WarSclerotic

Rebels set Syrian fighter jets and helicopters ablaze opposite Golan.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 3, 2012, 10:42 PM (GMT+02:00)

Introducing the new Syrian rebel contraption: T-HOMS 75

As Syrian ruler Bashar Assad stood before parliament in Damascus Sunday, June 3, declaring, “Not even monsters could have carried out the Houla massacre,” rebels attacked a Syrian Air Force base east of the southern town of Deraa opposite the Israeli Golan border – their first such attack in the 14-month uprising,
debkafile’s military sources report. Several rebel bands firing mortars set fire to fighter aircraft and assault helicopters in their hangars and ripped up runways at the As Suwayda air base.
The burning warplanes were a strategic bull’s eye for the anti-Assad revolt.
The air base they attacked is Syria’s southernmost air facility. It is positioned to be available for backing up the Syrian units posted on the Golan border opposite Israeli forces – the 5th, 7th, and 10th Divisions. Arrayed behind them in reserve is the 9th Division, the only one the regime has never enlisted for operations to crush the revolt.
The air fleet housed at As Suwayda is there to provide air cover for Syrian border units in the event of a war with Israel and engage Israeli warplanes coming into to attack the divisions on the ground. It is also entrusted with providing air cover for the forces posted in the Jordanian and Iraqi border sectors.
No information was immediately available about the number or types of aircraft destroyed by the rebels or casualties. The Syrian state media have not disclosed the incident.

In northern Syria, our military sources reveal that in the last few days the rebels are showing up with a new piece of war materiel, improvised armored vehicles sporting anti-air rockets or heavy machine guns. They are capable of downing the aircraft or combat helicopters the regime is increasingly sending to attack the heavily embattled protest centers in that region.
These APC’s are essentially Toyota pickups fitted with steel plates to protect teams of three rebel fighters each behind the rockets and machine guns. Their homemade APCs are dubbed “T-HOMS 75.”

Clinton: Despite Khamenei, still hopes for r… JPost – Headlines.

( Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, shits like a deck… What duck? – JW  )

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday dismissed Iran’s latest threats against Israel as irrelevant and being made merely for domestic consumption, AFP reported.

She emphasized that she would size up Iran’s true intentions not by its words, but by its actions at the upcoming nuclear talks in Moscow.

“We want to see a diplomatic resolution. We now have an opportunity to achieve it, and we hope it is an opportunity that’s not lost, for everyone’s sake,” she told reporters in Stockholm.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared to significantly undermine the prospects of any deal coming out of the Moscow talks with a fiery speech in which he lashed out at what he called the West’s lies and positions on the nuclear issue and said that Iran would respond “like thunder” to any Israeli attack on its nuclear program.

Iran official hints Dimona reactor may be targeted – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Khamenei’s military adviser says Iran will act ‘smartly’ if attacked by Israel or US ‘proportional to any damage that they inflict on us’

Dudi Cohen

Iran will respond to any Israeli or US attack against its nuclear sites with a “proportionate” reaction, the military adviser to the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said on Saturday.

General Yahya Rahim Safavi, quoted by Fars news agency, said however that such an attack was unlikely.

Safavi further told Fars that despite warnings from Washington and Israel that “all options are on the table” if negotiations between Iran and major powers on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program fail, conditions do not favor an assault.

“They may be able start one but they cannot end it and it remains in Iran’s hands,” the general said.

Khamenei’s aide added that “the domestic political, economic and social conditions in America and the Zionist regime are not such as to have a new war in the region.”

Dimona reactor – to be targeted? (Photo: AFP)

He said that US President Barack Obama “wants to get re-elected” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s cabinet is “fragile.”

Displaying expert knowledge in Israeli politics, Safavi noted that Netanyahu is in a coalition with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu and that a military operation may break up the coalition.

‘One million Jews will flee Israel’

Safavi further noted that “The Zionists are living in such international conditions that if they intend to launch an attack against Iran, one million Jews will flee Israel in the first one or two weeks. Jews are very vulnerable there.”

However, in case of an attack, “we will act against their military operation smartly, proportional to any damage that they inflict on us … meaning we will hurt them as much as they hurt us.” This may suggest that Iran would attempt to target the Dimona reactor.

Safavi again stressed that the entire State of Israel is within Iran’s rocket range and that Hezbollah may join an Iranian counter-attack “with thousands of rockets against the Zionist regime.”

Turkey ditches Syrian rebels. Will Israel attack Hizballah’s Scuds?.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 2, 2012, 7:44 PM (GMT+02:00)

Scud D ground-to-ground missile

Two radical developments arising from the Syrian conflict are revealed by debkafile: In an astonishing about face, Turkey has just turned away from its 14-month support for the anti-Assad revolt alongside the West and made common cause with Russia, i.e. Bashar Assad.  Further exacerbating fears of a “proxy war” involving Israel, Iran and Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah is getting ready to bring its Scud D missiles, which can reach any point in Israel, and other advanced weapons, including anti-air missiles, out of secret storage in Syria and transfer them across the border to Lebanon. Two years ago, Israel issued an ultimatum through Washington that the Scuds would be destroyed if they were moved over to Hizballah’s launching pads in Lebanon.
The Lebanese Shiite group has since kept its most advanced hardware stashed at the Syrian Al Hame and Al Zabadani military bases near Damascus.

Now that Syrian rebel attacks are closing in on Syrian military targets, Tehran and Hizballah leaders are working on plans to get them across into Lebanon without exposing them to Israeli attack.
One plan is to enlist the Palestinian Jihad Islami in the Gaza Strip and exploit a clash over the Scuds’ transfer as a trigger for an all round military offensive against Israel. It would be timed for the moment the Western-Arab intervention in Syria against President Assad crosses the line between covert and overt military action and begins an operation to establish safe zones as bases for rebel operation.
Washington, London and Paris began rushing forward contingency plans for this eventuality upon discovering that Ankara had secretly notified leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army Thursday, May 31 that it had withdrawn permission for them to launch operations against the Assad regime from Turkish soil.
It was then realized that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had stabbed Western-Arab Syrian policy in the back and moved over to help prop Assad up at the very moment his regime was on the point of buckling under international after-shocks from the systematic massacres of his own people.
That day, Erdogan’s betrayal was confirmed when Davutoglu announced over Turkish NTV: “We have never advised either the Syrian National Council or the Syrian administration to conduct an armed fight, and we will never do so.” He added: “The Syrian people will be the driving force that eventually topples the Syrian regime. Assad will leave as a result of the people’s will.”

This was precisely the view voiced this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he spoke out against violent rebellion, military intervention and sanctions to topple the Syrian ruler.
For the time being, the pro-Assad Moscow-Tehran front, bolstered now by Ankara, has got the better of Western and Arab policies for Syria.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah have drawn encouragement for advancing to their next step: to confront the United States and Israel with another accomplished fact, the deployment of Scuds aimed at Israel from Lebanon.
Failing to curtail their transfer across the Syrian-Lebanese border in compliance with its 2010 ultimatum will seriously shake Israel’s deterrent capabilities and undercut its military credibility against its enemies, including Iran.
If on the other hand, the Obama administration again holds Israel back from military action, this time to destroy the long-range Scuds, Bashar Assad, Hizballah and Tehran will be awarded a winning hand – and not only in Syria.

BBC News – Syria conflict: Russia’s Vladimir Putin stands firm.

Vladimir Putin (L) spoke after a meeting with France’s President Francois Hollande

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has resisted diplomatic pressure from Western nations to support tougher action against Syria’s government.

Mr Putin, an ally of Syria, called for more time to be given to the peace plan of envoy Kofi Annan.

The US and UK have called on Moscow to strengthen its condemnation of the Syrian regime since last week’s massacre in Houla, where 108 died.

Earlier, Moscow opposed a UN Human Rights Council resolution on Syria.

In an emergency session on Friday, the council condemned Syria over the Houla massacre and called for an investigation.

But Russia voted against the US-backed resolution, arguing that it was “unbalanced”.

Meanwhile, a US government website published satellite images apparently showing a mass grave in the Houla area.

‘Intolerable’

Correspondents say Mr Putin’s latest remarks, made after a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, highlight the divisions between Moscow and Paris towards the conflict in Syria.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr Hollande called for further pressure and sanctions, and said the only solution was for President Bashar al-Assad to resign.

He said Mr Assad’s regime had conducted itself in an “unacceptable, intolerable way” and had committed acts that disqualified it from power.

“There is no possible exit from this situation except with the departure of Bashar Assad,” he said.

Mr Putin, however, questioned calls for the Syrian president to quit.

“Why are we thinking that if we push the current leadership from power, then tomorrow general wellbeing will begin there,” Mr Putin said.

“What is happening in Libya? What is happening in Iraq? Has it become safer there? We propose to act in an accurate, balanced manner at least in Syria.”

He said the most important thing was to prevent the worst-case scenario of civil war.

There have been calls for more action to be taken in Syria to stop the violence, which has continued despite Mr Annan’s six-point peace plan.

Speaking in Oslo on Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hit out at Russia saying she did not believe it was acting impartially.

“We know there has been a very consistent arms trade, even during the past year, coming from Russia to Syria. We also believe the continuous supply of arms from Russia has strengthened the Assad regime,” she told a news conference.

On Thursday, Western officials confirmed a report that a Russian cargo ship had delivered heavy weapons to the Syrian port of Tartus last weekend.

Mr Putin has insisted that Russia was not supplying Syria with arms “that could be used in a civilian conflict”.

Factory worker deaths

Earlier, the UN Human Rights Council said it wanted investigators to identify the perpetrators of the killings in Houla.

In the vote, 41 members voted in favour of the US-backed resolution condemning Syria, while Russia, China and Cuba voted against it. Two other countries abstained and one was absent.

Residents of the village of Taldou, in Houla, said militiamen had been sent in early last Saturday after the Syrian army unleashed a barrage of heavy weapons late on Friday in response to a local anti-government protest.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said the killings in Houla may amount to crimes against humanity.

She said those who ordered attacks were “individually criminally liable”, and urged the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a move opposed by Russia and China.

As Syria is not a state party to the ICC the court has no jurisdiction to indict its citizens without a Security Council referral.

Meanwhile, opposition activists said there had been another mass killing of civilians by pro-government militiamen.

Thirteen factory workers were forced off a bus and executed on Thursday in al-Buwaida al-Sharqiya, near the western town of Qusair, they said.

Several videos posted online showed bodies with severe wounds to the head and stomach, consistent with being shot at close range.

Fars News Agency :: One Million People to Flee Israel in Case of Iran’s Reprisal for Israeli Attack.

Leader’s Aide: One Million People to Flee Israel in Case of Iran’s Reprisal for Israeli Attack TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian Supreme Leader’s top military aide dismissed the possibility of a US or Israeli military move against Iran as “weak”, and stressed that Iran’s crushing reprisal for an Israeli attack will force one million Israelis to flee in the first one or two weeks of the conflict.

Speaking on Friday, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi said that coalition parties in the Israeli cabinet will leave the cabinet if Israel tries to wage a military move against Iran.

He described Israel’s Jewish community as “vulnerable”, and noted, “The Zionists are living in such international conditions that if they intend to launch an attack against Iran, one million Jews will flee Israel in the first one or two weeks. Jews are very vulnerable there.”

He dismissed the possibility of a US and Israeli strike against Iran, and stated, “…the internal political conditions of the Zionist regime (of Israel) and the US as well as their economic and military conditions do not allow them to start a new war in the region.”

In relevant remarks this week, another top advisor of Iran’s Supreme Leader also challenged the Zionist regime’s intensified war rhetoric against Tehran, saying that the arch-foe of the Islamic Republic does not dare to stage a military attack against Iran.

The comments were made by Supreme Leader’s Advisor for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati in a meeting with a group of Egyptian journalists here in Tehran on Wednesday.

Asked about Israel’s growing saber-rattling and threat of military attack against Iran, Velayati said, “The Zionist regime has neither the power nor the courage and venture to do so for it knows that if it embarks on doing such a thing, it won’t exist any more.”

Iranian officials and commanders have warned that any enemy move, even the slightest aggressions, against the Islamic Republic would be reciprocated with a destructive response and will endanger enemies’ interests all around the world.

Late in May, Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) boasted Iran’s missile power, saying all enemy bases in the region are within the reach of Iranian missiles.

“Today, there is no base in the region lying outside the reach of the Iranian missiles,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami said at the time.

In March, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stressed Tehran’s military preparedness to give a crushing response to any possible aggression against the country.

“We do not possess a nuclear weapon and we will not build one, but we will defend ourselves against any aggression, whether by the US or the Zionist regime, with the same level (of force),” Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing thousands of Iranian people in the holy city of Mashhad, the provincial capital city of Iran’s Northeastern province of Khorassan Razavi.

The Leader said Washington and its allies are well aware that Iran is neither in possession nor in pursuit of nuclear weapons and the real reason behind their enmity against Iran is their thirst for the nation’s oil.

Senior Iranian military commander warns that missiles could reach all parts of Israel, Press TV reports.   Photo by: REUTERS/Fars News

By REUTERS 02/06/2012 Senior Iranian military commander warns that missiles could reach all parts of Israel, Press TV reports.

DUBAI – Iran has warned the United States not to resort to military action against it, saying US bases in the region were vulnerable to the Islamic Republic’s missiles, state media reported on Saturday.

The comments by a senior Iranian military commander were an apparent response to US officials who have said Washington was ready to use military force to stop what it suspects is Iran’s goal to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

World powers held talks with Iran in Baghdad on May 23-24 in an attempt to find a diplomatic solution to their concerns over its nuclear program, which Tehran maintains is entirely peaceful. Another round was set for June 18-19 in Moscow.

“The politicians and the military men of the United States are well aware of the fact that all of their bases (in the region) are within the range of Iran’s missiles and in any case … are highly vulnerable,” Press TV reported Brigadier-General Yahya Rahim Safavi as saying.

Safavi is a military adviser to Iran’s clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and was until 2007 the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the force that protects Iran’s Islamic system of governance.

He also warned that Iranian missiles could reach all parts of Israel but played down any possibility of military action against his country as “faint” because of the current economic condition of the United States.

Analysts say Iranian military officials use such fiery rhetoric as a way of keeping the West on edge over the possible disruption to global oil supplies in the event of US or Israeli military action.

Tehran has previously threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz – a vital crude shipping lane – if it is attacked, which experts say would result in a spike in the price of oil and could hit the US economy as it seeks to recover from the financial crisis.

Last month the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said plans for a possible military strike on Iran were ready and the option was “fully available.”

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Iran needed to take steps to curb its nuclear activities during the next round of talks in Moscow. Jerusalem is skeptical any progress can be made and has accused Tehran of simply buying time

via Jpost | Print Article.

Hezbollah urges Syrian kidnappers to free Lebanese hostages.

Friday, 01 June 2012

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged kidnappers of Lebanese Shiites in Syria to release them. (File photo)

inShare

DEBKA.

Binyamin Netanyahu

On the face of it, the only outcome of the six world powers’ nuclear talks with Iran in Baghdad (April 23-24) – to be continued in Moscow (June 16-17) – was Israel’s decision to reconsider its pledge to US President Barack Obama to refrain from attacking Iran while he is campaigning for re-election. Israel could therefore strike at any time – depending on how Tehran behaves.
The Netanyahu government was at the same time firmly holding President Obama to his commitment of mid-May, not to drag out dead-end negotiations but turn to military action without further ado as the only remaining option for curbing Iran’s nuclear weapon drive.
This commitment was Israel’s condition for holding off attacking Iran until November.
However, a tidal change has occurred in this state of play, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources. They report that administration officials are going around the last few days asserting that Israel’s leaders informed President Obama this week of their acceptance of his new seven-point plan (see previous article) for resolving the nuclear crisis and have agreed to postpone an attack on Iran until its outcome is clear.
Therefore, say those sources, Israeli leaders were throwing sand in people’s eyes this week with such rhetoric as: “International nuclear talks have achieved nothing.” (Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon); “… Iran must be confronted with tougher sanctions and stiffer demands…” (Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu); and, “I can’t sleep at night because of the Iranian nuclear program.” (Defense Minister Ehud Barak).
Those officials are claiming that Israel has in fact embraced the principle underlying American policy of a shared interest in staving off military action – both by the US or Israel – and adhering to diplomacy for now, however barren.

Promise of tougher sanctions persuaded Israel

DEBKA-Net-Weekly was unable to obtain corroboration of this assertion by the closing of this issue – except from one reliable Israeli source. (Like the American, Russian and Iranian governments, Israeli too has been preoccupied in the last week with the horrific situation unfolding in Syria, the potential for US and possibly European-Arab armed intervention and Russian and Iranian responses.)
Senior Obama administration sources were insisting Thursday, May 31, that Israel was won around to the Obama plan by his promise that the US and Europe would ratchet up the sanctions applied against Iran in three timed stages, even if the next rounds of negotiations between the six powers and Iran did show progress.
Those sources gave us an exclusive timetable for the tough new sanctions to go into effect:
1. On July 1, the Europeans will activate their embargo on Iranian oil exports and banks.
2. Around September, the US administration will bring out its most potent economic weapon: an embargo on aircraft and sea vessels visiting Iranian ports. Any national airline or international aircraft that lands in Iran will be barred from US and West European airports. The same rule will apply to private and government-owned vessels, including oil tankers. Calling in at an Iranian port will automatically exclude them from entry to a US or European harbor.
This sanction will lay Iran to aerial and naval siege without a shot being fired.
3. President Obama promised Prime Minister Netanyahu he would deal personally with India and Indonesia, which are the most flagrant violators of anti-Iran sanctions and abet Tehran in its evasions of financial restraints by the use of their financial networks.

Israel could no longer wait for diplomacy to deliver the goods

The US president came up with a promise to apply harsher sanctions against Iran when Israel was seen to have reached the end of its tether on the Iran issue: The point had come where its leaders would have to stop hanging around for international diplomacy to terminate Iran’s nuclear plans, and either make good on their threats with direct action or else lose all credibility.
US tactics earlier in May had made Netanyahu and Barak deeply suspicious that they were being led by the nose: The Amano incident, for example, left a bad taste. Tuesday, May 22, UN nuclear agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano reported he had come away from his two days of talks in Tehran with an accord on the controversial issues that would be signed soon.
The information reaching Israel was just the opposite: Amano had left Tehran empty-handed. The Iranians had turned down his requests to open the Parchin military complex, the Sharif nuclear site and the SUT University of Technology in Tehran to IAEA inspections. They are all suspected of housing clandestine nuclear activity. Amano also failed to gain permission to interview a list of Iranian scientists long requested by the agency.
Officials in Jerusalem concluded that Amano was hiding the truth so as not to spoil the Obama administration’s policy which was to press forward with the diplomatic process with Iran in Baghdad the next day at all costs.

The Baghdad talks deepened Israel’s mistrust

Disillusion in Jerusalem deepened when the talks in Baghdad between Iran and the six world powers stretched from Wednesday, May 23, into Thursday to avoid any admission of crisis and allow the parties to put a positive spin on the negative results.
In fact, Israel discovered, Iranian delegate Saeed Jalili had had nothing to say to the world power representatives sitting around the table excepting a flat “no.” One by one, he rejected proposals to hold down production of enriched uranium, halt 20-percent enrichment, export stocks and dismantle the underground nuclear facility at Fordo.
For Israel, the nuclear diplomatic track was terminally exhausted at Baghdad.
But not for the Obama administration: Friday, May 25, U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman, arrived on a direct flight from Baghdad to brief the Israeli government on the talks. In a rare snub, Netanyahu and Barak declined to meet her when they realized she had nothing to report aside from the date for another round of talks in Moscow.
They felt that Obama was breaking his promise by carrying on dead-end diplomacy instead of making good on his commitment to pull out of the negotiating track at crisis-point and turn to the military option.
According to senior Washington officials, the administration has since managed to mend yet another rift with Israel over the Iranian nuclear issue – at least, for the time being. They report that understanding and cooperation are restored to the channels of communication between Washington and Jerusalem and the two governments are against working together in harmony – a claim that has till to be confirmed as well as withstanding the test of time.

Syrian rebels abduct 5 top Hizballah officers, including Nasrallah’s nephew.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 1, 2012, 6:11 PM (GMT+02:00)

HIzballah security chief Wafiq Safa married to Nasrallah’s sister

The Lebanese Shiite Hizballah, after a 25-year record of kidnap and murder against Israelis, Americans and other Westerners, was dismayed to find the shoe on the other foot this week when Syrian rebels, including members of the Syrian Free Army, announced they were holding two separate groups of its members.
The first group of eleven was captured May 22 in a bus heading home through Aleppo from a pilgrimage to Iran. The second episode sent shock waves rolling as far as Tehran and the Al Qods Brigades command. debkafile’s military and intelligence sources reveal that still unidentified commandos, guided apparently by precise intelligence, this week commandeered a Hizballah vehicle driving through Syria and captured five top-ranking Hizballah officers. A sixth escaped. Upon reaching Beirut, he reported the officers were being held hostage by the SFA.
Despite the veil of secrecy clamped down on the episode, debkafile exclusively names the kidnapped officers as Ali Safa, a senior officer of Hizballah’s intelligence service and nephew of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. (His father Wafiq Safa, head of the organization’s internal security agency, is married to Nasrallah’s sister.)

The abducted party also included Hussein Hamid, Dep. Commander of Hizballah forces in South Lebanon;  Ali Zerayb, member of the Hizballah Jihad Council – the equivalent of its general command; Hassan Arzouni, chief of intelligence in the Bint Jbeil district bordering on Israel; and Aras Shoeib, head of training in the Beqaa Valley of E. Lebanon.
Our sources report the group was ambushed 15 kilometers west of Damascus after they left the Syrian military base of Al-Hame 4 kilometers from the Syrian capital. It is there that Hizballah maintains its heavy Scud D long-range missiles, as well as its Fajr, Zelzal and Fateh 110 rockets.

It is suspected at Hizballah headquarters in Beirut that the vehicle carrying the officers was tracked from the air and directions were beamed down to the abductors who waited in ambush.
Hizballah’s masters in Tehran were dismayed to find the core leadership of their Lebanese surrogate had fallen into hostile hands amid the international crisis befalling their foremost ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad – and practically under his nose.