WarSclerotic

Police in central Israel are preparing for long-range Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza, a senior police commander told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“We assume that in the next round, some rockets will fall in central Israel,” Cmdr. Bentsi Sao, head of the central district, said.

During the recent escalation with Palestinian terrorists, a couple of rockets slammed into territory that falls under the police’s central district, while the remainder fell in the southern district.

The southern district is well accustomed to rapidly dispatching bomb squad units to the sites of rocket explosions after gaining over a decade of experience in dealing with the attacks.

But as rocket ranges grow, the police’s central district has found itself needing to prepare for rockets as well.

Sao said his district is now working with the IDF’s Home Front Command in anticipation of rockets that could strike central areas.

Meanwhile, the website of Islamic Jihad in Gaza carried an interview with terrorists responsible for the firing of rockets at Israel.

“We said… we would expand the range of rocket fire – and we hit Ashdod, Ofakim, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi,” one of the operatives boasted.

“The enemy knows that the al-Quds Brigades [of Islamic Jihad] is capable of making good on its promises,” he added.

Islamic Jihad fired most of the approximately 200 rockets directed at Israeli cities, towns and villages. Of all the terrorist organizations in Gaza, it is the group most openly aligned with, and sponsored by, Iran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the United States could no longer dictate policy to the rest of the world and that relations between NATO and Pakistan would become more unstable.

“NATO and the United States should change their policy because the time when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech during a conference on Afghanistan’s economy in the capital of neighboring Tajikistan.

“Relations between NATO and Pakistan, their unsteadiness and instability, will only grow,” he said. He was speaking in Farsi, which was translated into Russian for conference participants in the former Soviet republic.

Calling for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad said: “The main reason for the difficulties in the world is the policy of NATO member countries, undertaken with the aim of reviving colonialism.”

“The entire problem lies with NATO and with the policies of NATO members, most of all the United States, which entered Afghanistan under the guise of the war on terrorism and under the same banner is now surrounding India, Russia and China.”

The US delegation to the conference, headed by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake, left the hall when Ahmadinejad began to speak and returned after the conclusion of his speech.

Ahmadinejad made no reference to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is purely peaceful, but Israel and Western nations believe the country is moving towards a nuclear bomb that could change the regional balance of power.

Iran was not participating in a nuclear security summit which began in Seoul, Korea on Monday.

Speaking ahead of the summit at the University of Seoul on Monday, US President Barack Obama said that time was running out to resolve Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West.

“Once again, there is the possibility of a diplomatic resolution that gives Iran access to peaceful nuclear energy while addressing the concerns of the international community,” Obama stated.

“Today, I’ll meet with the leaders of Russia and China as we work to achieve a resolution in which Iran fulfills its obligations,” he added.