WarSclerotic

Secret police defect in restive Syria province, activists say – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Opposition sources estimate the number of defectors from Syria’s security forces to be several thousand, mainly army recruits from the country’s Sunni Muslim majority.

By Reuters

At least a dozen Syrian secret police have defected from an intelligence compound in a
restive province near Turkey, the first major defection reported within the security apparatus leading the crackdown on protesters, activists said on Sunday.

A gunfight broke out overnight after the defectors fled the Air Force Intelligence complex in the center of Idlib city, 280 kms (175 miles) northwest of Damascus, and ten people on both sides were killed or wounded, they said.

One activist in the city, who gave his name as Alaa, said army defectors based in the nearby Jabal al-Zawiya region were seen near the compound and helped the deserters escape in what appeared to be a coordinated operation.

“Armored vehicles from an army barracks outside Idlib were called in to help defend the compound. The sound of AK-47s and machineguns echoed till dawn,” he said.

Opposition sources estimate the number of defectors from the security forces at several thousand, mainly army recruits from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority. President Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority sect has a tight grip on the country’s military and security apparatus.

Report: Iran blast completely destroyed major missile-testing site – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials tell New York Times recent explosion at military base near Tehran was major setback to Iran’s long-range missile program.

By Haaretz

A recent explosion at a military base near Tehran was a major setback for Iran’s long-range missile program and completely destroyed the base, according to American and Israeli intelligence officials, the New York Times reported on Monday.

The officials said that surveillance photos showed that the Iranian base was a central testing center for advanced solid-fuel missiles, which are better equipped than older, liquid-fuel designs to carry warheads long distances.

	Smoke rises from an explosion near Tehran, November 12, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

According to the report, satellite photos taken after the blast show that the base was almost completely destroyed, which amounts to a serious setback to Tehran’s missile development, intelligence officials said.

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.

Last week, a top Israeli security official said that the explosion could delay or stop further Iranian surface-to-surface missile development, but warned that it was far from halting all of Iran’s military options.

Iran has vehemently denied that the blast was carried out by Israel or the United States, and Western intelligence and defense officials say the consequences – the setback of Iran’s military program – are more important than the cause.

“Anything that buys us time and delays the day when the Iranians might be able to mount a nuclear weapon on an accurate missile is a small victory,” one Western intelligence official told the New York Times. “At this point, we’ll take whatever we can get, however it happens.”

Iran threatening to cut Hamas funds, arms supply if it flees Syria – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Palestinian sources tell Haaretz that Hamas is abandoning its headquarters in Syria and looking at other Arab states as alternative location for its political command center.

By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel

Iran had applied intense pressure to Hamas in an effort to persuade it not to leave Damascus, threatening even to cut off funds to the organization if it did so, Palestinian sources have told Haaretz.

The Iranian pressure also included an unprecedented ultimatum – namely, an explicit threat to stop supplying Hamas with arms and suspend the training of its military activists.

According to the sources, Hamas is abandoning its headquarters in Syria and looking at other Arab states as an alternative location for its political command center. Hamas’ move comes despite intense Iranian pressure on the organization to refrain from relocating.

A Syrian opposition spokesman said recently that once Assad is toppled, his successors will have no intention of preserving the strategic alliance between Damascus, Tehran and Hezbollah.

According to the Palestinian sources, only “second and third-ranking” Hamas activists are leaving Damascus, while senior members of the organization’s political wing, headed by Khaled Meshal, are remaining in the Syrian capital.

Senior Hamas political figures even met this past weekend with representatives of the Palestinian factions that are not members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sources add.

The Hamas activists on the move, the sources say, are those responsible for the activities and funding of the organization’s military wing, as well as some members of the political leadership. Most have left together with their families to a number of destinations, including Gaza, Sudan, Qatar and Lebanon.

The Palestinian sources have defined the relocation activities as a hasty abandonment of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who until recently was Hamas’ strongest ally in the Arab world.

Efforts on the part of the Syrian and Iranian regimes to ascertain whether Hamas is indeed fleeing Damascus have been met with denials from the organization’s leadership.

“Hamas has not made any new decision, and there has certainly not been a decision to leave Syria,” a member of Hamas’ political bureau, Salah Al-Arouri, told Haaretz, adding that if a family or two had left Syria, they had probably done so for personal reasons.

“The organization’s top officials are here in Damascus; our relations with the state and Syrian people are excellent,” Al-Arouri said. “We respect all Syrians whomever they are. We have no intention of interfering in Syria’s internal affairs.”

Nevertheless, in recent days, a number of Hamas officials, particularly among the leadership in Gaza, have called explicitly for the organization to distance itself from Damascus in light of the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Syria and the severe harm suffered by the country’s civilians.

Haaretz has learned that Hamas has made a decision to abandon Damascus without letting the Syrian authorities know. The decision was made by the organization’s senior leadership in the wake of the harsh criticism voiced against top Hamas officials in Gaza and abroad because of their ties with the Syrian regime.

This criticism, coupled with the ongoing violent suppression of the demonstrations in Syria and the reported killing there of more than 4,000 people, intensified the dilemma facing the Hamas leadership – to continue to stand by its Syrian patron, or to abandon the Syrian capital and thus make it clear that Hamas, considered a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, is distancing itself from Assad.

The Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria from membership of the organization and impose economic sanctions on Damascus tipped the scales, with Hamas finally deciding to covertly evacuate all its activists from Syria and leave behind only the organization’s highest-ranking officials so as to preserve a low profile of activity there. Among the Hamas officials who are still coming and going from Damascus are Mousa Abu Marzouq (Meshal’s deputy ), Izzat al-Rishq, Al-Arouri and Meshal himself.

Meanwhile, Syrian television yesterday aired pictures from a military exercise conducted on Saturday in the eastern part of the country. During the military drill, Syrian armed forces launched a Scud B missile, with a range of some 300 kilometers. The broadcast also included pictures of the firing of rockets with ranges of 150-200 kilometers.

It appears the Syrians were looking to show the international community that Assad still has the ability to set the Middle East alight if he so chooses, particularly if the international community intervenes militarily.

Syria tests Scud B missiles – JPost – Middle East.

IDF to equip North from southern bases – JPost – Defense.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report December 4, 2011, 9:34 PM (GMT+02:00)

US RQ-170 stealth reconnaissance drone

Tehran quickly latched onto US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s warning Friday,  Dec. 2 that an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities would cause unpredictable results. Sunday, Iran issued two threats: to hit back beyond its borders for a US reconnaissance drone which its military claimed to have shot down in the near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan and that an oil embargo on its exports would boost the price of oil to $250 a barrel.
This was another way of threatening a tit for tat in the form of a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil channel in the world, and the transit of Saudi and Gulf oil. This was a reference to another of the US defense secretary’s warning Friday that: “…any disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a very grave threat to all of us” and a red line for the US.”
The unmanned aerial vehicle the Iranian military claimed in a report on English language Press TV to have shot down Sunday over the eastern part of the country was described in Tehran’s statement was an RQ-170.

Iranian sources in Tehran report it was flying over the underground Fordo facility near Qom, where debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources uranium is being covertly enriched from 20 to 60 percent.

The Iranians did not say when the incident happened. However, some confusion set in when NATO command in Afghanistan later said a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft flying over western Afghanistan had been missing since late last week.

The US RQ-170 drone is an unarmed, unmanned stealth aircraft equipped with the most advanced reconnaissance instruments for detecting nuclear weapons systems.

Our sources report that these spy planes operate over Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Turkey as well as Iran and Afghanistan.

The Iranian news agencies quoted senior Iranian officers as claiming the seized the drone which was downed with minimum damage. Their threat to retaliate outside Iran’s borders for its alleged intrusion was not specific. It may well extend to embattled Syria to demonstrate that Iran keeps faith with its allies. Some Middle East military sources suggest that Iran might try to shoot down US drones over Turkey to warn Ankara to keep its hands off Syria. In the past  week, Turkish leaders were again saying they had lost patience with Bashar Assad’s brutality and intransigence and were close to sending troops across the border to establish a buffer zone in northern Syria for refugees and rebels.

Iran might also use its Lebanese pawn, Hizballah, to shoot down Israeli spy planes over that country’s air space.
The foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast in Tehran said Sunday that as soon as the United State and the West propose imposing an embargo on Iranian oil exports, “the price of oil will soar above $250 a barrel. Therefore, any attempt to strangle the Iranian economy by choking off its oil exports will be met by retaliation in kind, the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz to Saudi and Gulf oil.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report December 4, 2011, 9:34 PM (GMT+02:00)

US RQ-170 stealth reconnaissance drone

Tehran quickly latched onto US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s warning Friday,  Dec. 2 that an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities would cause unpredictable results. Sunday, Iran issued two threats: to hit back beyond its borders for a US reconnaissance drone which its military claimed to have shot down in the near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan and that an oil embargo on its exports would boost the price of oil to $250 a barrel.
This was another way of threatening a tit for tat in the form of a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil channel in the world, and the transit of Saudi and Gulf oil. This was a reference to another of the US defense secretary’s warning Friday that: “…any disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a very grave threat to all of us” and a red line for the US.”
The unmanned aerial vehicle the Iranian military claimed in a report on English language Press TV to have shot down Sunday over the eastern part of the country was described in Tehran’s statement was an RQ-170.

Iranian sources in Tehran report it was flying over the underground Fordo facility near Qom, where debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources uranium is being covertly enriched from 20 to 60 percent.

The Iranians did not say when the incident happened. However, some confusion set in when NATO command in Afghanistan later said a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft flying over western Afghanistan had been missing since late last week.

The US RQ-170 drone is an unarmed, unmanned stealth aircraft equipped with the most advanced reconnaissance instruments for detecting nuclear weapons systems.

Our sources report that these spy planes operate over Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Turkey as well as Iran and Afghanistan.

The Iranian news agencies quoted senior Iranian officers as claiming the seized the drone which was downed with minimum damage. Their threat to retaliate outside Iran’s borders for its alleged intrusion was not specific. It may well extend to embattled Syria to demonstrate that Iran keeps faith with its allies. Some Middle East military sources suggest that Iran might try to shoot down US drones over Turkey to warn Ankara to keep its hands off Syria. In the past  week, Turkish leaders were again saying they had lost patience with Bashar Assad’s brutality and intransigence and were close to sending troops across the border to establish a buffer zone in northern Syria for refugees and rebels.

Iran might also use its Lebanese pawn, Hizballah, to shoot down Israeli spy planes over that country’s air space.
The foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast in Tehran said Sunday that as soon as the United State and the West propose imposing an embargo on Iranian oil exports, “the price of oil will soar above $250 a barrel. Therefore, any attempt to strangle the Iranian economy by choking off its oil exports will be met by retaliation in kind, the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz to Saudi and Gulf oil.