WarSclerotic

Iranian officers reshape Assad’s Shabbiha militia into a second al-Qods.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 26, 2012, 6:47 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iranian Al Qods Brigades Special Forces

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has leapt into the Syrian battle arena, undertaking the task of transforming the Alawite Shabbiha militia, which has carried the brunt of Bashar Assad’s brutal suppression of the Syrian opposition for 18 months, into a new corps, retrained and reorganized on the model of the elite Al Qods Brigade.
Al Qods is the IRGC’s arm of clandestine and terrorist operations in Iran’s foreign arenas.

debkafile’s military sources report exclusively that when the Shabbiha is slapped into its new military shape, Bashar Assad will have at his disposal an extra 50-60,000 professional Alawite soldiers under arms – the nucleus of a Syrian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Our sources also reveal that Tehran has promised the Syrian outfit weaponry on a par with the Al Qods arsenal. So, unless he is overthrown in the interim, the Syrian ruler and Iranian government will command the biggest special operations force in the Middle East.
For this project, a massive Iranian airlift of personnel and weapons is running daily from IRGC air bases in Iran into Syria. Most of the planes land at Damascus military airfield; some in other parts of Syria. They are carrying large numbers of IRGC and al Qods military officers and instructors, as well as enough arms to distribute to the Shabbiha combatants during their training and after they go out on field operations.

Our military sources disclose that by mid-week, the number of Iranian military personnel present in Syria had swelled to 2,200. They arrived with the commander of Tehran’s Syrian enterprise, Gen. Ibrahim Hamadani, one of the deputies of Al Qods chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

His Syrian opposite number is Izzat Hassan, head of the Shabbiha.
All US efforts, including personal intercession by President Barack Obama, have failed to dissuade Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from allowing the Iranian military air corridor to Syria take a short cut through Iraqi air space. Maliki has refused to listen.

Tehran’s willingness in these tense times to hazard the withdrawal of thousands of crack officers, commanders and weapons from combat duty in Iran attests to two conclusions reached by Iranian strategists:
1.  They estimate that the United States and Israel have shelved plans for an imminent military strike on Iran’s nuclear program.

2.  And if a surprise attack is nonetheless launched, thousands of Iranian elite troops will be on hand to menace Israel from the Syrian border without delay.

Ahmadinejad tells UN ‘uncivilized Zionists’ continue to threaten Iran – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

A day after President Obama said the U.S. will ‘do what it must’ to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad calls for a new world order based on ‘cooperation and harmony.’

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during the 67th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, September 26, 2012. Photo by Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the podium on Wednesday at the UN General Assembly in New York, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States will “do what it must” to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Ahmadinejad said that “arms race and intimidation by nuclear weapons and weapons of mass-‘destruction by the hegemonic powers have become prevalent,” and that “continued threat by the uncivilized Zionists toresort to military action against our great nation is a clear example of this bitter reality.”

As the Iranian president spoke, protesters took to the streets outside the UN building, many of them Iranian-Americans, demanding Iran’s UN seat be taken away from the Islamic Republic.

This is a developing story.

On Monday, Ahmadinejad said Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be “eliminated.” The White House dismissed his comments as “disgusting.

Without naming Ahmadinejad, Obama took a veiled swipe at him on Tuesday, saying the world must “leave behind” those who deny the Holocaust or reject Israel’s right to exist.

Seeking to step up pressure on Iran, Obama told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that there is still time for a diplomacy but that “time is not unlimited.”
His tough talk appeared aimed at easing Israeli concerns about U.S. resolve to curb Tehran’s nuclear drive, as he reasserted before the world body that he would never let Iran develop an atomic bomb and then simply contain the problem.

But he stopped short of meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand to set a specific “red line” that Iran must not cross if it is to avoid military action, and did not go much farther in his rhetoric than previously.

“A nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained,” he said. “It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations and the stability of the global economy.”

“The United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

In an apparent allusion to recent comments by U.S., Israeli and Iranian officials, Ban opened the annual UN General Assembly by warning states against threatening to attack one another and sounded a pessimistic note about Arab-Israeli peace.

“I also reject both the language of delegitimization and threats of potential military action by one state against another,” Ban said. “Any such attacks would be devastating.”

U.S. officials have repeatedly said that all options are on the table against Iran – code for a possible military strike – while Israel’s Netanyahu has called for a U.S. ultimatum to Iran. But Obama did not repeat that line in his speech.