WarSclerotic

51% Say U.S. Should Help Israel If It Attacks Iran – Rasmussen Reports™.

Tensions between Israel and Iran are rising again following a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians in Bulgaria, and most Americans think there’s a good chance of a war between the two in the near future. Most also think the United States should help Israel if it attacks Iran.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is at least somewhat likely that Israel will attack Iran in the next year while  just 23% see such an attack as unlikely. Those figures include 22% who think an Israeli attack is Very Likely and only two percent (2%) who say it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Khamenei urges halt to public bi… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

‘Assad Knows Israel Will Attack, If Necessary’ – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Chemical attack drill (file)

Israel news photo: Flash 90

Syrian President Bashar Assad  knows Israel will attack Hizbullah if it obtains his chemical weapons, said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

“The minute we confirm that Hizbullah has non-conventional weapons, that is chemical and biological weapons, we will act immediately,” he said in an interview on radio in Israel.

“This message was understood clearly” by the United Nations, the United States and European countries, he said from Brussels, where he is attending a European conference. “Assad also understands this,” he added.

Lieberman also said that the reports of Europe’s rejecting his request this week to label Hizbullah a terrorist organization are misleading. He explained that “this is the first time we have proposed it, and it won’t happen in one day.”

Most European countries recognize Hizbullah as a political party despite its terrorist activities. Lieberman said that virtually all of Europe “understands the significance of non-conventional weapons.”

On domestic political issues, Lieberman sad his Yisrael Beytenu party would adamantly oppose proposed alternatives to the Tal Law concerning exemptions from the draft, but he emphasized “it’s all talk in the air” to think that any legislation will passed before the Knesset returns in October from its summer and High Holiday break.

He also said he was not consulted by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu concerning a proposed one percent hike in the Value Added Tax (VAT), but that his party would vote against it.

Rebels, Syrian troops trade heavy fire as battle for Aleppo rages | The Times of Israel.

Helicopters and heavy shelling pound rebels as fighting for financial capital enters fifth day

Fighter jets unleashed sonic booms and helicopter gunships strafed rebels as they pressed their fight early Wednesday into new neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. Farther south, ground troops combed Damascus after the nearly complete rout of the largest rebel assault yet on the capital.

Reuters reported a massacre of worshipers entering a mosque in Damascus, quoting an eyewitness as saying that troops at a nearby roadblock opened fire with automatic rifles, killing some 30 people. “The streets are strewn with bodies,” the witness said.

President Bashar Assad’s forces, after a series of setbacks, are solidifying their grip on Aleppo and Damascus, knowing that their fall would almost certainly spell the regime’s end.

Media reported an armored column of Syrian troops making its way from the Turkish border to Aleppo. This followed heavy shelling in the city by regime forces with about 30 rockets being fired in half an hour.

Helicopters belonging to Assad’s army also went after rebels as they attempted to push into the country’s financial center.

The regime appears to be regaining momentum after a series of setbacks that put it on the defensive. But while its forces easily outgun the rebels in direct confrontations, the rebellion has spread them thin — pointing to a drawn-out civil war.

Syria’s two biggest cities, home to more than one-third of the country’s 22 million people and centers of its political and economic life, have remained largely insulated from the unrest that has ravaged much of the rest of the country during the 16-month conflict.

But this month, rebels from surrounding areas have pushed into both, bringing street battles to previously calm urban neighborhoods.

The fighting in each city has followed a similar script.

After building up their forces in the countryside and clashing with government troops there, rebels pressed into Damascus early last week, sparking clashes around the city with government troops.

The opposition landed a harsh blow July 18, when a bomb tore through a high-level security meeting, killing four top Assad security advisers including his minister of defense and his older sister’s husband. All had been key architects of the government’s efforts to quash the uprising.

But the battle turned when the regime deployed the overwhelming force it has used to crush rebels elsewhere, shelling residential areas and targeting rebels with machine guns and missiles fired from attack helicopters.

On Tuesday, the government appeared to have largely retaken the capital. Activists reported shelling and sporadic clashes between troops and rebels in and around the city, but acknowledged that most fighters had withdrawn.

“They had to withdraw because they lacked ammunition and organization, because the regime was stronger and because they didn’t want to hurt civilians,” Damascus activist Mohammed Saeed said via Skype.

The fighting took a huge toll, making June one of the deadliest months in a conflict that activists say has killed more than 19,000 people.

About one-third of the 150 people killed across Syria on Monday were in or near Damascus, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Amateur video posted online Tuesday showed the aftermath: buildings reduced to rubble by government shells, helicopters hovering overhead and columns of smoke rising from areas still on fire.

Other videos showed tanks in the streets and crowds of foot soldiers combing areas once held by rebels.

Syria’s state news service said troops chased “armed terrorists” from some districts after killing and wounding many of them and were still searching other areas. Syria blames terrorists backed by foreign powers for the uprising.

Videos and claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government prevents most media from operating in the country.

While the regime asserted control in the capital, rebels in the north launched an assault on Aleppo over the weekend. They pushed into neighborhoods in the southern and northeastern edges of the city and destroyed at least three government tanks.

The fighting expanded on Tuesday, with clashes spreading into neighborhoods on two sides of the historic old city and into a number of other areas, activists said.

The government fought back much as it did in Damascus, firing artillery shells on rebel areas and pursuing fighters with attack helicopters. Residents also reported fighter jets swooping over the city, breaking the sound barrier to cause sonic booms in a show of force.

“It’s the worst day of fighting in Aleppo so far, but I can’t tell what’s happening on the ground or who’s in control,” said a local writer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “This is bad because in the end it’s the civilians who will pay the price of this street fighting.”

Prisoners in Aleppo’s jail also rioted overnight, and activists said government forces killed at least eight of them. Guards quelled another prison riot in the nearby city of Homs with tear gas and live ammunition.

At least 26 of the more than 110 people killed nationwide on Tuesday died in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory said.

Also Tuesday, a top military commander and close friend of Syrian President Bashar Assad confirmed his defection from the regime.

Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, son of a former defense minister, said in a video broadcast on Al-Arabiya TV that Syrians must work together to build a new country.

“I speak to you not as an official, but as a son of Syria, as a son of the Syrian Arab army that has rejected the criminal program if this corrupt regime,” Tlass said, dressed in a light blue shirt with an open collar, his gray hair tussled.

“Our duty today as Syrians is to unify for one goal, and that is to make our country free and democratic,” he said.

It was his first public appearance since he left Syria earlier this month. French officials later confirmed that he was in France.

His long silence raised questions about whether he had joined the anti-Assad uprising or merely fled the civil war.

Tlass is the highest-level defector from the Syrian regime since the conflict’s start.

He was a member of the elite Republican Guard and son of former defense minister Mustafa Tlass, who served under Assad’s father.

Also joining the defectors, according to Al-Jazeera, was Syrian charges d’affaires in Cyprus, Lamia al-Hariri. Al-Jazeera quoted Bassem Imadi, Syria’s former ambassador to Sweden who defected in December, as saying that al-Hariri was the niece of Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa.

Syria’s uprising started when political protests in March 2011 met a harsh government crackdown. As dissent spread and the death toll rose, many in the opposition took up arms and the conflict transformed into a civil war.

It remains unclear if the rebels in Aleppo will hold out longer than their colleagues did in Damascus. But even activists who acknowledged the loss of the capital said a larger battle had been won.

For the first time, the image of Damascus as standing outside of the uprising has been shattered, said Rami Jarrah, head of the Cairo-based Activists News Association.

“If this happened once, it can happen again,” he said. “But next time,” he said of the rebels, “they’ll be more prepared.”

Assad chemical weapons plans blocked by Moscow.

Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is reportedly considering unleashing chemical arsenal against Syrian rebels. (Reuters)

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Group Carried Out Bulgaria Bombing, Prime Minister Says – NYTimes.com.

By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER and NICHOLAS KULISH

¶ BURGAS, Bulgaria — An “exceptionally experienced” group of conspirators spent up to a month in Bulgaria before carrying out the suicide bombing last week that killed five Israeli tourists and a local bus driver, the prime minister said Tuesday.

¶ The team worked carefully to avoid detection, renting cars to travel unnoticed between cities in what Prime Minister Boiko Borisov described as a thoroughly planned “conspiracy.” The prime minister’s statements offered the first confirmation that the suicide bomber worked with accomplices, none of whom have been identified or caught.

¶ “They changed and changed and changed leased cars,” Mr. Borisov said. “They went to different cities so they wouldn’t be seen together.” Based on the available closed-circuit video, they “never appeared on camera together.”

¶ Mr. Borisov, who made his statements at a briefing in the capital, Sofia, alongside John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, did not offer any opinion about who was behind the attack.

¶ Israeli officials said that the bombing was the work of Hezbollah operatives backed by Iran. Privately, two American officials said on Tuesday that the Shiite movement Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing based on classified “sources and methods” — typically a reference to electronic intercepts and information from spies on the ground. But the officials declined to offer specific details. For now, American officials are limiting their public comments to the formulation that the bombing bears “all the hallmarks” of other Hezbollah plots, including the arrest in Cyprus earlier this month of a suspected operative of Hezbollah on the suspicion of scheming to kill Israeli tourists there.

¶ “It’s early in the investigation,” said Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury Department counterterrorism official who is writing a book about Hezbollah’s global operations. “They’ve got sketches out. They’re working the DNA. American authorities are waiting to allow the investigation to run its course.”

¶ Iran has blamed Israel for assassinating several of its nuclear scientists, while Israel says the Bulgaria attack was linked to several unsuccessful attempts on Israeli targets in various countries.

¶ But six days after the deadly bombing, the prime minister’s statement only confirmed investigators’ suspicions that the suicide bomber had not acted alone. The attacker, who was seen on video pacing around the arrivals terminal of the Burgas airport before he struck, has also not been identified despite fingerprints and DNA evidence.

¶ Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s adviser, would not comment on the charges Iran and Hezbollah were responsible.

¶ “We’re deferring to our Bulgarian partners to make these determinations and to announce at the appropriate time what the findings in their investigations are,” he said, adding that “there are clear indications that Hezbollah and Iran have been involved in terrorist plotting against innocents in many parts of the world.”

¶ Iran has denied any involvement in the bombing. Bulgarian, Israeli and American officials have cooperated closely in the aftermath of the attack. “We will continue to help Bulgaria in any way we can in this investigation,” Mr. Brennan said. He read from a letter Mr. Obama wrote to Mr. Borisov, calling the attack “a terrible reminder of the danger we face and the challenges that we must confront as allies.”

¶ The latest revelations appeared not only to rule out the possibility of a lone attacker but also to point toward an organized terrorist group. Over the weekend one Lebanese newspaper received an unsubstantiated claim of responsibility supposedly from Al Qaeda. But terrorism experts have said the attack fit the pattern of the continuing covert actions by Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah. Investigators were still trying to reconstruct the movements of the suspects and the whereabouts of the accomplices, who did not die in the attacks.

¶ The Bulgarian police have canvassed hotel managers up and down the Black Sea coast, questioned taxi drivers by the hundreds and, wherever possible, taken any available footage from security cameras that might have caught the suspects on tape. Mr. Borisov described a sophisticated group behind the bombing.

¶ Last week the Bulgarian authorities released the video footage of the man that they said was the suspect, who was wearing a large backpack in the video and found to be carrying a fake Michigan driver’s license after the attack. Over the weekend, Galina Mileva, a former forensic doctor who is now a member of Parliament from the governing party, told a reporter that the bomber had blue eyes and fair skin.

¶ Ms. Mileva, who arrived in the autopsy room toward the end of the examination, said that the bomber appeared to be wearing the backpack when it detonated. “From my experience, it appears that the most likely location of the explosion was on the back because the torso was so torn up,” she said.

¶ Mr. Borisov said that although Bulgarian authorities did not know the man’s identity, “we know when he arrived and the flight he presumably came in on.” He said that the man may have come from a country inside the Schengen area, a border-free zone that Bulgaria has not yet joined. Then he seemed to inject a note of uncertainty, adding, “That is the version we are working on now.”

¶ Residents of the town of Pomorie, up the coast from Burgas, said that a man with a fake Michigan driver’s license tried to rent a car at their tourism bureau. That man had dark eyes and dark skin, the witnesses said. The police have questioned local business owners with a sketch of the potential accomplice.

¶ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Fox News on Sunday that he was “not surmising” that Hezbollah and Iran were behind the attack, but that it was “based on absolutely rock solid intelligence.” Yet while officials continue to speak, both publicly and privately, about a conspiracy, they have yet to offer evidence or explain the source of their information.

¶ Bulgarian authorities have sought to deflect criticism among local media outlets that they had such little information on who was responsible for the bombing. “There was absolutely no chance of preventing such an act,” Mr. Borisov said on Tuesday. He added that it could have been detected only “by chance or if we had been informed by the services that such activities are under way in Bulgaria.”

¶

One Per Cent: Iran nuclear facilities ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC malware.

( Some true comic relief from “New Scientist.” – JW  )

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

(Image: Classic Rock/Future Publishing/Rex Features)

In 2010, Iran’s nuclear facilities were infiltrated by Stuxnet, the centrifuge-wrecking malware allegedly cooked up by the US government. Now they seem to have been hit again by a bizarre attack forcing nuclear plant workstations to pump the song Thunderstruck by heavy metal band AC/DC through the speakers at full volume.

News of the attack comes from Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finnish computer security firm F-Secure, who says he recently received a series of emails from a scientist working at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI):

“I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.”

The Iranian scientist goes on to say that they believe the attackers used Metasploit, a common hacking tool which provides a variety of ways to penetrate supposedly secure networks. “There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out,” says the scientist. “I believe it was playing ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC.”

While the US military has used heavy metal music as a weapon in the past it seems unlikely that a Stuxnet-like stealth attack would announce its presence with a few blasting power chords, suggesting the hit is more likely the work of a thrill-seeking hacker. Hypponen says he has been unable to verify any details of the attack, but has confirmed that the emails were sent and received from within the AEOI.

Syria’s SNC to accept transition led by regime figures; Assad’s days seen ‘numbered’.

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

SNC spokesman Georges Sabra said that they want to put an end to the massacres and protect Syrian civilians, and accept the initiative to remove Assad and transfer his powers to a regime figure. (Reuters)

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IDF chief: Attack in Syria may lead to broader conflict – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Gantz tells Knesset Defense Committee strike on chemical weapons stockpiles may drag Israel into major war; says defections motivated Syrian rebels

Yoav Zitun

During a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee debate Tuesday on the possibility of an Israeli attack on Syria‘s stockpiles of chemical weapons, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said the army may find it difficult to launch a “pinpoint” attack and warned that any other strike in Syria may drag the Jewish state into a broader regional conflict.

Gantz told the committee that Syrian President Bashar Assad‘s regime has boosted protection around its chemical weapons stockpiles and that the weapons have not landed in the hands of “negative elements” as of yet.

“But this situation may change,” he stressed, “and then we will be faced with a dilemma.”

Gantz said Israelmust also consider “who will remain after we act and in whose hands (the weapons) will land.”

Addressing the civil war in Syria, the army chief said Iran and Hezbollahhave provided substantial assistance to Assad’s forces – including weapons – but added that the defections of top commanders are hurting the Syrian army and motivating the rebels.

Earlier, the rebel Free Syrian Army said the Syrian government has movedchemical weapons to airports on its borders.

“We in the joint command of the Free Syrian Army inside the country know very well the locations and positions of these weapons,” a statement from the FSA said.

“We also reveal that (President Bashar) Assad has transferred some of these weapons and equipment for mixing chemical components to airports on the border.”

The statement said the weapons had been moved in a bid to pressure the international community, much of which has called for Assad to step aside in the face of a 16-month uprising against his rule.

Poll: Most Israelis trust U.S. as an ally | Lansing State Journal | lansingstatejournal.com.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday in Jerusalem. He says, “The real thing — the real question — is not stated policy (from the U.S.) but actual results on the ground.” / Pool photo by Gali Tibbon

By Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM (USA TODAY) — With the borders they share with Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and even the Palestinian territories relatively peaceful at the moment, Israelis have been enjoying an unusually calm summer — at least at home.

That can change quickly in this part of the world.

The violence in Syria threatens to spill into other countries, Iran’s Israel-hating leaders refuse to end a nuclear program that could produce an atomic bomb, the Muslim Brotherhood has gained the presidency in Egypt, and Israelis continue to be targets for terrorism worldwide.

Worrisome to many here is where the United States will come down if serious trouble befalls the Jewish state.

A poll of Israelis in June found that most trust the United States to come to Israel’s help in an existential threat, but they don’t think the current U.S. administration is handling the threats well.

“We have to destroy Iran’s weapons with or without the Americans’ help, and it should be done before the elections, while Obama can’t act,” Avraham Nachmani, 51, of northern Israel, said as he stood outside a cosmetics store while his wife shopped.

Iran is among the biggest worries. The Islamic republic continues to enrich uranium into possible weapons-grade material and has refused to let United Nations inspectors verify whether it is abiding by an agreement not to make nuclear weapons.

The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against Iran to get it to open up its program to inspection. During the latest talks between six world powers and Iran held in Moscow, Iran insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Efraim Inbar, a Bar-Ilan University political scientist, said many Israelis are “disappointed” by President Obama’s continuing determination to pressure Iran with economic sanctions and diplomacy, not a military assault.

“By failing to explicitly threaten the regime with American military force, the president is projecting the image of the U.S. as a weakling, and radicals will take advantage of it and Israel,” Inbar said.

No ‘results on the ground’

Iran’s nuclear program was at the top of the agenda during Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to Jerusalem this month. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday it would be the No. 1 subject when he meets Friday with Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, who will be visiting Israel.

The sanctions that Obama prefers to use to pressure Iran have aimed to stop it from selling its oil.

The U.S. Treasury Department also recently blacklisted several companies and individuals that it says may be helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons.

Obama has insisted Iran must not develop nuclear weapons, but Netanyahu said Sunday that despite Obama’s insistence, the threat is “still with us four years later.”

“The real thing — the real question — is not stated policy but actual results on the ground,” Netanyahu said.

Israel also says it has “rock solid” proof that Iran’s Hezbollah operatives were behind the killing Wednesday of five vacationing Israelis and a bus driver in Bulgaria. The website of Iran State TV called the accusation “ridiculous.”

Obama condemned the “barbaric terrorist attack” but did not mention Iran. The White House said Obama pledged to provide “whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators.”

The June poll commissioned by the Begin Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University and the Anti-Defamation League found that nearly 70% of Israelis have a positive attitude toward the United States. More than 90% believe that in an existential crisis or “moment of truth,” the United States would come to Israel’s aid.

Obama is not viewed as favorably. In 2009, 54% of Israelis viewed him positively, compared with 32% in June.

Some Israelis said they want an assurance that the United States would support Israel if it attacked Iran’s nuclear capability to end the bomb threat.

Just 19% of Israelis support a military strike without U.S. support, according to a poll conducted by the Washington-based Brookings Saban Center in February.

Forty-two percent favor an attack if the United States is on board.

Counting on sanctions

Israeli military analyst Yaakov Katz, co-author of Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War, says the polls show Israelis are “skeptical” about Obama’s determination to take military action to stop Iran.

Simon Knopf, 50, an American-born physician’s assistant who moved to Israel five years ago, said Iran doesn’t worry him.

Cradling his 5-year-old son, Avichai, in his lap, Knopf said, “I think the economic sanctions are taking their toll on the Iranian people and eventually they’ll rise up against their leaders. The regime is strong, but it’s only a matter of time until it’s toppled.”

Watching her two little boys running around a play area, Arij Mohammed, a 25-year-old mother dressed in jeans and a colorful Islamic head scarf, admitted she fears Iran.

“I’m not an Israeli citizen, but I live here, and I worry about my family. My only concern is to keep them safe,” said Mohammed, a resident of East Jerusalem.

Regardless of which U.S. presidential candidate wins in November, Israel will do “what if feels is in its own interest, even if it goes against American policy,” Katz said.

Michael Segall, senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said he believes the Iranians are taking advantage of the run-up to the U.S. election and making provocative moves such as conducting missile tests in international shipping waters off the Strait of Hormuz.

“They know Obama is limited in what he can do militarily, for political reasons, so they’re mocking the U.S.,” Segall said.