WarSclerotic

Terrorists were more than a kilometer inside Israel, speeding toward kibbutz, when air force blew up their armored vehicle | The Times of Israel.

Gunmen, who were wearing suicide bomb belts and planned to attack local civilians, burst through the border despite initial IDF fire

Benjamin Netanyahu, next to burned out APC, and Ehud Barak, far right, at Kerem Shalom on Monday. (photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90)

The terrorists who smashed into Israel at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Sunday night managed to drive about a mile into Israel, and were traveling at 70 kilometers an hour along the road toward Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, before the Israeli Air Force was able to get a clear shot and blow up their armored vehicle without risk to civilian traffic on the road or nearby.

That was one of the findings of the IDF’s initial investigation into what officials said Monday was a very carefully planned and complex terror attack.

The Shin Bet intelligence service on Friday gave the army a general warning of the danger of an attack at the Kerem Shalom crossing, two days before the terror cell — apparently comprised of Bedouin and other gunmen from the Sinai Peninsula, with close links to and possible participation of Gaza-based terrorists — launched the attack that left 16 Egyptian soldiers dead and penetrated the Israeli border.

GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Tal Russo visited the Kerem Shalom crossing a few hours before the attack, and ordered a guard tower next to the crossing to be closed as troops braced for the terrorists to make their move. Residents of the area, including Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, were ordered to stay in their homes, with doors locked and lights off.

Initial army investigations of the incident described a coordinated defensive response to the attempted terrorist attack involving the IDF’s ground, armored, and air forces.

Troops stationed at Kerem Shalom border crossing heard gunfire as the terrorists attacked the Egyptian border police position and then  discerned the armored vehicle, commandeered from the base, and a truck approaching the border from a distance of two kilometers.

Bedouin reconnaissance unit troops stationed on the border were the first to engage the vehicles after the armored vehicle began bypassing concrete barriers situated along the road. The soldiers fired on the armored vehicle but failed to hinder its approach to the Kerem Shalom crossing.

An additional army force started firing on the armored vehicle with heavier weaponry. Simultaneously, the truck crashed into a guard tower, detonating half a ton of explosive material.

IDF tanks closed in on the armored vehicle, but the terrorists commandeering the vehicle accelerated away. At that point the IDF decided to bomb the hijacked armored vehicle from the air — marking the first time that an IAF aircraft fired on a target inside Israel. The IAF had to wait until the road was clear of civilian traffic.

One of the tanks fired an additional two rounds at the armored vehicle, blowing it up.

The IDF on Monday transferred the bodies of the eight terrorists killed inside Israeli territory and the wreckage of the armored vehicle to Egyptian authorities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday visited the site of the attack, which Netanyahu said proved that only Israeli security can protect the country’s citizens.

“I think it’s clear that Israel and Egypt have a common interest in keeping the border quiet,” said Netanyahu. “Having said that, it becomes clear time after time that when it comes to the safety of Israeli citizens, Israel must and can rely only on itself. No one can fulfill this role except the IDF and different Israel security forces of Israel and we will continue to conduct ourselves like that.”

Barak noted the eight terrorists killed by Israeli forces were armed with suicide belts and could have wreaked terrible harm inside Israel.

“Once again it was proven here how acute intelligence, a quick response, and operational capabilities, can make all the difference,” he said. “I appreciate that this will not be the last time that we come across attempts to harm us. … I hope that we will have many more successes of this type, but we must also stay vigilant for the opposite.”

Iran to host its own regional summit on Syria violence – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Islamic Republic will invite countries with ‘realistic stances’ on Syria in order to find ‘way out of current crisis;’ Iranian currency sinks 5 percent in trading against U.S. dollar.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2nd R) review the guard of honour in Damascus January 19, 2006. P

By The Associated Press and Reuters

Aug.06,2012 | 4:48 PM | 2

Iran plans to host a meeting of regional and other countries that have “realistic stances” on Syria later this week to find ways to resolve the country’s crisis, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

“A consultation meeting on Syria will be held in Tehran on Thursday with the participation of those countries who have realistic stances on this country,” IRNA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as saying on Monday.

The aim of the meeting is to find “ways out of the current crisis, the return of stability and calm to that country and also supporting all constructive regional and international efforts,” Abdollahian said.

The report did not say which countries were invited to the meeting but, because of their involvement in the Syrian crisis, any meeting held without Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey is unlikely to have any significant result.

Shi’ite Muslim Iran has steadfastly supported Syrian President Bashar Assad in his struggle to crush the 17-month-old rebellion against his rule, although it had backed other popular uprisings which removed leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Iranian leaders have accused the West of plotting with Arab countries to overthrow the Syrian leadership and bolster the status of Israel in the region by backing extremist militant groups.

Last month, Iran said it was ready to host talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups, an offer rejected by members of the Syrian opposition.

Iranian currency sinks

Meanwhile, Iran’s rial sank about 5 percent in trading against the U.S. dollar on Monday after the central bank said it would change the currency’s official exchange rate, prompting fears of another devaluation.

The rial was trading in the free market at around 21,510 per dollar, according to Persian-language currency tracking website Mazanex, down from about 20,440 on Sunday.

Central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani said on Sunday he would announce a change to the government’s “reference rate” of 12,260 rials to the dollar “within the next 10 days”, Iranian media reported.

Iranian media speculated that the new reference rate might be between 15,000 and 16,000 rials.

Most Iranians are unable to obtain dollars at the official rate and must instead use the free market, which is much more expensive.

The drop in currency comes days after the Washington Post reported that the chief commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard said that the biggest threat to his country is a “soft war” launched by enemies to force the Islamic Republic to give up its nuclear program.

In comments posted on the Guard’s website, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran is in a “sensitive and fateful period” in its history. He did not define the term “soft war,” but it likely implies non-military measures like economic sanctions, espionage and attacks on computer networks.

Stuxnet And Flame Scare Iranian Critical Infrastructure Offline | TechWeekEurope UK.

Iran is set to take critical infrastructure offline next month, following highly sophisticated cyber attacks such as those carried out with the Stuxnet and Flame malware.

Reza Taghipour, the country’s telecommunications minister, said “one or two” countries who were hostile to Iran were controlling the Internet, making it untrustworthy, according to the Daily Telegraph.

It is believed the US and Israel have been cooperating on cyber attacks against Iranian infrastructure. Reports suggested they created Stuxnet, which was thought to have set Iran’s nuclear programme back two years, and Flame, which attempted to collect vast amounts of information from those working on the nation’s critical operations.

A ‘national intelligence network’

“The establishment of the national intelligence network will create a situation where the precious intelligence of the country won’t be accessible to these powers,” Taghipour told a conference on Sunday at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University.

Iran is planning on creating a domestic Internet, from which outside forces would be banned. Taghipour believes this intranet-esque system will be up and running within 18 months.

Just last week, Iran denied it became a victim of a virus that forced computers to play the AC/DC’s classic ‘Thunderstruck’, including infected systems helping run its nuclear programme.

The troubled nation has a history of Internet censorship. Reports earlier this year indicated Iran had begun blocking sites using the HTTPS secure protocol, effectively censoring major bank sites, Google, Gmail, Facebook and many other commercial sites.

Earlier this year, Iran sentenced Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian-born web programmer living in Canada until his 2008 arrest, after one of his web programs was used to post pornographic images without his knowledge.

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

IAI moves up Arrow-3 test.

Arie Egozi

6/8/2012

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced Monday that it will soon hold the first full-scale test fire for the Arrow-3 missile.

The test-fire will see the Arrow launched at a target simulating an advanced long-range ballistic missile, similar to advanced projectiles whose interception is more complex.

As previously reported by IsraelDefense, IAI has accelerated the development of the Arrow-3 ballistic missile defense system, partially with the help of US funding.

Arrow-3 is meant to intercept long-range missiles, even those carrying unconventional warheads. Today, two Arrow-2 missile batteries are protecting Israel against ballistic missiles.

The first Arrow-3 test-fire was held in 2011. Arrow-3 batteries are meant to be deployed alongside Arrow-2 batteries, and each will be employed according to a potential threat against Israel.

Can We Still Tell if Iran Decides to Build a Nuclear Bomb? – Micah Zenko – The Atlantic.

The U.S. and Israel may have different “redlines” for when Iran crosses the nuclear threshold.

The most important unanswered question about the heightened U.S.-Israel confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program is whether Iran’s political leadership will decide to pursue a nuclear weapon. The key judgments in the last declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear program found with “high confidence” that “Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” in the fall of 2003, and this conviction remained with “moderate confidence” through mid-2007.

U.S. officials believe that only one person holds the power to decide whether or not to pursue a bomb–meaning to enrich enough uranium to bomb-grade level that can be formed into sphere that could be compressed into a critical mass–the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Testifying before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in late January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated: “Iran’s technical advances, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthen our assessment that Iran is well-capable of producing enough highly-enriched uranium for a weapon if its political leaders, specifically the supreme leader himself, choose to do so.”

Shortly thereafter, Clapper echoed this statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, “That is the intelligence community’s assessment, that that is an option that is still held out by the Iranians. And we believe the decision would be made by the supreme leader himself, and he would base that on a cost-benefit analysis in terms of — I don’t think you want a nuclear weapon at any price.”

One month later, James Risen reported in the New York Times: “American intelligence analysts still believe that the Iranians have not gotten the go-ahead from Ayatollah Khamenei to revive the program. ‘That assessment,’ said one American official, ‘holds up really well.'”

On Monday, however, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak introduced a new observation that upends the previous understanding of this particular redline: “[Israel and the U.S.] both know that Khamenei did not yet ordered, actually, to give a weapon, but that he is determined to deceit and defy the whole world.” When asked, “What does that mean, that the ayatollah has not given the order to build a nuclear bomb?” Barak replied:

“It’s something technical. He did not tell his people start and build it–a weapon–an explodable device. We think that we understand why he does not give this order. He believes that he is penetrated through our intelligence and he strongly feels that if he tries to order, we will know it, we and you and some other intelligence services will know about it and it might end up with a physical action against it.

So he prefers to, first of all, make sure that through redundancy, through an accumulation of more lowly enriched uranium, more medium level enriched uranium and more centrifuges and more sites, better protection, that he can reach a point, which I call the zone of immunity, beyond which Israel might not be technically capable of launching a surgical operation.”

If the United States accepts this logic–that the Supreme Leader would never issue the formal order to pursue a nuclear weapon for fear of foreign detection–then what was once a distinct and identifiable redline for U.S. intelligence no longer exists. In other words, any U.S. or Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear program will target a latent capability that might eventually lead to a weapon protected by Barak’s ill-defined zone of immunity, but not an actual nuclear weapons program.

This is a tremendous shift by Israel over how we would know if Iran decides to pursue the bomb. Before the Obama administration decides to go to war, Congress, journalists, and U.S. citizens could ask the following questions:

1. Are violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, UN Security Council resolutions, and ongoing inadequate cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency sufficient grounds for suspecting that Iran will soon achieve nuclear weapons capability?
2. Does the Obama administration accept Barak’s new principle, contradicting Clapper’s earlier assessment that the supreme leader’s decision is paramount?
3. It is unlikely that Iran would needlessly test a nuclear weapon, since it would not be required to verify that it worked. What sort of credible information will the Obama administration declassify and make public that would justify a preventive attack on Iran?

This article originally appeared at CFR.org, an Atlantic partner site.

via Syrian prime minister defects to Jordan | The Times of Israel.

Three other ministers also leave tottering regime

Riad Hijab (photo credit: CC BY Al Manar TV, Wikipedia)

BEIRUT — Syria’s prime minister reportedly defected to Jordan Monday, the latest and highest-profile in a series of defections from President Bashar Assad’s regime.

An official in Amman reported that Riad Hijab defected to Jordan with his family. Three others ministers reportedly defected with him, as well as several high-ranking army officials.

Hijab released a statement from Jordan saying he had “joined the ranks of the freedom and dignity revolution,” Al-Jazeera reported.

Hijab’s spokesman, Mohammad Otari, said the operation has been planned for months and was designed to strike a blow to Assad’s regime from within.

“This defection has been being planned for more than two months. He was given two options: to either take the office of prime minister or be killed. He had a third option in mind: to plan his own defection in order to direct a blow to the regime from within and today he is declaring his defection,” Otari told Al Jazeera.

Syrian state TV claimed he had been fired.

Hijab is a former agriculture minister and a loyalist in President Bashar Assad’s ruling Baath party. He is the first cabinet minister to defect.

Hijab was appointed as prime minister on June 23. Omar Ghalawanji, Hijab’s deputy prime minister, was named as a temporary replacement.

The announcement came hours after a bomb attack ripped through the third floor of the state TV building in Damascus, causing heavy material damage and light injuries.

A deadly uprising has convulsed Syria for the past 17 months.

Other high profile defection in the last several months include Manaf Tlas, the son of a former defense minister, and a high-ranking intelligence official who fled on Sunday.

The Syrian finance minister apparently tried to flee as well but was caught in the process, Al Arabiya reported.

Syria’s new chemical equation – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The IDF assumed the Syrians would not make ‘first use’ of chemical weapons but would respond with them if Israel attacked Syrian territory with weapons of mass destruction. All that has changed.

By Reuven Pedatzur |

Syria changed its status two weeks ago: The regime in Damascus admitted that it had stockpiles of chemical weapons that were ready to be used. The switchover was done casually, in the shadow of that country’s raging civil war. But it seems it deserves more attention than it has received.

The acknowledgment of the chemical weapons came from Syria’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, who merely wanted to clarify that the regime didn’t plan to slaughter its people using weapons of mass destruction. In this way, he inadvertently revealed his country’s chemical capabilities. Syria will never use chemical weapons or any other nonconventional weapon against its own people, he said at a briefing to journalists. They would only be used against an external attack.

That was how he ended the chemical ambiguity that Syria had adopted since the 1970s; he hinted at the existence of biological weapons and, more importantly, made clear that Syria was sticking to its policy of “first use.”

This clarification is of great importance since it establishes Syria’s intention to use chemical weapons against an attacking army, even if the attack is carried out with conventional weapons. This is a significant innovation. Until now, it was assumed Syria’s chemical weapons would be used only if it was attacked by weapons of mass destruction. Now it turns out that the Syrian army’s plans include a chemical response to any outside aggression.

The Syrians began stockpiling chemical weapons in 1973, shortly before the Yom Kippur War. Since then, they have expanded the program, so their chemical weapons inventory is the most advanced in the Middle East, according to Western assessments. In the 1980s, the Syrians began developing chemical warheads for their ballistic missiles. These can cover every spot in Israel, as we all know.

Syria, like Israel, did not join the 1993 treaty banning the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Syria thus maintained ambiguity regarding its quantity and kinds of chemical weapons; it also maintained ambiguity about its policies.

In developing chemical weapons, the Syrians wanted to create a strategic balance against Israel’s nuclear weapons. They developed the weapons as weapons of deterrence, not use. Even during the greatest wartime crises, presidents Hafez and Bashar Assad did not use their chemical weapons. They did not use them in the Yom Kippur War when the Israel Defense Forces approached Damascus, during the first Lebanon war when the Syrian army was routed in the Bekaa Valley, or when the Israel Air Force – according to foreign reports – attacked their nuclear reactor in 2007.

Indeed, the IDF viewed Syria’s chemical weapons as a component in the deterrence between the two countries. The IDF’s working assumption was that the Syrians would not make “first use” of chemical weapons but would respond with them if Israel attacked Syrian territory with weapons of mass destruction. All that has changed. The Syrians apparently have changed the rules of the game and the deterrence equation.

It’s very possible that this has happened because of the pressure on the regime; it’s in danger of being deposed. But that doesn’t matter. The IDF must take into account that the Syrian army could use chemical weapons in response to an attack on Syrian territory – yet another good reason not to interfere in the events across the border.

Israel’s envoy to U.S. blames Iran for Sinai attack, but evidence is lackingIsrael News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

On his Twitter and Facebook accounts, Michael Oren points his finger at Islamic Republic, even though Ehud Barak attributed the attack to an Al-Qaida affiliate.

By Barak Ravid

Israel’s ambassador to the U.S Michael Oren, who is no stranger to gaffes, provided yet another strange headline on Sunday. Only hours after the attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing, before the fog of war had time to dissipate, the ambassador announced on his Twitter account that Iran was behind the assault.

“Iranian backed terrorists again struck at our Southern border today killing 15 Egyptian guards and attempting to massacre Israeli civilians,” Oren wrote in a Twitter post. On his Facebook page he wrote that “terrorists also shelled Israeli farms and towns along the border… the thwarted attack underscores the length to which the extremist regime in Iran will attempt to kill innocent Israelis.”

It is unclear what prompted Oren to release these statements, as it is clear he was in no possession of evidence linking Iran to the attack. Just how unfounded these allegations are was further underscored by a briefing given Monday morning by Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In the briefing, Barak said the insurgents were operatives in an organization affiliated with Al-Qaida, “apparently some kind of global Jihad, with unclear connections.”

Oren’s gaffe brings to mind a statement made last month by his boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – shortly after the terror attack in Burgas, Bulgaria. While it was still unclear whether the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber or caused by hidden explosives, Netanyahu wasted no time in pointing a finger at Iran. A day later Netanyahu corrected himself, saying Hezbollah was behind the attack. It is worth noting, however, that two weeks after the Bulgaria attack, Israeli, Bulgarian and U.S. officials are still searching for a lead on the identity of the perpetrator.

Like Netanyahu, Oren’s statements on Twitter and Facebook are part of an Israeli propaganda campaign aimed at smearing Iran’s image. Yet like everything in life – it is all about dosage. Sometimes the urge to galvanize the world against the Iranians can lead to nothing more than baseless exaggerations.

Israel Hayom | Israeli official: US refuses to declare Iran talks have failed.