Iran nuclear North Korea Syria

North Korea has supplied Syria and Iran with a special kind of steel used to upgrading missiles and building centrifuges for Uranium enrichment, the German newspaper Die Welt reported over the weekend.

The material, called maraging steel, appears on the monitoring list of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime, and its export is prohibited to countries under sanctions such as Iran.

It has been known for years that Iran is trying to obtain the steel through its clandestine purchasing networks around the world. The steel would enable Tehran to construct modified centrifuges, which would in turn allow it to enrich higher quality Uranium at a faster speed.

According to the report, the delivery of the steel is part of a wider North Korean expertise package to Syria, which is building a new missile factory near Homs. According to other reports, the factory is partly funded by Iran, and is expected to become operational within 18 months.

Maraging steel would significantly upgrade Syria’s Scud missile capabilities and the amount of damage their warheads could inflict.
The German newspaper, citing unnamed “Western security sources,” also reported that Syria is trying is trying to supply Hezbollah with M-600 missiles, that have a range of up to 300 kilometers. These would be equipped with warheads that were upgraded using maraging steel.

Several UN resolutions forbid North Korea from exporting weapons or weapons technology.

Also on Monday, a top Israeli security official said that a recent explosion that rocked an Iranian missile base near Tehran could delay or stop further Iranian surface-to-surface missile development.

Earlier this month, Iran reiterated that the explosion at a military base near Tehran that killed 17 members of the Revolutionary Guards was an accident.

It says that contrary to media speculation, the blast, which also killed a missile expert, was not carried out by Israel or the United States.

Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, head of the research department of Israel’s military intelligence said that while the blast may have stalled some avenues of Iranian weapons development, it was from stopping all of the Islamic Republic’s options.