WarSclerotic

Iran boasts it has more advanced drones, but Israeli official skeptical | The Times of Israel.

Israeli brigadier general (reserves) doubts Tehran official’s claim that UAV that entered Israel’s airspace is a copy of US technology

Chief of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Amir Ali Hajizadeh (left), near a captured US RQ-170 Sentinel drone (photo credit: AP/Sepahnews)

The drone that Israel destroyed in early October is not the most advanced that Tehran possesses, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said on Sunday.

A high-ranking Israeli expert quickly dismissed the claim.

According to a report by Iranian news agency Press TV, Vahidi said that Iran “currently has unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with a technology by far more advanced than [that of] the drone recently flown by the resistance movement of Hezbollah in the Zionist regime’s airspace.”

Vahidi said that the fact that the drone was able to fly over Israeli airspace for half an hour before being shot down disgraced Israel and “shattered the illusion of power of the Israeli regime.”

Also on Sunday, the former deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Muhammed Mogdam, claimed that the drone was a copy of US technology based on an American ”Sentinel” UAV that was shot down by Iran in December 2011.

“Iranian engineers cracked the aircraft technology and developed a similar model,” Mogdam said.

However, Brig. Gen. (res) Asaf Agmon, the managing director of the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, said that Iran had been unable to develop any new technology based on the downed Sentinel.

“There is no connection whatsoever between what fell over there and the technology they possess,” he said.  ”The two are as distant as east and west.”

Agmon, a former pilot and base commander, characterized Iran’s current UAV technology as on par “with the technology that existed during the late 1980s, at best.”

He dismissed out of hand the notion the notion that the UAV that penetrated Israeli airspace on October 6 had, as claimed, been able to send footage back to its senders.

The model shot down over the Yatir Forest, he said, was pre-programmed, meaning that its flight path could not be altered in mid-flight. The only way for it to return images to its senders, he said, “would have been for it to return home.”

“They didn’t get anything out of it. No information,” he said, noting that its flight course was determined in advance by a list of coordinates. Other Israeli officials have also said the drone was too rudimentary to collect any intelligence unavailable on the Internet.

The only type of UAV capable of sending footage back in real time are the models that are connected to a satellite. Agmon said that while Iran had managed to put a satellite into orbit and was admittedly placing great emphasis on satellite technology, its capacity in this realm remains “very primitive.”

Agmon said his information was from research conducted by the Fisher Institute and from sources that he could vouch for “with a full guarantee.” The institute was founded by the Israel Air Force Association and has several air force commanders on its board of directors.

As for Israel’s performance in shooting down the Hezbollah-launched drone with two missiles, he said that its small size, combined with its small “heat signature and radar signature,” may have been what led the missile to miss its target on the first shot.

Last week, Israeli officials denied claims by Iranian sources that many UAVs made in Iran have flown undetected over Israeli airspace over the past several years.

The commander of the IDF’s northern air defense and control center, Lt. Col. Asaf, told Bamahane magazine last week that “from the first second it entered into Israeli air space we had the ability to shoot it down. It is a matter of making a decision and we have many considerations that in the end determine how and where we down a plane.”

He said, furthermore, that the IDF had increased both the number of active radars in use and the surface to air firepower, “which is always good.”

Sunday Times report details alleged IAF strike on Sudan arms factoryIsrael News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

The U.K. paper claims that Israel targeted an Iranian-run missile factory in Khartoum last week; Sudan has accused Israel of bombing the military complex, killing two people.

Fire engulfs Yarmouk ammunition factory in Khartoum October 24, 2012. Photo by Reuters

The Yarmouk military complex in Khartoum, Sudan seen in a satellite image made on Oct. 25 2012, following the alleged attack. Photo by AP

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The British Sunday Times has published a detailed report on what it claims was an Israeli attack on an Iranian-run missile factory in Sudan last week.

The Sunday Times regularly reports at length on Israeli secret operations, Sunday’s piece by the paper’s reporters in Tel Aviv and Nairobi is based on Israeli and western “security sources” and claims that the attack was carried out by the Israeli Air Force and includes details on the strike-force, the stages of the attack and the target. Not all the details tally with other known facts.

According to the paper, the attack was carried out in the early hours by four two-seater F-15I “Ra’am” fighter-bombers, each carrying two one-ton bombs and accompanied by four additional F-15s providing air-cover in case Sudanese Mig-29 fighters attempted to intercept. Along with the fighters were two CH-53 “Yasur” helicopters carrying teams of IAF search-and-rescue commandos in case air-crew from a downed fighter needed extracting from enemy territory.

The fighters were refueled en-route by a Boeing 707 “Re’em” aerial tanker and a Gulfstream 550 “Shavit” executive, adapted for electronic warfare, jammed the Sudanese radar and air-defense systems. According to the report, the fighters took off from a Negev airbase and flew for four hours over the Red Sea on a round route of 3,900 kilometers.

The newspaper reports that during the assassination of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai two years ago, Mossad Agents obtained a signed agreement between Iran and Sudan regarding the manufacture of arms in Sudan under the supervision of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. According to the report, the operation was carried out under the direct supervision of IAF Commander Major General Amir Eshel and was planned over a long period which included two long-range exercises. Eshel and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz supervised the mission from IAF command post at the Kirya in Tel Aviv and updated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon completion. The American administration received advance notification and the U.S. embassy in Khartoum was closed as a precaution.

According to a “military source” quoted in the report, two central challenges in the attack were to evade detection by Egyptian radar and air-traffic control in neighboring Djibouti. The jamming and evasive tactics seemed to have worked, as no Sudanese fighters were launched against the attackers.

Most of the details in the British paper’s report are similar to those that have been published in foreign reports on the Israeli attack on the Syrian nuclear reactor at Deir a-Zour five years ago in September 2007. Some of the details seem unlikely, including the claim that the target was a factory building Shahab ballistic missiles which were meant for Hamas and other Iranian allies in the region – it is highly improbable that Iran would allow manufacture of its most advanced missile outside its territory and organizations such as Hamas (which has poor relations with Iran recently) and Hezbollah have no use for a missile with a range of thousands of kilometers. Also from satellite images of the strike’s results, it seems that the target was not the factory but storage containers held nearby, which indicates that the mission’s objective was an arms shipment and not weapons manufacturers.

Neither does one of the more colorful details in the report, that the squadron commander flew low over the target after the bombing to survey the damage make much sense. The IAF, if indeed it carried out the attack, has advanced unmanned reconnaissance systems capable of gauging the strike’s success without risking air-crew over enemy territory.

In Saudi Arabia and Israel, Signals That Iran Has Retaliation in Works | Brookings Institution.

How Israel Police computers were hacked: The inside story | The Times of Israel.

A virus that shut down all police computers last week may be a harbinger of much worse to come, say experts

A policeman uses a computer to identify fingerprints in a laboratory at the police headquarters (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

The cyberwar is already here, and Israel apparently lost the first round. After a suspicious file was found to have been circulating on police computers, the department decided to take all its computers offline last Thursday – and as of Sunday, full Internet connectivity had not yet been restored.

What’s worse, said Roni Bachar, head of Israeli security firm Avnet, is that police servers and computers may have been compromised for as much as a week. “It was only late Wednesday night that police realized what happened and ordered that computers be taken offline. Apparently the virus was also distributed to other government departments.”

It’s not clear when connectivity will be fully restored for police. According to Israel Police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld, “the department is taking cautious measures in transferring information between computers and servers in order to prevent any possible problems. Systems are being checked and databases are being evaluated,” in order to ensure that they are fully secure. As of now, there is “limited connectivity,” although a source in the Israel Police said that as far as she knows, Internet access is still banned throughout the department.

What was the purpose of the virus? Obviously not to shut down police operations, said Bachar; a week is a long time in the cyber world, and if the file — which has indeed been found to be carrying a virus — were meant to blow computer operations out of the water, that probably would have occurred by now. The purpose of the virus, Bachar said, was more likely to have been data collection. “The attack was not sophisticated or complicated in any way,” he said, and neither was the virus. “But it was very similar to other data-mining attacks that we at Avnet have dealt with in recent years.”

The pattern of the attack and the type of virus used were very similar to other cases of attacks which were found to have been sponsored by governments, Bachar said, and that was probably the case here. “At this point, I think we can be fairly certain that it was sponsored by a nation-state, most likely Iran.”

There were clear signs that the email and file in question were suspicious, raising concerns about the level of security in the department. The virus arrived as an email message with an attached .RAR archive; unknown attachments are a common method used by hackers to distribute their “wares,” and most computer users know to avoid such files. In addition, the message was sent from bennygantz59@gmail.com. Gantz, of course, is the IDF chief of General Staff, and it’s unlikely he would be using a service like Gmail to communicate with Israeli officials.

Nevertheless, numerous people apparently clicked on the file, releasing the virus into the police department’s computer system, said Bachar. “Closing off the department’s computers to the Internet is a complicated matter, and police would have done so only if they felt that there as an acute need to go offline.” Among the measures police have reportedly taken to prevent future attacks is to ban any outside media — USB drives, CDs, etc.– from connecting with systems.

The incident represents a clear intensification of the cyberwar — and Israel is not as prepared as it should be, said Erel Margalit, the founder and managing partner of the Jerusalem Venture Partners investment firm, who has worked with dozens of firms with innovative security technology. In a letter last week to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Margalit wrote that “the fear we have had of a cyber attack against strategic Israeli interests has come to pass,” and that “this attack is the latest in a series of cyber attacks on Israel in recent years. This is not the work of a single hacker, but of a high-level technology staff in a foreign country. This may be a virtual war, but it is dangerous and destructive.”

When at war, one must fight fire with fire, said Margalit. “I call on you, Mr. Prime Minister, to set a national goal of preparing Israel for future cyber-battles.” Margalit said that he had addressed this subject with Netanyahu before, and that since then the prime minister had announced the establishment of the National Cyber Defense Council, but much more was needed. Instead of the $13 million that had been allocated to the effort, Israel needs to be spending more — a lot more.

“The state must allocate a billion shekels a year in order to turn Israel into a world center of excellence and expertise in cyber-defense for national governments,” said Margalit. “Only the best efforts of the geniuses and entrepreneurs here in Israel and around the world will be able to organize a proper defense strategy.

“I am sure that many Israeli high-tech companies will be happy to take part in this complicated challenge,” Margalit added. “Let us in the high-tech community be part of this effort. Together we can prepare properly for the next sphere of world war, and ensure that when it does reach Israel, we will be protected and safe.”

Iran claims to have better UAVs … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Hamas aims Grad at Dimona reactor – payback for Khartoum raid.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 28, 2012, 12:40 PM (GMT+02:00)

Dimona nuclear reactor

Less than 24 hours after Sudanese President Omar Bashir pledged “decisive steps against Israeli interests which are now legitimate targets,” for the destruction of the Iranian missile plant in Khartoum, Palestinian rocket teams early Sunday, Oct. 28, fired Grad missiles as target finders against Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona.

This is reported exclusively by debkafile. They exploded on open ground in the Ramat Negev district southwest of the town of Dimona.
The nuclear plant is only 42.5 kilometers as the crow flies from the southern Gaza Strip.  Saturday night, the Israeli Air Force struck a Palestinian rocket team in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younes, killing one Hamas operative and injuring a second critically.
The Palestinian Hamas has evidently launched a new and expanded targeting-policy marking two developments of grave import: One: Its rulers have submitted the Gaza Strip to Tehran for use as its southern operational arm against Israel, complementing Hizballah’s pivotal role to the north of Israel; and two, having acquired improved surface missiles, Hamas is setting its sights firmly on the most sensitive locations within their reach, e.g., Israel’s nuclear reactor and air force bases and the American X-band radar station in the Negev.
The Islamist rulers of Gaza are expected to keep on trying to perfect their aim.
Israel’s defense ministry and high IDF command sounded at sea Sunday over this dangerous new departure. The IDF spokesperson started out by disclosing that one Grad rocket from Gaza had been aimed at the city of Beersheba, later raising the number to two, both of which exploded outside the city.
But the Grad launched against the nuclear reactor at 07:44 was followed by hours of official silence. Even then, the army spokesperson reported a missile fired against Ramat Hanegev in general terms, without mentioning the reactor’s location in that district at its northernmost point.
It was the second time in three weeks that Tehran was seen to be focusing on Israel’s nuclear plant, debkafile’s military sources note. On Oct. 6, an Iranian stealth drone which flew over Israel managed to photograph the reactor building and its air defense system’s radar. The data gathered was given to Hamas to help guide its first rocket attack on Dimona.
debkafile reported earlier that not two, but four, Grad rockets were fired Sunday morning at Beersheba. They all exploded outside the town and caused no casualties or damage.  The mayor decided to keep schools closed for the day since none are fortified against rocket attacks. Beersheba University stayed open for studies. Saturday night, the Palestinians shot a salvo of five Qassam rockets at the Eshkol district. Three exploded over the Gaza Strip; two on the border fence.
The Israel Air Force strike over Khan Younes followed this violation of the informal truce requested by Hamas and brokered by Egypt for the Eid al-Adha festival starting Friday and ending next Monday.

Rahm Emanuel: Obama will protect Israel, deal with Iran – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor tells Ynet US president will continue to stand by Israel should he be elected for a second term

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is one of US President Barack Obama’s most important assets in the 2012 presidential race.

While many, including Obama himself, struggle to explain to the voters the scope of the problems the president inherited from predecessor Gorge W. Bush – including a failing economy, two wars, and a myriad of internal crises – Emanuel, was able to sum up Obama’s first term with one sentence: Osama bin Laden in dead and General Motors is alive.

The situation in Florida, he explained, is more complicated: “The problem in Florida is what happened to the housing industry. There is progress but (their) not out of the woods yet.”

With only days left until American cast their votes, the Obama campaign has sent Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff for the administration’s first two years, on a mission to the two most influential swing states– Florida and Ohio.

The two are home to a large number of Jewish voters, who may prove to hold the deciding vote in the close race vis-à-vis Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

As mayor of the US’ third-largest city and a former congressman, Emanuel can address burning domestic issues; and as the son of a former Irgun man, who has expressed his deep ties and commitment to Israel, he can also reassure the nervous Jewish voters that Obama is good for the Jewish state.

The question of Obama’s tense relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuand the administration’s overall attitude towards Israel is often presented when Emanuel addresses Jewish voters.

He explains to them what Obama has done, and plans to do, for Israel and illustrates how involved the president is in bolstering US-Israel strategic ties and military cooperation; as well as how he pushed to speed up the development and deployment of Iron Domebatteries in Israel.

“The president is a friend of the State of Israel. He has been that as a senator and as a president,” Emanuel said in an interview with Ynet.

He wasted no time addressing the Iranian threat: “When it comes to the issue of Iran, when the president got into office, the US was isolated from the world, and Iran was out for nuclear weapons.

“Today the tables have turned. Iran is isolated from the rest of the world, and that’s because of the leadership of one man – the president. One man determined to set his policy of crippling sanctionsagainst Iran.”

“It was the president of the United States who achieved that. Everybody questioned why the US doesn’t do this or that, while Iran attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon, with all the related existential and security threats to the State of Israel. People are not questioning the US anymore, they question Iran.”

Emanuel is convinced that “the steady organizing by the president of the United States to isolate Iran is working beyond people expectations,” on both the economic front and political fronts.

Still, the former White House chief does not digress from the party line what it comes to the chances of a US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Declaring war, he said, needs the public’s support in both Israel and the United States. Emanuel said that he has seen polls indicating that many in the IDF, as well as in the Israeli public are against a strike.

“The president is determined that all the options are on the table and he is using economic and diplomatic isolation, crippling sanctions, to force Iran to make some choices here, that in the past they could avoided making. And now, Iran is economically crippled and politically unstable.”

Should Obama be elected to a second term in office, Emanuel stressed that “He will continue to help Israel as we deal with the dramatic changes in the Arab world.

“Israel is our closest ally, not just strategically, but as two democracies… In the next four years, you will see a president that will protect Israel and deal with Iran.”

Asked whether he found it difficult to explain Obama’s achievements in regards to the US economy, he said: “I just left Toledo, Ohio, and I don’t think explaining that was hard in Toledo, that’s dependent on the auto industry.

“Unemployment is just under 7%. When the president came to office in was 10% in Ohio. The Chrysler auto plant will have a third shift in the coming months, so they get it. We are doing very well in north-west Ohio.

“People understand what the president has done in the last four years and how it influenced on their live.” Unemployment, he added, has steadily dropped from 10% to 7% and that improvement has been holding steady.

Successful Test of Electromagnetic Missile.

(And Israel doesn’t have these…? – JW )

Arie Egozi

24/10/2012

Boeing has successfully tested a new weapon, a missile that does not carry a warhead laden with explosives, but rather a device spreading radiation which jams the electronic systems used by opponents.

The missile, named CHAMP, was launched with a predetermined trajectory, and disrupted electronic systems stationed at a range in the state of Utah while on its route. Seven targets stationed at the range were successfully disrupted in the framework of the test which lasted an hour and saw the launch of several such missiles.

An effort is underway in the US, as well as in many other countries, to develop a weapon system that will paralyze the technological systems of enemy forces, preventing it from operating. It seems that the Boeing development was carried out at the request of the US Department of Defense, and that it is a part of a larger effort which has yet to be revealed.

An electromagnetic pulse, which results in the disruption of systems over a considerably extensive area due to the aerial detonation of a relatively small nuclear device, should be reminded in this context. The development of Boeing’s missile is an attempt to generate local disruption capabilities via missiles.

Palestinians fire 3 Grads, 2 Kassams int… JPost – National News.

Obama offered to reestablish ties with Iran, paper reports | The Times of Israel.

Diplomatic incentives package, including embassies in Tehran and Washington, rebuffed by Iran, according to Maariv

A mural outside the former US Embassy in Tehran. (photo credit: CC-BY-SA davehighbury, Flickr)

The US reportedly offered to reestablish full diplomatic ties with Iran as part of a bid to hold direct talks with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, an Israeli daily reported Sunday.

Iran rebuffed the “diplomatic hand” offered by the White House shortly after President Barack Obama took office in 2008, Maariv reported, citing “Western sources very close to the administration.”

The information comes on the heels of reports earlier this month that the US and Iran held back channel contacts toward establishing direct talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. Both the White House and Iran denied the reports.

According to Maariv, however, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met with chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili for an hour in 2009, and one other meeting between officials from both sides took place as well.

Included in the diplomatic incentives package offered by Washington would be the opening of interest sections in Washington and Tehran, with the possibility of expanding to full diplomatic ties, with US and Iranian embassies in each other’s capitals. Washington also reportedly offered security cooperation between the countries, direct flights between the US and Iran and the granting of visas to Iranian wishing to visit the US.

If true, the report would mark a sea change in American policy toward Iran, which was officially cut in 1980 when the Shah was overthrown and workers in the American Embassy held hostage for over a year. The US currently maintains a trade embargo with Iran and any diplomatic contacts are officially handled through third parties

According to Maariv, Iran rejected the attempt to reestablish ties out of fear that the regime in Tehran would become weakened by normalization with Washington.

The meeting between Burns and Jalili was reportedly held on the sidelines of talks between Tehran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, also known as the P5+1.

Those talks, which Jerusalem has characterized as a stalling tactic by Tehran to buy time to develop its nuclear program to weapons capabilities, have mostly failed, despite several attempts to hash over curbs to Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.

Last week, the New York Times and NBC reported that Washington had held secret contacts with Iran with the goal of holding one-on-one negotiations over their nuclear program. According to the report in the New York Times, Iran was open to the possibility, but asked to wait until after the American elections on November 6 so they would know who they were negotiating with.

The White House denied the report, but said it has always had an offer on the table for Iran to engage in direct negotiations.

In Jerusalem, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he knew about the contacts and welcomed them while Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said he hoped the Obama administration’s denial was true.

Iran’s nuclear program is widely believed to be for military purposes, a claim Iran denies.

Israel considers an Iranian bomb to be an existential threat and has reportedly lobbied for military action against the program, while the US and much of the West maintain that time remains for sanctions and diplomacy to convince Iran to pull back.