WarSclerotic

Egypt Prevents Large-Scale Smuggling of Weapons into Gaza.

Amir Rapaport

1/1/2013

Western sources have revealed that Egypt has prevented three instances of large-scale smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip since the end of operation Pillar of Defense.

The activity against the weaponry smuggling is part of Egyptian-US coordination, agreed upon in the discussions involving US Secretary of Sate Hillary Clinton two days before the end of the operation. According to Western sources, the agreement includes assistance with US technological measures made available for Egyptian use, and intelligence cooperation in order to counter the smuggling of weapons.

Israel and the US now expect that Egypt will do everything against the smuggling of weapons through Egyptian territory into the Gaza Strip. According to the sources, Egyptian forces have foiled at least three instances to transfer significant quantities of weapons (two of which originated from Libya, and another from Iran through Sudan).

Israel will not exist within a decade, says Muslim Brotherhood official.

( US: “Shame on you!  Have some F-16s… – JW )

Wednesday, 02 January 2013

Essam el-Erian speaks during a session at the Shura Council building in Cairo (Courtesy: AP)

By AL ARABIYA

Iran says U.S. ‘still lives in Cold War era’ after new law enacted.

Wednesday, 02 January 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama enacted a law aimed to counter Iran’s alleged influence in the region. (Reuters)

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Iran foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday the United States “still lives in the Cold War era” over a new law enacted by the U.S. president aimed at countering Tehran’s alleged influence in Latin America.

Mehmanparast blasted U.S. President Barack Obama and said the “Countering Iran” law was an overt intervention in the region.
The United States, he said, “still lives in the Cold War era and considers Latin America as its back yard,” AFP news agency reported.

On Friday, Obama enacted the law which through a new diplomatic and political strategy to be designed by the State Department is aimed to counter Iran’s alleged influence in Latin America.

The Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act, passed by lawmakers earlier in 2012, calls for the department to develop a strategy within 180 days to “address Iran’s growing hostile presence and activity” in the region.

The text also calls on the Department of Homeland Security to bolster surveillance at U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico to “prevent operatives from Iran, the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), its Quds Force, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organization from entering the Untied States”.

However, senior State Department and intelligence officials have indicated there is no apparent indication of illicit activities by Iran.

“It is an overt intervention in Latin American affairs… that shows they are not familiar with new world relations,” Mehmanparast told reporters.

“We recommend that they respect the nations’ right in today’s world… world public opinion does not accept such an interventionist move.”

Mehmanparast said Tehran’s relation with all nations, in particular with Latin American countries, was “friendly” based on “mutual respect and interest”.

Iran, placed under a series of international sanctions because of its suspect nuclear program, has opened six new embassies in the region since 2005 — bringing the total to 11 — and 17 cultural centers.

IDF and Syrian rebel officers meet clandestinely in Jordan.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 1, 2013, 11:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

US Special Forces ready to cross into Syria

Israeli officials have been holding talks in Jordan with Syrian opposition officials “in advance of a possible Israeli-U.S. operation in Syria to protect the Golan Heights,” Western intelligence sources reported Tuesday, Jan. 1. There was no further information about this operation or how rebel commanders were involved in military plans “to protect the Golan Heights.”

Altogether, the goings-on on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria are in deep hush. But European intelligence sources, some of them French and Russian, reveal nightly clashes taking place between US, Jordanian, Israeli special forces and Syrian rebels, on the one hand, and Syrian special forces, on the other. debkafile’s military sources disclose what they are fighting for:
1. Each of the four is jockeying both for control of the buffer strips along those borders and for keeping their opposite numbers from establishing intelligence-gathering posts there. US forces, the IDF and the Jordanian army have a major tactical interest in keeping Syrian observation posts from settling in the border sectors, where they would be in position to mark out military and civilian targets if the Syrian conflict spilled over.

2.  The Assad regime has two special interests in gaining a foothold in Jordan’s border area.

The first is to block the path of Syrian rebels heading back into the country and joining the various warfronts. At least five military facilities in Jordan are training special units of the Syrian opposition. They are managed by American, British, French, Czech and Polish military instructors. They are imparting tactics for capturing Syrian military chemical weapons caches and combating Syrian units armed with chemical or biological weapons.

Some of the rebel trainees return to Syria when they graduate; others are attached to units standing by in Jordan in case the Syrian conflict slides into hostilities with Israel and Jordan.

The second is back-up for the spy and sabotage networks the Assad government is running in Jordan’s refugee camps – just as they are in Turkey. Jordan houses some 60,000 Syrian refugees, most of them in the big Zaatari camp on the Syrian border. To facilitate communication with its undercover networks and the free passage of information, instructions and funds, Syria needs control over both sides of the common border.

Monday, Jordan imposed a blackout on the capture of four Syrian soldiers in the zone between the two countries. The security spokesman in Amman revealed only that they were unarmed and being interrogated  – but not whether they were entering the kingdom or on their way out. Earlier that day, a senior Jordanian military spokesman warned of an attempt to expand the Syrian war into Jordan. He did not attribute the attempt to any party.

Military sources in Moscow are more forthcoming about happenings on Syria’s southern borders. Tuesday, Jan. 1, those sources reported that the Syrian army had repulsed a Syrian rebel assault from Jordan. They added that “Syrian border police had also seized a large pile of weapons, some of them Israeli-made, designated for the Free Syrian Army in the southern city of Deraa.

3. Extensive preparations are secretly afoot by US special forces, the IDF and the Turkish and Jordanian armies ready for President Bashar Assad to hand down the order to his army chiefs to launch a chemical war offensive on the military concentrations of Syrian rebels and their allies in the lands neighboring on Syria. Jordan’s training facilities for rebels are seen as likely to be Assad’s initial targets. Western military sources explain that, for this purpose, the Syrian ruler requires maximum control of Jordan’s borders, including the section abutting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

The London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported that, when Israel officials met Syrian opposition commanders in Jordan this week, they asked for help to locate the remains of Eli Cohen, one of Israel’s most celebrated spies. He was caught and publicly hanged on May 18, 1965 after an epic career. For years, Cohen, posing as a wealthy Arab businessman, gained the confidence of Syrian officials at the highest levels of government and managed to obtain its secret war and political plans.