WarSclerotic

EXCLUSIVE: Iran in “open war” with Israel – CNN Security Clearance – CNN.com Blogs.

By Elise Labott and Michael Schwartz, reporting from Jerusalem

Iran is in an “open war” with Israel, President Shimon Peres said Monday, as he pointed the finger at Iran and Hezbollah for last week’s bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Peres said Israel would act to prevent further attacks.

Peres said Israel had “enough” hard intelligence to link the Bulgaria attack to Iran and its proxy Hezbollah and believes more attacks are being planned as part of what he called an “open war against Israel.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement were responsible for a number of attacks and attempted attacks against Israeli targets in Thailand, Georgia, India, Greece, Cyprus and other countries.

Asked whether the Bulgaria bombing and the other attempted attacks were revenge for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, which Iran blames on Israel, Peres said that Israel has never claimed responsibility for the killings. But he noted that Israel has a right to prevent killing of its citizens.

Security Clearance: Your source for national security news and analysis

“We don’t have an initiative of terror,” Peres said. “We don’t do it. But self-defense is the right and the must of every people.”

He said Israel’s policy was one of “prevention,” rather than “retaliation.”

“If you have enough information about a certain person which is a ticking clock that can explode a bomb that can endanger civilian life, clearly you have to prevent him from doing so,” Peres said, citing reports that the United States has killed as many as 3,000 people in drone strikes aimed at terrorist enclaves.

With neighboring Syria in a spiral of violence, Peres said Israel will be forced to seize Syria’s chemical weapons if there is a risk President Bashar al-Assad would use them against Israel or that the arsenal could fall into terrorist hands.

RECOMMENDED: U.S. talking to Israel, others about Syria’s chemical weapons

Over the weekend, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he ordered the military to prepare contingency plans to attack Syria’s chemical weapons arsenals, should the need arise.

“The use of chemical weapons is internationally forbidden… and what do you do when somebody violates the law? You fight against it,” Peres said.

“You stop them. We shall not remain indifferent and tell them, ‘Do what you want.'”

When asked how far Israel would go to secure Syria’s chemical arsenal, Peres simply said: “Until it will stop being a danger.”

With Israel facing a potential influx of refugees, Peres said although no Syrians have tried to enter the country, Israel would not help any refugees who want to cross the border and would use force against any armed individuals.

“If they will come by force, we shall stop them by force,” Peres said. “If they shall come in without force, we shall stop them the way any country defended her border with civilian means.”

Peres spoke a day after Israel marked the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, where 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed.

While he wouldn’t go into details, Peres said Israel was taking precautions to ensure Israeli athletes would not be targeted at the London Olympic Games, which start later this week. He argued, however, that if Israeli intelligence services been at Munich, they would probably have been able to prevent the attack.

Israel Hayom | ‘Israel won’t allow chemical weapons to reach Hezbollah’.

U.S. Mounts Quiet Effort to Weaken Assad’s Rule – WSJ.com.

By ADAM ENTOUS, JULIAN E. BARNES and NOUR MALAS

The U.S. has been mounting a secret but limited effort to speed the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad without using force, scrambling spies and diplomats to block arms and oil shipments from Iran and passing intelligence to front-line allies.

A centerpiece of the effort this year focused on getting Iraq to close its airspace to Iran-to-Syria flights that U.S. intelligence concluded were carrying arms for Assad loyalists—contrary to flight manifests saying they held cut flowers. The U.S. has also tried to keep ships believed to carry arms and fuel for Syria from traversing the Suez Canal, with mixed results.

The behind-the-scenes efforts by the Central Intelligence Agency, the State and Treasury departments and the military point to a broader American role in the campaign against Mr. Assad than previously acknowledged. The efforts have ramped up recently as relations with some in the Syrian opposition have warmed and as Mr. Assad has grown more desperate for supplies.

Skeptics within the Obama administration and on Capitol Hill, however, say U.S. pressure is hit-or-miss and comes too late to ensure U.S. influence over any post-Assad future. Many Syrian opposition leaders complain the U.S. hasn’t done enough and say the efforts of regional allies such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, in some cases to ship arms, are more significant.

U.S. officials acknowledge the limitations that come from the Obama administration’s unwillingness to get entangled in the conflict. While some weapons flights to Syria have been stopped, officials say intelligence is hard to obtain and overseas governments can be balky about cooperation. Some shipments of arms and fuel for Syria have slipped through.

“The Americans say to us that they have allowed the regional players to help us, but if they think this is an achievement…then they should know this is weak and inadequate support,” said Louay Mokdad, a logistics coordinator for the rebel Free Syrian Army. He and two rebel commanders offered examples of requests they said weren’t met, including for satellite images and an operations room.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said the administration recently decided to ramp up efforts to counter the Syrian regime.

“There is a renewed effort to crack down in any way possible,” another senior U.S. official said, pointing to stepped-up efforts to block certain shipments through the Suez Canal, which is controlled by Egypt.

That U.S. effort, described by officials familiar with it, is among the few concrete measures the administration is taking to bring to an end one of the last and bloodiest battles of the Arab Spring. It is symbolic of a broader shift in the U.S. approach to hot spots, away from expensive ground campaigns and toward covert and diplomatic operations.

Some administration and military officials believe they are putting pressure on Mr. Assad. Others expressed doubt about the strategy’s effectiveness, with one skeptic likening it to trying to dam a stream by standing in the middle of it.

House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) said the effort “stops far too short of really having an impact” because there are so many ways to get arms into Syria, including smuggling routes through Lebanon.

“We’re just nowhere near where we need to be,” Mr. Rogers said.

A spokesman for the White House National Security Council declined to comment on specific efforts. “It’s clear that the Assad regime is losing control of Syria,” said the spokesman, Tommy Vietor, pointing to a bombing in Damascus last week that killed top Assad advisers.

Officials said the U.S. has been providing intelligence about developments in Syria to the Turkish and Jordanian militaries working closely with the rebels.

Imagery from military-controlled satellites and other surveillance equipment includes details about Syrian military sites that could help rebels in targeting as well as in tracking the regime’s chemical weapons, officials said.

They also said the CIA has provided limited intelligence to some opposition groups and used its informants to work with opposition elements. The CIA declined to comment.

One example of the U.S. approach—and of its limitations—came earlier this year when the U.S. sought to pressure Iraq to curtail flights between Iran and Syria across Iraqi airspace. That supply route opened wide after the U.S. completed its troop withdrawal from Iraq in December, U.S. administration and military officials say.

The next month, the CIA picked up detailed intelligence that Iran was using an Iranian private cargo airline, Yas Air, to fly arms over Iraq to Syria, according to U.S. officials.

With U.S. warplanes no longer patrolling Iraqi skies, the U.S. had few options except to cajole the Iraqis to act. In an official complaint to Baghdad called a démarche, the U.S. demanded an end to the flights, said officials briefed on the discussions. “You’ve got to stop this,” the Americans told Iraqi leaders, according to one senior U.S. official.

The démarche appeared to persuade the Iraqis to act, according to American officials; the flights stopped.

But in late January and early February, the CIA began to track flights of Syrian government AN-76 cargo planes between Syria and Iran, a new tactic.

According to U.S. officials, Syria and Iran sought to disguise the cargo of flights leaving Iran, in some cases with manifests citing flowers and farm equipment. CIA analysts concluded the manifests were false and pointed to the involvement of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in the flights, said people briefed on the intelligence.

Iran denies providing arms to Syria. A Syrian foreign ministry spokesman called the notion of arms shipments from Iran “baseless.”

In a series of démarches in February and March, U.S. diplomats warned Iraq its failure to act against the flights ran counter to Iraq’s obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Iraqi leaders were initially dismissive of U.S. intelligence but said they would investigate.

Iraq sent its minister of transportation, Hadi Ameri, to Tehran to discuss the flights, according to U.S. officials. The Iranians said the flights weren’t carrying arms, a message the Iraqis relayed to skeptical U.S. officials. Mr. Ameri couldn’t be reached for comment.

While U.S. and Iraqi officials went back and forth on the issue, several Syrian cargo planes made the trip to Iran and back without interference.

As Iraq prepared to play host to an Arab League meeting at the end of March, which would showcase its emergence from American occupation, U.S. officials raised the possibility Iraq would face disclosures about the flights—an embarrassment because most Arab nations had turned against Mr. Assad.

The warning appeared to get through. Iraqi leaders told the U.S. they might search the suspect flights. Two weeks before the Arab League summit, the flights of the Syrian AN-76 cargo planes abruptly stopped, U.S. officials say.

A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Iraqi authorities routinely stop cargo planes that fly over Iraq to Syria or leave directly from Iraq to Syria to make sure they aren’t carrying arms.

U.S. officials said the effort to block resupply flights continues and includes a renewed focus on Suez Canal traffic.

One ship currently seeking permission to enter the canal is owned by a subsidiary of Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, according to U.S. officials.

The ship, the Amin, has already passed through the canal once, to the chagrin of the U.S. It traveled last month to the Syrian port of Banias, where it is believed to have unloaded gasoline for the Syrian regime and then picked up Syrian crude oil to take to Iran. Now the ship is seeking approval to pass back through the Suez Canal.

U.S. officials tracking the shipment said a subsidiary of Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines has repeatedly changed the Amin’s shipping flags to continue operating despite U.S. and European Union sanctions.

U.S. officials are in negotiations with the Egyptian government in an effort to block the Amin’s return, arguing that it isn’t properly flagged and that it doesn’t have internationally recognized insurance.

—Siobhan Gorman, Jay Solomon and Ali A. Nabhan contributed to this article.

Analysis / Iran and Hezbollah’s terror escalation against Israel – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The strategic goal behind Iran’s present terrorist campaign against Israel is to provoke a regional conflict between Israel and its neighbors which would divert international attention from Iran’s nuclear program.

Assad’s forces overrun two Damascus distri… JPost – Middle East.

Photo: REUTERS

BAB AL-SALAM, Syria – Syrian troops have driven rebel fighters out of two districts of Damascus a week after the insurgents launched a major assault on the capital.

Government troops retook control of the Damascus neighborhood of Mezzeh on Sunday and executed at least 20 unarmed men who they suspected of aiding rebels, opposition activists in the district said.

In Barzeh, members of the Syrian army’s Fourth Division under the command of President Bashar Assad’s brother executed several young men during an operation to regain control of the northern Damascus district, a witness and activists said.

Government forces have launched a determined counter-offensive since rebels brought their battle to overthrow Assad to the capital and killed four of the president’s closest associates in a bomb attack last Wednesday.

In a further escalation of a conflict rapidly becoming a civil war, fighting raged around the intelligence headquarters in Syria’s biggest city, Aleppo, and in Deir al-Zor in the east.

Syrian forces regained control of one of two border crossings seized by rebels on the frontier with Iraq, Iraqi officials said, but rebels said they had captured a third border crossing with Turkey: Bab al-Salam, north of Aleppo.

“Seizing the border crossings does not have strategic importance but it has a psychological impact because it demoralizes Assad’s force,” a senior Syrian army defector in Turkey, Staff Brigadier Faiz Amr, told Reuters by phone.

“It’s a show of progress for the revolutionaries, despite the superior firepower of Assad’s troops.”

Rebels also seized an army infantry school in the town of Musalmiyeh, 16 km (10 miles) north of Aleppo, and captured several loyalist officers, while others defected, a senior military defector in Turkey and rebel sources inside Syria said.

“This is of big strategic and symbolic importance. The school has ammunition depots and armoured formations and it protects the northern gate to Aleppo,” Brigadier General Mustafa al-Sheikh told Reuters by phone from the town of Apayden on the Turkish border.

Revenge

The bombardments in Damascus and Deir al-Zor were some of the fiercest yet and showed Assad’s determination to avenge the bomb attack, the most spectacular blow in a 16-month-old uprising against four decades of rule by the Assad family.

Rebels were driven from Mezzeh, the diplomatic district of Damascus, residents and opposition activists said, and more than 1,000 government troops and allied militiamen poured into the area, backed by armored vehicles, tanks and bulldozers.

Government forces executed at least 20 men, aged approximately 20 to 30, several activists said by phone from Mezzeh.

“Most had bullet holes, one with as many as 18. Three had their hands tied behind their back. Some of the men were in their pajamas. Several had their legs broken or fingers missing. Others were stabbed with knifes,” said Bashir al-Kheir, one of the activists.

The early morning bombardment of the neighborhood killed three people and 50 others, mostly civilians, were wounded, said Thabet, a Mezzeh resident. “The district is besieged and the wounded are without medical care,” he said.

“I saw men stripped to their underwear. Three buses took detainees from al-Farouk, including women and whole families. Several houses have been set on fire.”

Opposition and rebel sources say the guerrilla fighters in the capital may lack the supply lines to remain there for long and may have to make tactical withdrawals.

The neighborhood of Barzeh, one of three northern areas hit by helicopter fire, was overrun by troops commanded by P resident Assad’s brother, Maher Assad, 41, who is widely seen as the muscle maintaining the Assad family’s Alawite minority rule.

“At least 20 Fourth Division tanks and hundreds of its members entered Barzeh this afternoon,” opposition activist Abu Kais said by phone from the district.

“I saw troops go into the home of 26-year-old Issa al-Arab. They left him dead with two bullets in his head.”

He said people sheltering from the fighting had told him of the summary execution of a 17-year-old, Issa Wahbeh, who was pulled from the shelter and beaten and killed.

Mazen, another opposition activist in Barzeh, said the bodies had been found of four young men who appeared to have been shot at point blank range.

Syrian state television quoted a media source denying that helicopters had fired on the capital. “The situation in Damascus is normal, but the security forces are pursuing the remnants of the terrorists in some streets,” it said.

Crucial Role

Maher’s role has become more crucial since Assad’s defence and intelligence ministers, a top general and his powerful brother-in-law were killed by the bomb on Wednesday, part of an assault by rebels seeking to turn the tables in a revolt inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing, but the Israeli military said it believed he was still in Damascus and retained the loyalty of his armed forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 1,261 people had been killed across Syria since last Sunday, when the fighting escalated in Damascus, including 299 of Assad’s forces.

This made it by far the bloodiest week in an uprising that has claimed the lives of 18,000 people. A total of 79 civilians and 24 soldiers were killed on Sunday, the observatory said.

Elsewhere, Iraqi officials said Syrian forces had regained control of the Syrian side of the Yarubiya border crossing, briefly seized by rebels on Saturday.

Iraq has said it cannot help Syrians fleeing the violence, and the border was sealed by the Iraqi army on Friday.

Regional and Western powers fear the conflict might become a full-blown sectarian war that could spill across borders, but have yet to find a coherent strategy to prevent this.

Arab League ministers meeting in Doha urged the opposition and the rebel Free Syrian Army to form a transitional government, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference in Doha.

He said Arab countries would help to ensure safe passage out of Syria for President Assad if he stepped down quickly – something he has shown no inclination to do.

Syrian civil war boosts Israeli-US defense tie… JPost – Defense.

Two hours for Syrian chemical weapons to reach Lebanon. Four armies prepared.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 22, 2012, 10:47 PM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian WMD-capable missiles

The IDF, the Turkish and Jordanian armies and US Middle East forces have switched to preparedness mode in the last few hours in case the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal starts moving west toward Lebanon, debkafile’s military sources report.

Acting in unison, those armies are on the ready for instantaneous action because it would take no more than two hours to cover the distance from Syria to the Hizballah-controlled Bakaa Valley of east Lebanon. Their arrival there, unless thwarted, would mean a war on Hizballah.

Therefore Israeli and US military chiefs prefer to stop the arsenal in its tracks before it moves across the border. This would call for surgically precise, rapid action against a target going to extreme lengths to stay concealed.

In the view of a senior US military source quoted by debkafile, the risk is solid but it comes from a different direction. He stressed that “President Assad has not decided to hand over his chemical weapons to Hizballah, nor has Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah decided to accept them.”

The chemical stockpile is kept at the al-Safira base northwest of Damascus in the care of the president’s personal guard unit which takes orders from Bashar Assad and no one else. If the heads of that guard saw the regime suddenly collapse – as it was expected to do last Wednesday when assassins murdered the men closest to the president – the American official says, “It is impossible to predict how they will act or what use they will make of the weapons systems under their guard.”

“They may decide to sneak out of Syria to Lebanon and take with them the entire arsenal as insurance for their safety and future,” he suggested.
According to our military sources, the arsenal which could be spirited across to Lebanon contains a lot more than chemical weapons. It also includes Scud C and Scud D surface missles capable of delivering chemical warheads and also the Russian-made advanced Pantsyr-S1 (NATO codenamed SA-22 Greyhound) anti-air missiles, which have been guarding the chemical stocks.

This background accounts for the words used by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak Sunday, July 22, to make their intentions clear:
“Israel would have to act if the Syrian regime collapsed without changing and if there’s a risk Syria’s chemical weapons and missiles could fall into the hands of military groups,” such as Hizballah or al Qaeda, Netanyahu said.

Asked if Israel would act alone, he said that Syria’s stockpile was a “common concern” – hinting at the coordination in place between the Israeli, Turkish and Jordanian armies and US regional forces.
Barak was more specific:  “I’ve ordered the Israeli military to prepare for a situation where we would have to weigh the possibility of carrying out an attack against Syrian weapons arsenals.” He told reporters.

”The state of Israel cannot accept a situation where advanced weapons systems are transferred form Syria to Lebanon.”

Why Bibi won’t go ‘Michael Corleone’ – NYPOST.com.

Benny Avni

Last week’s deadly terrorist attack against Israelis in Bulgaria may indeed prompt a “strong” response, as top Jerusalem officials warned — but not quite yet.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately blamed Iran for last Wednesday’s bombing at a Bulgarian airport of a bus carrying Black Sea-bound vacationers. It killed five Israelis and the driver, and wounded dozens more.

Israeli officials say that forensic “fingerprints” of Tehran and its terrorist arm, the Lebanese-based Hezbollah, were clearly at the scene, and US intelligence officials backed them up.

AP

Netanyahu: Now juggling multiple dire threats to Israel.

Tehran and its pawns had failed in several recent attempts to retaliate for the killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientists. Plus, every year in the four since the assassination of its legendary terror master Imad Moughniyeh, Hezbollah has tried a revenge attack on the anniversary.

It finally pulled off a successful hit.

True, these weren’t military officials, diplomats or other “quality” targets. All Iran’s terror operation could manage was the softest of targets, tourists. Still, Hezbollah and Iran did finally evade intelligence and tightening defense procedures to slaughter some Israelis. And they did it with much fanfare.

Nor is it over. London’s Sunday Times reported yesterday that the terror masters are planning to hit Israeli athletes arriving in Britain this week for the Olympics.

So Israel — after long warning that it would act, perhaps militarily, to end Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons — now has a clear justification for war. And Netanyahu has already drawn a direct line between Burgas and Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Just imagine what the consequence would be if these people [Hezbollah] and if this regime [Iran] got ahold of nuclear weapons,” he said on CBS yesterday.

So what will he do? “Expose the terrorists, stop the terrorists, and make sure that the world’s most dangerous regime doesn’t get the world’s most dangerous weapon.” Thus speculation is again rife that an attack on Iran is just around the corner.

But Netanyahu has reason for caution — and not just the possible impact of the strike on US or Israeli politics.

Before attacking Iran, for example, he must neutralize Tehran’s planned retaliation — specifically, the tens of thousands of rockets and missiles that Hezbollah (with Iran’s aid) has amassed in Lebanon, weapons that can hit every Israeli city.

But even that formidable task now must await other developments, mostly in Syria.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is in Israel today; last week it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon — all suddenly rushing to “coordinate” with Israel on Syria.

After months of ignoring Jerusalem while trying to solve the Syria crisis through the United Nations (where Israel remains “feh”), Team Obama has realized Israel can help in the aftermath of Bashar Assad’s impending fall.

But the administration’s top goal seems to be dissuading Israel from taking out Syria’s chemical and biological stockpiles, fearing they might soon fall into the hands of Hezbollah or al Qaeda types with designs on targets in the lands of “Crusaders and Zionists.”

Washington’s worried about these weapons of mass destruction, of course — but it fears the Arab reaction to any Israeli strike.

To review: Before attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel must disable Hezbollah’s war machine. But even before that, it must make sure Syria’s WMDs don’t fail into the wrong hands. And all the while, it must take into account heavy pressure from a White House eager to put the world on hold until November.

With so much going on, the most likely immediate action (if any) would be a well-chosen, pinpoint target.

Sure, there’s always the Michael Corleone approach: Take out all your enemies at once. In a very dangerous neighborhood, such holistic approach can be an attractive option.

Still, at least until things in Syria clear up a bit, Israel will likely sit on its hands a while.

But not forever.

For Israel, winds of war in Syria are blowing aside other issues – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

There’s no doubt that Israel is facing a complex reality, with more varied and serious threats than we’ve seen before.