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Archive for October 15, 2012

‘MiniFlame’ virus uncovered

October 15, 2012

EU okays fresh Iran sanctions; new version of Flame virus uncovered – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Kaspersky Lab, which revealed virus that is reportedly part of US-Israeli effort to slow Iran’s nuclear drive, says ‘miniFlame’ designed to steal data, control infected systems; EU governments agree on further sanctions against Iran’s banking, shipping and industrial sectors

News agencies

Published:

10.15.12, 19:07 / Israel News

A new cyberespionage tool linked to the Flame virus has been infecting computers in Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere, security researchers said Monday.

Kaspersky Lab, which was credited with revealing the Flamevirus earlier this year, dubbed the new malware “miniFlame,” and said it was “a small and highly flexible malicious program designed to steal data and control infected systems during targeted cyber espionage operations.”

Russian-based Kaspersky said miniFlame “is based on the same architectural platform as Flame,” widely reported to be part of a US-Israeli effort to slow Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons drive.

The smaller version “can function as its own independent cyber espionage program or as a component” inside Flame and related malware.

Unlike Flame, which is designed for “massive spy operations,” miniFlame is “a high precision, surgical attack tool,” according to Alexander Gostev at Kaspersky Lab.

“Most likely it is a targeted cyberweapon used in what can be defined as the second wave of a cyberattack.”

Kaspersky Lab data indicates the total number of infections worldwide is just 50 to 60, including computers in Lebanon, France, the United States, Iran and Lithuania.

MiniFlame operates “as a backdoor designed for data theft and direct access to infected systems,” according to Kaspersky, which said development of the malware might have started as early as 2007 and continued until the end of 2011, with several variations.

“We believe that the developers of miniFlame created dozens of different modifications of the program,” Kaspersky said. “At this time, we have only found six of these, dated 2010-2011.”

Flame previously has been linked to Stuxnet, which attacked computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure.

Most Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there. The worm was crafted to recognize the system it was to attack.

Some reports say US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop the computer worm to sabotage Iran’s efforts to make a nuclear bomb.

Also on Monday, European Union governments agreed on further sanctions against Iran’s banking, shipping and industrial sectors, cranking up financial pressure on Tehran in the hope of drawing it into serious negotiations on its nuclear program.

The decision by EU foreign ministers reflected mounting concerns over Iran’s nuclear intentions and Israeli threats to attack Iranian atomic installations if a mix of sanctions and diplomacy fails to lead to a peaceful solution.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped that turning up the heat on the Islamic Republic would persuade it to make concessions and that negotiations could resume “very soon.”

Talks may resume soon. Ashton (Photo: Reuters)

Talks may resume soon. Ashton (Photo: Reuters)

“I absolutely do think there is room for negotiations,” said Ashton, who represents the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in their on-and-off talks with Iran. “I hope we will be able to make progress very soon.”

The new sanctions mark one of the EU’s toughest moves against Iran to date and a significant change of policy for the 27-member bloc, which has hitherto focused largely on targeting specific people and companies with economic restrictions.

The EU has lagged the United States in imposing blanket industry bans because it is concerned not to punish ordinary Iranian citizens while inflicting pain on the Tehran government.

Iran maintains that its nuclear project has only peaceful energy purposes and has refused in three rounds of talks since April to scale back its uranium enrichment activity unless major economic sanctions are rescinded.

But governments in Europe and the United States, doubting Iran’s preparedness for more than dilatory “talks about talks”, are instead tightening the financial screws on Tehran and fears of a descent into a new Middle East war are growing.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was more pessimistic than Ashton about the prospect that additional economic pain might drive Tehran – whose Islamic Revolution has long thrived on defiance of the West – to make concessions.

“Iran is still playing for time,” he told reporters. “We don’t see a sufficient readiness for substantial talks about the nuclear program.”

AFP, Reuters contributed to the report

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PM: Israel can deal with Iran threat

October 15, 2012

PM: Israel can deal with Iran threat – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Ahead of vote on 18th Knesset’s dissolution, Netanyahu says Israel facing ‘greatest security-related challenges since its inception.’ Peres: Iran regime threatens entire world
Moran Azoulay

“Those who make light of the Iranian nuclear threat on Israel are not worthy of leading Israel for even one day,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the opening of the Knesset’s winter session on Monday.

“Today we have the capabilities to act against Iran and its offshoots; capabilities that we did not possess in the past,” he said.

Later, the House is expected to pass a bill to disband the 18th Knesset, effectively kicking off the election campaign. The proposal currently calls for the date of elections for the 19th Knesset to be January 22, 2013.

The Knessetwas originally scheduled to dissolve in the second half of 2013.

Netanyahu said the next elections will determine who will lead Israel in the face of “the greatest security-related challenges Israel has faced since its inception” and “the most severe economic crisis the world has seen in 80 years.”

The premier went on to list what he referred to as his government’s achievements, saying that when he took office, unemployment was on the rise and Israel was experiencing a slowdown in growth.

Moreover, he said, before he took office, the missile threat from the north was graver and the infiltration of migrants from Egypt had increased.

According to Netanyahu, his government’s policy resulted in improvements in all these fields, and it also helped increase global awareness to the Iranian nuclear threat.

President Shimon Peres, who spoke before Netanyahu, also addressed the Iranian threat. “We are preparing for Iran’s attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon. The current Iranian regime is a clear and present threat to the entire world, not only to Israel,” he told the plenum.

“All options, including the military option, must be on the table, so the Iranians will understand how serious they (options) are,” he said. “The military option is not the preferred one, but in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of Israel it is serious. The Iranian regime’s policy is not just a show. It should be treated as a real threat.”

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, who opened the winter session, said “the truth is that we have gathered here to disband. In the next few hours, the session that has just opened will end. Many Israeli citizens are wondering why. What is the justification for dissolving the Knesset at this time? Some claim the early elections are unnecessary. We should ask ourselves why so many citizens feel this way. Why there is a sense within the Israeli public that every election campaign is a waste of the taxpayers’ money, a political masquerade.

“The Israeli public has grown accustomed to go to the polls due to political reasons; due to political ploys. On too many occasions we have gone to elections for the wrong reasons,” he said.

But the next elections, according to Rivlin, are necessary. “These elections are the inevitable result of a democratic, healthy and vital debate. This Knesset is going to elections because it has failed to decide on cardinal issues related first and foremost to the social-economic debate in the State of Israel,” the speaker told the plenum.

“In this situation, whereby the government does not have any partners that will help it pass the budget, it is the Israeli public that must rule on these fundamental issues by going to the polls.”

Attila Somfalvi contributed to the report

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Don’t risk Israel’s security on Obama’s words

October 15, 2012

Don’t risk Israel’s security on Obama… JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.

By SHELDON G. ADELSON/JNS.ORG

10/14/2012 17:40

Should we take Obama at his word? No, not when Israel confronts the threat of nuclear annihilation by Iran.

Netanyahu and Obama in Washington

Photo: Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO

“Americans who support Israel should take the president at his word,” wrote Haim Saban recently in The New York Times, claiming US President Barack Obama is fully committed to the Jewish state.

But is that true? Should we take him at his word?

No, not when Israel confronts the threat of nuclear annihilation by Iran.

Time and again President Obama has signaled a lack of sympathy—or even outright hostility – toward Israel. Not long ago he was caught on an open microphone agreeing with French President Sarkozy’s slurring of the Israeli prime minister. And then there was his public snubbing of the Israeli leader’s request to discuss Iran during a recent US visit, a measure Reuters termed “a highly unusual rebuff to a close ally.”

Even more worrying, last month former US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley, who attended several of Obama’s meetings with Netanyahu, admitted “there are serious differences between our interests and Israel’s own security interests.”

ALL THIS certainly raises questions about Obama’s sincerity when he publicly says he’ll “always have Israel’s back.”

Nor are these the only times the president has left American voters wondering where he really stands on foreign relations.

Remember, earlier this year, when he was inadvertently recorded asking former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for “space” until his reelection, when he’d have more “flexibility” on missile defense? What did he mean? Obama was clearly not being forthright with the American people.

What else hasn’t he told us?

Think about Obama’s anti-Israel friends and mentors—radicals like Rashid Khalidi, Frank Marshall Davis, Jeremiah Wright, or the late Edward Said, the virulently anti-Israel professor under whom Obama studied. Has he made anti-Israel promises to them? Is Obama’s campaign rhetoric in support of Israel only creating “space” till after the election?

These questions cause genuine worry in Israel.

Even some liberals now complain the president has lost so much Israeli trust that, in the words of Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, “there is almost no chance of progress [for peace] if Obama wins re-election.”

Given that Obama’s public expressions are not something Israelis can rely upon, we need to take seriously the question: What are his second term plans when he no longer needs the Jewish vote?

Obama’s supporters tell us there’s nothing to worry about. He can be trusted, they say, because of his record of military aid to Israel and his support for sanctions against Iran.

But the aid was committed in programs that began decades before his presidency under previous administrations. He cannot rightly take credit for this aid in the sense of initiating it, just as he cannot take credit for merely signing pro-Israel legislation that had bipartisan congressional support.

Moreover, Obama’s campaign never mentions that in the past few years his budgets have proposed significant cuts in US-Israel missile defense funds—from $121.7mil to $99.8mil, a substantial slash. And just ask Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak or Poland’s Lech Walesa about Obama’s reliability because of past military aid.

Even worse, the Iranian sanctions contain loopholes that, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “you could drive a warhead through.” All 20 of Iran’s major trading partners enjoy sanction exemptions. They won’t stop Iran’s nuclear program.

LET’S ALSO not forget, when Obama took office, he admitted his administration sought to put “daylight” between America and Israel. He lectured that the Jewish state needed “to engage in serious self-reflection” about peace—as if tiny Israel has not spent decades pursuing peace with its belligerent neighbors. And unbelievably, in his 2009 address to the Muslim world, he implied a moral equivalence between the Holocaust and Palestinian dislocation.

With a second term the president won’t have fears of electoral accountability and will act upon his true feelings toward Israel.

This is worrying—especially at a time when the Jewish state as well as Americans sorely need a president whose words and policies they can rely on.
Not since 1967 has Israel’s safety been more precarious. Iran is now racing for a nuclear bomb while bragging they only need “24 hours and an excuse” to destroy the Jewish state. Egypt is lost to the Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth in Lebanon. Turkey’s government is more foe than friend. The Gulf States use enormous petroleum wealth to fund global anti-Israel propaganda. The “Arab Spring” continues to usher extremists into power. And Hamas rules Gaza.

All the while, the United Nations never misses a chance to denounce the Jewish state; Western universities support boycotts of Israel; and a sizable portion of the Democratic Party protests the inclusion of Jerusalem in their party platform. The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, can’t even name Israel’s capital.

In these times of unrest and violence, it is necessary to elect a commander-in-chief whose words we can trust. Mitt Romney, to my mind, is a much safer choice. Unlike Obama, he not only understands Israel’s predicament, he actually likes the country.

To be sure, no one should argue that Jews must support Romney just because he is more reliable on Israel. But neither should they dismiss him because they don’t agree with his every position. When the Jewish homeland is at stake, we must not let ourselves be fooled by Obama’s oration skills. Nor can we afford to ignore his troubling track record on Israel.

Those who support Obama are asking the rest of us to trust a president who has yet to recognize Israel’s ancient capital, a promise he made in the last election.

So keep in mind Obama’s open microphone comments next time someone says you must take the president at his word. And ask yourself: Should we risk Israel’s security on his campaign rhetoric?

For Obama, the issue is only political; for Israel, it’s existential—a matter of survival.

The writer is an internationally renowned entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the world’s leading private donor to Jewish education, the Birthright Israel program, and Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.This op-ed was written exclusively for JNS.org.

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The Region: Empowering the Middle East’s radicals

October 15, 2012

The Region: Empowering the Middle… JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

10/14/2012 21:38

There are two problems with US policy toward the Middle East: both the analysis and response aren’t just wrong, they make things much worse.

People protest in Tahrir Square [file]

Photo: REUTERS

There are two problems with US policy toward the Middle East: both the analysis and response aren’t just wrong, they make things much worse.

The White House has supported the anti-Semitic, anti-American Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria; insisted the Brotherhood is moderate; gave untrained, unreliable Libyans control over the US ambassador’s security leading to his death; denied revolutionary Islamists attacked the US embassy and ambassador in Libya for reasons having nothing to do with a California video; apologized for the video in a way that escalated the crisis elsewhere; wrongly claimed al-Qaida is finished, etc.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration responds with a democracy- will-solve-everything approach which the same people ridiculed when President George W. Bush advocated it. The errors are deepened in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s latest defense of these wrong-headed policies in a speech given at my first employers, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Her argument is that the United States should ignore violence and extremism and help build democracies.

The problem is that most of the violence and extremism comes from forces that the Obama administration supports or groups basically allied with those forces.

Everything she says lays a basis for disaster:

The US government must not be deterred by “the violent acts of a small number of extremists.”
The problem is not a “small number” of extremists – implying al-Qaida – but a large number of them. Extremists now rule in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Tunisia, and – despite camouflage – Turkey. They may soon be running Syria.
More than a decade after September 11, the Obama administration is fighting the last war – the battle against al-Qaida – rather than recognizing that a small group committing periodic terrorist acts is less important than a huge organization taking over entire countries.
“We recognize that these transitions are not America’s to manage, and certainly not ours to win or lose.”
Of course the United States doesn’t manage these transitions, but does – or can – have influence. In Egypt, the Obama administration used its influence to push the military out of power and encourage the Brotherhood. In Syria, it backed management by the pro- Brotherhood Turkish regime and the choice of a Brotherhood-dominated exile leadership. In Bahrain, if not stopped by the State Department it would have helped bring to power a new regime likely to have been an Iranian satellite.
“But we have to stand with those who are working every day to strengthen democratic institutions, defend universal rights, and drive inclusive economic growth. That will produce more capable partners and more durable security over the long term.”
Yet the Obama administration has definitely not stood with those people! It has not channeled arms to moderates in Syria, but rather to the Brotherhood, and tolerated Saudi Arabia supplying arms to Salafis. It has done nothing to protect the rights of women or Christians.
Moderates in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt – as well as Turkey and Iran – know the Obama administration has not helped them.
“We will never prevent every act of violence or terrorism, or achieve perfect security. Our people cannot live in bunkers and do their jobs.”
Yes, perfection is hard. But what does that have to do with sending the ambassador to Libya into a lawless city with no protection? And of course you can’t achieve even minimal security if you refuse to recognize where unrest and anti-American hatred originate.
For example, the Egyptian government knew that there would be a demonstration outside the US embassy in Cairo and must have known the demonstrators would storm the compound. Their security forces did nothing to protect the embassy. Why? Because they want to stir up anti-Americanism and use it to entrench themselves in power, even as the Obama administration praises the Brotherhood’s regime and sends lots of money.
“For the United States, supporting democratic transitions is not a matter of idealism. It is a strategic necessity.” This is absurd. Are “democratic” regimes always better for American strategic concerns than dictatorships? That’s untrue in Egypt and many other countries in the past half-century.
Clinton said there has been a backlash against extremist groups in Libya and Tunisia. But the backlash is by frightened people who fear, with good reason, that the extremists are winning.
“We stand with the Egyptian people in their quest for universal freedoms and protections…. Egypt’s international standing does depend both on peaceful relations with its neighbors and also on the choices it makes at home and whether or not it fulfills its own promises to its own people.”
In fact, Egypt’s people voted – 75 percent in parliamentary elections and about 53 percent in presidential balloting – for those opposing universal freedoms and protections.
And if Obama won’t get tough, the Brotherhood regime knows it can repress people at home and let terrorists stage cross-border attacks against Israel without concern for its international standing.
“We have, as always, to be clear-eyed about the threat of violent extremism. A year of democratic transition was never going to drain away reservoirs of radicalism built up through decades of dictatorship.”
Drain away? This year has empowered radicals! An Obama administration so far from reality subverts US interests and makes the Middle East a far more tragic and dangerous place.
They are doubling down on their errors and will no doubt continue to do so if they have four more years to continue making costly mistakes.

The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center is at www.gloria-center.org.

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Israeli expats returning home in record numbers

October 15, 2012

Israeli expats returning home in record … JPost – National News..

By DANIELLE ZIRI

10/15/2012 18:42

Ministry of Immigrant Absorption campaign brings back 22,470 Israelis living abroad in 2.5 years; most from US, Canada.

El Al airplanes sit on the runway

Photo: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters

A record number of 22,470 Israelis who were living abroad returned to Israel in the past two and a half years, according to a report by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption released on Monday.

The Ministry had initiated a campaign to bring back Israeli citizens living abroad in May 2010. Up until then, the number of returning Israelis was less significant: in the early 2000s, about 4000 Israelis returned each year. The amount started growing since 2008 and reached a peak in 2010 when it neighbored 11,000 returning citizens.

“These citizens are very important for the state of Israel,” explained Elad Sivan, spokesman for the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption. “For every shekel we invest in a returning immigrant, we get about 52 shekels back. Basically, no matter how much we invest in bringing them back, we only benefit from what they bring to the country with their professions for example,” he added.

“Especially in the present economic situation, every person returning, every scientist returning, every academic returning, every doctor, engineer or also teacher is contributing to the economy of the country,” Sivan said.

According to the report, the vast majority of returnees are between the ages of 31-39 and include about 4837 academics and researchers as well as 2720 technical professionals such as engineers, programmers and high-tech workers but also 681 business managers. Most of the returnees came from the United States followed by Canada, the UK and France. An increasing number of people have moved back from Australia, Romania and Hungary as well.

The 2010-2012 campaign included a package of benefits to encourage the return of residents. Those benefits ranged from tax concessions, incentives for starting new businesses, help to integrate employment to help with national health insurance as well as special benefits for students. Citizens who lived abroad for over five years received all of the benefits. Those who were away for less received part of them.

Isabel Efroni and her family returned to Israel in 2008 after eight years of living in California: “We came back because we missed the family and the country itself. The decision was based on pure Zionism and on trying to keep the Jewish identity, not on economical factors at all,” she said.

Efroni explained the state’s incentives to bring citizens back have nothing to do with her decision to return: “We were offered the benefits the state was giving to returning residents but chose not to take advantage of them because we came back out of Zionism, nothing else. We did get assistance and explanation as to what steps to take and how to make the move, but that was it.”

“Using these financial benefits as a trigger to bring Israelis home is not a healthy trigger in my opinion. Because at the end of the day, whoever feels good in another country will stay there. This trigger is in fact meant for a community that is having financial difficulties in a foreign country and the ministry is using that to bring them back for socioeconomic reasons,” she added, “People who are doing fine abroad and still decided to move back do so out of ideology and not because of the benefits it gives them.”

Last year, the Ministry had ignited controversy when it released a series of television ads targeting Israelis living in the US. One of the clips featured a young Israeli woman trying to commemorate Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars but failing to adequately explain its significance to her partner, who many critics assumed to be an American Jew. The ad’s tagline read: “They will always remember Israel, but their partners might not always understand. Help them to come back.”

After they were criticized by American Jewry, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had decided to pull them off the air.

“The ads did the job,” Sivan said, “they created the buzz around the subject and brought a lot of international attention to the issue of Israelis abroad and a country asking to bring them back.”

Elad Sivan added that the numbers released on Monday do not include those who have started registration for moving back to Israel but haven’t returned yet.

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Obama’s greatest failure

October 15, 2012

Jackson Diehl: How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution – The Washington Post.

By Jackson Diehl, Monday, October 15, 2:00 AM

Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.

The result is not a painful but isolated setback, but an emerging strategic disaster: a war in the heart of the Middle East that is steadily spilling over to vital U.S. allies, such as Turkey and Jordan, and to volatile neighbors, such as Iraq and Lebanon. Al-Qaeda is far more active in Syria than it is in Libya — while more liberal and secular forces are turning against the United States because of its failure to help them. More than 30,000 people — most of them civilians — have been killed, and the toll mounts by the hundreds every day.

Of course, Obama is not solely responsible for this mess. But his serial miscalculations have had the consistent if unintended effect of enabling Syria’s Bashar al-Assad — first to avoid international isolation, then to go on slaughtering his own population with impunity.

Obama’s Syria policy began in 2009 with the misguided idea of reaching out to the dictator. Within a month of his inauguration, Obama reversed the Bush administration’s approach of isolating Assad. He later reopened the U.S. Embassy and dispatched senior envoys, such as George Mitchell.

The problem with this policy was not just the distasteful courting of a rogue regime but the willful disregard of the lessons absorbed by George W. Bush, who also tried reaching out to Assad, only to learn the hard way that he was an irredeemable thug. Yet Obama insisted on reversing Bush’s policy of distancing the United States from strongmen like Assad and Hosni Mubarak — a monumental miscalculation.

When the uprising against Assad began in March of last year, the administration’s first reaction was to predict that he could be induced to coopt it. “Many . . . believe he’s a reformer,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That illusion caused the administration to stand by for months while Assad’s security forces gunned down what were then peaceful pro-democracy marchers; not until August 2011 did Obama say that Assad should “step aside.”

By then Syria was already tipping into civil war. The State Department’s Syria experts recognized the peril: If Assad were not overthrown quickly, they warned in congressional testimony, the country could tip into a devastating sectarian war that would empower jihadists and spread to neighboring countries. But Obama rejected suggestions by several senators that he lead an intervention. Instead he committed a second major error, by adopting a policy of seeking to broker a Syrian solution through the United Nations. “The best thing we can do,” he said last March, “is to unify the international community.”

As countless observers correctly predicted, the subsequent U.N. mission of Kofi Annan was doomed from the beginning. When the White House could no longer deny that reality, it turned to an equally fantastical gambit: Vladimir Putin, it argued, could be persuaded to abandon his support of Assad and force him to step down. The nadir of this diplomacy may have been reached on June 30, when Clinton cheerfully predicted that the Kremlin had “decided to get on one horse, and it’s the horse that would back a transition plan” removing Assad.

Needless to say, Putin did no such thing. The war went on; thousands more died. For the past three months, Obama’s policy has become a negative: He is simply opposed to any use of U.S. power. Fixed on his campaign slogan that “the tide of war is receding” in the Middle East, Obama claims that intervention would only make the conflict worse — and then watches as it spreads to NATO ally Turkey and draws in hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters.

No doubt it’s easier for Romney and the Republicans to talk about the death of an ambassador in a terrorist attack than to ask war-weary Americans to think about this. But it is Syria that is Obama’s greatest failure; it will haunt whomever occupies the Oval Office next year.

diehlj@washpost.com

© The Washington Post Company

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Iran: New Long-Range Drone Can Carry a Bomb

October 15, 2012

Iran: New Long-Range Drone Can Carry a Bomb – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Iran’s Air Defense Base Commander has announced it has built an new unmanned long-range drone (UAV) that can carry a bomb.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 10/15/2012, 12:05 PM

US drones take off from US ship

US drones take off from US ship

Israel news photo: US Navy official photo

Iran’s Air Defense Base Commander has announced it has built an new unmanned long-range drone (UAV) that can carry a bomb.

Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili broke the news one week after Iranian-financed Hizbullah launched a drone that entered Israeli air space before it was blown up by a missile from an F-16 jet.

Esmaili did not state whether the new drone, dubbed Hazem, can reach Israel.

He “noted that the drone will be used in targeting and identification operations, and for carrying cargo whenever needed,” the government’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

The Iranian commander added that Hazem is not designed for carrying missiles but can carry explosives.

Iran, in recent years, has made a number of claims on civilian and military achievements, including the launching of a project to build a nuclear submarine and the supposedly successful test of long-range missiles which allegedly can reach U.S. bases and Israel.

Karrar, Iran’s first indigenous long-range drone, was unveiled in August 2010, and Iran says it is capable of carrying a military payload of rockets, to carry out bombing missions against ground targets and gather information while flying long distances at a very high speed.

“The country’s indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Shahed 129, unveiled in September, 2012, can carry out combat and reconnaissance missions with its 24-hour nonstop flight capability,” according to Fars.

As usual, authorities assured the world that Iran’s “military might poses no threat to other countries’ and that “the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.”

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Israelis in south told to stay close to bomb shelters

October 15, 2012

Israel Hayom | Israelis in south told to stay close to bomb shelters.

Al-Qaida jihadists in Gaza and Sinai vow to avenge Israel’s killing of their chief • Egyptian military on alert for booby-trapped cars approaching security installations • IDF raises alert level near Egypt border area and along major southern highway.

Lilach Shoval, Daniel Siryoti, Ronit Zilberstein, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

An IDF roadblock on Highway 10, along the Egyptian border. As a precaution against a terrorist attack, the army decided to prevent civilians from using the road on Sunday.

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Photo credit: Eliraz Geta

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Israelis living in communities in southern Israel around the Gaza Strip have been told to stay within a 15 second distance of bombs shelters and safe locations due to the possibility that terrorists will launch rockets into Israel.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported on Monday that Egyptian security officials told Ma’an that Cairo has warned its troops based in northern Sinai to be on alert for booby-trapped cars approaching any security installation.

Following Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that killed three terrorists on Saturday and Sunday, including Hisham Saedni, one of the most influential al-Qaida leaders in the Strip, Israeli security forces were already on high alert along the borders with Egypt and Gaza to thwart potential attacks emanating from Sinai.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson confirmed to Israel Hayom that based on intelligence information, the IDF was on high alert along Highway 10, in the area of the Kerem Shalom crossing near the Gaza border. However, no cross-border incidents were reported in the area as of Monday afternoon. Along Israel’s southernmost border with Sinai, near Eilat, the IDF was also on high alert but the army’s counterterrorism unit had not been called to the area.

Since Aug. 2011, when terrorists infiltrated from Sinai along Highway 12 and killed eight Israelis, Israeli forces stationed on the border with Egypt have been on a constant state of alert. There have been a number of incidents along the border since that attack, and several rockets have been fired toward Eilat from Sinai.

In Sinai, where the Egyptian military says it is working to dismantle terrorist infrastructure, armed men seized an Egyptian military vehicle in the northern Sinai city of el-Arish on Sunday. The armed men, riding a pick-up truck, stopped the army car, forced out an officer and a soldier then drove into the desert, according to Ma’an.

In the meantime, residents of Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip endured yet another day of warning sirens on Sunday. At least three Qassam rockets and one mortar were fired at Israel by Palestinian terrorists based in Gaza.

One of the rockets landed inside Palestinian territory, where it exploded upon impact. Two other rockets exploded in open areas in the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no damage to property or injuries.

On Sunday morning Israel’s air force targeted a terrorist cell in southern Gaza that was preparing to launch a rocket into Israel. One Palestinian was killed and another wounded in the airstrike, according to Palestinian hospital officials.

Sunday’s violence came a day after two Global Jihad operatives were killed when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at the motorcycle they were riding on in Jabaliya in northern Gaza.

A statement released by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said that among the victims was Hisham Saedni, 47, from the Barij village in the Gaza Strip, a founder of the “Shura Council of Mujahedin in Jerusalem,” an organization believed to be affiliated with the global al-Qaida terrorist network. The organization is known to have been involved in many terrorist-related incidents against Israeli citizens and soldiers. It has also taken responsibility for a Grad rocket attack on Netivot on Friday night in which a home was damaged.

Saedni and Ashraf al-Sabah, the other person killed, were leaders, respectively, of the Tawhid wa-Jihad and Ansar Al-Sunna groups, two Salafi sources told Reuters. The movements share al-Qaida’s vision of global jihad and opposed the more “pragmatic” Islamism espoused by Hamas and Cairo’s politically dominant Muslim Brotherhood.

“Their blood will be a light to guide the holy warriors through the right path and will be fire that will burn the Jews,” one of the sources told Reuters, saying reprisals would not be limited to the short-range rocket launches that are Gaza terrorists’ favored mode of attack on Israel.

Residents of communities in the western Negev, meanwhile, were becoming increasingly agitated in light of the lack of practical steps being taken to end the rocket fire, while reiterating their ongoing demand to complete the construction of fortified spaces in their homes. Netivot Mayor Yehiel Zohar asked the defense establishment to redeploy the Iron Dome rocket interception system in the area, after a home was damaged Friday night after a rocket exploded in its yard.

“The Global Jihad is stepping up its efforts to target us, and we will continue to interdict it with aggression and might, in terms of both response and pre-emption,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli cabinet in Jerusalem on Sunday.

In a sign of Salafi assertiveness in Gaza, about 500 mourners attended Saedni’s and Sabah’s funerals on Sunday. Some wore the smocks typical of the al-Qaida bastions in Pakistan and Afghanistan but relatively uncommon among Palestinians.

The “council” has been promoting a radical brand of Salafist jihadism for years, and Saedni was incarcerated for a prolonged period by Hamas authorities due to his activities as a member of Islamic Jihad. Since his release from a Hamas prison in August, Hamas has reportedly been planning a multipronged attack on Israel from the Sinai Peninsula with the help of Gaza Strip- and Sinai-based operatives.

In addition to the attack on Friday, the IAF also struck two terrorist targets in the central Gaza Strip in response to the Grad attack on Netivot.

An IDF spokesman said, “The IDF will not tolerate any attack on Israeli citizens and soldiers and will continue to operate with resolve and force against anyone who conducts terrorist activities against Israel. The Hamas organization is the address and they are responsible.”

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Iranians Planning to Create Environmental Catastrophe in Hormuz Strait – SPIEGEL ONLINE

October 15, 2012

Iranians Planning to Create Environmental Catastrophe in Hormuz Strait – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

By Erich Follath

Oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

AP

Oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran could be planning to create a vast oil spill in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a top secret report obtained by Western intelligence officials. The aim of the operation is to both temporarily block the vital shipping channel and to force a suspension of Western sanctions.

If there is a man who brings together all the fears of the West, it is General Mohammed Ali Jafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Hardened by torture in the prisons of the former Shah, Jafari was among the students who stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. He later fought in the Iran-Iraq War, and in 2007 Jafari, who has a degree in architecture, assumed command of the Revolutionary Guards, also known as the Pasdaran. The group, founded by revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khamenei to defend the Islamic regime, has since developed into a state within the state.Today the Pasdaran control several companies and are likely a more effective military force than the regular army. Of the 21 ministers in the Iranian cabinet, 13 have completed Pasdaran training. Within this group of hardliners, Jafari, 55, is seen being particularly unyielding. In 2009, for example, he declared that Iran would fire missiles at Israel’s nuclear research center in Dimona if the Israelis attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities — knowing full well that such an attack would result in several thousand deaths on both sides.

Now Jafari and his supporters are allegedly preparing new potential horrors. Western intelligence agencies have acquired a plan marked “top secret” and code-named “Murky Water.” Together with Ali Fadawi, an admiral in the Pasdaran, Jafari is thought to have proposed a senseless act of sabotage: to intentionally cause an environmental catastrophe in the Strait of Hormuz.

Expression of Growing Frustration

The goal of the plan seems to be that of contaminating the strait so as to temporarily close the important shipping route for international oil tankers, thereby “punishing” the Arab countries that are hostile to Iran and forcing the West to join Iran in a large-scale cleanup operation — one that might require the temporary suspension of sanctions against Tehran.

Western intelligence experts speculate that Jafari’s planned operation is an expression of growing frustration. Contrary to claims made by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in an interview with SPIEGEL last week, the embargo imposed on Tehran is causing far more than “discomfort.” Iran derives more than 50 percent of its government revenue from oil exports, which declined from about 2.4 million barrels a day in July 2011 to about 1 million barrels in July 2012. But Iran has only cut back production by less than a quarter, because of the technical complexity and expense involved in temporarily capping wells.

Iran can hardly sell its oil because of the embargo. Even countries that don’t feel bound to uphold the sanctions are shying away from deals, because no one wants to insure the oil shipments. The storage tanks on the Iranian mainland have been full for some time, and there are no neighboring countries to which Tehran’s leaders would entrust their treasure. For weeks now, tankers have been carrying 40 million barrels of oil through the Gulf around the clock.

Most of the giant 15 VLCC supertankers and five smaller Suezmax ships, sailing under the Iranian flag, have switched off their automatic identification system. This makes it more difficult for foreign spies to detect them, but it also increases the risk of accidents. Countries bordering the Gulf have apparently complained to Tehran about the risky practice several times.

The Final Decisions

Jafari’s plan allegedly describes in detail how a massive environmental catastrophe could be created if, for example, the Iranians were to steer one of these supertankers onto a rock. During the 1991 Gulf War, then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had millions of barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf. The fishing industry in Gulf countries was shut down for months, and the ecological damage was felt for years to come. In 1994 and 1998, accidental oil spills threatened desalination plants in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, thereby imperiling fresh water supplies for the two countries.According to the Pasdaran leadership, if there were a tanker disaster today, the International Compensation Fund for Oil Pollution Damage would have to step in financially. But a decontamination effort would only be possible with the technical assistance of Iranian authorities, which would require lifting the embargo, at least temporarily. Iranian oil companies, some owned by members of the Pasdaran, could even benefit from the cleanup program. Jafari’s plan also foresees the Iranian people rallying around the government in such a situation, pushing Tehran’s failing economic policy into the background.

The “Murky Water” sabotage plan is currently thought to be in the hands of religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He makes the final decisions.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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EU agrees to implement new, wide-ranging Iran sanctions

October 15, 2012

EU agrees to implement new, wide… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF

10/15/2012 15:33

European Union governments target Iran’s banking, shipping and industrial sectors, cranking up financial pressure in hopes of drawing Tehran into nuclear negotiations; Ashton says talks might resume “very soon.”

Catherine Ashton, Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili

Photo: REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani

European Union governments agreed further sanctions against Iran’s banking, shipping and industrial sectors on Monday, cranking up financial pressure on Tehran in the hope of drawing it into serious negotiations on its nuclear program.

The decision by EU foreign ministers reflected mounting concerns over Iran’s nuclear intentions and Israeli threats to attack Iranian atomic installations if a mix of sanctions and diplomacy proves fruitless in ushering in a peaceful solution.

In a joint statement following the announcement cited by the Wall Street Journal, EU ministers expressed “serious and deepening concerns” over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear progress and stressed that “the restrictive measures agreed [to] are aimed at affecting Iran’s nuclear program and revenues of the Iranian regime to fund its program and are not aimed at the Iranian people.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped that turning up the heat on the Islamic Republic would persuade Iran to make concessions and that negotiations could resume “very soon”.

“I absolutely do think there is room for negotiations,” said Ashton, who represents the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in their on-and-off talks with Iran. “I hope we will be able to make progress very soon.”

protesting law allowing them to be jailed for up to 3 years.

The new sanctions mark one of the toughest moves against Iran by Europe to date and a significant change of policy for the 27-member bloc, which hitherto focused on targeting specific people and companies with economic restrictions.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was more pessimistic than Ashton about the prospect that additional economic pain might drive Tehran – whose Islamic Revolution has long thrived on defiance of the West – to make concessions.

“Iran is still playing for time,” he told reporters. “We don’t see a sufficient readiness for substantial talks about the nuclear program.”

The widening sanctions regime is already doing significant damage to the Iranian economy, notably due to an oil embargo imposed by the European Union this year and new financial sanctions applied by the United States.

Earlier this month, riots broke out in Tehran in protest at the collapse of the rial currency, which has lost some two-thirds of its value against the dollar in the past 15 months, stoking inflation that is now running at around 25 percent.

The new European measures include a general ban on financial transactions, with some exceptions for those involving humanitarian aid, food and medicine purchases and provisions for legitimate trade, an EU diplomat said.

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