WarSclerotic

US excludes Israel from anti-terror forum because of Turkey – Globes.

Israel tried hard to obtain an invitation to the Global Counterterrorism Forum meeting, and its exclusion has greatly disappointed officials in Jerusalem.

Israel tried hard to obtain an invitation to the meeting, and its exclusion, despite the tight US-Israeli intelligence ties, has greatly disappointed officials in Jerusalem.

The GCTF, one of the pillars of President Barack Obama’s antiterrorism campaign, was established in September 2011. The White House calls the forum as a wise use of force against terrorism, and chose Turkey as the forum’s joint chair, together with the US.

29 countries are participating in the GCTF, ten of which are Arab and/or Muslim countries: Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Other members include China, Russia, India, and Western European countries.

“The GCTF sought from the outset to bridge old and deep divides in the international community between Western donor nations and Muslim majority nations. And it has, I think, done that quite effectively,” said a top US official at the press briefing before the opening session.

Republican politicians claim that, since one third of the GCTF’s members are Muslim countries, the Obama administration is trying to deepen ties with the Muslim world at Israel’s expense.

In response to numerous questions about Israel’s exclusion from the GCTF session in Istanbul raised at a press conference yesterday, the State Department opted to focus on the questions: Has Israel requested membership to the Global Counterterrorism Forum? Has the United States, as a co-host of the forum, sought to get Israel involved?

A State Department spokesman replied, “Our idea with the GCTF was to bring together a limited number of traditional donors, front line states, and emerging powers develop a more robust, yet representative, counterterrorism capacity-building platform. A number of our close partners with considerable experience countering and preventing terrorism are not included among the GCTF’s founding members.

“We have discussed the GCTF and ways to involve Israel in its activities on a number of occasions, and are committed to making this happen.”

Pro-Israeli sources say that the Obama administration decided to ignore the fact that Turkey, which has a key role in the GCTF, opposes calling Hamas a terrorist organization, even though Hamas is included on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. In an interview with the US media last May, Erdogan said that he did not consider Hamas a terrorist organization, but as a resistance movement trying to protect its country from occupation. He said that Hamas won elections in the Gaza Strip in 2006, and that, therefore, calling it a terrorist organization was an insult to the Palestinian people.

For its part, Turkey calls the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is seeking to establish a Kurdish state in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, as a terrorist organization, and the US supports this position.

Syria stocks world’s biggest chemical weapons; can strike anywhere in Israel: army.

Monday, 11 June 2012

Israel has expressed fears about chemical weapons in Syria falling into the hands of Hezbollah or terror organizations. (File photo)

inShare3

Clashes reported in Damascus as Syrian opposition, rebels call for mass defections.

Monday, 11 June 2012

Despite a brutal onslaught of violence against protestors demanding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down, demonstrations continue all over the country. (Reuters)

inShare6

Severe clashes were reported at the Damascus neighborhood of al-Abbaseen overnight between the Syrian government forces and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Al Arabiya reported on Monday citing the Syrian Media Center.

At least 59 people have been killed by the Syrian forces on Sunday, activists at the Syrian Revolution Commission said. The victims, mostly in Homs, included five women and a photojournalist, they said.

Loud explosions were reported at al-Saleeba in Lattakia; while al-Heffa region was shelled by missiles and mortar shells, activists said.

Intensive shelling was reported in al-Attareb region in Aleppo amid fears of possible new massacre in the region, activists at the Local Coordination Committees said.

Shelling was also reported in Harasta in Damascus suburbs; Karnaz in Hama and al-Ashara in the outskirts of Deor Ezzor, where clashes were reported between government forces and rebel troops.

The new head of Syria’s main opposition group called Sunday for mass defections from a Syrian regime struggling to survive by carrying out massacres, as the death toll in the uprising topped 14,000.

Similar calls were made by the rebel FSA, which also urged a campaign of mass “civil disobedience” to ratchet up internal pressure on President Bashar al-Assad’s beleaguered regime.

“We are entering a sensitive phase. The regime is on its last legs,” Kurdish activist Abdul Basset Sayda told Al Arabiya shortly after being named the new leader of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC).

“The multiplying massacres and shelling show that it is struggling,” he said of mass deaths of civilians, the most recent of which saw 20 people, mostly women and children, killed in a bombardment of the southern city of Deraa Saturday.

At his first news conference since taking over the reins, Sayda called on all members of the Damascus regime to defect, while reaching out to minority groups by promising them a full say in a future, democratic Syria.

Calling for a campaign of civil disobedience

 We call on Syrians to launch a general strike leading to mass civil disobedience 

Syria Colonel Kassem Saad Eddine, FSA

The FSA, meanwhile, called for a campaign of civil disobedience and urged officers and troops in Assad’s military to jump ship and join the rebel ranks.

“We call on Syrians to launch a general strike leading to mass civil disobedience,” FSA spokesman in Syria Colonel Kassem Saad Eddine said in a statement, according to AFP.

He urged officers and men in Syria’s regular army “whose hands are not tainted with blood to join the fighters.”

New SNC chief Sayda replaced Paris-based academic Burhan Ghalioun, who stepped down last month in the face of mounting splits that were undermining the group’s credibility.

Activists accused Ghalioun of ignoring the Local Coordination Committees, which spearhead anti-government protests on the ground in Syria, and of giving the Muslim Brotherhood too big a role.

“We would like to reassure all sects and groups, especially Alawites and Christians, that the future of Syria will be for the all of us,” Sayda said.

“The Annan plan still exists but it has not been implemented,” he said of a peace blueprint thrashed out by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan that was supposed to begin with a ceasefire from April 12 but which has been violated daily.

“We will work for this plan to be included under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, to force the regime to implement it and to leave all options open,” Sayda said.

Chapter VII allows for sanctions and, in extreme cases, military action.

Looking like Bosnia in the 1990s

 It is looking more like Bosnia in the 1990s, of being on the edge of a sectarian conflict in which neighboring villages are attacking and killing each other 

British Foreign Secretary William Hague

Russia and China, infuriated by the NATO campaign in Libya last year, have vowed to oppose any military intervention, but British Foreign Secretary William Hague refused on Sunday to rule out the possibility.

“We don’t know how things are going to develop. Syria is on the edge of a collapse or of a sectarian civil war, and so I don’t think we can rule anything out,” Hague told Sky News television.

“It is looking more like Bosnia in the 1990s, of being on the edge of a sectarian conflict in which neighboring villages are attacking and killing each other.”

The violence has intensified despite the presence of 300 United Nations observers charged with monitoring the putative truce.

Opposition sources said the election of Sayda could help enlist more Kurds, who number one million out of Syria’s 21 million population, behind the 15-month uprising, Reuters reported.

Demonstrations against Assad’s rule have been regularly breaking out in Kurdish regions of Syria but without matching the intensity of protests in the rest of the country.

That may be partly because of support by Assad for the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is suspected of being behind assassinations of several anti-Assad Kurdish opposition figures since the revolt erupted.

Kurdish members of the council have had open disputes with the remainder of the body over the issue of Kurdish rights and whether a post-Assad Syria would be built around a federal structure similar to that in neighboring Iraq.

The latest deaths bring to more than 14,100 the number of people killed since March last year, including 9,862 civilians, 3,470 soldiers and 783 army deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Obama speeds up limited air strike, no-fly zones preparations for Syria.

US President Barack Obama has ordered the US Navy and Air Force to accelerate preparations for a limited air offensive against the Assad regime and the imposition of no-fly zones over Syria, debkafile reports. Their mission will be to knock out Assad’s central regime and military command centers so as to shake regime stability and restrict Syrian army and air force activity for subduing rebel action and wreaking violence on civilian populations.
debkafile’s sources disclose that the US President decided on this step after hearing Russian officials stating repeatedly that “Moscow would support the departure of President Bashar al-Assad if Syrians agreed to it.”  This position was interpreted as opening up two paths of action:
1.  To go for Assad’s removal by stepping up arms supplies to the rebels and organizing their forces as a professional force able to take on the military units loyal to Assad. This process was already in evidence Friday, June 8, when for the first time a Syrian Free Army (which numbers some 600 men under arms) attacked a Syrian army battalion in Damascus. One of its targets was a bus carrying Russian specialists.
2.  To select a group of high army officers who, under the pressure of the limited air offensive, would be ready to ease Assad out of power or stage a military coup to force him and his family to accept exile.
The US operation would be modulated according to the way political and military events unfolded.
Washington is not sure how Moscow would react aside from sharp condemnations or whether Russia would accept a process of regime change in Damascus and its replacement by military rule.

Obama’s Iran and Syria muddle – The Washington Post.

By Jackson Diehl, Monday, June 11, 3:04 AM

From one point of view the connection between our troubles with Syria and Iran is pretty straightforward. The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is Iran’s closest ally, and its link to the Arab Middle East. Syria has provided the land bridge for the transport of Iranian weapons and militants to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Without Syria, Iran’s pretensions to regional hegemony, and its ability to challenge Israel, would be crippled.

It follows that, as the U.S. Central Command chief Gen. James N. Mattis testified to Congress in March, the downfall of Assad would be “the biggest strategic setback for Iran in 25 years.” Making it happen is not just a humanitarian imperative after the slaughter of more than 10,000 civilians, but a prime strategic interest of Israel and the United States.

So why are both the Obama administration and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu unethusiastic — to say the least — about even indirect military intervention to topple Assad? In part it’s because of worry about what would follow the dictator. In Obama’s case, the U.S. presidential campaign, and his claim that “the tide of war is receding” in the Middle East, is a big factor.

But the calculus about Syria and Iran is also more complicated than it looks at first. The two are not just linked by their alliance, but also by the fact that the United States and its allies have defined a distinct and urgent goal for each of them. In Syria, it is to remove Assad and replace him with a democracy; in Iran it is to prevent a nuclear weapon. It turns out that the steps that might achieve success in one theater only complicate Western strategy in the other.

Take military action — a prime concern of Israel. Syria interventionists (such as myself) have been arguing that the United States and allies like Turkey should join in setting up safe zones for civilians and anti-Assad forces along Syria’s borders, which would require air cover and maybe some (Turkish) troops. But if the United States gets involved in a military operation in Syria, would it still be feasible to carry out an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? What if Israel were to launch one while a Syria operation was still ongoing?

The obvious answer is that the result could be an unmanageable mess — which is why, when I recently asked a senior Israeli official about a Western intervention in Syria, I got this answer: “We are concentrated on Iran. Anything that can create a distraction from Iran is not for the best.”

Obama, of course, is eager to avoid military action in Iran in any case. But his strategy — striking a diplomatic bargain to stop the nuclear program — also narrows his options in Syria. A deal with Tehran will require the support of Russia, which happens to be hosting the next round of negotiations. Russia, in turn, is opposed to forcing Assad, a longtime client, from power by any means.

If Obama wants the support of Vladi­mir Putin on Iran, he may have to stick to Putin-approved measures on Syria. That leaves the administration at the mercy of Moscow: Obama is reduced to pleading with a stone-faced Putin to support a Syrian democracy, or angrily warning a cynically smirking Putin that Moscow is paving the way for a catastrophic sectarian war.

At the root of this trouble are confused and conflicting U.S. aims in the Middle East. Does Washington want to overthrow the brutal, hostile and closely allied dictatorships of Assad and Iran’s Ali Khamenei — or strike bargains that contain the threats they pose? The answer is neither, and both: The Obama administration says it is seeking regime change in Syria, but in Iran it has defined the goal as rapproachment with the mullahs in exchange for nuclear arms control.

Obama tries to square this circle by pursuing a multilateral diplomatic approach to both countries. But if regime change in Syria is the goal, Security Council resolutions and six-point plans from the likes of Kofi Annan are doomed to failure. Only a combination of economic and military pressure, by Assad’s opposition or outsiders, will cause his regime to fold.

A collapse, in turn, could undermine the same Iranian regime with which Obama is seeking a bargain. So it’s no wonder Tehran sought to add Syria to the topics for discussion at the last session of negotiations — or that Annan wants to include Iran in a new “contact group” to broker a settlement in Syria.

The Obama administration rejected both proposals — because they are at odds with Syrian regime change. This muddle may delight Vladi­mir Putin, but it’s not likely to achieve much else.

diehlj@washpost.com

A look at Israel’s mass evacuation plan – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Ministers to discuss plan for evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Israelis to Eilat, Arava area in case of missile attack

Yoav Zitun

The Ministerial Committee on Home Front Affairs is set to discuss a plan for a mass evacuation in the event of a missile attack next week. According to the plan, entire cities will be moved to southern Israel around Eilat and the Arava area.

One source at the Home Front Protection Ministry said that towns near Ariel may also serve as temporary evacuation centers.

The plan also applies to cases of natural disasters at the national level and is a reworking of one of Israel’s contingency plans.

According to the plan, citizens of central and northern Israel will be housed in schools, educational establishments and even boarding schools, bed and breakfasts and hotels in cases of national emergency.

The Housing Ministry will prepare a plan for the establishment of temporary housing facilities including tents and caravans. Local councils acting as hosts will provide for the evacuees for a period of one week and each family will receive a NIS 150 (roughly $39) allowance from the Finance Ministry.

IDF drill simulating missile attack (Photo: Eli T)

Evacuees will also receive transportation and security services. Four toilet stalls and three showers will be allocated for groups of 100. Evacuees will also receive laundry services and each child will be given NIS 100 (roughly $26) for school supplies.

Home Front Protection Minister Matan Vilnai said that after a briefing from the national security adviser, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu green-lighted the plan. It will be introduced at various government ministers after being approved by the ministerial committee.

The plan is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of shekels.

“I have spoken to council heads in the Eilat district and they appreciate the importance of hosting residents of central and northern Israel at times of emergency,” Vilnai told Ynet.

“One must keep in mind that countries will agree to help us and send portable housing units at times of massive natural disasters such as earthquakes or fires but I doubt this will be the case during a war.”