WarSclerotic

Thai Police Probe Hezbollah Plot – WSJ.com.

BANGKOK—The U.S. Embassy in Thailand warned of possible terrorist attacks in Bangkok and Israel issued a travel warning, amid growing tensions with Iran following the assassination of a nuclear scientist in Tehran.

Police in Bangkok were questioning a Lebanese man with alleged links to Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah on Friday after the U.S. warning was issued.

Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung said Thai authorities had received a tipoff about a terrorist plot to stage an attack in the Thai capital, one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

“At first we were told the Palestinians were behind it, but it turned out to be Hezbollah,” Mr. Chalerm told the Associated Press.

The U.S. Embassy sent an emergency message to U.S. citizens earlier in the day warning of a possible terrorist attack and advising people to stay away from crowded tourist areas, but offered few other details.

Israel cited the arrest by the Thai authorities of an alleged Hezbollah agent in warning Israelis to avoid visiting Bangkok and to stay away from establishments known to be favored by Israeli tourists.

Iran accused Israel and the U.S. of a terror campaign to derail its nuclear program after scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a procurement official at a uranium enrichment facility, was killed by a bomb attached to his car on Wednesday morning. The attack was similar to other assassinations of scientists working on Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday vowed that the perpetrators would be punished.

The U.S. denied involvement in the killing of Mr. Roshan and condemned the attack. Israeli officials have declined to comment, and many security experts and diplomats have said it is likely that Israel was behind the incident as part of its covert campaign to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Asia-based security officials warn that the rising tensions in the Middle East could result in attacks on U.S. or Western targets around the world.

Thai Defense Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapa told reporters that initial intelligence suggested that an attack could occur in Thailand between Friday and Sunday.

He said Thai authorities had kept the alleged plot under wraps in order to avoid damaging the country’s multimillion-dollar tourist industry, but said intelligence reports suggested the plans to attack might have been related to the worsening relations between the U.S. and Iran.

Neither Mr. Chalerm nor Mr. Yuthasak provided any further information on how far the alleged plot had progressed or possible targets.

Mr. Chalerm said Thai police had followed two Lebanese men. One of them was detained for questioning, while the other appeared to have left the country after the U.S. issued its warning.

Mr. Chalerm told the AP that the danger had passed.

“I want to confirm and I am confident that we have the situation under control. And I can guarantee…no terrorist attacks will be allowed to take place. If they have disagreement, go fight somewhere else,” the deputy prime minister said.

—Joshua Mitnick in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.

‘Saudis have enough oil to make up for Ira… JPost – Middle East.

    Saudi Arabia says it has enough oil output capacity to meet global customers’ needs if new sanctions keep Iran from exporting oil, a top US Republican lawmaker said on Friday.

House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke to Reuters by telephone from Europe after several days of meetings in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi was among the officials he met.
“The Saudi government indicated that it was ready and able to meet needs of its customers,” Cantor told Reuters. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter. Its top customers include the United States, Japan, China and South Korea.

Cantor was addressing concerns that oil shortages may arise from new sanctions in the offing against Iran by the United States and European Union, aimed at discouraging Tehran’s nuclear program.

The United States has long embargoed Iranian crude, but has just approved new sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank, the main conduit for its oil revenues. The European Union, which collectively buys about 500,000 bpd of Iranian oil, is expected to soon impose an embargo halting imports.

The goal of the West’s increased pressure on Tehran is to stop the Islamic republic from building a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes.

Cantor is the number two Republican in the Republican-majority House of Representatives, after Speaker John Boehner.

During his tour of the Gulf region with several other US lawmakers, Cantor also met officials from Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“They also expressed the ability to have excess capacity coming on line later this year, as well as the capacity it has online now,” Cantor said of oil producer UAE.

“I think the consensus is that there is enough capacity in the region to meet the needs of customers, excluding the exports of Iran,” he said.

Further sanctions in the works

Cantor said he would push for the speedy implementation of the new US sanctions on Iran’s central bank, and he favored Congress passing further measures to penalize Tehran if it does not stop its nuclear program.

“We don’t have time” to delay, he said.

The measures Obama signed into law on New Year’s Eve would allow the president to sanction foreign banks that do business with Iran’s central bank. But they do not kick in for several months, and give Obama wide latitude to pull his punches and avoid imposing penalties.

As soon as the central bank sanctions passed Congress in December, the US House of Representatives passed another piece of legislation that would close some loopholes in existing sanctions and further choke off trade with Tehran.

The House bill included a provision that would deny entry to the United States of any ship that has recently visited a port in Iran, North Korea or Syria.

Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate. A bipartisan sanctions bill could be considered in committee soon after senators return to work from a winter recess later this month, a Senate aide said on Friday.

Some officials in the Middle East shared his sense of urgency about the need to stop Iran from getting the capacity to build nuclear weapons, Cantor said. “I think that the consensus is, no one wants Iran to be a nuclear power,” Cantor said.

However, some officials in the region “believe you can’t stop Iran from doing it, because the regime has nothing to lose,” Cantor said.

“What that tells me is everything has got to be on the table,” said Cantor, a hawk on defense issues, using language that implies the willingness to use military force as an option to deny Iran the means of developing an atomic bomb. The Obama administration has said there are no options “off” the table.

‘Iran arming Assad to suppress protests’ – JPost – Middle East.

    A recent visit of the heads of the Quds force to Syria is the “strongest indication yet” that Iran is supplying the Assad regime with weapons, AFP quoted a senior US official as saying Saturday.

Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force, visited Syria this month, AFP reported. “We think this relates to Iranian support for the Syrian government’s attempts to suppress its people,” the senior US official said.

“We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “The US government believes Iran has supplied Syria with munitions” for use in the military crackdown.

The United States has long suspected Iran of supplying Damascus with weapons as Assad struggles to cope with mass protests against his rule.

Earlier in the week, Turkish customs officials intercepted four trucks suspected of carrying military equipment from Iran to Syria.

Iran officially denied reports about arms shipments to Syria. A statement by the Iranian embassy in Turkey obtained by CNN Friday stated: “We deny such claims and we would like to state that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees people’s demands to be paid attention to as a way of providing domestic security and stability and believes that dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition is the way out from the current situation.”

The United Nations has said that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in the unrest which erupted in March, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere. Authorities accuse armed Islamist militants of killing 2,000 members of the security forces.

The crackdown against protest has been ongoing despite an Arab League monitoring mission, now about 165 strong, which began work on December 26. Its task is to verify if Syria is complying with an agreement to halt the crackdown. Some reports indicate that the killing of protesters has actually increased since the arrival of the League monitors.

‘US prepping Mideast facilities … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    The United States has begun taking measures to plan for an Israeli strike on Iran in order to protect US facilities in the region, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The contingency planning came as a result of concern within the US defense establishment that Israel is planning to attack Iran over the Islamic Republic’s reported nuclear armament program, according to the newspaper.

US President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and other senior US officials have reportedly delivered messages through private channels to the Israeli government warning them about the dangerous repercussions of a military strike on Iran.

Washington is concerned that Iraqi Shi’ite militias may attack the US embassy in Baghdad at Iran’s behest. Some 15,000 US diplomats, federal employees and contractors will likely remain in Iraq, the newspaper reported.

Tensions between the Jewish state and the Islamic republic spiked above normal this past week when an Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up in his car in Tehran in an attack that Iranian officials blamed on Israel.

President Shimon Peres, speaking a number of days following the bombing, said that the attack was not carried out by Israel, to the best of his knowledge.

US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had a phone conversation Thursday, discussing “recent Iran-related developments.”

The following day, Netanyahu was quoted by The Australian as saying that new US sanctions on Iran were starting to bite.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 14, 2012, 10:36 AM (GMT+02:00)

Nuclear scientist’s bombed car in Tehran

The bombing attack in Tehran which killed Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan last Wednesday, Jan. 11, generated an angry phone call from US President Barack Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next day, debkafile‘s Washington and intelligence sources report.  Washington is increasingly concerned, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, that Israel is preparing to strike Iran’s nuclear sites over US objections and has bolstered the defenses of US facilities in the region in case of a conflict.

Obama, Defense and Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been sending private messages to their Israel contacts warning them about the dire consequences of a strike, the paper reports. Top US armed forces chief Gen. Martin Dempsey will visit Israel next week.
debkafile‘s exclusive sources report that the differences between the US and Israel surfaced before the tough Obama-Netanyahu conversation last Thursday. Political, military and intelligence officials privately voiced resentment over the strong and unusual condemnation the White House and Secretary Clinton issued over the death of the Iranian nuclear scientist.

By denying “absolutely” any US involvement in the killing, the administration implicitly pointed the finger at Israel – an unusual act in relations between two friendly governments, especially when both face a common issue as sensitive as a nuclear-armed Iran.
Obama seemed to suspect that Israel staged the killing to torpedo yet another US secret effort to avoid a military confrontation with Iran through back channel contacts with Tehran, while the administration’s extreme condemnation is seen as tying in with its all-out campaign to hold Israel back from a unilateral strike.

As part of this campaign, the Foreign Policy publication ran an “investigative report” Friday, Jan. 13, the point of which was to show that US and Israeli undercover agencies have been at odds for years after what was called a Mossad “false flag” operation. “Two US intelligence officers” are said to have revealed to the publication that in 2007 and 2008, Israeli Mossad officers posing as US intelligence agents with American passports recruited terrorist group Jundallah operatives for covert attacks in Iran.

This Pakistan-based Baluchi extremist group was described as utterly shunned by the CIA.
The weekly’s sources said they were “stunned by the brazenness of Mossad’s recruiting activities…under the nose of US intelligence officers, most notably in London.”

They implied that Jundallah were sure they had been recruited by US intelligence. But so was Tehran. The Israeli “false flag” program was therefore accused of putting American agents at risk.

A “serving US intelligence officer” told the paper that President George W. Bush when informed of this episode “went absolutely ballistic.”

debkafile adds: At the time of this alleged operation, Ehud Olmert was prime minister of Israel and Meir Dagan director of the Mossad. While the Bush administration is not known to have ever taken it up with Israel, Barack Obama decided to cool US intelligence cooperation with Israel on the Iranian issue when he took office in 2009.

Foreign Policy in its tendentious and selective report presents Mossad as the sole recruiter of Jundallah for sabotage and hit operations for defeating Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb. It omits the slightest mention of the fact that US intelligence started using Jundallah for such operations from early 2005 with ample US-dollar funding approved personally by President Bush.
Our Washington and intelligence sources note that the report appeared two days after the Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and the day after Obama took Netanyahu to task. It had two objective: to show that US is not responsible for all the covert operations of recent months against Iran’s nuclear targets and, secondly, to demonstrate that Washington means to continue harassing and pressuring Israel by every means to hold it back from a military operation against Iran.

Iran To Host UN Nuclear Inspectors Amid Tensions Over Strait Of Hormuz Threat | Fox News.

‘Iran supplying Assad with arms for crackd… JPost – Middle East.

    A recent visit of the heads of the Quds force to Syria is the “strongest indication yet” that Iran is supplying the Assad regime with weapons, AFP quoted a senior US official as saying Saturday.

Major-General Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force, visited Syria this month, AFP reported. “We think this relates to Iranian support for the Syrian government’s attempts to suppress its people,” the senior US official said.

“We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “The US government believes Iran has supplied Syria with munitions” for use in the military crackdown.

The United States has long suspected Iran of supplying Damascus with weapons as Assad struggles to cope with mass protests against his rule.

Earlier in the week, Turkish customs officials intercepted four trucks suspected of carrying military equipment from Iran to Syria.

Iran officially denied reports about arms shipments to Syria. A statement by the Iranian embassy in Turkey obtained by CNN Friday stated: “We deny such claims and we would like to state that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees people’s demands to be paid attention to as a way of providing domestic security and stability and believes that dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition is the way out from the current situation.”

The United Nations has said that more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in the unrest which erupted in March, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere. Authorities accuse armed Islamist militants of killing 2,000 members of the security forces.

The crackdown against protest has been ongoing despite an Arab League monitoring mission, now about 165 strong, which began work on December 26. Its task is to verify if Syria is complying with an agreement to halt the crackdown. Some reports indicate that the killing of protesters has actually increased since the arrival of the League monitors.

Ahmadinejad: Iran will respond ‘firmly’ to a U.S. strike – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iranian president returns home after a five-day tour of Latin America; says embargoes and sanctions have had no effect on Iran.

By DPA

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday vowed that Iran would stand up to growing international pressure over its nuclear program and threatened to “respond” to attacks.

“Embargoes and sanctions against Iran have had no effect,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview in Quito with Mexican television network Televisa.

	Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves to reporters as he departs Quito, Ecuador, Friday Jan. 13, 2012.
	Photo by: AP

“Naturally, if the United States wants to disturb, damage and strike the Iranian people, the Iranian people also stand very strong. It will respond firmly,” he said.

Ahmadinejad left Ecuador Friday to return home after a five-day tour of Latin America, which also took him to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. The trip was seen as an attempt to side-step growing international tensions and find new markets as the European Union considers an outright embargo on Iranian oil.

Over the course of his trip, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied suspicion that Iran aims to make a nuclear weapon, growing concern in the international community after Iran opened a second uranium enrichment site.

“We have shown the best cooperation with the international (Atomic Energy) agency,” Ahmadinejad declared. “The Iranian nuclear problem is totally political. It is clear that the United States is looking for a pretext to put a brake on the progress of the Iranian people.”

On Thursday, the United States imposed a new round of sanctions on firms in China, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates for doing business with Iran, turning up the heat.

The timing of the move heightened the all-out global push by Washington and the European Union to get Iran to stop enriching uranium and start cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been in China and Japan this week to push for more pressure. Japan has agreed to decrease Iranian crude oil imports in stages, but China was more skeptical.

The European Union is to consider an outright embargo on Iranian oil on January 23.

Iran has retaliated to the growing pressure with threats to block oil transport through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries a large part of Middle East oil to the rest of the world.

Tensions grew even more when an Iranian scientist connected to the nuclear program was killed Wednesday in a car bomb explosion in Tehran, the third scientist to have been killed since 2010. Iran charged that Israel and the United States were behind the killing.

The United States has denied complicity.

While in Latin America, Ahmadinejad met with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and other officials. Correa noted that he believes Iran’s denial that they are developing nuclear weapons.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad met with Cuban President Raul Castro and with his brother, historic Cuban leader Fidel. On Tuesday, he attended the inauguration of Daniel Ortega for a further four-year mandate as Nicaraguan president, and on Monday he met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

U.S. officials say Iran is supplying weapons to Syria; Obama, Erdogan affirm cooperation.

Saturday, 14 January 2012

Demonstrators protest against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad after Friday prayers in Marrat Tahrama, near Adlb. The U.N. said that the Syrian regime crackdown left more than 5,000 people dead since March. (Reuters)

inShare5

US stations 15,000 troops in Kuwait — RT.

U.S. Army soldiers (AFP Photo / Joe Raedle)

TAGS: Military, Asia, Iran, USA, War

The United States is not at war with Iran yet, but just in case,the Pentagon says they want to be prepared. To do so, the Department of Defense has dispatched 15,000 troops to the neighboring nation of Kuwait.

Gen. James Mattis, the Marine Corps head that rules over the US Central Command, won approval late last year from the White House to deploy the massive surge to the tiny West Asian country Kuwait, which is separated from Iran by only a narrow span of the Persian Gulf.

The latest deployment, which was ushered in without much presentation to the public, adds a huge number of troops aligned with America’s arsenal that are now surrounding Iran on literally every front. In late 2011, the US equipped neighboring United Arab Emirates with advanced weaponry created to disrupt underground nuclear operations. In adjacent Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, American military presence has long been all but enormous.

While the US has not placed any boots on the ground in Iran, an unauthorized surveillance mission of a US steal drone in December prompted Tehran to become enraged at Washington. US officials insist that Iran is on the verge of a nuclear weaponry program, despite lacking sufficient evidence or confirmation. During the drone mission, Iran authorities intercepted the craft and forced it into a safe landing. Tensions have only worsened between the two nations in the month since, but Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that stealth missions into Iran will continue “absolutely,” despite ongoing opposition from overseas.

In calling for the latest surge to Kuwait, Gen.Mattis said the deployment was necessary to keep Iran in check and keep America prepared for any other threats in the area. It comes only weeks after the last American troops vacated nearby Iraq, where the US still in actuality has an advance presence — the American embassy in Baghdad employs thousands of armed military contractors.

The move to build up military presence in Kuwait comes at a time when the foreign government is at odds to a degree with a US. While protesters in America this week have demonstrated against the ten year anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, the Kuwait government has increased efforts to have two of their own men transferred out of Gitmo and sent back home. Both Fawzi al-Odah and Fayiz al-Kandari have been detained at Guantanamo since 2002, although only one of the two Kuwaiti citizens has ever been charged.