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Two days after UAV, Patriots posted near Haifa and other parts of N. Israel.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 8, 2012, 4:32 PM (GMT+02:00)

Anti-missile Patriots posted in N. Israel

Two days after an Iranian pilotless helicopter breached Israeli air space, Israel Monday, Oct. 8, stationed Patriot missile interceptor batteries in different parts of northern Israel, including Mt. Carmel, near Haifa, in what one Israeli official called a routine step.  debkafile’s military sources disclose that the Patriot, which has extremely high interception capabilities, was in fact rushed into position as the country celebrated Simhat Torah, lest Iran or Hizballah plan a follow-up aerial intrusion and in view of the current deterioration in Syria which Turkish President Abdullah Gulf called Monday “the worst case scenario.” These batteries are only normally deployed during joint US-Israeli drills or in times of eve-of-war tension.
The IDF is clearly acting fast to correct the air defense weaknesses which permitted the UAV Saturday, Oct. 6, to fly undetected from north to south along Israel’s Mediterranean coastline over its gas and oil rigs and close to its Haifa Bay industrial center, power stations and Navy bases in Haifa and Ashdod. Most worrying was the Iranian drone’s flight over IDF’s sensitive the Palmachim rocket launch site not far from the Nahal Soreq nuclear research reactor, without triggering any early warning tracking systems.
In all, Israel’s air and missile defense systems failed to respond to incoming aerial threats from the north – Syria or Lebanon – and the West – the Mediterranean.

After the incident, a high-ranking Iranian commander, Jamaluddin Aberoumand, deputy coordinator of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the incursion exposed the weakness of Israeli air defenses. He told the Fars news agency, that it indicated Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense system “does not work and lacks the necessary capacity.”

This was taken by the Israeli army command as pointing to more Iranian and Hizballah aerial intrusions in the works.
Israeli military researchers, investigating the incident have, according to debkafile’s intelligence sources, found fragments of the downed Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle had been made out of a certain type of fiberglass which is absorbent to radar beams. This explains why it was not detected by Israeli air defense radar.
This alerted the investigators to the possibility that Iranian engineers were able to reverse-engineer the stealth and radar-repellent elements embodied in the secret US RQ-170 drone they captured on Dec. 13, 2011, and incorporate them in the UAV which breached Israeli air space.
Iran then claimed its cyber war experts had downed the US RQ-170 intruding over its territory and recovered it complete with all its systems intact. The Americans still claim the secret drone came down in Iran when a technical fault forced it off course after taking off from Kandahar in S. Afghanistan.
Whatever happened then, Iran managed to commandeer the most secret American drone, a huge prize, together with its highly sophisticated electronic systems. The incident Saturday showed that the IDF had not taken into account that, in the interim ten months, Iran had learned how to use the stolen American RQ-170 stealth and counter-radar capabilities to upgrade unmanned aircraft of its own.
Indeed, on Sept. 17, a Revolutionary Guards general Seyed Mohsen Kazzemeini boasted that Iran had built a number of stealth aircraft from the seized American RQ-170.

News from The Associated Press.

VIENNA (AP) — Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear bomb within two to four months but would still face serious “engineering challenges” – and much longer delays – before it succeeds in making the other components needed for a functioning warhead, a respected U.S. think tank said Monday.

While Iran denies any interest in possessing nuclear arms, the international community fears it may turn its peaceful uranium enrichment program toward weapons making – a concern that is growing as Tehran expands the number of machines it uses to enrich its stockpile of enriched uranium. As those fears grow, so does concern that Israel could carry out its threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before that nation reaches the bomb-making threshold.

In a strident call for an internationally drawn “red line” on what he said is Iran’s move toward nuclear arms, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sept. 28 that the world has until next summer at the latest to stop Tehran before it can build an atomic bomb. Flashing a diagram of a cartoon-like bomb before the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu said Iran is ready to move to the “final stage” of making such a weapon by then.

For now, U.S. military and intelligence officials say they don’t believe Iran’s leadership has made the decision to build a bomb, while also warning that the country is moving closer to the ability to do so.

The Institute for Science and International Security did not make a judgment on whether Iran plans to turn its enrichment capabilities toward weapons making. But in its report made available to The Associated Press ahead of publication Monday, it drew a clear distinction between Tehran’s ability to make the fissile core of a warhead by producing 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium from its lower enriched stockpiles and the warhead itself.

“Despite work it may have done in the past,” Iran would need “many additional months to manufacture a nuclear device suitable for underground testing and even longer to make a reliable warhead for a ballistic missile,” the report said.

Beside its payload of weapons grade uranium, a nuclear warhead also needs to have a complicated trigger mechanism that sets off a chain reaction in the weapons grade uranium – the fissile core of such a weapon – resulting in the high-power blast and widespread radiation characteristic of such weapons. While the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran may have worked secretly on testing such a nuclear trigger, Iran vehemently denies any nuclear weapons experiments.

Additionally, ISIS – which often advises Congress and other branches of U.S. government on Iran’s nuclear program – said any attempt to “break out” into weapons-grade uranium enrichment would be quickly detected by the United States and the IAEA, which monitors Tehran’s known enrichment sites. With Washington likely to “respond forcefully to any “break-out” attempt, Iran is unlikely to take such a risk “during the next year or so,” said the report.

Still, the report suggested a narrowing window as Iran positions itself to increase enrichment.

Iran now has more than 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main plant at Natanz, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Tehran, making low-level material. Additionally it has about 800 machines turning out 20 percent enriched uranium at Fordo, a bunkered structure fortified against an air attack near the holy city of Qom, as well as about 2,000 more installed but not yet running.

Uranium enriched to 20 percent can be turned into weapons-grade material much more quickly than low-enriched uranium. If the centrifuges at Fordo, which are now idle, also start operating and are used to make 20 percent material, Iran – using its total enrichment output of low and higher grade uranium – could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a warhead within three or four weeks, said the summary.

Olli Heinonen, who stepped down as the IAEA’s deputy director general in charge of the Iran file in 2010, said the Institute for Science and International Security report contains “good and technically sound estimates.”

He said Fordo will nearly double its production capacity of 20 percent enriched uranium to up to 30 kilograms (more than 60 pounds) a month, if and when all the machines there are operating.

Israel intelligence: Jihadi Attacks from Crumbling Syria :: Gatestone Institute.

by Yaakov Lappin
October 8, 2012 at 4:30 am

Al-Qaeda-inspired terror organizations cannot be deterred. Once Assad falls, the radical elements can raid Syrian military bases, arm themselves with a range of devastating weapons, and turn their sights to the Israeli border.

As Israel’s military watches Syrian sovereignty crumble and scores of militant groups form in the resulting vacuum, it is on alert for jihadi terrorist attacks from Syria.

The working assumption in Israeli defense circles is that sooner or later, Assad will fall, and Israel will have to deal with whatever will replace him.

The topping of Basher Assad will break the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut axis, which has seen Syria act as the critical bridge linking Iran to Hezbollah.

Should Syria’s Sunni-majority succeed in putting together a new government, it will accurately view Iran and Hezbollah as aiders and abettors in the massacres perpetuated against tens of thousands of Sunni civilians who tried to overthrow Assad.

A Sunni Syria will, however, in turn take its place in a new radical Sunni bloc of Middle Eastern states, and link up with the Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt, Hamas in Gaza, and Islamist Turkey.

The new Sunni Islamist bloc will be every bit as hostile to Israel as the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah axis, but also marked, in Syria and Egypt, by instability and power vacuums that will allow Salafi jihadi groups to do as they please.

Whether Syria disintegrates into warring sectarian mini-states, or transforms itself into a Sunni Islamist state, the outlook for regional security is not especially sunny.

An illustration of how edgy the situation is can be found in an incident on the border in recent days: an IDF lookout identified dozens of armed Syrians in civilian clothing approach the Israeli border.

It was not immediately clear who the armed men were – were they rebels engaging the Syrian army (the civil war has gotten so close to the Israeli border that IDF soldiers are saying they can hear mortar shells explode in Syria), or were they militant Islamist forces testing the IDF’s response?

Taking no chances, the IDF evacuated the top of the popular Mount Hermon area, which, during the Jewish holiday season, is usually brimming with visitors.

Although the incident has passed, the danger has not; and the IDF’s Military Intelligence has predicted that an attempted attack on an Israeli target from one of the growing number of radical forces operating in Syria is only a matter of time.

Combat forces stationed in the IDF’s Northern Command, including infantry and armored divisions, have therefore been working closely with Military Intelligence to prepare for a rapidly changing environment.

Military Intelligence has been briefing commanders of Israeli armored vehicle brigades in the north on the new threats.

Gone are the days when the threat was primarily the centralized, hierarchical, Syrian army. Now, the threats are irregular terror militias armed with explosives, shoulder-held grenade launchers, roadside bombs, anti-tank missiles, and a range of firearms.

Once the intelligence is received, commanders on the ground must use the new information to create new contingency plans and new deployment patterns.

As the recent escalation between Turkey and Syria has demonstrated, the IDF must also continue to worry about the possibility of a confrontation with regular Syrian forces,.

With the Assad regime feeling its back to the wall, there is no way to know how the situation might proceed: decisions that now seem self-destructive from Syria’s perspective, such as creating provocations with neighbors, or even a misfired shell (as with Turkey), could set off a chain of unpredictable events.

Similarly, suspicious movement of Syria’s chemical weapons will spark a crisis.

To ensure that it can quickly mobilize its Artillery Corps to the Syrian front, the IDF held a surprise and vast live-fire exercise on the Golan Heights in recent weeks. During the drill, Artillery Corps soldiers were, without warning, airlifted from their routine security missions in the West Bank to the Golan Heights, where they assumed their positions and began firing at virtual targets.

The IDF is satisfied with the result of the drill: it proved to itself that it can quickly mobilize its heavy firepower and begin to shell targets at a moment’s notice.

Standing Arab armies were a bigger threat to Israel’s security, but because they were controlled by central governments, Israeli deterrence against that threat proved effective for decades.

Although the same deterrence is now in effect against terror organizations which have seized territory and power – Hamas and Hezbollah – the al-Qaeda-inspired terror organizations cannot be deterred. Once Assad falls, the radical elements can raid Syrian military bases, arm themselves with a range of devastating weapons, and turn their sights to the Israeli border.

So the Arab winter continues to take shape.

Israeli air, missile, artillery pound Gaza after massive Palestinian barrage.

DEBKAfile Special Report October 8, 2012, 10:21 AM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli warplanes, self-propelled artillery and short-range missiles attacked Hamas and Jihad Islami positions and command posts in the Gaza Strip early Monday, Oct. 8, shortly after Palestinians loosed a barrage of 55 missiles and mortar shells on the Eshkol district.

Both terrorist organizations claimed they were responsible for the barrage, which caused no casualties only heavy damage to property. As of now, Palestinian fire continues.
Casualties from the Israeli reprisal are reported in the Gaza Strip.

debkafile: Israel’s response was major because for the first time the two dominant organizations in Gaza, the radical Hamas and Iran-sponsored Jihad Islami, assumed responsibility for avenging an an Israeli attack on radical Salafist terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda. This attests to the comprehensive ties of operational collaboration forged between the diverse terrorist organizations fighting Israel from the Gaza Strip.
Sunday, Oct. 7, a targeted Israeli air strike critically injured two motorcyclists, members of al Qaeda-linked groups in the Rafah district of southern Gaza. Palestinian sources reported 11 people injured including five children.
Israel also suspects that the pilotless helicopter sent by Iran to breach Israeli air space Saturday, Oct. 6, which flew in from the Mediterranean over the Gaza Strip, was jointly orchestrated by Tehran, Hizballah and Hamas as part of a war exercise Hamas conducted in the Gaza Strip on that day.