WarSclerotic

No rush to war in Israel over Bulgaria bombing: Thomson Reuters Business News – MSN Money.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel signaled on Thursday it would not hasten into any open conflict with Iran or its Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah despite blaming them for a deadly attack on its citizens in Bulgaria.

A suicide bomber killed eight people on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Burgas airport, drawing a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “react powerfully” to what he called “Iranian terror”.

Sofia officials have not publicly assigned blame for the bombing, nor has there been comment from Iran or Hezbollah.

Netanyahu’s assertion, based on Israel’s long-running suspicions that Iranian and Hezbollah agents are waging a covert campaign against its interests abroad, prompted speculation in local media that the Netanyahu government might strike now.

Israel has long threatened to resort to military force to curb Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, but Defense Minister Ehud Barak sounded more nuanced on Thursday about a response to the Bulgaria attack.

Speaking on Israel Radio he said the country would “do everything possible in order to find those responsible, and those who dispatched them, and punish them” – language that appeared to suggest covert action against individuals.

Israel may be reluctant to cross Western partners by rushing into a long-range war which would stretch its military capabilities and possibly draw Iranian reprisals against U.S. interests and disruptions of the global oil supply.

A clash with Hezbollah, which the Israeli military says has stockpiled as many as 80,000 rockets in neighboring Lebanon, carries the risk of igniting Israel’s northern border while it watches with concern the turmoil in neighboring Syria.

“RISK MANAGEMENT”

Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli army general who served as national security adviser from 2003 to 2006, played down the possibility that the Bulgaria bombing would push Netanyahu into another war.

“I think that any response, whatever it may be, will not be an immediate response,” Eiland told Israel Radio separately.

“Any response, whatever it may be, will not be in the form of an air force operation, or strike – certainly not in Iran over this matter, nor in Lebanon.”

Barak, who focused on Hezbollah’s alleged role in the Bulgaria bombing, described it as the bloodiest of a series of recent plots against Israelis, including diplomats, abroad.

Iran denied involvement in previous attacks but some analysts believe it is trying to avenge the assassination of scientists from its nuclear programme, which it blamed on Israel and Western allies. Iran says its atomic ambitions are peaceful, denying foreign allegations of secret military designs.

Hezbollah has its own scores to settle with Israel. Two years after their 2006 border war, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia lost its commander, Imad Moughniyeh, to a Damascus car bomb it said was the work of Israeli spies, and vowed revenge.

Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2009 to 2011, Uzi Arad, confirmed in a separate interview that Israel killed Moughniyeh – though the country has never formally claimed responsibility.

Arad described the Bulgaria bombing as part of a “dynamic of escalation” but counseled Israel to invest in better intelligence and security.

He said “risk management” was required and that Wednesday’s bloodshed may be an “unavoidable price” of internal and international pressure building on Iran and its allies.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Jon Boyle)

Bibi Blames Iran for Terror Attack While U.S. Navy Waits Offshore | Danger Room | Wired.com.

For at least a year, the U.S. has tried to keep Israel from attacking Iran, usually by arguing that sanctions on Tehran are working and that American can hit harder if it comes to a fight. It’s a delicate balance, especially since President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu trust each other only slightly more than they trust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now Iran might have upset the balance — even though Iran has an entire arsenal of U.S. guns floating just off its shores.

On Wednesday, a terrorist attack killed at least seven Israeli civilians vacationing in Bulgaria. Netanyahu immediately blamed Iran, and promised a “strong response against Iranian terror.”

Maybe Iran pulled the trigger. Maybe it didn’t. Netanyahu’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, was far less categorical. He said the attack was saying “initiated probably by Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or another group under the terror auspices of either Iran or other radical Islamic groups.” Regardless, he promised to “settle the account” with whoever was responsible for the strike.

If Iran actually was behind the attack, it did so in spite of having a massive amount of U.S. naval power aimed at it. The U.S. has quietly but persistently built up a massive naval presence around Iran that outclasses most of the world’s navies. It’s about to launch a huge exercise with over 20 nations that will demonstrate how to defeat an anticipated Iranian tactic. And this doesn’t even get into anything the U.S. does with Israel.

Even before word of the Bulgaria attack reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave Iran his best come-at-me-bro. Should Iran decide to close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil shipping, he said, “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that the Iranian attempt to close down shipping in the Gulf is something that we are going to be able to defeat.”

And how. On Monday, the Navy and U.S. Central Command announced that they’re going to call the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis back to the Mideast four months ahead of schedule, so the Navy can maintain two aircraft carrier strike groups near Iran for the foreseeable future. No other nation on earth has two full-sized aircraft carriers; the Navy is parking two of them near Iran as an unsubtle threat.

It’s not just the carriers. Over the past several months, the Navy has sent a lot of hardware to the Persian Gulf. Extra patrol craft retrofitted with Gatling guns and missiles. Littoral Combat Ships. Minesweepers. MH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters. Advanced torpedos. A new kind of underwater drone. A new kind of floating base. A new special-operations task force.

Beyond that, two months from now, 20 nations will come together for a ten-day naval drill practicing how to defeat mines placed in Mideast waterways. The Pentagon swears that the exercise has nothing to do with Iran, but that’s nonsense. Mining the Strait of Hormuz is a recent theme of Iranian rhetoric, and nothing will spur nearly two dozen countries into concerted action faster than the disruption of 20 percent of the world’s oil. For ten days in September, Iran will watch lots of militaries practice how to defeat it.

On the other hand, Iran might have good reasons for thinking an attack on Israel made sense. Its nuclear scientists — who are civilians, remember — keep getting killed. The Stuxnet worm targeting its nuclear infrastructure was all-but-officially outed as U.S.-Israeli collaboration, as was the complex piece of spyware known as Flame. Elements within the regime might think the U.S. doesn’t respond forcefully to Iranian provocations.

All of these things can be true. Nations miscalculate their interests all the time. But none of that changes the objective fact that the stronger party is floating off the coast of Iran, and it’s building strength in the region by the day.

Don’t hold back – it’s now or never | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

Don’t hold back. Now’s the time. There will never be a better one (with all due condolences and comfort to those who have already been wounded, maimed, or sacrificed).

It’s now or never. Hezbullah in Lebanon, the Syrian Air Force and its stock of WMD’s now being taken out according to reports – putting an end to that threat forever, while at the same time making the crucial contribution to ending in its tracks the horrific slaughter going on in the towns and villages among brave and innocent people there.

And finally Iran –  three in one (the opportunity presented by the uprising on the streets of Teheran three years ago was missed and further slaughter then proceeded there).

The planes should already be off and need no send-off from me, an outsider and non-combatant; but those who know are ready. We all know that.

Nor should anyone’s permission be asked or need to be asked. The opposite. It’s completely clear and any person with any sanity will completely understand. As for the others, what can or need one say?

This is the time – everyone knows that and neither you, nor your government need any advice or to hear it from the likes of or from anyone like me.

Therefore, I shall shut my mouth and have nothing more to say on this subject in this blog (which many will no doubt applaud) – originally I was going to leave the whole blog blank and rest my case on just the title. It’s all completely obvious anyhow.

Unfortunately, the Sarajevo moment has arrived – and the sooner the better. Don’t wait for Shabat – the Lord will understand the work that needs to be done. It has always been understood that saving a life (in this case a nation) outweighs the Shabat.

In closing, once more my condolences to all who are bereaved, in mourning, or in pain – not that that would make the slightest bit of difference or help anyone in their position a single jot.

One realizes that. But still, may they be comforted if they can be.

As for the rest, don’t hold back; it’s now or never – the time is now.

Analysis: Syrian civil war enters new phas… JPost – Middle East.

Will Israel respond now? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Given sensitive Mideast situation, Israel may put off response to Bulgaria attack

The terror attack at the Bulgaria airport is an almost exact repeat of the attack thwarted by Bulgarian security forces in January of this year. Back then, a bus full of Israeli tourists was supposed to be blown up using explosives snuck into it. Yet this time around there was no warning, and the murderous terror attack was not curbed. The flight in question was a Bulgarian charter, and such flights – as well as the buses that carry their passengers – are not secured.

By looking into the hallmarks of the bomb, it would be possible to determine who stands behind it. Apparently, it’s Hezbollah’s terror apparatus in conjunction with the al-Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary guards. These elements tend to make use of local infrastructure, that is, collaborators who help people arriving from the outside or who carry out the attack.

The bombing thwarted in January of this year was the work of Hezbollah members planning to avenge the 2008 assassination of Imad Mugniyah, the group’s operational chief. Mugniyah murdered dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Americans, and his assassination constituted a grave blow for both Hezbollah and Iran. He was also one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s loyalists.

Yet this time around, there was clearly an intelligence gap that must be looked into. This is not necessarily a failure, because in the field of counter-terrorism, as the case in other areas, some intentions and plans occasionally slip by spy agencies, including the most advanced ones.

We can also assume that Hezbollah’s international terror apparatus drew lessons from the failures it and Iran sustained in the past year, when they attempted to operate in Thailand, Tbilisi and in other sites in Asia in order to avenge the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Unanswered questions

About two months ago, a terror warning was issued regarding a possible attack in Bulgaria, but it was withdrawn. It is also unclear whether Bulgarian police merely thwarted the January attack, or also detained and questioned the perpetrators – and if so, were they also questioned by other spy agencies. All of this must be examined in order to draw lessons.

The more burning question at this time is how Israel will respond to the attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to do it “in force,” and Jerusalem officials previously declared that they will hold Hezbollah responsible for any attack on Israelis overseas, which will be treated as if it targeted Israelis in Israeli territory.

However, given the current situation in the Middle East, which is both uncertain and sensitive, much thought should be invested here.

The elements that require reconsideration are the Iranian nuke issue currently on the agenda, including the possibility of a military operation; a possible collapse of the Syrian regime, which greatly concerns Hezbollah and Iran and may prompt both to act in an unpredictable manner; and, of course, the still unstable regime in Egypt and the sensitive situation in Jordan.

All of the above require Israel to carefully consider whether to respond now, or wait for an opportune time and then settle the score with the perpetrators via a surgical strike.

Anti-Israel attacks to mount in sync with Syrian war, looming strike on Iran.

DEBKAfile Special Report July 19, 2012, 9:54 AM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli victims of Bulgarian bus blast

The tactics Iran, Syria and Hizballah have set out for escalating their terrorist attacks on Israel differentiate between “local” and high-value “strategic” targets.

They have now decided to up the assaults on the latter to keep pace with the worsening war situation in Syria and the approach of an attack on Iran’s nuclear program. This is reported by debkafile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources.
Iranian terror planners classify the blowing up of the Bulgarian bus Wednesday, July 18 as “local” notwithstanding its “success” in killing at least seven Israelis and wounding more than thirty.
Destroying an Israeli passenger plane in Limassol, Cyprus, or assassinating an Israeli ambassador, in which they have failed so far, would have been “strategic” as would key Israeli security figures, politicians, business executives and Israel’s Mediterranean oil and gas fields.

Just by coincidence, two major episodes occurred on the same day only hours apart – a large hole was struck in Bashar Assad’s inner circle with the deaths in Damascus of half the management of his killing machine against the Syrian opposition and, soon after, the Israeli tour bus was blown up by means still under investigation.
This chance synchronicity heralds a new period of horrific Middle East violence which will reach not only Israel, but the United States and the West as well.
This realization was uppermost in the conversation between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday morning, July 19. Neither doubted that Tehran and Damascus were hatching retribution for the assassination of top Syrian ministers.

They had information missing from media reports on the two events, including the news that straight after the deadly attack on Assad’s henchmen, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called an Iranian leadership conference which lasted most of Wednesday and was punctuated with frequent phone calls by Iranian officials to the Syrian President.
The content of those phone calls reaching reached Obama and Netanyahu showed clearly which way the wind was blowing in Damascus and Tehran: Neither intended pulling their punches.
The US and Israeli leaders agreed to work together in the investigation of the bus explosion in Bulgaria.
Our sources stress that this is just diplomaticspeak for holding off on action. Despite Netanyahu’s pledge of a “strong response” to the attack, it was decided that a proactive response to the attack by striking an Iranian or Hizballah target would exacerbate a situation which US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described as “spinning out of control.”
Israelis have learned in the three years of Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister that expressions like “strong,” “forceful,” “determined” “we cannot tolerate” etc. mean just the opposite. Israel’s enemies also understand him to mean that he will sit tight and do nothing.
However, an escalation of attacks on Israeli “strategic targets” predicted by intelligence experts in the coming days may make this do-nothing policy untenable. After all, talking to Obama won’t deflect Iran, Syria and Hizballah from their resolve to vent their urge for revenge on Israel.
Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has often managed to stay a step or two ahead of US and Israeli thinking – especially in his propaganda campaigns – ever since he surprised Israel by launching the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
A few hours after the attacks in Bulgaria and Damascus, Nasrallah had found his tongue and was crowing:
“We know what your [Israel’s] first strike will be and we promise you a big surprise.”

His words were a warning to Israel and a message to Washington that anyone trying to reach the bunker in which he has been hiding since 2006 was in for a big surprise.

Israel was painfully reminded of the Iranian C-802 shore-to-ship missile fired from the Lebanese coast which surprised and crippled the unready INS Hanit missile ship exactly six years ago.

Israeli rescue crews to begin evacuating wounded from Bulgaria as death toll rises | The Times of Israel.

Bulgarian PM says suicide bomber with American passport carried out attack; Hercules planes to be used to transport injured home

By Sam Ser and Joshua Davidovich July 19, 2012, 6:00 am Updated: July 19, 2012, 7:36 am

Israeli rescue teams flown to Bulgaria began evacuating wounded from the resort town of Bourgas Thursday morning, as reports emerged that the deadly attack on a bus of tourists was carried out by a man with a fake American passport.

The death toll in the bombing on a bus of Israelis at the airport in Bourgas rose in the early hours of Thursday as one of the seriously injured victims succumbed to their wounds. Six of the dead are Israeli, and the Bulgarian bus driver was also killed.

Two victims remain in serious condition at a hospital in the capital of Sofia. The rest of the 34 wounded are in a local hospital or still at the airport in Bourgas waiting to be flown home by Israeli rescue teams.

On Thursday morning, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said the attack was likely carried out by a suicide bomber who likely detonated as he boarded the bus. It was previously thought the bomb had been in a suitcase placed on the bus.

The suicide bomber is one of the eight dead, officials said.

The suicide bomber was reportedly carrying an American passport and a driver’s license from Michigan, both thought to be fake, the Sofia News Agency reported.

In security video, the Caucasian man is seen walking around the premises for at least an hour, dressed in sports attire, the agency reported.

The American security agencies FBI and CIA have joined the investigation into the attack, along with Israeli and Bulgarian officials.

Bourgas is a popular vacation spot among Israelis, especially teenagers. About 40 people were on the bus when the bomb ripped through it Wednesday afternoon.

A ZAKA emergency rescue and ritual burial team prepares for its flight to Bourgas, Bulgaria, on July 18, 2012. (photo credit: Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)

A member of the Magen David Adom crew in Bulgaria said the wounded tourists would be flown back to Israel for treatment.

A number of large Hercules planes are being used to begin returning the injured to Israel Thursday morning. Bulgaria has also announced an airbus plane owned by the government would be used to fly Israelis home.

“Our goal is to return all the Israelis home in a matter of hours,” one MDA official told Ynet news.

Other Israelis who had been on the flight along with the bombed passengers complained Thursday morning that they were being held in the terminal, without being allowed to return to Israel or enter Bulgaria.

“They aren’t organized,” one passenger told Israel Radio. “We just want to go to our hotel and have a rest and then return to Israel.”

Smoke rising from the Sarafovo Airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, after a terror attack on an Israeli tour bus, July 18, 2012. (photo credit: JTA/Burgasinfo)

Others caught in the attack, including some of whom were lightly wounded in the blast in a bus next to the one that exploded, have refused to leave the airport for their hotels or undergo treatment in Bulgaria, saying they would rather return home to be checked out, according to Ynet news.

Also Thursday morning, a number of vacationers in Bourgas began returning to Israel as flights out of the Black Sea town resumed.

The returning vacationers were not caught in the bombing at the Bourgas airport, but their scheduled return flights were delayed by the closure of commercial flights after the terror attack.

West of Eden-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

The terror attack in Bulgaria ends an eight-year lull in bus bombings and is an ominous omen of worse that’s yet to come.

For Israelis, the image of a black, burned out hull of a bombed passenger bus fills the same role as a photo of the Twin Towers engulfed in smoke and fire does for Americans: it is a satanic symbol of their worst nightmares, a dreaded icon of their most fearful days, a picture of pure evil that remains etched in their minds, no matter how hard they might try to erase it.

After an eight year lull since the last Israeli bus was bombed in Be’er Sheva in 2004, that terrifying token reappeared yesterday in Burgas, Bulgaria in a terrorist incident that immediately conjured, despite the fact that it took place abroad, those dark days of the Second Intifada that many Israeli had hoped, against their better judgment, would never return.  It was at once both a terrible personal tragedy for the casualties and their family, but also an ominous national omen that the relative respite is over, and that worse is yet to come.

It truly was only a matter of time, as most everyone realized but preferred to ignore.  Israeli counter terrorism experts repeatedly warned in recent months that the threat to Israelis abroad had never been greater. After the foiled or botched terrorist attacks in Cyprus and Kenya and Turkey and Thailand and Azerbaijan, one of the efforts was bound to “succeed” and to take its mortal toll. It was the wicked fate of the innocent tourists seeking a cheap summer deal in Bulgaria that they were the ones who had to pay the ultimate price for the murderous obsessions of Israel’s worst enemies.

Some criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu’s supposedly hasty accusation against Iran, but his mistake, if at all, was most likely one of appearances, not substance. In the past year, Israeli intelligence agencies have been swamped with reports of Iranian agents or their Hezbollah proxies roaming the globe in search of a weak spot in which they could strike. Only four days ago, such an agent was apprehended in Cyprus, in Kenya a few weeks before, and throughout the past few months in other locales where the interdictions were more decisive but did not necessarily make the headlines.

But everyone knew that the intelligence agencies and local police forces would eventually run out of fingers with which to plug the holes in the dike, and that some Israelis would be made to pay the price. With Iran obsessed with what it perceives to be appropriate retaliation for the killing of its nuclear scientists and Hezbollah hell bent on reprisal for the 2008 assassination of its hero Imad Mughniye, and both increasingly frustrated by their repeated failures, a successful attack was bound to happen and its tragic results were bound to be.

Appearing on Fox News, former American Ambassador to the UN John Bolton quickly predicted – some would say with barely disguised glee – that Israel would retaliate directly against Iran and that a “major escalation” was in the offing. Sooner or later, one suspects, Bolton will be proven right: the sky is darkening, the clouds are gathering and the bloody confrontation that most everyone fears – except for Bolton and his cohorts, perhaps – indeed seems closer than ever before.  Between the bomb that decapitated Syria’s security apparatus in Damascus and the one that left dead bodies near a charred emblem in Bulgaria, it is hard to escape the notion that wheels have been set in motion and that the writing is right there on the wall, clear and terrifying, for all to see.

Israel official: Suicide bomber attacked Israelis in Bulgaria, eighth body found – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

New investigative direction counters previous estimates, according to which bomb was planted in Burgas tour bus; authorities say suspected perpetrator carried U.S. passport.

No reconciliation with the butcher of… JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.

Photo: Sana / Reuters