Exclusive: New York police link nine 2012 plots to Iran, proxies- swissinfo.

By Mark Hosenball

LONDON (Reuters) – New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Reuters.

Reports prepared this week by intelligence analysts for the New York Police Department (NYPD) say three plots were foiled in January, three in February and another three since late June. Iran has repeatedly denied supporting militant attacks abroad.

The documents, labelled “Law Enforcement Sensitive,” said that this week’s suicide bomb attack in Bulgaria was the second plot to be unmasked there this year.

The reports detail two plots in Bangkok and one each in New Delhi, Tbilisi, Baku, Mombasa and Cyprus. Each plot was attributed to Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, said the reports, which were produced following the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria of a bus carrying Israeli tourists.

Iran on Thursday dismissed “unfounded statements” by Israel linking Tehran to the Burgas blast, saying they were politically motivated accusations which underscored the weakness of the accusers.

Wednesday’s bombing in the Black Sea city is listed in a document headed “Suspected Iranian and/or Hezbollah-linked Plots Against Israeli or Jewish Targets: 2012 Chronology”, the latest of the nine 2012 plots linked to the Islamic Republic or its proxies.

U.S. officials say they increasingly concur with Israeli assessments that Iran and its proxies organised the killing of seven Israeli tourists in Burgas by a suicide bomber after they boarded an airport bus.

One U.S. official said Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia, had in the past carried out suicide bombings.

Hezbollah says that while it carried out suicide bombings against Israeli army posts in south Lebanon when it was occupied, until 2000, it has never staged attacks outside Lebanon.

The U.S. official noted that the Burgas bombing occurred on the 18th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, which Argentina linked to Iran.

The official said the Bulgaria attack appeared relatively sophisticated as it suggested those behind it had gathered intelligence on possible targets in advance.

MORE PLOTS, SOPHISTICATION VARIES

A second U.S. official said U.S. federal authorities’ tally of alleged Iran-linked plots in 2012 largely paralleled the NYPD list.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in the past year there had been “20 Iranian attempts at terrorist attacks abroad, in which there was direct involvement of five Iranians, two Hezbollah operatives”.

After the Bulgaria bus bombing, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said New York police had increased their counter-terrorism focus on Jewish neighbourhoods and institutions, over concerns of Iranian attacks on U.S. soil should U.S. or Israeli tensions with Iran escalate.

In a two-page paper summarizing its assessment of the alleged pattern of Iranian-related plots this year, NYPD analysts said that through its own Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, Iran had “sharply increased its operational tempo and its willingness to conduct terrorist attacks targeting Israeli interests and the International Jewish community worldwide”.

But the paper noted that many of this year’s plots lacked the sophistication and precision that characterised earlier plots linked to Iran.

Some bombs used in the recent plots shared certain features such as the use of military grade plastic explosives and magnets to attach the device to metal targets. While some had been detonated by remote control, others had relied on the “crude but effective tactic of pulling the pin on a hand grenade.”

The summary said the plotters had on occasion used local criminal elements, citing a plot in Baku where Iranian Revolutionary Guards agents provided weapons, equipment and selected the target for attack by Azeri criminals.

“This is an extremely dangerous combination,” the report concluded, adding that the geographic spread of the attacks and the willingness to go with less sophisticated plots “may add to the danger rather than lessen it.”

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark Heinrich)

Reuters

Israel Air Force veteran says that on Iran issue, leaders are playing with our lives – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

As part of a special series, Ari Shavit talks to Kobi Richter, who spent more than 20 years in the IAF, and feels compelled to speak out about Israel’s dangerous game.

Kobi Richter is an unusual interviewee for this series. For decades this successful businessman ‏(Orbotech, Medinol‏) has not been part of the active security establishment in Israel, or a government employee. He does not serve in the army and is not a scholar at one of the think tanks that focus on national security. But Richter is a highly intelligent and articulate person who is skilled at analyzing complex situations. In the past he also made a significant contribution to Israel’s air and strategic power.

The former intercept pilot understands a thing or two about deterrence and the balance of terror, and the way in which Israel has managed to stabilize a tenuous regional system. And in recent months, Richter has been worried. Very worried. Although an optimistic person at heart who believes in Israel’s strength and abilities, he feels that the country is now facing an existential threat.

When I sit across from him in the living room of his home, Richter proceeds to give me a neat lecture. “Up until a year ago I kept quiet,” he says. “I was sure that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak were playing a clever game designed to get the Western superpowers thinking. I believed that they understood that the only way to deal with Iran trying to go nuclear was through harsh international sanctions. I figured that they were using the threat of an imminent Israeli military action to get these sanctions enhanced. I thought they were playing the game well and achieving decent results.
“But in the past months,” he continues, “I’m hearing worried and worrying voices from people close to the decision-making circle. I see more and more signs indicating that it’s possible the prime minister and defense minister genuinely intend to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. An Israeli attack on the nuclear compounds in Iran would be an act of madness. An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would elicit an unreasonable threat to Israel’s existence, a threat that the country might not be able to withstand. This is why I agreed to talk with you today. I want to issue a warning here against what I see as an utterly irrational move that could endanger Israel’s very survival.”

The Begin doctrine

Full disclosure: Kobi Richter is a friend. But now I tell him that he’s talking nonsense. The diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran don’t seem to have worked. America apparently is not going to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. In a year, it could be too late. Time is running out, we’re backed into a corner. And if the choice is between an Iranian bomb and bombing their nuclear facilities before that bomb exists, then the latter option is preferable.
“The choice is not between their bomb and us bombing them,” Richter replies. “The choice is between an Iranian bomb with no Israeli strike at date X, or an Iranian bomb after an Israeli strike at date X ‏+ 3. I’m not certain whether the Begin doctrine [that no “enemy” be allowed to build weapons of mass destruction] was correct to begin with. I also thought in 1981 that the strike on the nuclear reactor in Iraq was a mistake. It was an act that undermined stability. But today it is absolutely clear that the Begin doctrine is no longer applicable. Israel cannot just go and attack any Middle Eastern enemy state that is readying to go nuclear.

“An attack in Iran would also be a lot more complicated than the attack in Iraq was,” he adds. “The distance is much greater, the number of targets is much greater, the targets are much better defended and the element of surprise is gone. So, while the odds of success for the attack on Osirak were high, the odds of success for an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities are much lower. But even if the strike is successful from an operational standpoint, the best result it might give us is setting back Iran’s nuclear program by three or four years.

“The gain from this delay would be dwarfed by the enormous cost of going ahead with a strike. For what a strike on Iran will do is give the Iranians the determination, as well as the justification, to accelerate their nuclear program. Perhaps we’ll delay by a little the time when they obtain their first bomb, but we apparently won’t delay at all the time when they have their first 50 bombs. But meanwhile, in the wake of our wild action, the risk that the Iranians will make use of one of those 50 bombs against us will increase sharply, and the uncertainty that this risk entails will increase a hundredfold.

“So the end result will be that, precisely because we attack Iran, the danger of an Iranian nuclear bomb falling in Gush Dan sooner or later will have gone up dramatically. And then Netanyahu’s attempt to avert a new Holocaust will cause Israel to suffer an economic and diplomatic catastrophe that will threaten its long-term survival.”

An economic catastrophe?, I ask. “If we attack Iran, and if as a result the danger of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel goes up significantly,” Richter says, “we will have to produce an extremely expensive defense system. Israel will not be able to cope with such a cost. It will have to choose between living with a threat that cannot be contained and a budget expenditure that will endanger its economic prosperity.”

Islamic solidarity

I’m trying to understand, I say to Richter. So far you’ve given me three different arguments against attacking. You’ve told me that the operational risk is high, that the risk of a nuclear counterattack will increase and that defending the country against a nuclear counterattack will put Israel into an economic tailspin. Interesting, almost convincing, but not quite.

“I haven’t gotten to the fourth argument yet,” says the high-tech entrepreneur seated in his armchair, his voice filling the room. “An Israeli attack on Iran will cause Israel to be perceived as an unexpected provocateur that − once again − attacked another country one day out of the clear blue. No one will understand the Holocaust syndrome that makes us see Iran as a combination of the Greeks, the Romans and the Nazis. This will have a dual impact on the international community. On the one hand, it will stop acting aggressively against Iran’s nuclear efforts. And on the other, it will stop viewing us as a sane and enlightened nation whose survival it is morally committed to forever defend.

“But the attack will have just as serious an effect on the regional situation,” Richter notes. “The three Sunni superpowers − Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt − which today are our covert and undeclared allies in the struggle against Iran, will not be able to ignore the brutal action carried out by the ‘infidels.’ Like it or not, they will be pushed into Islamic solidarity with Iran, against us. This will have especially grave significance when Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt eventually become nuclear powers. Instead of there being in the Middle East an array of regional powers holding back a nuclear Iran, there will be an array of powers that Israel will have to view as a threat to it. Iran alone, we may be capable of deterring. But facing four Muslim nuclear powers whose missiles could all be aimed at us will be very hard to do.”

So then, I say to Richter, basically you’re saying that nuclearization is coming. Iran will go nuclear and the Middle East will go nuclear. What absolutely mustn’t happen is for this nuclearization to occur in wake of an Israeli attack. All the Israeli attack will do is make the nuclear Middle East a lot more dangerous for Israel than it would have been without it?

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Richter replies with concern. “Posing the question as bomb versus bombing is misleading. The choice is between nuclearization that can be contained and nuclearization that cannot be contained. Following an Israeli strike, the nuclear Middle East will be unstable. Israel will not be able to handle it. And since it will also become a detested pariah state, it will not enjoy Western support, its economy will be burdened with an impossible defense budget and it will have great trouble sustaining this situation for long. The chances of its surviving the coming decades will be dramatically reduced.”

And Netanyahu and Barak aren’t able to make this simple analysis? They’re not aware of all the terrible potential scenarios that you describe? “The prime minister and defense minister might be motivated by irrational considerations, and that’s what worries me. I do not share this feeling of a looming Holocaust that is implied by some of their statements, and mainly I am convinced that the proposed attack will only increase the risk rather than lessen it.

“I think that the assumption that is implicit in such a plan − that Israel will be able to draw the United States into attacking Iran after Israel goes first − is an extremely dangerous gamble. A gamble on our very survival. What disturbs me in particular about this kind of distorted outlook is its potential connection to operational considerations and operational plans.

“I think that anyone who thinks that he’ll have more than one day to attack Iran is not responsible,” he says. “I think that anyone who assumes that the United States will be obligated to join in an Israeli attack on Iran is wrong and being misleading. There are assumptions that responsible statesmen do not make and there are actions that sane countries do not take. An Israeli strike on Iran would be an untenable gamble. If Netanyahu and Barak do decide to take this dreadful gamble, they will be endangering Israel’s very survival.”

A Hizballah suicide terror revival launched by the Burgas bus bombing.

DEBKAfile Special Report July 20, 2012, 1:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Suicide bomber awaits his prey

The suicide bombing attack in Bulgaria that left five Israelis dead and more than 30 injured Wednesday, July 18, is seen by Israeli and Western intelligence and counter-terror sources as marking Hizballah’s regression to its old tactics. After a 17-year break in major international attacks, the Lebanese terrorist group is again sending suicide killers to murder Israelis and Jews.
In the 1980s, Hizballah was notorious for its massive bomb attacks against US Marines in Lebanon and the US embassy in Beirut, which left more than 300 dead. In the early 1990s, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina was blown up killing 29 people, followed by the destruction of the Jewish center in the city leaving 85 people.
It is now evident that the old Hizballah is back and fully equipped with suicide killers standing by for action worldwide at the bases of its far-flung terrorist, espionage, dope-smuggling and money laundry networks.

Western counter-terror experts give Israel’s Mossad, Shin Bet and Military Intelligence a failed mark for missing those preparations and not appreciating the significance of the bungled Iranian-backed Hizballah bomb and assassination plots over the past year or two in India, Turkey, Azerhianjan, Thailand, Georgia, Kenya and Cyprus. They were experienced ought to have realized that Hizballah planners were testing the ground and their own methods and analyzing their performance, before concluding that suicide attacks would get them the optimal results, namely, maximum fatalities.
The experts estimate that it will take Israel’s intelligence and counter-terror agencies time to get organized for catching up with Hizballah’s plots and developing preventive measures. As one said, “It may take weeks or even months before Israel is able to come to grips with the new Hizballah terror deployment. Iran’s external terrorist arms and Hizballah planners will try and take advantage of Israel’s vulnerability in that period for repeated attacks.
In any case, they warn, the Bulgarian bombing was a first shot. Hizballah must be put down firmly by a strong Israeli deterrent. Its terror offensive must be nipped in the bud before it spills over into Israel.
Iran’s al Qods and its Lebanese surrogate have planted a network of sleepers on the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and among certain Arab Israeli communities, who may be called into action at any time.
Israel’s response to the attack in Bulgaria so far has been feeble and hesitant, a frustrated counter-terror official told debkafile.  A complaint to the UN Security Council on Thursday, July 19, the day that international body demonstrated its irrelevance for halting the Syrian bloodbath was worse than useless; it was a sign of weakness.
This type of reaction will serve only to encourage Tehran and Hizballah to keep going. Indeed, The Security Council did more harm than good by condemning the bombing attack and the Israeli deaths, without naming the perpetrators. Iran and Hizballah got off scot-free.

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

In wake of Bulgaria bombing, Israel must prepare to face more Iranian attacks – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

This is not the first time we’ve heard talk about ‘a moment of truth’ with respect to an Israeli decision to attack Iran. Eventually, however, that moment will arrive. In the meantime, Tehran is doing all it can to hurt Israel, as witnessed in Bulgaria this week.

The aftermath of the Bulgaria attack. 

By Natasha Mozgovaya | Jul.20,2012 | 11:20 AM

Israel’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Shaul Kamisa Raz, who visited the site of the terrorist attack in Burgas on Wednesday night, is no stranger to the potential damage of bombs planned or manufactured in Iran. Toward the end of the 1990s, on the eve of the Israeli army’s withdrawal from South Lebanon, Kamisa Raz examined many such explosive devices, as the intelligence officer and later deputy commander of the Israel Defense Force’s liaison unit to Lebanon. In February 1999, Kamisa Raz saw his superior, Brig. Gen. Erez Gerstein, killed by explosives planted by Hezbollah on the road from the Druze town of Hasbaya. Another senior officer who arrived on the scene was Aviv Kochavi, at the time the commander of the eastern section of the liaison unit and now director of Military Intelligence.

In the situation appraisal conducted on Wednesday by Israel’s top security officials, Kochavi’s staff offered the assessment that Iran was behind the attack in Bulgaria, possibly with the aid of Hezbollah. Last February, the Iranians, with Hezbollah’s assistance, tried to attack Israeli targets in India, Georgia and Thailand. Two of the planned attacks were foiled, but in the third (in India ), an Israeli diplomat’s wife was wounded. Since the beginning of this month, even before the serious incident in Burgas, there have also been reports about planned attacks that were thwarted in Cyprus and Kenya.

The Iranians and Hezbollah are trying to attack targets for which Israel cannot provide substantial security. Clearly, their preference would be to strike at a more “prestigious” target: an embassy, a senior diplomat or politician on a visit abroad, an Israeli plane. Because the Iranians have not succeeded in this so far, and because it is important for them to exact a price from Israel for the assassinations of Iranian scientists and Hezbollah leader Imad Mughriyeh, they apparently consider even a tourist bus a worthy target. There is no reason to be impressed by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s denial of any connection to this week’s attack. Israel should deploy for the possibility of more attempts to perpetrate more of them.

A model plan

The assassination of senior figures of the Syrian regime in a bold attack carried out in the heart of its security compound, the wholesale defection of high-profile generals and the outbreak of pitched battles in Damascus itself, just a few hundred meters from the presidential palace – these are among the growing number of indications that the collapse of the Assad regime is imminent.

The Arab world and the international community have long awaited a decisive act that would undo the tight knot binding Assad and his foes in a grim deadlock. The assassination of Assef Shawkat, the president’s brother-in-law and No. 2 figure in the regime, in the attack on Wednesday could supply the rebels with the momentum they need to cut the knot.

Assad discovered this week that the rebels are capable of getting to his personnel in the very center of Damascus and that his close inner circle is susceptible to attacks from the outside. The explosion two days ago took place at the most sensitive site of the Syrian security establishment, during a meeting of the crisis unit that Assad himself appointed to manage the fighting against the opposition.

The president is now dependent on the weakened loyalty of the group of generals who still remain around him and on the dubious support of Russia, which for some weeks has been spreading rumors about the removal of its military experts from Syria. Assad has recovered before and shown that forecasts of his rapid collapse were mistaken. However, the blow he sustained Wednesday could accelerate the talks aimed at replicating the “Yemenite model”: an agreement to allow the safe departure of the despot’s family from the country. Western intelligence agencies have had difficulty in assessing whether Assad himself would choose to stay and fight to the death, as Muammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein did before him.

The regime’s nervousness is attested to by the reports about the frequent movements of the units that handle Syria’s chemical weapons stocks and its long-range missiles. Part of the regime’s effort is aimed at ensuring a separation between different components of the chemical weapons, so that the opposition will not be able to use them even if it captures them. Israel, while keeping a close watch on these developments, for fear that whole stocks of chemical weapons will disappear, as happened last year in Libya, is also concerned about the morning-after scenarios.

At the moment, even the largest of the opposition groups, the Free Syrian Army, does not appear capable of taking over from the present regime. This week, the day before the assassinations in Damascus, MI head Kochavi spoke about an accelerated process of “Iraqization” in Syria – the splitting of the country into subdistricts ruled by different sects and extremist groups. It is possible that Syria’s “way out” will be to try to imitate the Egyptian model: the takeover of the country by a group of generals, most of them Sunnis, who were not involved in the massacres of civilians, in an attempt to forestall a murderous war of succession.

Slouching toward Tehran

The abrupt dissolution of Israel’s unity government this week is not expected to affect the Israeli decision about whether to attack Iran. Contrary to some of the analyses voiced at the beginning of May, Kadima’s leap into the arms of Likud stemmed almost solely from considerations of its own survival. The Iranian nuclear project was almost certainly not taken into account, one way or the other. The same test of political profit-and-loss underlay Kadima’s decision to leave the coalition this week over the dispute concerning the drafting of yeshiva students. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not need Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz to consolidate broad support for an attack on Iran and does not need him now, either. The prime minister and no one else will make the final decision.

The “forum of eight” ministers (which actually had been nine but has now been reduced ) is a relevant body for making situation assessments and strategic decisions on issues of principle. But as it has no legal standing, the final say on such matters lies with the security cabinet. And there, according to assessments in both the political and defense establishments, Netanyahu will get a majority for whichever decision he makes. The opponents of an attack would appear to be pinning their hopes excessively on the conjectured stance of the professional echelon, the IDF top brass and the Mossad.

However fateful it may be, a directive to bomb Iran’s facilities will be a legitimate decision. None of Israel’s top generals are likely to resign in protest. The substantive question revolves around the nature of the reservations which will be voiced by the professional elements in the decisive meetings of the forum of eight and the security cabinet, and if they will be enough to delay an attack – either because the ministers will think twice or Netanyahu will be concerned that the public will find out about the warnings from a future commission of inquiry.

Despite the firm opposition to an attack by the three most-recent former security chiefs – Gabi Ashkenazi (IDF ), Meir Dagan (Mossad ) and Yuval Diskin (Shin Bet ) – they are not the ones currently sitting around the table. It is also worth taking into account a recent statement by Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. He told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last month that many of those voicing opinions about a possible attack on Iran are not adequately informed about the current situation. Those who heard him formed the impression that he was referring to two things: progress on the Iranian side, and an improvement in Israel’s ability to respond militarily.

We also heard reports about being in the “home stretch” and about the Iran question being at a critical crossroads in the summer and fall of 2010 and 2011. However, the development of the threat and Israel’s progress in preparing a response would seem to make the dilemma more acute now. There are apparently other reasons for this as well. First, the political echelon in Israel has already been contemplating this issue for three years, since the establishment of the Netanyahu government. Ultimately, the time will come when a decision must be made. And second, the latest data released by the International Atomic Energy Agency suggest that the aggressive campaign waged by the West against the Iranian program, one that has involved sabotage and mysterious assassinations, has probably almost run its course.

The choice now is between continuing with the economic sanctions or a military attack, and Netanyahu and his close associate, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have already let it be known on numerous occasions that they don’t believe economic sanctions will work.

The series of visits by senior American officials will conclude, for the time being, with the arrival next week of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. His last visit took place in October 2011, at the time of the previous peak in speculation about an attack. Panetta, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week, can mainly deliver stern messages from President Barack Obama. To date, in contrast to his Republican rival Mitt Romney, Obama has shown no signs that he intends to visit Israel before the November elections.

Such a visit by Obama would send an unmistakably strong signal both to the Israeli leadership and public of America’s commitment to Israel’s defense, but also of America’s hope that Israel will refrain from attacking Iran at this stage.

A second element that could influence a decision is a domestic political one. The division into camps in the cabinet on the question of an attack – doves versus hawks – is more or less known. The major question is how the Shas ministers will vote. Over the years, the ultra-Orthodox party was the deciding factor on policy questions, from the Oslo accords and the 2000 Camp David conference to the Lebanon war. Considering the advanced age of the party’s spiritual mentor, the 91-year-old Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, it is hard to know how informed he is about the current strategic discourse.

Still, at times we seem to place too much emphasis on the stance of Chief of Staff Gantz and Mossad head Tamir Pardo on this issue, while giving too little thought to the moves of President Obama or the opinion of Rabbi Yosef.

Blood and economics

If Kadima’s resignation from the coalition this week bears any relevance to the Iranian story, it might be in connection with what our colleague Yossi Verter referred to on Wednesday as “political shoddiness.” After Kadima’s surprising entry into the coalition two months ago, Netanyahu enjoyed a brief period of glory in which he was again heralded as a “political magician.” But the magic wore off fast. War, even more than politics, is the realm of the uncertain. Many times what looks like a bold military move turns out afterward to be a costly campaign that lasts longer and exacts more losses and economic damage than had been projected by all forecasts.

The latest examples are Israel’s two wars in Lebanon and what the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 fomented. (There are also a few opposite examples, such as the bombing of the nuclear facility in Syria in 2007, which foreign sources attribute to Israel and which did not ignite a war. )

It would be a mistake to downplay the Iranian threat significantly, and there is no reason to question the sincerity of Netanyahu’s belief that it needs to be dealt with. Netanyahu and Barak also deserve credit for the way they made the issue a focal point on the international agenda during the past two years – something that would not have been possible without the threat of a credible military response by Israel. But people who talk to the duo sometimes come away with the feeling that they are painting overly optimistic scenarios about the effect an attack on Iran might have.

What would such an attack do to relations with the United States, especially if Obama is reelected? What would be the long-term impact on the global oil market? Will the international community intervene to stop Iran and its satellites from plunging the region into an all-out war, or will it feel that Israel has to learn that there is a price to be paid for acting alone in the face of warnings to the contrary?

Another disturbing question, one that should never be far from mind, is the readiness of the home front. A few months ago, Barak unfortunately let slip a statement to the effect that a war with Iran would exact fewer than 500 fatalities in the civilian rear. He was drawing on evaluations by operations research experts, which are as likely to prove false as they are to be accurate. What Barak did not mention is the vast disparities that remain in the preparedness of the home front, mainly with respect to the divisions of responsibility between the Defense Ministry, the Home Front Defense Ministry, the National Emergency Authority and the Home Front Command. There is no comparison between the level of protection that those in the national emergency center, in fortified bunkers below ground in Jerusalem, will get and the personal security of the residents of nearby neighborhoods. The director of MI said this week in the Knesset that Hezbollah is thought to have between 70,000 and 80,000 missiles and rockets. Previous Israeli estimates spoke of 60,000 such weapons. These are numbers that are not easily ignored.

Col. (res. ) Ronen Cohen, formerly deputy head of the research division of MI, believes that Israel has underestimated Iran’s ability to inflict damage on the country over the long term. Iran, Cohen says, will activate terrorist and guerrilla organizations against Israel.

“In warfare against guerrilla forces, the main thing is not the number of casualties but its ability to disrupt the enemy’s normal way of life,” Cohen notes. “We are treating war with Iran as though it were another war in Lebanon, more or less. That is a mistake. You have to listen to Nasrallah’s speeches since the war. He talks about blood and economics, blood and economics. For the Iranians and for Hezbollah, the long-term damage to the Israeli economy is no less important than inflicting casualties.”

Syrian president Assad ready to go in ‘civilized manner:’ Russia.

(The extreme irony in this headline seems to have entirely escaped the Russians. – JW )

Friday, 20 July 2012

Rebel forces said the battle to “liberate” Damascus had begun, as heavy fighting this week raged with the regime using helicopter gunships in the capital for the first time. (AFP PHOTO / HO / SYRIAN TV)

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BusinessDay – Israel cautious over retaliation after Bulgaria blast.

ISRAEL signalled yesterday 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 wearing a baseball cap and plaid shorts, and with a Michigan driver’s licence, killed eight people on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Burgas airport, drawing a promise by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “react powerfully” to what he called “Iranian terror”.

Iran denied it was behind Wednesday’s attack at Burgas airport, a popular gateway for tourists visiting the Black Sea coast.

Video surveillance footage showed the bomber was similar in appearance to tourists arriving at the airport, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said yesterday. The bomber had circled a group of buses — set to take Israeli tourists to a resort near Burgas — for about an hour before the explosion, the footage showed.

The bomber was said to be 36-years-old and had been in the country for between four and seven days before the attack. Yesterday, the airport in Burgas — a city of 200000 people at the centre of a string of seaside resorts — remained closed.

Israel’s allegation, based on suspicions that Iranian and Hezbollah agents have been trying for years to score a lethal strike on its interests abroad, triggered speculation in Israeli media that the Netanyahu government might hit back hard.

Israel has threatened to resort to military force to curb Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, but Defence Minister Ehud Barak sounded more restrained yesterday about a response to the Bulgarian 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.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said on his Facebook page that his country would “take action in every terror nest, worldwide. It has the means to do so, and we are determined to act in this spirit. ”

Israel may be reluctant to cross western partners by rushing into a full-on confrontation that would stretch its military capabilities and possibly draw Iranian escalation against US interests as well as disruptions of the global oil supply.

A clash with Hezbollah, which the Israeli military says has stockpiled up to 80000 rockets in south Lebanon, carries the risk of igniting that frontier at a time when the Netanyahu government is worried about turmoil in neighbouring Syria.

Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general, played down the prospects of the Bulgaria bombing spilling over into war. “I think that any response, whatever it may be, will not be an immediate response.… It will not be in the form of an air force operation, or strike — certainly not in Iran over this matter, nor in Lebanon.”

Some analysts believe Iran is trying to avenge the assassination of several scientists in its nuclear programme.

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

Mr Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2009 to last year, Uzi Arad, confirmed that Israel killed Moughniyeh — though the country has never formally claimed responsibility. Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, Mr Arad described the Bulgaria bombing as part of a “dynamic of escalation” but told the Netanyahu government to invest in better intelligence and security.

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

Reuters

Fighting rages in Syrian capital.

Ugarit News

This image made from amateur video purports to show a Free Syrian Army soldier aiming his weapon during clashes with Syrian military troops in the Midan neighborhood of Damascus, Syria.

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made his first appearance Thursday since a bomb killed some of his top lieutenants, looking calm and composed on state TV even as his forces turned parts of Damascus into combat zones and rebels seized two of the country’s border crossings.

The unprecedented attack on Assad’s inner circle Wednesday, along with the government’s inability to crush the rebels after five days of intense clashes in the Syrian capital, point to an unraveling of his grip on power after 16 months of violence.

“It is a war going on here, literally a war,” said a 25-year-old woman in the Muhajereen neighborhood. The sounds of battle had kept her up all night and she stayed home from work because she feared random gunfire, she added.

“It reminded me of that night when the Americans shelled Baghdad nine years ago,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety. “I was watching it on TV, but today I’m living a very similar situation.”

Even though Assad’s powerful military remains mostly loyal – suggesting a total collapse may not be imminent – the rebels appeared to be making startling gains as the civil war intensified.

Besides the fighting in Damascus, about a half-dozen rebels took over a Syrian border crossing near the Iraqi town of Qaim, said Iraqi Army Brig. General Qassim al-Dulaimi. There are four major border posts with Iraq.

Rebels overtook a Syrian outpost near the Syrian-Iraq border after clashes that killed 21 Syrian soldiers, he added.

In addition, amateur video posted online showed rebels taking over the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, where they stomped on portraits of Assad. The Associated Press could not independently verify the video because the government bars most media from working independently in the country.

A diplomatic solution to ending the bloodshed seemed even more remote after Russia and China again vetoed a Western-backed U.N. resolution aimed at pressuring Assad’s government to end the escalating conflict.

Analysts said the regime was clearly shaken by the violence in the heart of its power base of Damascus, but the next step was not clear.

“We should not get carried away with speculating about the impending fall of the regime,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center and an analyst on regional politics. He said the regime’s forces “are still showing a certain amount of cohesiveness in battle.”

Citing a network of sources on the ground, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense clashes in a string of neighborhoods along the southern edge of Damascus, the northeastern neighborhood of Qaboun, and in number of western suburbs.

Gunfire and booms from shelling could be heard throughout the capital, and streets in the hard-hit areas were largely empty, save for government troops or rebels.

On Thursday, many Syrians said they were not waiting around to see if the violence would end any time soon. Thousands streamed across the Syrian border into Lebanon at the Masnaa crossing point – about 25 miles from Damascus.

Hundreds of private cars as well as taxis and buses ferried people across.

Even if Assad did leave power, the opposition is widely perceived to be far too disorganized to take over. There is no clear candidate to lead the country in Assad’s absence, and the grim sectarian tint to much of the violence suggests any power vacuum will usher in a bloodbath.

Sunnis make up most of Syria’s 22 million people, as well as the backbone of the opposition. But Assad and the ruling elite belong to the tiny Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Assad is relying heavily on his Alawite power base to crush the uprising, prompting revenge attacks and fear among other minorities that they face retribution if the regime falls.

Another fearsome factor is the emergence of extremists among the forces looking to oust Assad. Several big suicide attacks this year suggest that al-Qaeda or other terrorist forces are joining the fight.

U.S. officials said al-Qaeda’s presence has risen slightly, with one official putting the estimate at a couple hundred operatives attempting to hijack Syrian unrest. They operate under the name of the Al-Nusra Front, which has claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks on regime targets, including a government-run TV station in June, the officials said. But opposition forces, such as the leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army, have made clear to U.S. officials that they reject the group’s methods, because the attacks often occur in public areas where civilians have been killed and injured.

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: The Secret Battle for Syria.

Few observers of the Syrian calamity would have predicted that a final battle of Damascus would have begun so soon with such a lethal display of Syrian opposition strength.

For almost 8 months it has been a veritable article of faith among Syrian watchers that the Assad regime — continuously replenished and reinforced by Russian and Iranian arms — would never face a strategic military threat inside the capital even if occasional peripheral skirmishes gripped some of Damascus’ suburbs. But yesterday’s breach of Assad’s inner sanctum defenses by a well-placed bomb that killed Assad’s military high command is proof enough that Syrian opposition forces are increasingly able to level the battle field.

It’s a shame Assad himself was not in the same room when the bomb went off.

Given the media blackout imposed by the Assad regime, it is extremely difficult to decipher what and who has taken up arms against each other inside the war-torn nation. But after several months of assessing the situation from neighboring Turkey and Lebanon, and consulting with Arab reporters and Syrian opposition leaders who have contacts inside Syria, a murky, violent and terrifying picture is emerging of who and what is engaged in the fighting for and against the Assad regime.

First, the relatively known ingredients of outside military and intelligence interference:

With the assistance of “non-lethal” U.S. strategic communications equipment and reconnaissance support carried into Syria by Turkish military teams through refugee safe havens on the Turkish-Syrian border, units of the increasingly organized Free Syrian Army have lethally deployed anti-tank weapons and shoulder-fired grenade launchers smuggled from Libya and Lebanon courtesy of elements of Gulf Cooperation Council military council.

Turkey has ramped up ammunition transfers and reconnaissance support, including the occasional overflights to detect Syrian troop movements (the Syrians shot down one of Turkey’s jets a few weeks ago). U.S. CIA drones have also overflown Syria outside the prying eyes of Russian forward intelligence based on Russian ships stationed at its fortified naval base in Tartus. CIA operatives are also desperately attempting to identify and monitor Assad’s WMD stockpiles, with growing alarm that they may fall into the hands of Iranian agents or al Qaeda terrorists or worse, be used by the regime in a last ditch stand against its opponents.

Also assassination squads trained by Free Syrian Army commanders (with the assistance of Turkish and Saudi sniper trainers) have been picking off key Syrian military commanders in Homs and in Syria’s northern and southern provinces sowing fear and increasing discord among Syrian commanders. Turkish, Qatari, Saudi military instructors have been training young Syrian opponents of the regime on the fine arts of basic military tactics, including hit and run tactics and night-time assaults on Syrian army barracks.

What is missing from the battlefield are Stinger ground to air shoulder-fired missiles to pick off attacking Syrian helicopter gunships.

But there is far more to the subterranean saga that constitutes this struggle for Syria, and a good part of has less valor surrounding it.

In fact, in virtually every Syrian city, town and village there is a veritable Star Wars bar scene of unsavory thugs, killers, opportunists and criminals adding to what really has become a mini civil war at the local level as authority, or what constitutes as authority, has broken down.

Never mind that major elements of the Syrian National Council have failed to provide a cohesive political cover to local Syrian opposition — incessantly squabbling instead of engaging in inter-sectarian dialogue and accommodation and having little impact on the fighting inside the nation.

Think about what it what must feel like to be a civilian Syrian family inside a besieged neighborhood today struggling to survive the firestorm of indiscriminate artillery leveled at them by the Assad regime, with life-threatening shortages of medicine and food as the following cast of characters roam apparently more or less at will….

— Al Qaeda Terrorists from Iraq and Yemen: Have infiltrated into Syria from neighboring Iraq. Their goal is to inflict as much havoc as possible instructing Syrians on the proper construction of IEDs and recruiting younger Syrians to al Qaeda in the bargain. Because they are the masters of the IED, Syrian locals who have taken arms up against the regime have come to increasingly rely on these terrorists for direction, leadership and training. As convoluted as it sounds, the Assad regime has allegedly hired al Qaeda operatives that it harbored and supported during the Iraq war to attack non-strategic targets in and around Damascus in order to substantiate its allegations that foreign terrorist groups are responsible for the mayhem.

— Iranian Basij and their Syrian Shabiha equivalents: The Assad regime has imported the dreaded Gestapo-like bloodthirsty Iranian Basij who have trained regime-endorsed killing squads known as the brutalizing Shabiha, to roam at random committing wholesale massacres of townspeople. These killers terrorize day and night with no accounting for their horrific crimes… their job only to exact regime vengeance and stoke mind-numbing fear against anyone accused of supporting the opposition. Those not immediately killed by the Shabiha are the unlucky ones. The dead ending Shabiha have set up a string of torture centers in each Syrian town. International human rights organizations have received reports that the Shabiha have resorted to torture against children to extract damning information against their families. Waiting in the wings are para-military Shiite elements of Iraq and Iran who are determined to prevent the Assad regime from being toppled.
— Saudi Freelancing Clerics: Nothing like a good ol Sunni/Shiite civil war for Saudi clerics to take advantage of to spread their extremist Wahabi gospel. Money is the mother’s milk of arms purchases, and there has been a free flow of Saudi funds from a particularly evangelical branch of the Saudi clerical establishment funding the creation of local religious social “welfare” cells that are dispensing everything from desperately needed medical supplies to baby formula to arms. Saudi clerics have dispatched local Sunni religious operatives to create local Wahabi social councils in each Syrian city to plant the flag and to contest control from more secular Syrian opposition elements fighting the regime.

— Criminal Gangs: Vast swaths of Syrians are getting shaken down by criminal gangs which are extorting protection money from anyone and everyone… never mind religious affiliation. The gangs are largely Syrian ex-prisoners, who, like Somali pirates, have resorted to kidnappings and thefts to extort money. As with any criminal element, they are often bought off by the highest bidder — some gangs doing the bidding of the regime.

— Syrian Sectarian Militias: Unlike most Arab states, Syria is made up by a patchwork of Islamic and Christian sects — the minority ruling Alouite/Shiites constituting just 7 percent of the population and the majority Sunnis nearing 74 percent of the combined Islamic population. Outside the Assad clan, particularly in the Alouite stronghold around the port city of Latakia, Alouites have formed several militia organizations to defend against what they expect will be recriminatory attacks by Sunni majority vengeance seekers against them. The Alouite militias have been funded and supported by neighboring Russian naval forces stationed at their naval base in neighboring Tartus. Non-Sunni Ismailis, another minority Shiite sect, have reportedly reached out to Hezbollah for protection. Meanwhile, Christian sects, made up of Greek Orthodox, and Maronites constituting 10 percent of Syrians, have been forming their own militias for self-protection. Several Maronite militia commanders have entered Syria from neighboring Lebanon to provide training to several Christian sectarian para-military organizations.

— Lebanese Christian Militias: The spillover from Lebanon has been palatable. Lebanese Sunni Palestinian militiamen have been smuggling arms to their Free Syrian Army colleagues across the porous Syrian-Lebanese border. Qatari intelligence operatives, alongside their Saudi counterparts, have used Beirut as a staging area of help smuggle arms to Free Syrian operatives.

Ironically, there has been no credible evidence of either neighboring Jordanian or Iraqi military or intelligence operatives directly active inside Syria given their own respective stakes in Syria’s future. And although Israeli intelligence operatives have been working with Jordanian counterparts on the Syrian-Jordanian border to monitor developments and share intelligence with American and European counterparts, they have refrained from directly interfering inside Syria in order not to lend credence to Assad’s accusations of Zionist interference against his regime. Of course, no one can be quite sure who or what else is opportunistically piling into this witch’s brew since the chaotic environment belies the critical importance of Syria’s future to the rest of the tumultuous Middle East.

Two days ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officially acknowledged what we have known all along, that this is a virulent, dual to the death civil war. Syria reached this abyss long ago and has fallen into, courtesy of the diplomatically felonious Russian rackets operation on behalf of Assad, and a countervailing “run for the hills” attitude of the Obama White House which could not get itself to come up with any coherent policy whatsoever for almost 17 months.

And despite having so little to show for so much chest pounding, to this day the Obama Administration is still dragging its unsteady, ever-so-reluctant feet to do everything possible to keep the Syrian sectarian lid from completely blowing the country apart. Inter-sectarian communal cooperation is a vital, missing piece of the unraveling drama. With all of the destabilizing opportunism going on inside Syria, there is very little evidence of American-directed political opportunism outside Syria to foster some modicum of inter-communal dialogue. This should be the easy part!

Syrian borders in rebel hands, battles in … JPost – Middle East.