WarSclerotic

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 26, 2012, 5:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz meets top US soldier Gen. Martin Dempsey in Washington

Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu acted Thursday, April 26, to correct the damaging impression of divided and uncertain perceptions of the Iranian nuclear threat left by statements delivered in the last two days by himself and Defense Minster Ehud Barak.
Israel’s chief of staff Gen. Benny Gantz rallied to the task with an unambiguous comment that “other countries have readied their armed forces for a potential strike against Iran’s nuclear sites to keep Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The military force is ready. Not only our forces but other forces as well,” he said without elaborating.

“We all hope it will not be necessary to use this force, but we are absolutely sure of its existence.”
debkafile reports from Washington that Gen. Gantz’s words were seen in US official circles as the strongest affirmation yet from Jerusalem that Israel has partners for a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
It was also an attempt by the chief of staff to erase the question mark he placed in a previous comment over Iran’s resolve to attain a nuclear weapon.

Wednesday, April 25, debkafile reported widespread criticism on the Israeli street and in military circles of the mixed and conflicting messages coming from top officials with regard to the Iranian peril. Netanyahu also responded to the criticism in person by declaring in a TV interview, “Iran hasn’t stopped its program …the centrifuges are spinning as we speak.”

Israel commemorates fallen IDF soldiers on Memorial Day – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Since 1860, 22,993 soldiers have fallen with 126 this past year; Israelis to stand for a minute of silence at 8 P.M. to remember those fallen.

By Haaretz

A ceremony for Israel’s fallen soldiers began Tuesday evening on the eve of Memorial Day in Yad Lebanim in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, Supreme Court President Asher Grunis, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat will be participating in the ceremony.

A one-minute siren will wail throughout the country at 8 P.M. on Tuesday evening, as Israelis will stand for a moment of silence.

Following the siren, the national ceremony at the Western Wall will begin, attended by President Shimon Peres, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, IDF Chief Benny Gantz, as well as bereaved families.

According to the IDF Spokesperson, 22,993 soldiers have fallen since 1860. 126 soldiers have fallen since last year and there are 10,524 bereaved families in Israel – of them 2,396 are orphans and 4,992 are widows.

On the eve of Memorial Day, Netanyahu sent his yearly missive to bereaved Israeli families.

“As a son to a bereaved family, Memorial Day has special significance for me. This day isn’t just a national memorial day, it is also a private memorial day for me and the members of my family, just as it is for me,” Netanyahu wrote.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 23, 2012, 7:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

Blast at Syrian Sahm al-Jolan (Golan)

The wretched plight of the troops manning Syrian defense divisions defending the Golan border and Mt. Hermon was clearly visible from lookout points on the Israeli side in the last two days, debkafile’s military sources report. The regular water and food supplies to their bases, the backbone of Syria’s defense lines against Israel, were stopped and redirected to the units fighting anti-Assad rebels in other parts of the country. Large groups of armed soldiers have gone AWOL to hunt for food. For the first time in years, some have approached the border fence. They don’t ask Israeli soldiers for food, but parcels thrown across the fence vanish in a trice.

According to our sources, the 5th Division posted in the Golan town of Quneitra has suffered the largest number of desertions, estimated at more than 1,500 officers and men, around 15 percent of the full complement. But hundreds of dropouts occur daily from the 15th, 9th and 7th Divisions stationed in central and southern Golan.
The district commands have meanwhile lost control of the Syrian-Israeli border deployment. Military facilities are deserted with no one to guard against trespassers. Gangs, local and from across Syria’s eastern borders with Jordan and Iraq, were quick to realize the bases are unguarded and have begun stripping them of equipment and looting everything they can lay hands on.  These gangs are working stealthily so as not to drawing the attention of Assad’s security forces which might stop the looting. But they are most likely being used by Assad’s Sunni enemies in Iraq and Jordan as vehicles to plant terrorist cells inside Syria for attacking military targets.
debkafile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources disclose this is what happened at the Golan village of Sahm al-Jolan near Quneitra Friday, April 20 when a large (100 kilo) bomb blew up as a Syrian military convoy was passing through. At least 10 soldiers were killed and 35 injured. The Syrian authorities stated that a remote-controlled explosive device blew up against a bus carrying soldiers.
It is believed that a Jordanian Sunni terrorist band was responsible.  That day too, five Syrian soldiers were killed in another attack in the southern Syrian town of Karak near the flashpoint town of Deraa.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 22, 2012, 10:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Beijing has decided to distance itself from the Assad regime of Syria. Notice of this policy shift came about in a secret exchange of messages with the Obama administration, revealed here exclusively by debkafile’s Washington sources. The latest message received in the latter half of last week said: China will no longer be a problem for America in dealing with Assad. That leaves only Russia.
This change of face surfaced at the UN Security Council on Saturday, April 21, when after voting for another 300 observers for Syria, the Chinese delegate Li Baodong made an unusual speech:
“We also call upon the international community to continue its firm support for Mr. Annan’s good offices’ efforts and consolidate the results achieved, and we strongly oppose any word and act aimed at creating difficulties for Mr. Annan’s good offices.”

Li went on to say: “China always maintained that the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Syria as well as the choice and the will of the Syrian people should be respected.”
Western sources stress that, with this speech, the Chinese ambassador stepped aside from Russia’s uncompromising backing for the Syrian ruler. Moscow remained the only world power acting to limit the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s powers and the effectiveness of the UN monitors by denying them proper equipment and authority for overseeing an end to the violence in Syria.
The shift in Chinese policy was noted by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on April 10 when, after visiting Beijing, he remarked: “China is not in the same position as it was before. It is shifting away from full support for Assad’s regime.”
debkafile’s Washington sources believe that the Obama administration can count this change of face as a return on its policy of nuclear appeasement of – and rapprochement with – Tehran.

A senior US official said that what concerns Beijing most is the US oil embargo on Iran and its effect on the Chinese economy. Now that the Chinese see signs of a possible loosening up of sanctions especially in relation to Iranian oil exports in the wake of evolving US-Iranian deals, they are breathing a deep sigh of relief and prepared to be more accommodating to the US in its policy on Syria.

The approaching easing of sanctions against Iranian oil was signaled Saturday, April 21, by an announcement in Tehran that new purchasing contracts for the whole of 2012 had come in from the Asian refineries which were in trade relations with Iran.
Beijing is reported by our sources as having turned down an appeal from the Assad regime to purchase tens of billons of dollars worth of Syrian government bonds to tide it over its economic distress for the duration of the war. Last week, Assad was revealed to be so cash-strapped as to start dipping into the national gold reserves held in the Syrian state bank and selling the precious metal on financial markets in Dubai.
China’s defection will not immediately bring Bashar Assad crashing down, but it is a vote of no-confidence by a key world power in his survivability. It leaves Tehran and Moscow as the only props of his regime and may well inspire second thoughts in either or both of his champions.

Iran Claims To Be Building Copy Of Captured U.S. Drone.

This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show US RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed earlier this week, as an unidentified colonel, right, talks to the chief of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, in an undisclosed location, Iran. (AP Photo/Sepahnews)

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claimed Sunday that it had reverse-engineered an American spy drone captured by its armed forces last year and has begun building a copy.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, related what he said were details of the aircraft’s operational history to prove his claim that Tehran’s military experts had extracted data from the U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, state television reported.

Among the drone’s past missions, he said, was surveillance of the compound in northwest Pakistan in which Osama Bin Laden lived and was killed.

Tehran has flaunted the capture of the Sentinel, a top-secret surveillance drone with stealth technology, as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.

U.S. officials have acknowledged losing the drone. They have said Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.

Hajizadeh told state television that the captured surveillance drone is a “national asset” for Iran and that he could not reveal full technical details. But he did provide some samples of the data that he claimed Iranian experts had recovered.

“There is almost no part hidden to us in this aircraft. We recovered part of the data that had been erased. There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God,” Hajizadeh said.

He said all operations carried out by the drone had been recorded in the memory of the aircraft, including maintenance and testing.

Hajizadeh claimed that the drone flew over Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan two weeks before the al-Qaida leader was killed there in May 2011 by U.S. Navy SEALs. He did not say how the Iranian experts knew this.

Before that, he said, “this drone was in California on Oct. 16, 2010, for some technical work and was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan on Nov. 18, 2010. It conducted flights there but apparently faced problems and (U.S. experts) were unable to fix it,” he said.

Hajizadeh said the drone was taken to Los Angeles in December 2010 where sensors of the aircraft underwent testing at an aerospace factory.

“If we had not achieved access to software and hardware of this aircraft, we would be unable to get these details. Our experts are fully dominant over sections and programs of this plane,” he said. “It’s not that we can bring down a drone but cannot recover the data.”

There are concerns in the U.S. that Iran or other states may be able to reverse-engineer the chemical composition of the drone’s radar-deflecting paint or the aircraft’s sophisticated optics technology that allows operators to positively identify terror suspects from tens of thousands of feet in the air.

There are also worries that adversaries may be able to hack into the drone’s database, as Iran claimed to have done. Some surveillance technologies allow video to stream through to operators on the ground but do not store much collected data. If they do, it is encrypted.

Media reports claimed this week that Russia and China have asked Tehran to provide them with information on the drone but Iran’s Defense Ministry denied this.

Lebanon news – NOW Lebanon -Why Israel keeps quiet on Syria.

It is all about Iran and Hezbollah in Tel Aviv, but Syria can also mean trouble. While the Israeli government is pushing for more action on Iran and its nuclear program, the powder keg right next door is on the verge of exploding.

While touring the Golan Heights this week, Israeli President Shimon Peres voiced his concern. “Whatever happens in Syria will affect Israel’s defense campaign,” Peres said.

Other politicians say it would serve Israel’s interest if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been battling a yearlong uprising, falls. “Assad’s fall would be a major blow to Iran… It would weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. It would be very positive,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on CNN on Thursday after a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

While some Israeli analysts and politicians have voiced concerns about human rights violations in Syria and have criticized the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters, others talk about the destabilization of Syria, hinting that Assad’s iron hand made Israel feel secure and that the Baath regime kept the border quiet for four decades.

But the Syrian story is developing in the background of more important events as far as Israel in concerned. “For Israel, Syria is a side show right now. Iran is the main stage,” Michael Weiss, Communications Director of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank based in London, told NOW Lebanon. “[Israel’s] strategy right now is to sit and wait,” he said, adding that there is little that the Israeli government can do to influence the fate of Syria without the help of the United States. “Right now there is slight contradiction between the intention of the Obama administration to intervene and put an end to the violence in Syria and Israel’s pressure to divert the focus toward Iran,” Weiss pointed out.

David Pollock, Kaufman fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told NOW Lebanon, “Syria is stealing the spotlight on the international scene, and I think the Israeli government wants the international community to concentrate more on Iran and its nuclear program,” he said.

But Tel Aviv does have its security concerns when it comes to Syria. First, it fears a rocket attack from Hezbollah at Syria’s request and with Iran’s blessing, and second, it fears jihadists infiltrating Syria.  “Assad’s fall will be a death blow to Hezbollah. So far we have avoided attacking strategic targets in Lebanon, but if missiles are fired at us, we will know how to respond,” Peres stated.

Major General Yair Golan, who heads the IDF’s Northern Command at the border with Syria, explained in an interview with Israeli publication Hayom that he still expects the Assad regime to stand for many months, while the security situation at the Lebanese-Israeli border might deteriorate. He also says that he believes both Iran and Hezbollah are involved in the crackdown on the uprising “up to their necks.”

Golan also pointed out in the same interview that it is particularly worrying for his country that Syria might become a failed state. “When I see these terror attacks by Al-Qaeda in Aleppo and Damascus, I understand that from a law-and-order standpoint something is amiss. Today it is happening within the context of a civil war, but tomorrow it could be on our border,” he said.

But when it comes to concrete plans, Israel is still slow to act. There is no troop movement toward the northern border with Lebanon and Syria. Pollock said there is an explanation for Israel’s relative silence on Syria. “Tel Aviv needs Russia and China on its side in the Iranian nuclear file and would rather not risk interfering in the debate on intervention in Syria, which both Moscow and Beijing oppose,” he said.

Weiss also thinks that in the short term, Israel is happy with the stalemate in Syria.

He also says that the Israeli government changed its opinion on the Syrian uprising in the past year from actually pressuring the Obama administration to not oust Assad, to hoping for Assad’s fall, as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad’s direct finance and weapons-delivery link with Tehran would be disrupted.

But for the moment, acting to solve the Syrian problem is not in Israel’s interest. “[Israel] would be very upset if the United States intervened militarily in Syria, because that would mean less chance for a possible military campaign in Iran, and it would lose its leverage,” Weiss concluded.

There is still time for Israel to decide on a strategy. “They think that Assad can hold onto power at least till 2013,” Weiss said. This leaves enough time for negotiations on Iran, and Tel Aviv will deal with the Syrian problem later on, when things are clearer and when it suits it better.

Should Obama be Trusted to Stop Iran’s Nukes? – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

After a year of sanctions and saber-rattling over Iran’s nuclear program, negotiators from Tehran and six world powers (P5+1) finally resumed talks and found at least enough common ground to agree to meet again next month, according to Reuters.

Citing unnamed diplomatic sources, the New York Times reported that the western allies plan to demand the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of Iran’s underground nuclear reactors, a halt in the production of uranium fuel and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country.

While Tehran says it is ready to continue the talks based on common grounds, it has stressed that it will not give up any of its rights and will not accept any preconditions for P5+1 talks, according to Iran’s Press TV.

Last month, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said he trusts Obama when he says that he will not let Iran build a nuclear weapon and that Iranians are a rational regime, in an interview on CBS‘s 60 minutes.

Trust in Spite of a Cunning Betrayal
The fallout arising from an article written for Foreign Policy Magazine, seriously undercut Israel’s ability to stage a secret plan to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in its northern border.

The intention of the Obama administration, according to Moscow’s RT News, was to make the plans public to disrupt any secret agreements between Israel and Azerbaijan that would leave the US in the dark.

As a result, Moscow has stepped into the vacuum created by Obama’s decision to stay out of any potentially incendiary Middle East involvement while campaigning for a second term.

In response to US plans for an anti-Iran missile shield, Russia had recently moved highly-advanced mobile S-400 into Kaliningrad, and finalized a deal that establish an advanced radar station in Armenia to counter the US radar set up at the Turkish Kurecik air base, Debkafile’s military sources reported.

The alleged leak illustrates a cunning betrayal by the back-stabbing Obama administration to Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East.
Leaks continued, raising suspicion within the political and defense establishment that the Obama administration was intentionally trying to undermine potential military action, according to Israeli media.

According to former CIA operations officer and counter-Intelligence expert, Clare Lopez: “Islamist-allied operatives appointed by Obama are undermining US security policy aimed at co-opting Americas foreign policy in the Middle East, a network- with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the clerical regime in Tehran – is directing the Obama Administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Middle East.”

In a latest Time report, it is claimed that Israel has scaled down its covert operations inside Iran because Prime Minister Netanyahu was worried about the consequences of a secret action being discovered or going awry.

The Bottom Line
The extensive terror operations by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbullah against American interests in the Middle East and in Latin America underscore the clear and present danger to Israel and a grave threat to US national security.

As if recent diplomatic faux pas in Seoul is not enough, Obama’s being soft on Iran and his ridicule of Netanyahu belie his well publicized claim of support of Israel; that is the most disturbing sign yet, it placed Obama’s sympathies under the microscope.

In my view, the undermining of Israel’s military capabilities and the alleged leak suggest Obama is determined to prevent not only an Israeli attack against Iran, but also the missile defense plan for Europe and the Middle East.

Faced with stringent sanctions and speculation of an Israeli air strike, Iran is caught up literally between a rock and a hard place while Obama is sitting in a political minefield in an election year.

Incredibly, the American Jewish communities are mistakenly charmed and ncreasing support for Obama, as recent polls have already indicated.

In reality, no one knows for sure if Tehran will abandon nuclear ambitions- the centerpiece of Obama’s Iran policy. Obama’s mixed messages, persistent indecision and dangerous diplomatic overtones only emboldened Iran.

In the crucial talks, however, this will be Iran’s last chance to clear its ambiguities relevant to its nuclear program. The choice is hard but crystal clear – Iran must choose between a nuclear weapons program and the survival of the regime.

Considering the fact that Iran would not accept any preconditions, much less the dismantlement of its underground nuclear reactors, while it continue to enrich high grade uranium, the P5+1 talk is an exercise in futility meant only to buy time.

In the event the West accepts a compromise on Iran’s nuclear program, the P5+1 will be willing dupes until Iran gets a chance to explode an atomic bomb. When that inglorious moment comes, inaction and complacency will give way to concern.

The Holocaust during World War II and the threats before the1967 Arab-Israeli War serve as a painful reminder of what must never happen again

Obama’s erratic approach in relation to Israel’s determination, fortitude and vigilance concerning Iran’s nuclear program is quite simply  ‘Trust Me’.

In the end, an Israeli unilateral attack on Iran is a threat to Obama’s re-election and an insult to his outreach in the Islamic world.

In contrast, ‘Peace through strength’ was one of the mainstays of Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy vis a vis the former Soviet Union. Reagan said: “Trust, but verify” ‘.

Israel Hayom | Ya’alon: Debate over Iran attack is not about if, but when.

The debate in Israel over a possible attack on Iran centers on the point at which “Israel will feel a knife at its throat,” Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon said on Saturday.

The minister made the comments during a cultural discussion held over the weekend in Beersheba. Ya’alon stated that the debate over an Iran attack focuses not on whether Israel should attack Iran, but when.

The phrase “knife at our throat” in the context of Iran was first coined by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who stressed that an Israeli attack on Iran should only come when Israel feels it has no other choice. Echoing Dagan, Ya’alon said on Saturday, “My experience with war is that it should only happen as a last resort.”

During the discussion, Ya’alon also referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which he compared aspects of the Holocaust to the current Iranian threat.

“There is a lot of sensitivity implicit in the comparison between 1938 and the present day. This sensitivity is understandable,” Ya’alon said. “There is nothing that can be compared to the Holocaust, but some of the typical Western behavior that we saw on the eve of the Second World War is being displayed again today. The attitude of ‘Let’s avoid confrontation, let’s postpone confrontation to next year, to the next political term. Let’s yield, concede.’ In that respect, the Western world hasn’t changed.”

“We are facing the threat of extreme jihadist ideology which cannot be appeased through dialogue,” he said.

Ya’alon stressed that people living in New York and London must also be made aware “that there is threat here.”

“The Iranians impact every conflict in the Middle East in some negative way,” he said. “The Western world must stand up to this threat.”

Meanwhile, Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mohammad Baqer Bahrami said recently that Iran had substantial evidence and documents proving its claim that Israeli spies were operating in Azerbaijan, Iran’s Fars news agency reported Saturday.

“The Quds-occupying regime [Israel] is a cancerous tumor. It is a reality that the regime disturbs security wherever it goes since its nature is intermingled with terrorism and espionage,” Bahrami was quoted by Fars as telling the Azeri daily Yeni Musavat.

He noted that evidence gathered from assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists shows Israeli espionage activity and operations in Azerbaijan.

“I assure you that there are documents to substantiate this claim,” the ambassador was quoted as saying. “High-ranking Iranian officials, especially ministers, would never make such utterances without evidence and documents.”

Bahrami reportedly declined to give further details about the case.

The Fars agency reported that Azerbaijan recently harbored Mossad agents who fled Iran after assassinating an Iranian nuclear scientist.

Bahrami’s claims come after senior American diplomats and military intelligence officers told Foreign Policy magazine recently that the U.S. now believes that Israel has been granted access to air bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior official told Foreign Policy in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

Israel’s ties with Azerbaijan, a Muslim country that became independent with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, have grown as its once-strong strategic relationship with another Iranian neighbor, Turkey, has deteriorated. For Israeli intelligence, there is also a possible added benefit from Azerbaijan: its significant cross-border contacts and trade with Iran’s large ethnic Azeri community.

Israel ready to strike Iran, Lebanon, Gaza if ordered, says military chief.

Sunday, 22 April 2012

Israeli armed forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz has said this year will prove critical in trying to halt an Iranian nuclear arms program. (File photo)

inShare3