WarSclerotic

Syrian residents say they’re bracing for full-blown war – CNN.com.

Syria (CNN) — As U.N. diplomats slam the Syrian regime for the country’s mounting bloodshed, residents wondered out loud what the implications of total war might be.

“Everyone we’ve been talking to … believes that the country is heading towards, or already is in, a full-blown war, and recovering from that is going to be incredibly challenging,” said CNN’s Arwa Damon, who reported from inside Syria early Tuesday.

She spoke from an opposition safe house, describing a near constant flow of people and information. CNN is not disclosing her exact location because of concerns for her safety.

“What a lot of people are realizing and accepting at this stage is that this is going to be a bloody battle — that more lives are going to be lost,” Damon said.

She said every person interviewed has a horror story to tell, but some are too petrified to speak publicly with their full names.

“One man we met, he had four members of his family executed as government forces, he said, were raiding their village,” Damon said.

Her report came one day after the U.N. high commissioner for human rights denounced the Syrian government’s “ongoing onslaught” against its citizens. Navi Pillay spoke before the U.N. General Assembly, which could issue a formal condemnation of the Syrian regime.

“The nature and scale of abuses committed by Syrian forces indicates that crimes against humanity are likely to have been committed since March 2011,” Pillay said.

Her harsh comments prompted an angry defense from Syria’s ambassador, who complained of an “unprecedented” media and political campaign to incite the opposition in his country.

While diplomats wrangled in New York, the Syrian opposition stronghold of Homs came under attack for at least the 10th straight day Tuesday as the sounds of fresh shelling reverberated through the air.

More than 680 people died last week in Syria, most of whom were killed in Homs, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists.

On Monday, 30 civilians — including two children — were killed in violence, the LCC said. Most were in the areas of Homs and Idlib.

Meanwhile, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported on a funeral for 19 soldiers and officers killed by “terrorists” throughout the country.

CNN cannot independently confirm details of the events in Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.

But Pillay said evidence proves President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are behind a gruesome crackdown.

“Independent, credible and corroborated accounts indicate that these abuses have taken place as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians,” Pillay said.

By end of the day Monday, a General Assembly draft resolution that would condemn Syrian human rights violations had not been formally introduced. It was unclear when it would be, also when there might be a vote.

The vote would not be binding, but would be the strongest U.N. statement yet on the violence. Russia and China vetoed previous attempts by the U.N. Security Council to condemn Syria for the crackdown.

“The people of Syria justifiably feel that the United Nations has shamefully abandoned their cause,” British Ambassador to the U.N. Mark Lyall Grant told diplomats. “We must, as individual member states and collectively, send them a clear signal that this is not the case.”

Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, said the “aggressive, illegitimate” criticism of his country is designed to undermine the government.

An Arab League proposal over the weekend for a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping force in the country is an “incitement to terrorism,” he said, because it would provide support to opposition fighters.

Jaafari also said the proposal seeks to trample on Syria’s sovereignty.

“We in Syria could not imagine sending soldiers to defend Occupy Wall Street protesters. Neither we or any other government can imagine sending forces to protect demonstrators in London or Paris,” he said. “The state has exclusive responsibility for defending security on its national territory.”

Russian officials said Monday they were studying the Arab League proposal, but they indicated reluctance to sign on, saying the permission of the host country is necessary for peacekeepers to enter.

A peacekeeping mission also implies there is peace first, which is not the case in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

China supports the league’s mediation in Syria, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin, but he stopped short of saying whether Beijing would approve the proposal.

Along with a peacekeeping mission, the Arab League urged member states to provide political and financial support to the Syrian opposition and to cut ties with Damascus.

Syria has said it is simply fighting armed terrorist groups in its country. Jaafari cited last week’s bombing of two government buildings in Aleppo, which killed 28 people, and a January bombing in Damascus that killed 26 as examples of terrorist groups — specifically al Qaeda — that are active in the country.

But residents of cities such as Homs, where hundreds have died in the past 10 days, say innocent civilians are under siege by government forces. They describe indiscriminate bombings of homes, snipers in the streets, arbitrary arrests and attacks on hospitals by government forces.

The destruction by al-Assad forces has also yielded a humanitarian crisis. Residents in Homs report scarce or nonexistent access to food, water and electricity.

The United Nations is ready to deploy humanitarian supplies to Syria as soon as it gets access, Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, said Monday.

Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers were able to distribute food, blankets and other supplies to Homs and another city thanks to a brief cease-fire but say other areas are too dangerous for them to enter, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

Pillay said most of the wounded avoid going to public hospitals for fear of being arrested or tortured. Instead, they are being treated in underground hospitals where hygiene and sterilization conditions are rudimentary and medical supplies are scarce, she said.

Pillay said at least 5,400 people have died since protests seeking al-Assad’s ouster began nearly a year ago, but has admitted it is difficult to update that figure due to the chaos on the ground. The LCC says the toll has far exceeded 7,000.

Damon said some members of the opposition believe the regime will fall someday, but it’s uncertain how many more lives will be lost before that happens.

“If there is military intervention, then yes, there will be a lot of bloodshed. But it’s going to be over a lot quicker,” one young activist said. “If there isn’t military intervention, there is going to be even more bloodshed, and it’s going to take a lot longer to bring down the regime.”

CNN’s Alla Eshchenko, Nada Husseini, Mick Krever, Richard Roth, Eunice Yoon and Brian Walker contributed to this report.

US to cut funding for Israeli missile defense programs by $6.3M – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Obama’s 2013 budget proposal requests $99.8M for Israel’s missile defense, down some $20M from 2011. Republican Jewish Coalition head says cut ‘extremely dangerous, worrisome and reckless’

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama‘s 2013 budget proposal includes a $6.3 million reduction in the funding of Israel‘s missile defense programs, Ynet reported Tuesday.

US officials said this is the second consecutive year the Obama administration is cutting its support for the development of Israel’s Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense program and the Arrow System Improvement Program.

According to the officials, in 2011 the administration requested $121.7 million in military aid for Israel’s major missile defense programs. That number dropped to $106.1 million in the 2012 budget proposal, and dropped again to $99.8 million in President Obama’s newly released 2013 budget proposal.

The Obama Administration’s 2012 budget request proposed $106 million for the missile defense cooperation program with Israel, but Congress more than doubled the administration’s request by authorizing a cooperative program with Israel at more than $216 million.

Israel has yet to issue an official response to Obama’s budget proposal, but conservative elements in Washington criticized Obama for cutting the aid to Israel at a time when Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are threatening the Jewish state.

Obama’s budget proposal for 2013 also cuts funding for the US’s ballistic missile program. The program’s budget stands at $9.7 billion, down $700 million from last year.

Robert Hale, the Pentagon’s comptroller, said “there could be other Middle Eastern countries that we hope will either step up themselves or we will have to slow down some of our actions to improve their missile defenses.” He did not specify which ME countries the US provides military assistance to.

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, lamented the funding trend. “For an administration which tried to claim that it’s the best for Israel’s security, cutting critical funds for missile defense at a time when the threat from Iran has never been greater is extremely dangerous, worrisome and reckless,” he said.

‘Assad using chemical warfare in Homs atta… JPost – Middle East.

Barak: Iran, Hezbollah intent on … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By HERB KEINON 02/14/2012 09:35

Defense minister accuses Tehran of standing behind coordinated terror attacks against Israeli interests in New Delhi and Tbilisi, says Israel must be at the forefront of fighting terror.

By REUTERS/Parivartan Sharma

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday accused Iran and Hezbollah of carrying out Monday’s terror attacks in India and Georgia saying they were “intent on sabotaging the Israeli way of life and operating against Israelis all over the world.”

Speaking during a state visit to Singapore, Barak added that Israel must be at the forefront of fighting terror and continue to prepare for the challenges it faces as Iran and Hezbollah seek Israeli victims.

Within hours of Monday’s attacks in Tbilisi and New Delhi, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu placed the blame squarely on Tehran, saying Israel would continue to “systematically and with patience use a strong arm” against international terrorism originating from Iran.

Tal Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of a diplomat stationed in New Delhi, was moderately wounded there, along with her driver and two passersby. In Georgia, no one was injured when the bomb under the car of a local embassy employee was discovered and neutralized.

Netanyahu said Iran, and its proxy Hezbollah, was responsible for a string of attempted attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in recent months, including in Thailand and Azerbaijan. In each of the previous cases, the the local authorities attacks helped thwart the attacks, he said.

“Iran, which is behind these attacks, is the biggest exporter of terrorism in the world,” the prime minister said. “The Israeli government and its security forces will continue to work together with local security services against these terrorist actions.”

Israel raised the level of alert at all of its embassies and consulates overseas following the coordinated attacks.

Tehran, meanwhile, denied any responsibility for the attacks, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast saying it was another phase in Israel’s “psychological war” against the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA quoted him as saying that Israel itself was behind the attacks to “tarnish Iran’s friendly ties” with Georgia and India.

Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis February 13, 2012, 10:35 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli embassy car in New Delhi after bomb blast

This time, no one was killed although an Talya Yehoshua- KIoren, wife of the Defense Ministry representative in India, and three others were injured by a sticky bomb planted on her Innova SUV in New Delhi Monday, Feb. 13, at almost exactly the same time as a similar device was safely defused in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
In recent weeks, terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets were foiled in Thailand, Azerbaijan and Argentina. However much they deny this, Iran and Hizballah are clearly determined to keep on trying until they achieve their objective of killing targeted Israelis.
debkafile’s military sources say that the odds are on their eventual success, after failing in four out of five tries.
On this assumption, Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz summoned three senior staff officers to a conference as soon as the first reports came in from New Delhi and Tbilisi at around noon Monday. It was attended by Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavy, Air Force commander Ido Nehushtan and Operations Division chief Maj. Gen. Yaakov Ayash. The meeting’s level indicated that it was not limited to discussing the immediate import of the two bombing attacks but focused rather on the broader ramifications of a potential attack with Israeli fatalities and its impact on the prospects of war.
This assumption does not look far-fetched when it is recalled that deadly terrorist attacks in the past plunged Israel into two major wars.
On June 3, 1982, four terrorists gunned down Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov outside the Dorchester in London. He was in a coma until his death 21 years later. Three days after the attack, Israeli troops invaded Lebanon to fight the Palestinians and Syria.
Twenty-four years later, on July 12, 2006, Hizballah raiders crossed into Israel and attacked an IDF patrol. They killed three of its members and dragged two back into Lebanon to be held as hostages. Before the day ended, Israel was at war, this time with Hizballah.
So the agenda on Gen. Gantz’s urgent discussion with the IDF’s intelligence, air force and operations chiefs
was obviously not about plans to fly Israeli troops to New Delhi or Tbilisi, but for a calculus of the proximity of a full-scale war at some point in the ongoing wave of terror.
For some weeks now, the Middle East has been teetering at the edge of a precipice. A sudden shove could push it over the edge into full-blown armed hostilities without President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei being in control. The atmosphere is already dangerously charged over the crisis in Syria, reciprocal US and Iranian threats over the Strait of Hormuz, and US and Israeli preparations to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.
But wars may be ignited without notice by a small spark or a terrorist attack far from Middle East shores that would cause enough Israeli fatalities to satisfy its instigators in Tehran and Beirut and provoke an Israeli military response. This was dangerously close to happening in New Delhi Monday.