WarSclerotic

Cold war heats up between Hezbollah and Washington.

Al Arabiya

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has accused the CIA of planting spies within his party’s ranks. (AFP)

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A war of words is heating up between Hezbollah and Washington, with allegations and counter-allegations flying between the two foes as the crisis in Syria takes its toll on the Shiite militant group.

The cold war between Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah and the United States ─ which blacklists the Lebanese group as a terrorist organization ─ runs back decades.

But with political upheaval in the Arab world at a peak, tensions between the two are skyrocketing.

“This year was not the first time Hezbollah has exposed intelligence networks, whether working for the United States or others, and the United States criminal case against Hezbollah goes back months,” said Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center.

“But there’s no doubt that, given what’s happening in Syria along with the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq … we.re in a phase of high tension in which everyone’s raising the pressure on their opponent.”

The feud began to deepen earlier this year, when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the Central Intelligence Agency of planting spies within his party’s ranks.

Nasrallah’s announcement in June, which the party hailed as a “victory” over the United States, marked the first acknowledgment of infiltration by the movement founded in 1982.

The United States filed a criminal lawsuit against a string of Lebanese financial institutions with alleged ties to Hezbollah on the grounds they were complicit in a massive scheme to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars.

U.S. federal authorities say the companies were part of a scheme to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from narcotics dealing and other criminal activities in order to fund Hezbollah’s activities.

But Hezbollah has staunchly denied the charges, with the group’s second in command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, accusing Washington this week of waging a smear campaign against a Shiite Muslim group which, he said, would never follow a path “prohibited by religion.”

Hezbollah upped the stakes by accusing the “terrorist” United States of being behind twin bombings in the Syrian capital on Friday which left 44 dead and 166 wounded, according to officials.

“These bombings which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of people, mainly women and children, are the specialty of the United States, the mother of terrorism,” read a statement released by the movement Friday.

It said the timing of the bombings, which ripped through two security service offices in the Syrian capital, clearly signaled they were a “cowardly, bloody act of revenge” over the U.S. “defeat” in Iraq.

Analysts say the crisis in Syria, which provides Lebanon with its only open border, has dealt a blow to Hezbollah which must now face the possibility of a future without a key regional ally.

And as power structures shift in the Middle East, experts say Western pressure on the Lebanese militant movement will continue to mount as the group risks losing the support provided by the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“The latest U.S. accusations against Hezbollah are … part of a wider campaign against the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, author of the forthcoming “The Iran Connection: Understanding the Alliance with Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.”

“We’re only going to see more of these accusations,” Saad-Ghoryaeb told AFP.

“The United States is aware that … Hezbollah has already lost some support in the region because of Syria, so now’s the time to tarnish its reputation, to move from labeling the group as terrorist to actually criminalizing it.”

Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood denies claiming responsibility for Damascus bombings.

Al Arabiya

Saturday, 24 December 2011

The Muslim Brotherhood of Syria has denied any responsibility for twin attacks on Friday in Damascus that killed 44 people and injured 166. (Reuters)

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Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood has denied any involvement in Friday’s bomb attack in Damascus that killed 44 people, Al Arabiya reported Saturday afternoon.

The spokesman for Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, Zuhair Salem said the claim was on a fake website created by the regime.

Salem, speaking from London, said the claim was “completely fabricated under our name on the Internet.”

It was “completely orchestrated by the regime, just as the attacks were,” he added.

Earlier, AFP reported the Muslim Brotherhood as accepting responsibility for the attack based on a statement on its website which read: “One of our victorious Sunni brigades was able to target the state security building in Kfar Suseh in the heart of the Omayyad capital Damascus in a successful operation carried out by four of our kamikazes drawn from the best of our glorious men, leaving many dead and wounded from the ranks of the Assad gangs.”

The regime of President Bashar al-Assad had said on Friday that the bombings were the work of al-Qaeda.

The opposition Syrian National Council claims that the regime had carried them out.

When asked to comment on the opposition’s claim, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad told reporters at one of the bomb sites on Friday that, “Anyone who makes such allegations is a criminal.”
At least 44 people were killed in the twin bomb attacks, most of the dead were civilians.

State television said that “several soldiers and a large number of civilians were killed in the two attacks carried out by suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives against bases of state security and another branch of the security services.”

A delegation of Arab League officials visited the sites of two explosions in Damascus on Friday to inspect damage, Syrian state television said.

A member of the Arab League team, contacted by telephone by Reuters, did not give details of the group’s movements but did say members were holding meetings.

Arab League monitors are to meet Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Saturday to discuss ways to implement the plan which aims to end the violence in the country.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 24, 2011, 2:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Cypriot and Israeli gas fields

Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean.
debkafile‘s military forces report that Wednesday, Dec. 21, Turkish warships began turning their guns on the strip dividing Israel’s Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ, where a large gas field was recently discovered.
Neither Israel nor Cyprus reported the Turkish attacks which are staged in international waters, but both reinforced their naval units around the gas fields. It was the Cypriot president who broke the silence Friday, Dec. 23 with a warning: “If Turkey does not change its gunboat diplomacy and stop playing the part of regional police officer, there will be consequences which, for sure, will not be good – either for the whole region or the Turkish people and first and foremost for Turkish Cypriots,” he said.

On Dec. 22, Israel canceled the $90 million sale to the Turkish Air Force of Elbit’s hi-tech LOROP-Long Range Oblique Photography military surveillance system.Israeli defense sources said the transaction was cancelled lest SAR radar or LOROP technology find their way into the hands of Israel’s enemies, such as Iran.

According to our military sources, Israel timed the deal’s cancellation as a warning to Ankara to back off from its campaign of harassment in and around Israel’s gas fields.
Jerusalem, Athens and Nicosia are economic and security partners in the exploration and development of eastern Mediterranean gas resources. The same firm, Noble Energy Inc of Houston, Texas, is working both Cypriot and Israeli fields. Shares in the US company are held in Cyprus by the Cypriot national energy company and in Israel by Delek Drilling LP and Avner Oil Exploration LLP.

The recent discovery that the gas fields are much bigger than first believed has raised the stakes around them. The three governments involved are looking forward to becoming major gas suppliers to Europe and so reducing the continent’s dependence on Russian and Turkish gas pipelines.
Noble Energy’s latest estimate published Monday, Dec. 19, added 6.3 percent to the Leviathan well’s untapped potential, raising it from the previous estimate of 16 to 20 trillion cubic feet.

Nicosia too will shortly issue an upwardly revised estimate of its gas field. According to debkafile‘s energy industry sources, the new figure is cautiously estimated as 10 trillion cubic feet.
Both expect Ankara to escalate its nuisance offensive after the new Nicosia bulletin. As a precaution, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis was dispatched to Washington Tuesday, Dec. 19, to talk the situation over with administration officials and obtain US support for the continuing gas enterprise and the Cypriot stance against Turkish threats.
According to our Washington sources, the advice from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to go full steam ahead with gas drilling and ignore Turkish harassment. After their meeting, Kozakou-Marcoullis said the prospects for gas development have already dramatically increased her country’s strategic importance.

In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she called Turkey “the neighborhood bully,” adding that a Turkey “whose foreign minister once promoted a policy of ‘zero problems’ with its neighbors is now pursuing a policy of ‘only problems.’ ”

Syrian opposition blames regime for suicide bombings – CNN.com.

(CNN) — President Bashar al-Assad’s government blamed terrorists Saturday inside and outside of Syria for dual bombings that struck the country’s capital on Friday. But the opposition called the attacks the work of the regime.

The allegations by both sides come amid one of the bloodiest periods during the months-long uprising, raising questions about whether observers from the Arab League arriving in Syria can do anything to stem the growing violence.

The United States, which has called for al-Assad to step aside and has initiated sanctions against the regime, deplored the bombings, said there “is no justification for terrorism of any kind” and expressed hope that the strike doesn’t undermine the Arab League efforts.

“It is crucial that (the) attack not impede the critical work of the Arab League monitoring mission to document and deter human rights abuses with the goal of protecting civilians,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Friday.

“We hope that this mission will proceed unfettered in an atmosphere of non-violence. The burden is on the regime to cooperate fully and quickly with the monitoring mission.”

More than 5,000 people have died since al-Assad began a brutal crackdown in March on anti-government protesters calling for his ouster, the United Nations has said. The Syrian government has said 2,000 of its soldiers and security forces have been killed in the uprising, which it blames on “armed gangs.”

The violent crackdown by al-Assad’s security forces against the opposition has garnered worldwide condemnation from the United States, the European Union, the Arab League and Turkey.

The suicide bombings in Damascus came amid a surge of violence this week that claimed the lives of almost 300 people, according to the opposition Syrian National Council.

Funerals were slated to begin Saturday for 44 people killed in the two suicide car bomb attacks a day earlier at the offices of two security branches in Damascus, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement released to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency. At least 166 were wounded in the attack, the ministry said.

Another 21 people, including two children, were reportedly killed in attacks on anti-government protesters, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition network operating from inside Syria. The group does not identify its members in Syria because out of a fear of reprisal from the government.

CNN cannot independently verify the reports. The Syrian government has restricted access to international journalists.

The Damascus attacks were the first known reports of car bombings since the uprising began in March, and it came amid growing fears of a full-blown civil conflict in Syria.

The ministry said the bomb attacks “have the fingerprints of al-Qaeda all over them, marking an escalation in the terrorist attacks afflicting Syria at the hands of armed terrorist groups for more than nine months,” according to the statement released to SANA.

“These terrorist attacks reveal the true face of the plot targeting Syria and its security and stability at the hands of terrorist tools inside and abroad.”

The ministry, according to SANA, called on Syrians to “do their part” and report any suspicious activity so authorities can put an end to “terrorism and crimes.”

But Abdelkarim Al Rihawi, the head of the opposition Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights, said the opposition was not capable of conducting such attacks.

The Free Syrian Army, the rebel force made up of military defectors, has launched strikes against al-Assad’s forces in recent weeks, though it and other opposition forces don’t have “the technology used in such a massive bombing,” Al Rihawi said.

He called the attack “the work of the Assad regime,” saying it sends a message to the Arab League monitors that the regime is fighting terrorists not protesters.

Mohamed Hamado, a Free Syrian Army lieutenant colonel, said the government staged the strike “to mislead the international community and Arab League.”

The attacks followed the arrival of an Arab League advance team in the country to discuss the parameters of a pending mission to monitor the violence.

The Arab League team in Damascus visited the blast sites, a senior Arab League official told CNN.

Al-Assad agreed this week to allow Arab League observers into the country to monitor what opposition groups say is a deadly crackdown on demonstrators. He has insisted security forces are cracking down on armed terrorist gangs.

The observer mission is part of an Arab League initiative that calls for withdrawing the Syrian army and militias from towns, releasing detainees and ending all forms of violence. Syria signed an agreement with Arab League Monday to allow the observer mission to enter the country.

The senior Arab League official told CNN that the advance team will meet with Syrian officials and prepare for the observers to travel to Syria by Monday. The head of the observer delegation, Lt. Col. Mohamed Al Dabi, will travel to Syria Saturday.

Iran navy starts 10-day wargame … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – Iran began 10 days of naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, raising concern about a possible closure of the world’s most strategic oil transit channel in the event of any outbreak of military conflict between Tehran and the West.

The military drill, dubbed “Velayat-e 90”, comes as the tension between the West and Iran is escalating over the Islamic state’s nuclear program.
Some analysts and diplomats believe the Islamic Republic could try to block the strait in the event of any war with the West over suspicions it is seeking atom bombs. Iran’s arch-foes Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action if diplomacy and sanctions fail to rein in Iran’s nuclear work.

Iran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful ends.

“The enforcement of the decision to close of the Strait of Hormuz is certainly within Iran’s armed forces’ capability, but such a decision should be made by the country’s top authorities,” Iranian Navy commander Habibollah Sayyari was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA labour news agency.

Iran has said in the past that it would respond to any attack by targeting US interests in the region and Israel, as well as closing the strait, the only access channel for eight US-aligned, Gulf Arab states to foreign markets.

Iranian authorities have given no indication the strait will be closed during the exercise, and it has not been shut during previous drills.

“Displaying Iran’s defensive and deterrent power as well as relaying a message of peace and friendship in the Strait of Hormuz and the free waters are the main objectives of the drill,” Sayyari said.

“It will also display the country’s power to control the region as well as testing new missiles, torpedoes and weapons.”

“Velayat” is a Persian word for “supremacy” and it is currently used as a title of deference for the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The United States, Britain and Canada announced new measures against Iran’s energy and financial sectors last month and the European Union is considering a ban – already in place in the United States – on imports of Iranian oil.

Nuke expert: Time to attack Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Former Obama Administration strategist says US-perpetrated attack on Islamic Republic’s nuclear program could spare world from very real threat

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – A former special adviser on Iranpolicy to the Obama Administration said that a US-perpetrated strike on the Islamic Republic on is the “least bad” option in dealing with its nuclear threat.

“The truth is that a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat and dramatically improve the long-term national security of the United States,” Matthew Kroenig, a nuclear security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a strategist under Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said in an article published by Foreign Affairs Magazine.

Kroenig acknowledged that a military operation in Iran is not an “attractive prospect,” but explained that it is within the US’ power to minimize the anticipated effects.

Iranian nuclear plant (Photo: EPA)

 “If it does so successfully, it can remove the incentive for other nations in the region to start their own atomic programs and, more broadly, strengthen global nonproliferation by demonstrating that it will use military force to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons,” Kroenig wrote.

‘Israeli strike likely to fail’

The former strategist posited that if the US attacks, it could also prevent Israel from perpetrating a strike that is destined to fail.

“Given Israel’s limited capability to mitigate a potential battle and inflict lasting damage,” Kroenig said, an Israeli strike “would likely result in far more devastating consequences and carry a far lower probability of success than a US attack.”

Kroenig warned that waging a cold war against Tehran, aimed at containing its nuclear capabilities, is “a costly, decades-long proposition that would likely still result in grave national security threats.”

While recognizing the US’ reluctance to enter yet another military conflict, Kroenig claimed that a speedy nuclear development in Iran will eventually force it to choose between a conventional confrontation and a nuclear one.

“The United States should conduct a surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, absorb an inevitable round of retaliation, and then seek to quickly de-escalate the crisis,” he concluded. “Addressing the threat now will spare the United States from confronting a far more dangerous situation in the future.”

Bunker Bombs Requested, Stockpiled for Potential Iran Strike | Aviation International News.

Test personnel with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency prepare to offload the Massive Ordnance Penetrator for a static test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. (Photo: DTRA)

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 23, 2011, 10:15 PM (GMT+02:00)

Bombing scene in Damascus

By Friday night, Dec. 23, Western intelligence sources were attributing the twin suicide car attacks which claimed 53 lives and injured more than 100 outside the Syrian Security Directorate in Damascus earlier in the day to President Bashar Assad himself and his security chiefs. His motive? To keep the Arab League team, just arrived for an effort to start brokering peace in Syria, busy in Damascus instead of following its schedule and inspecting Homs where the bloody military crackdown continued during the day.

Those sources point out that no Syrian security or intelligence official was hurt by the explosions.
They also hinted at hidden collaboration between Assad’s henchmen and the leader of the Arab League team, Sudanese Gen. Mohamed Ahmad Al-Dabi. They said the Syrian ruler had made his consent to receive the Arab League observers conditional on its being headed by the Sudanese general, a close confidant of President Omar Bashir and friend of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers, including the Al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
According to this theory, rather than bowing to Arab League demands to accept observers, Assad in fact dictated terms to the bloc.

Earlier Friday, debkafile reported another theory to account for the first terrorist attack in Damascus since the Syrian people rose up agianst the Assad regime nine months ago.

The Sunni Muslim war on the Shiite-Allawite ruler of Syria and the Shiite-led regime of Iraq has gained deadly momentum in the last 48 hours, debkafile‘s military sources report. Friday, Dec. 23, two suicide bombers blew up cars loaded with explosives at the compound of the Syrian Security Directorate and military intelligence building in central Damascus, killing at least 53 military personnel and civilians, and injuring dozens more. It was the first such attack to take place in the Syrian capital in the 10-month uprising against Bashar Assad and struck at the heart of his regime.

In Baghdad, Thursday, more than 70 people died and at least 200 were badly hurt by a series of roadside bombs, an exploding ambulance and sticky bombs. Most were directed against Shiite targets.

Since Assad and the Iraqi Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki share the same backer, Tehran, the spate of terror which erupted this week was not just a trigger for civil war in both their countries but signaled a new and violent round in the Sunni-Shiite struggle for control of the Middle East.

Standing to one side are Iran, the Damascus and Baghdad rulers, Hizballah and the Palestinian extremist Hamas and Jihad Islami. Ranged against them are the Muslim Brotherhood and elements or associates of al Qaeda. They are backed with arms, funds, training and fighting strength by several Sunni Arab regimes, chiefly Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and Libya.

Our counter-terror sources report an expanding flow of extremist Sunni infiltrators from Iraq into Syria and Lebanon. Not all are al Qaeda, as Assad claims. Some belong to the “Awakening Councils” which have evolved into the Iraqi Sunni tribal community’s principal military arm. They were originally set up by Gen. David Petraeus, presently CIA Director, to fight al Qaeda. With US funding, training and commanders, these Sunni tribal fighters were successful from 2006 to 2008 in beating al Qaeda into the ground.
But the final US military departure from Iraq this week left the Awakening Council fighters high and dry by. Prime Minister al-Maliki, who takes his orders from Tehran, refused to honor the contract to pay their wages and their families are destitute.

As a result, many Iraqi Sunni fighting men decided to join up with al Qaeda. Their pursuit of a source of arms and a livelihood is taking them across borders into Syria and Lebanon where they join the ranks of anti-Assad Sunni militias, including the Free Syrian Army.
Seasoned in the ways of violence, they were fully competent to carry out the deadly terrorist attacks in Baghdad and Damascus. More such outrages are certain to come, adding a whole new dimension to the popular campaign to unseat Bashar Assad as well as post-war Iraq.