WarSclerotic

Terrorist group fills power vacuum among Syria rebels – CNN.com.

Report ties Syrian rebels to al Qaeda

Editor’s note: Nada Bakos is a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.

(CNN) — In the midst of the struggle against Bashar al-Assad’s government stands Jabhat al-Nusra, recently designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

A new report by the Quilliam Foundation in London says the organization is the most effective arm of the Syrian insurgency and now fields about 5,000 fighters against the Assad regime.

Practically speaking, the terrorist designation means little that is new for the immediate struggle in Syria. Shortly after al-Nusra claimed credit for one of its early suicide bombings in January 2012, the Obama administration made known al-Nusra’s connection to al Qaeda in Iraq, a group with which I was intimately familiar in my capacity as an analyst and targeting officer at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Nada Bakos

The administration’s position was reinforced when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper one month later testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee that “…we believe al-Qaeda in Iraq is extending its reach into Syria.”

Al-Nusra is filling a power vacuum through charitable efforts to galvanize local support and generating influence among Syrians. In light of al-Nusra’s influence in Syria, the real question is not so much about the scope and scale of al-Nusra currently, but rather how should the United States respond to its rise, particularly after al-Assad’s eventual exit?

As ideologically distasteful as we might find them, they are often doing things corrupt, weak or failing governments do not: providing the basic necessities that people need to survive (let alone create the conditions that enable people to aspire to thrive).

Why does al-Nusra keep quiet about its ties to al Qaeda in Iraq? The documents pulled from the Abottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden shed light on his awareness that the al Qaeda brand had been deteriorating.

Bin Laden urged regional groups, “If asked, it would be better to say there is a relationship with al Qaeda, which is simply a brotherly Islamic connection, and nothing more,” according to CNN. Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had criticized the Jordanian-born founder and leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for his killing of civilians and lack of political acumen to win public support.

Talk about al Qaeda seems distant. It was a bogeyman made real in 1993 when it unsuccessfully attacked the World Trade Center and terrifyingly tangible in 2001 when its operatives succeeded in destroying the twin towers and expanded their attacks to the Pentagon and the air over Pennsylvania. Its looming shadow has since faded from the public eye, particularly with the death of bin Laden. Its vision and ideology, however, continue to have a strong appeal.

Now that al Qaeda central has a less visible role, what makes players like al-Nusra and al Qaeda in Iraq threats? Even today, after Zarqawi’s death, al Qaeda in Iraq has managed to continue to wreak havoc in Iraq and in the region through an autonomous, adaptable structure.

Al-Nusra has declared itself a player in the fight for a global jihad, a bold statement for what is today a localized group . Even small groups, however, have the potential to disrupt regional stability and complicate America’s pursuit of its national security objectives—a fact I learned firsthand tracking and trying to stem the rise, influence and efficacy of al Qaeda in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Zarqawi, until his death in 2006, was able to confound U.S. forces and attack Jordan by attracting recruits from North Africa (including Libya), Central Europe, Jordan and Syria.

Some of Zarqawi’s earliest recruits were veterans of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that lashed out against the Syrian government during the 1980s. Captured records from a raid near the city of Sinjar, Iraq, indicated that during the 2006-2007 time frame, 8% of al Qaeda in Iraq operatives were Syrians. The percentage likely ebbed and flowed as the group formed, became influential and waned, but it suggests that there was no shortage of recruits amenable to engage in religious conflict in Syria as recently as 5-10 years ago.

The most striking thing about the captured records, however, is that it appears almost every foreign fighter entering Iraq to join al Qaeda in Iraq came through Syria. As a targeter, I can tell you that facilitation networks are key: they are the means by which groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq are funded, supplied and sustained. During the Iraq war, Zarqawi’s top aides in Syria played a critical role in recruiting, funding and operational planning outside Iraq.

One of the things U.S. officials and the international media should watch for is how al-Nusra uses its terrorist designation: If it seeks to use the declaration to burnish its jihadist credentials, it might be able to bolster the image of the organization in the eyes of the extremist community and parlay that recognition into larger, or steadier, streams of funding—a development that will make the group more viable over the long-term or allow it to expand its operations or influence in the short- to mid-term.

An important differentiator between al Qaeda in Iraq and al-Nusra is one of its tactics: Zarqawi made a practice of indiscriminately killing Iraqi civilians, effectively terrorizing the Iraqi population, especially the Shiite minority. Zarqawi, despite identifying with al Qaeda, had a much thinner theological basis than al Qaeda central.

Key figures at al Qaeda central such as bin Laden and Zawahiri argued with Zarqawi over his tactics, complaining that alienating mainstream Muslims would not help achieve the over-arching goal of instilling Sharia law.

Al-Nusra is using some of the same tactics as al Qaeda in Iraq (e.g., suicide bombings, kidnappings and car bombs), but it appears to be trying to strike a balance Zarqawi was unwilling to make: Not only does it seem to be avoiding alienating—if not antagonizing—the larger population, but it also is providing the people of Syria with a range of goods and services such as food, water and medical care—basic necessities that people need to survive in the best of times, let alone when their country is in the throes of a civil war.

If this becomes a trend, it might signal that al-Nusra aspires to be more like Hezbollah or Hamas, organizations that defy neat categorization based on the range of social, political and military activities they engage in and the resultant legitimacy they have in the eyes of their constituencies.

In the Syrian uprising, the opportunity for meaningful U.S. intervention might have passed: Exhaustion from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken their toll on the U.S. military, have taxed the national treasury, and sapped political will, especially as the state of the economy remains at the center of the debate in Washington.

Our absence from the fight is going to cost us if the al-Assad regime fails, leaving rebel groups like al-Nusra dictating the direction, pace and scope of a new Syria.

Given that managing affairs in the Middle East has never been one of our strong suits, the question at this point should be how can the United States, particularly the Department of State, best engage groups that might be inimical to U.S. values but necessary to our interests in the Middle East? For that, I am not sure there is a clear or simple answer.

One opportunity would be if the United States uses its designation of al-Nusra as both a stick and carrot, cajoling and encouraging it to enter into mainstream politics when (or if) the Assad regime falls.

My read of al-Nusra, however, is that, like Zarqawi, it does not aspire to be a political player and is unlikely to settle for a political role in the new government. Instead, it may aim to play the spoiler for any transitional government and use its resources and political violence to empower and encourage other like-minded extremists. With time and opportunity, al-Nusra could not only add to regional instability in the Middle East, but also rekindle global jihad.

Hagel to rein in Israel on Iran strike: commentators.

Wednesday, 09 January 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama smiles at his nominee for Secretary of Defense, former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (R), at the White House in Washington January 7, 2013. (Reuters)

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Former IDF navy chief: Chuck Hagel is a friend of Israel – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

( He was my commander in the IDF Navy.  He came up through the ranks of Israel’s SEALS.  Almog is an amazing man, believe me.  Am I wrong about Hagel?  – JW )

Contrary to accusations, says Ze’ev Almog, Hagel opposed closing center serving U.S. troops in Haifa and backed $50 million grant to upgrade facilities at Haifa Port.

By Amir Oren | Jan.09, 2013 | 9:03 AM | 24

U.S. President Barack Obama announcing Chuck Hagel for his pick for the position of defense secretary. Photo by Reuters

Ze’ev Almog. Photo by Moti Kimche

By JTA | Jan.09,2013 | 9:03 AM | 49

Contrary to popular perception, U.S. Secretary of Defense-designate Chuck Hagel is a friend of Israel, a former commander of the Israel Navy said on Tuesday.

Rear Admiral (ret.) Ze’ev Almog, a friend of Hagel’s, objected to the campaign waged against the American’s appointment by groups claiming to defend Israel’s interests. Almog said he opposed efforts to persuade senators not to confirm the nominee.

“From my contacts with him, in Washington and in Israel, I can testify that Hagel was always attentive and friendly toward Israel,” he said.

Almog, who commanded the navy from 1979 to 1985 and later managed Israel Shipyards, said there was no truth to the allegations regarding Hagel’s tenure at the head of USO, an organization that provides entertainment and welfare services to U.S. troops. Hagel’s opponents have said he worked to close the USO Center in Haifa, which served sailors from the U.S. Sixth Fleet when their ships were anchored in Haifa.

According to Almog, who was the first president of Friends of USO in Israel, the opposite is true: Hagel opposed closing the center in Haifa, despite the budget cuts that forced the USO to close facilities elsewhere, including in Europe. Moreover, after being elected to the Senate, Hagel threw his weight behind a $50 million grant to upgrade facilities in and around Haifa Port, including the runway at the air force’s technical school, which was used by planes ferrying supplies to the Sixth Fleet.

Hagel and his colleagues ultimately got the grant approved by Congress in the late 1990s, Almog said, but Israel never used it due to opposition by the Transportation Ministry.

The USO facility in Haifa was finally closed in 2002, more than a decade after Hagel left his post as head of the organization.

Almog added that based on his conversations with Hagel, whether in the American’s office in the Capitol or at a place they both enjoyed south of Herzliya, his impression is that Hagel has a fierce intelligence and a quick understanding. He’s a man of independent opinions but is open to new ideas, Almog added.

And never, he said, did he hear Hagel say anything anti-Israel.

Almog remains in contact with Hagel to this day, sending letters in which he comments on Hagel’s speeches and articles. He also receives greeting cards that begin “Dear Ze’ev and Geula” and end “Your friend, Chuck.”

Hagel also has many supporters in the security and diplomatic communities in Washington. These include people who served as national security advisers under presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, both Bushes and Obama: Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci and James Jones.

Also on the list of Hagel supporters are two former heads of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Anthony Zinni and Adm. William Fallon, as well as three former ambassadors to Israel: Sam Lewis, Thomas Pickering and Daniel Kurtzer.

Many of the people on this list joined Hagel last October in writing a report that questioned the benefits of a military operation against Iran’s nuclear program.

Assad firm in the saddle, permits Syrian, Turkish Iranian POWs swaps.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 9, 2013, 5:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Thousands of prisoners exchanged in Syria

The three-way prisoner exchange of thousands of Syrian, Turkish and Iranian prisoners Wednesday, Jan. 9, in Damascus and four other Syrian cities marked a turning-point in the 22-month old Syrian conflict which has cost upward of 60,000 lives. This was the first deal the Assad regime and the rebels have agreed and carried through since March 2011. It was made possible by Bashar Assad’s confidence, in the face of Western predictions of his imminent downfall, that his chances of survival had improved against the forces determined to oust him, while Syrian rebel leaders grasped they had better deal with the hated Syrian ruler for any hope of preserving any of their war gains.

Altogether, the Assad regime released Syrian 2,130 civilians, including 73 women and a number of foreigners, some of them Turks, and obtained the release of 48 Iranians held for six months by the rebel Free Syrian Army. The FSA claimed they were Revolutionary Guards officers and men, while Tehran insisted they were pilgrims visiting holy sites in Syria.

The prisoner exchange was organized by teams of the Turkish Muslim extremist IHH-Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources report, that the prisoner swap marked a moment in the ongoing  transition of the Syrian crisis from an international issue with a say for the United States, Europe and some Persian Gulf emirates, into a domestic contest, in which regional mediators – in this case Qatar and Turkey – had a role to play. For now, the Obama administration and NATO appear to have moved back from the military arena and left a clear field to the management of Moscow, Tehran and Ankara.

Four steps marked this transition from the third week of December 2012:

1. On December 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the Syrian government had “consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught and they are under control for the time being.” Lavrov did not say who was in control of the weapons and why he thought they were out of danger of falling into rebel hands.

2.  The day before this announcement, US naval and air forces, piling up in waters opposite Syria from the third week of November, were abruptly ordered to pull back, a sign that the Obama administration had washed its hands of any military intervention in Syria without publicly stating this.
3. In the first week of January, 2013, the Syrian army finally repulsed a major Syrian rebel assault on Assad’s largest chemical weapons depot at the Al Safira military complex near Aleppo.
In this engagement, too, the insurgents demonstrated they were capable only of limited, local gains, but not up to capturing major targets such as major cities and military sites. They were therefore not equal to vanquishing the army still loyal to Bashar Assad.
4.  The place of the departed US fleet in the eastern Mediterranean was gradually filled by a large influx of Russian naval and marine forces. And so, when the Syrian ruler rose to deliver a speech at the Damascus opera house Sunday, Jan. 6, he knew he could afford to flout the calls for him to step down and declare he no longer takes dictation from the West. He knew that moored off the Syrian coast were up to 20 Russian warships carrying more than 2,000 Russian marines – on top of unwavering Iranian support for his regime.

The prisoner swap of Wednesday may usher in a lull in the fighting, some of debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources believe – especially in consideration of the exceptionally harsh winter conditions besetting the region. During that time, the two warring sides may try and feel their way toward more local or limited understandings as well as replenishing their military and diplomatic resources – either for a final winning throw or to improve their bargaining positions in future negotiations which were kicked off by the prisoner swap.
For now, Assad is evidently here to stay. To remove him, the rebels will have to reach him with an assassin’s bullet.

Online Banking Attacks Were Work of Iran, U.S. Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

By NICOLE PERLROTH and QUENTIN HARDY

SAN FRANCISCO — The attackers hit one American bank after the next. As in so many previous attacks, dozens of online banking sites slowed, hiccupped or ground to a halt before recovering several minutes later.

But there was something disturbingly different about the wave of online attacks on American banks in recent weeks. Security researchers say that instead of exploiting individual computers, the attackers engineered networks of computers in data centers, transforming the online equivalent of a few yapping Chihuahuas into a pack of fire-breathing Godzillas.

The skill required to carry out attacks on this scale has convinced United States government officials and security researchers that they are the work of Iran, most likely in retaliation for economic sanctions and online attacks by the United States.

“There is no doubt within the U.S. government that Iran is behind these attacks,” said James A. Lewis, a former official in the State and Commerce Departments and a computer security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Mr. Lewis said the amount of traffic flooding American banking sites was “multiple times” the amount that Russia directed at Estonia in a monthlong online assault in 2007 that nearly crippled the Baltic nation.

American officials have not offered any technical evidence to back up their claims, but computer security experts say the recent attacks showed a level of sophistication far beyond that of amateur hackers. Also, the hackers chose to pursue disruption, not money: another earmark of state-sponsored attacks, the experts said.

“The scale, the scope and the effectiveness of these attacks have been unprecedented,” said Carl Herberger, vice president of security solutions at Radware, a security firm that has been investigating the attacks on behalf of banks and cloud service providers. “There have never been this many financial institutions under this much duress.”

Since September, intruders have caused major disruptions to the online banking sites of Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, PNC, Capital One, Fifth Third Bank, BB&T and HSBC.

They employed DDoS attacks, or distributed denial of service attacks, named because hackers deny customers service by directing large volumes of traffic to a site until it collapses. No bank accounts were breached and no customers’ money was taken.

By using data centers, the attackers are simply keeping up with the times. Companies and consumers are increasingly conducting their business over large-scale “clouds” of hundreds, even thousands, of networked computer servers.

These clouds are run by Amazon and Google, but also by many smaller players who commonly rent them to other companies. It appears the hackers remotely hijacked some of these clouds and used the computing power to take down American banking sites.

“There’s a sense now that attackers are crafting their own private clouds,” either by creating networks of individual machines or by stealing resources wholesale from poorly maintained corporate clouds, said John Kindervag, an analyst at Forrester Research.

How, exactly, attackers are hijacking data centers is still a mystery. Making matters more complex, they have simultaneously introduced another weapon: encrypted DDoS attacks.

Banks encrypt customers’ online transactions for security, but the encryption process consumes system resources. By flooding banking sites with encryption requests, attackers can further slow or cripple sites with fewer requests.

A hacker group calling itself Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has claimed in online posts that it was responsible for the attacks.

The group said it attacked the banks in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that mocked the Prophet Muhammad, and pledged to continue its campaign until the video was scrubbed from the Internet. It called the campaign Operation Ababil, a reference to a story in the Koran in which Allah sends swallows to defeat an army of elephants dispatched by the king of Yemen to attack Mecca in A.D. 571.

But American intelligence officials say the group is actually a cover for Iran. They claim Iran is waging the attacks in retaliation for Western economic sanctions and for a series of cyberattacks on its own systems. In the last three years, three sophisticated computer viruses — called Flame, Duqu and Stuxnet — have hit computers in Iran. The New York Times reported last year that the United States, together with Israel, was responsible for Stuxnet, the virus used to destroy centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010.

“It’s a bit of a grudge match,” said Mr. Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Researchers at Radware who investigated the attacks for several banks found that the traffic was coming from data centers around the world. They discovered that various cloud services and public Web hosting services had been infected with a particularly sophisticated form of malware, called Itsoknoproblembro, that was designed to evade detection by antivirus programs. The malware has existed for years, but the banking attacks were the first time it used data centers to attack external victims.

Botnets, or networks of individual infected slave computers, can typically be traced back to a command and control center, but security experts say Itsoknoproblembro was engineered to make it very difficult to tie it to one party. Security researchers have come up with a new name for servers infected with Itsoknoproblembro: they call them “bRobots.”

In an amateur botnet, the command and control center can be easily identified, but Mr. Herberger said it had been nearly impossible to do so in this case, suggesting to him that “the campaign may be state-sponsored versus amateur malware.”

Attackers used the infected servers to fire traffic simultaneously at each banking site until it slowed or collapsed.

By infecting data centers instead of computers, the hackers obtained the computing power to mount enormous denial of service attacks. One of the banks had 40 gigabits of Internet capacity, Mr. Herberger said, a huge amount when you consider that a midsize business may only have one gigabit. But some banks were hit with a sustained flood of traffic that peaked at 70 gigabits.

Mr. Herberger declined to say which cloud service providers had been compromised, citing nondisclosure agreements with Radware’s clients, but he said that each new bank attack provided evidence that more data centers had been infected and exploited.

The attackers said last week that they had no intention of halting their campaign. “Officials of American banks must expect our massive attacks,” they wrote. “From now on, none of the U.S. banks will be safe.”

Egyptian minister fired over opposition to Iran meddling – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Security officials in Cairo say former Interior Minister Gamal El Din was dismissed because he was against meeting between Morsi’s aide and Iran’s spy chief. Muslim Brotherhood: Meeting sends message to US

Roi Kais

A secret meeting held recently between Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi‘s aide and the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Al-Quds Force led to the dismissal of Egypt’s former Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal El Din, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Wednesday, citing senior security officials in Egypt.

According to the report, Gamal El Din, who is a staunch critic of the Islamist movement in Egypt, was fired because he had voiced his opposition to the meeting between Morsi’s aide, Essam al-Haddad, and Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

The Egyptian newspaper said he also criticised the Muslim Brotherhood‘s security policy.

The Times reported on Tuesday that Suleimani, Iran‘s spy chief, visited Cairo just after Christmas for two days of talks with senior officials close to President Morsi. According to the British daily, Suleimani met al-Haddad, foreign affairs adviser to Morsi, and officials from the Muslim Brotherhood, to advise the Egyptian government on building its own security and intelligence apparatus, independent of the national intelligence services, which are controlled by Egypt’s military.

Scene of attack on Israeli diplomat’s car in New Delhi (Archive photo: AP)

The Times quoted a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Guidance Council, the Maktab al-Ershad, as saying that “the government requested a high-level meeting with Iranian officials. Iran sent Suleimani. The meeting was intended to send a message to America, which is putting pressure on the Egyptian government, that we should be allowed to have other alliances with anyone we please.”

Suleimani’s visit to Cairo has raised concerns that Egypt is looking to distance itself from the West and boost its relations with the so-called radical axis, despite its dependency on American military aid.

The Al-Quds Force is the long arm of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and is responsible for terror attacks on foreign interests outside Iran, including last year’s attacks on Israeli tourists and diplomats in India, Thailand and Georgia.

Dershowitz: President’s Nomination of Hagel May Encourage Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com.

( He’s one of Obama’s biggest apologists, and yet… – JW )

Alan Dershowitz

President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense risks increasing the likelihood that Iran will develop nuclear weapons.  It poses that risk because Hagel is well known for his opposition both to sanctions against Iran and to employing the military option if necessary.

These views are inconsistent with the very different views expressed by President Obama.  The President has emphasized on numerous occasions that he will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and will use military force if necessary to prevent that “game changer.”

The nomination of Hagel thus sends a mixed message to the mullahs in Tehran, who will likely interpret it as a change from a red light to a yellow or green one when it comes to their desire to develop nuclear weapons.  Sending a mixed message at this point can increase the chances that Iran will miscalculate and act in a foolheartedly manner thus requiring the actual use of the military option—an eventuality that nobody wants.

The goal of America’s policy toward Iran has always been to frighten the mullahs into believing President Obama’s threat to use military force if sanctions fail.  “I don’t bluff”, President Obama has famously and publicly stated.  It is imperative that the Iranian leadership believe this.  If they do, they may well decide that the sanctions they are currently undergoing are too painful to endure, if the end result is that they will never be permitted to develop nuclear weapons.  If they don’t believe President Obama’s threat, then the sanctions alone will not dissuade them from pursuing their nuclear goal.  The nomination of Senator Hagel will strengthen the hand of those within the Iranian leadership who think that President Obama is bluffing.

It is also important that the Israeli leadership believes that President Obama really has Israel’s back when it comes to preventing Iran from endangering the Jewish state by obtaining nuclear weapons.  Any loss of trust with this regard may result in an Israeli decision to take unilateral military action to protect its citizens against nuclear attacks.

This is the wrong time to send mixed messages by nominating a man who has, at best, a mixed record with regard to sanctions and the military option against Iran and with regard to having Israel’s back.

Senator Hagel will have an opportunity to clarify, and hopefully to change, his previous statements with regard to these issues.  He should be asked probing questions about sanctions, about the military option and about Israel’s security.  In his answers he must persuade the Iranian leadership that there is no distance between his current views and those of the President who has nominated him.  The President must also persuade the Iranian leadership that his nomination of Hagel does not constitute any backing down from his commitment to use military force, if sanctions don’t work.

Independence may be a virtue for a Senator, but it is a vice when it presents conflicting messages at a time when it is imperative that the Iranian leadership understand that the Obama Administration, indeed the United States as a whole, speaks with one voice when it says that Iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, even if that requires the use of military force if all other options fail.

Normally a president, especially a president reelected to a second term with a substantial majority, should be entitled to pick his own Secretary of Defense.  But when the President’s decision risks sending a mixed message that could increase the chances of having to employ the military option against Iran, the Senate has an especially important role to play.  The burden is now on Senator Hagel to persuade the Senate, the American people, and they leaders of Iran that he is fully supportive of the President’s commitment not to contain a nuclear armed Iran, but to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring, even if that requires the use of military force to achieve that commendable goal.

Nor is this a liberal-conservative or democratic-republican issue.  Reportedly, the Hagel nomination has been very controversial within the White House itself, with some of President Obama’s closest advisers being critical of it.  Many Democrats, both elected officials and rank and file voters, are deeply concerned about the wisdom of the President’s nomination of Senator Hagel.  Neither is this an issue that concerns only Jewish or pro-Israel voters.  There are serious policy issues at stake here.  Those of us who voted for President Obama and who want to be certain that Iran is never allowed to develop nuclear weapons, as the President promised, have legitimate concerns about this nomination.  We hope that these concerns can be allayed by the President and his nominee, but if they are not, it will be the highest of patriotic duties to oppose Senator Hagel’s nomination.

Israel Hayom | Is Hagel Israel’s punishment?.

Israel Hayom | Effectively confronting Tehran.

Syria reportedly swaps over 2,000 civilian prisoners for 48 rebel-held Iranians | The Times of Israel.

Anti-regime forces say captives, taken in August, were Revolutionary Guard fighters who came to quash Assad’s opposition

Free Syrian Army soldiers guarding a group of Iranians abducted on August 4 (photo credit: AP video/Baraa Brigades)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Syrian rebels freed 48 Iranians held captive since August, Iranian state TV reported Wednesday, part of what appeared to be the first major prisoner swap of the civil war.

The deal — reportedly coordinated by a Turkish Islamic aid group — will also involve the release of more than 2,000 held by Bashar Assad’s regime, Turkey’s state-run agency Anadolu Agency reported. Anadolu said a group of people held in the Syrian Interior Ministry building in Damascus had been released and were escorted onto buses. The group included women and children, it said, but gave no further details.

The exchange came just days after Assad vowed to press ahead with the fight against rebel fighters even as battles expand in the capital Damascus.

Iran, however, is one of Assad’s main backers and the hostages were a major bargaining chip for opposition factions trying to bring down his regime. Rebels accused the Iranian captives of links to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, but Iran has denied the claims and described the hostages as pilgrims visiting Shiite religious sites.

Turkey’s state-run agency Anadolu Agency said the aid group was coordinating the prisoner exchange for 2,130 prisoners. The aid group says four Turks are among prisoners to be freed.

Iran’s state-run Press TV also gave no other immediate details on the movements of the freed Iranians.

The Iranians were kidnapped outside the Syrian capital in August. The rebels had threatened to kill the captives unless the Syrian regime halted military operations against the opposition.

The reported deal would mark the first major prisoner swap since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011. More than 60,000 people have been killed, according to the UN.

In a speech Sunday, Assad struck a defiant tone, ignoring international demands to step down and saying he is ready to talk — but only with those “who have not betrayed Syria.” He also vowed to continue the battle “as long as there is one terrorist left,” a term the government uses for rebels.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.