WarSclerotic

US official: Israel notified us about Syria attack | The Times of Israel.

IAF warplanes reportedly hit convoy carrying anti-aircraft weaponry en route to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon; regime claims jets targeted research facility

An IAF F-15 fighter jet during a training exercise (photo credit: Ofer Zidon/Flash90)

US officials told the New York Times on Wednesday that Israel had notified the United States about an airstike it carried out overnight Tuesday near the Lebanese-Syrian border.

The officials said that they believed the target of the strike was a convoy carrying sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry intended to reach Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. 

An unnamed Western official told the Wall Street Journal that the convoy was carrying sophisticated SA-17 anti-aircraft weapons.

Israel has so far declined to comment on whether or not it had carried out the strike, but the Syrian Army issued a statement Wednesday accusing it of bombing a “scientific research center” in the Jamraya area just northwest of Damascus.

Two workers at the facility were killed and five were injured in the strike, the Syrian Army said, adding that considerable material damage was caused to the site, which was responsible for “raising the level of resistance and self-defense” of Syria’s military.

The statement denied that the strike was aimed at a convoy, and did not specify as to the purpose of the installation that was hit.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, US officials believe there may have been two strikes, one aimed at the convoy and another at a military facility.

Unconfirmed Lebanese media reports said the facility attacked contained chemical weapons.

The Syrian army portrayed the strike near Jamraya as linked to the civil war pitting Assad’s forces against rebels seeking to push him from power.

It said that “armed terrorist gangs”, a term the government uses to describe rebel groups, had tried and failed repeatedly to capture the same facility in recent months.

“This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people,” the statement said.

Regional security officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful military force. Among Israeli officials’ fears is that Assad will pass chemical weapons or sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah — something that could change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel’s ability to conduct air sorties in Lebanon.

The regional officials said the shipment Israel was planning to strike included Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically “game-changing” in the hands of Hezbollah by enabling the group to carry out fiercer attacks on Israel, and shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters, and surveillance drones.

Hezbollah has committed to Israel’s destruction and has gone to war against the Jewish state in the past, most recently in 2006 when Israel carried out a 34-day military operation targeting the group’s bases and infrastructure.

Lebanese officials said a dozen Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday, flying close to the ground in several sorties over southern Lebanon.

A Lebanese army statement said the last of the sorties took place at 2 a.m. Wednesday. It said four warplanes flew in over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura and hovered over villages for several hours in south Lebanon before leaving Lebanese airspace.

The Lebanese army said similar flights by eight other warplanes were conducted Tuesday, but added that it had no knowledge of an airstrike.

Earlier this week, Israel moved a battery of its new “Iron Dome” rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli army called that move “routine.”

Israel Military Intelligence Chief Aviv Kochavi is in Washington for consultations at the Pentagon, including meetings with Joint Chiefs of Staff head Martin Dempsey.

Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday that any such transfer of arms to Hezbollah “would be crossing a line that would demand a different approach.”

On Tuesday, Air Force chief Amir Eshel said Israel needed to be wary of both conventional and non-conventional weapons finding their way out of Syria.

“There is, in Syria, an enormous arsenal of weapons, some state of the art and some non-conventional. All of it could find its way to our borders and not just to our backyards,” he said.

Tuesday’s strike was Israel’s first inside Syria since September 2007, when warplanes destroyed a site that the UN nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008, but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site.

In 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad’s palace in a show of force after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.

And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks but never did.

Despite tensions, no special alerts were recorded in the north of Israel. Municipal bomb shelters, normally opened when the security situation warrants it, remained closed Thursday morning, Israel Radio reported.

AP and Mitch Ginsburg contributed to this report.

Syria: Israel attacked military research center – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Syria’s military command says Israeli warplanes attacked military research center in Damascus province denying reports that jets hit weapons convoy; two killed, five injured. Residents, experts say site was chemical weapons facility

Ynet reporters

Israeli warplanes attacked a military research center in Damascus province at dawn on Wednesday, Syria‘s military command said, denying reports that the planes had struck a convoy carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon.

Local residents and experts claim the target was a chemical weapons production center.

Two people were killed and five wounded in the attack on the site in Jamraya, which Syria described as one of a number of “scientific research centers aimed at raising the level of resistance and self-defense”.

The building was destroyed, the military command said in a statement carried by state media.

It said the planes crossed into Syria below the radar level, just north of Mount Hermon, and returned the same way.

Area of attack according to Syrian statement (Photo: Google Maps)

The Jamraya area contains many military facilities as well as what is likely a chemical weapons production and storage site. The area also houses training camps for Hezbollah combatants who are learning to operate advanced Russian weapons systems.

It was further noted that the attack occurred after terrorist groups tried and failed to take control of the site several times.

SA-17 missiles

The Syrian army statement denied that the strike had targeted a convoy headed from Syria to Lebanon, instead portraying the strike as linked to the civil war pitting Bashar Assad’s forces against rebels seeking to push him from power.

“This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people,” the statement said.

Residents near Damascus had previously told AFP that missiles had struck a military site for unconventional weapons on Tuesday at 11:30 pm.

According to them, the center, which is located in Al-Hameh, about fifteen kilometers north-west of Damascus, was hit by six missiles that were partially destroyed, causing a fire and killing at least two people.

A Lebanese news website quoted a Syrian source as saying that the target of the alleged Israeli strike was a chemical weapons center. The Damascus source said that the attack took place at 1:30 am at a scientific research center in the Jamraya area.

He added that four security guards were killed in the attack and that the blast could be heard as far as Damascus.

Syrian rebels posted a video allegedly documenting a series of blasts at the center shortly after the attack had taken place. The video could not be authenticated. On Wednesday, several rebel leaders claimed that they had attacked the site with mortar shells.

Israel’s intelligence community has been aware of the military research center for decades. Some of the center’s studies have been presented as civilian in nature. Yiftah Shafir of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv said, “It is a secret governmental body that answers directly to Assad and aggregates all of Syria’s military research institutes.”

 Earlier on Wednesday AP quoted US and regional officials as saying that Israel conducted an airstrike inside Lebanon, hitting a convoy of trucks.

The officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They said the shipment included sophisticated, Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically “game-changing” in the hands of Hezbollah.

Lebanese sources also commented on the reports and stressed that there had been no strike inside Lebanese territory. An eye witness from a border town said that there had been no explosion.

A senior official with the Lebanese security forces told Turkey’s Anatolia news agency that they were not aware of any attack on the Syria-Lebanon border area.

He did however say that an Israeli force had infiltrated the border strip in south Lebanon for several minutes on Tuesday night. Lebanese army sources said that the forces did not observe any Israeli activity overnight.

Roi Kais, Elior Levy, Yoav Zitun, AP and Reuters contributed to this report

Syria: Israeli jets strike Jamaraya arms depot near Damascus leaving casualties.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 30, 2013, 10:24 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli warplanes attack Syrian arms depot

The Syrian government, by admitting that the Israel Air Force attacked the Jamaraya “Military Research Institute” (a euphemism for an arms deport), near Damascus, broke the barrier of silence the Israeli government had clamped down on its initial involvement in the Syrian conflict.  It also indicated that Bashar Assad may have decided to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Israel. The Syrian statement also refuted the report by foreign media from “Israeli sources” that Israeli jets had struck a convoy carrying sophisticated weapons from Syria to the Hizballah in Lebanon.

The Syrian statement was detailed: It said that the “Military Research Institute” developed Syrian army and Hizballah combat  capabilities, that two Syrian solders were killed and five injured in the raid, and that a building had been leveled along with serious damage to military vehicles parked outside.

Israeli warplanes were described as coming in low from the north to evade Syrian [and Iranian] radar after flying over the Syrian peaks of the Hermon ridge. The Israeli jets were reported to have flown back to home base by the same route.
Last week, debkafile reports, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent two senior aides to Washington and Moscow with an identical message:  If Bashar Assad ventures to permit Syrian arms, conventional or chemical, to reach Hizballah, the Israeli Defense Forces will prevent their delivery by force.
Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen Aviv Kochavi handed this message to Obama administration officials in Washington and National Security Adviser Yakov Amidror delivered it for Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report the message was sent out too late and soon overtaken by events:

1. Assad has passed the point of being accessible to outside influence or receptive to international condemnation. He no longer listens even to the advice of allies, such as President Vladimir Putin.

2.  The Syrian ruler is no longer interested in how the sophisticated weapons owned by Hizballah and stored in Syria are disposed of.  For years they were stored in Syrian military storehouses and kept from crossing the border into Lebanon by Israeli threats. Now, as far as Assad is concerned, Hizballah can collect the weapons systems or leave them where they are, whatever they wish. But they will have to take charge of keeping them secure since the Syrian army has no manpower to spare for this task.
3.  On the other hand, Assad acknowledges his debt to Hizballah for the great assistance it has rendered his war against the Syrian insurgency. He will therefore not deny his Lebanese ally assistance in preparing for war with Israel.
For all these reasons, the Kochavi and Amidror missions were a wasted effort.
Furthermore, two days earlier, President Barack Obama made it clear that he was not getting the United States involved in the Syrian conflict. In an interview to The New Republic,  he asked rhetorically: “In a situation like Syria I have to ask: can we make a difference in that situation?”

From that point on, it was obviously up to Syria’s neighbors to pick up the Syrian ball themselves, including the threat of chemical warfare.
After the Israeli air raid, the Pentagon pointed a finger at its authors, answering reporters’ question with a terse: Ask Israel.
By publishing the Israeli air raid, Bashar Assad seems to be treating it with all the seriousness of an act of war. His next step may well be to fight back.

Officials to AP: Israel hit SA-17 missiles shipment – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( This sounds right. – JW )

News agency quotes US and regional security officials as saying Israel conducted airstrike inside Syria hitting convoy of trucks; officials estimate target was SA-17 missiles which would be ‘game-changing’ in hands of Hezbollah

Roi Kais

Israel conducted an airstrike inside Syria overnight near the border with Lebanon, hitting a convoy of trucks, US and regional officials said Wednesday.

  The regional officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. They said the shipment included sophisticated, Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically “game-changing” in the hands of Hezbollah.

A US official said the strike hit a convoy of trucks.

SA-17 missiles are self-propelled and have the capacity to hit jets at a low altitude. The system’s portability makes it harder to trace and enables it to surprise jets within its range. These attributes could jeopardize IAF jets should they operate against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

SA-17 missiles

A former senior security official in Lebanon told the Washington Post that the attack involved a missile fired by an unmanned Israel aircraft at a truck the Lebanon-Syria border. There were no casualties, according to him. The strike was on the Syrian side of the border, said the former official, who still has close ties to Lebanon’s senior security team and said he was told about the attack by a high-ranking official.

He said the truck was carrying weapons, although it was unclear what kind of weapons. It also was not immediately clear whether the truck was being used by the Syrian military or by Syrian rebel forces, who have been locked in a brutal, bloody civil conflict for almost two years.

Earlier on Wednesday, foreign and Arab media sources said Israeli forces attacked a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight adding that 12 IAF jets breached Lebanon’s airspace on Tuesday.

The US-based Al-Monitor website quoted Lebanese sources as saying the target was a weapons convoy traveling near Syria’s border with Lebanon. The report has not been corroborated by any Israeli source and the IDF refused to comment on the matter.

If Israel indeed conducted an airstrike, it may have been signaling to Bashar Assad that Jerusalem would not tolerate the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. It is likely Syria is not interested in locking itself into a conflict with Israel for fear it would cause the Assad regime to collapse. Israel on its part, is not interested in engaging Hezbollah either.

Analysts estimate that Assad’s regime has a clear interest in transferring advanced “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah in order to repay it for its assistance in Syria’s war against the rebels and to prevent the weapons from falling into rebels’ hands.

Hezbollah in turn could use the long-range Scud-D missiles to threaten Israel’s hinterland and defend itself against an Israeli airstrike.

On Tuesday, the World Tribune reported that Israel’s intelligence community has been tracking convoys of trucks that were bringing what appeared to be missiles and warheads from Syria’s Latakia region to Lebanon. Officials said the convoys were unloading the suspected weapons at Hezbollah warehouses in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“When we said we mustn’t let terrorists lay a hand on Syrian weapon, we meant it,” Former Mossad Chief Danny Yatom told Ynet Wednesday.

According to Yatom, if foreign reports of an Israeli attack near the Syrian-Lebanese border are true, it means that Israel had a clear indication that Hezbollah had crossed a line.

Various Israeli sources spoke out recently, insisting that Israel would do anything to stop ammunition owned by Assad forces from making its way into the hands of terror organizations.

“Some things are casus belli,” Yatom said; “That would be the red line that we drew and Israel would be right to do anything it can to enforce it.”

Yatom addressed the possibility that Syria or Hezbollah would respond to the alleged attack, if said attack indeed happened, saying “I estimate that no such response will occur, since neither Hezbollah nor the Syrians have a motive to respond – Assad is preoccupied with his own affairs and Hezbollah is fully engaged in the effort to assist him, so they wouldn’t want to fight an even greater war.”

Ron Ben-Yishai, AP, Roi Mandel and Nir Cohen contributed to this report

Hagel pledges focus on Iran military opt… JPost – International.

By artaxes

I wondered what the IAEA means by ‘our observations’?

Are these the funny light reflexions you see when you look at your office desk?
According to an update of the WND-article the editor notes:

“However, no official statement by the IAEA has taken place since officials’ last unsuccessful trip to Tehran weeks ago when they requested to visit the suspected Parchin site. The last time IAEA inspectors were at Fordow was late last year. It also has not been allowed to install cameras at Fordow by the Islamic regime in Iran.”

http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/new-details-surface-on-iran-nuclear-explosion/

I also find the following observation suspicious.
In all previous incidents when the west made statements that condradicted Iranian statements like the US-denial of the captured drone the Iranians were eager to quickly show photos or videos that proved that the western statement were false thus exposing the west as liars and hypocrites and also scoring major propaganda points.
One wonders why they are not showing us live TV-footage about Ahmadinemonkey visiting Qom and the centrifuges.

Aide to Egypt’s President Morsi: Holocaust a ‘myth’ | The Times of Israel.

US intel agencies fabricated genocide of European Jews to ‘destroy Germany’s image,’ says official in charge of appointing newspaper editors

JERUSALEM (JTA) – A top Egyptian official close to President Mohammed Morsi in recent days called the Holocaust a “myth” and “an industry that America invented.”

Eddim is reportedly responsible for appointing the editors of all state-run Egyptian newspapers.

“US intelligence agencies in cooperation with their counterparts in allied nations during World War II created it [the Holocaust] to destroy the image of their opponents in Germany, and to justify war and massive destruction against military and civilian facilities of the Axis powers, and especially to hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb,” Eddim reportedly said.

He claimed that the 6 million Jews moved to the United States during World War II.

In response to the Egyptian’s claim, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement, “The time has come for the State Department to inform the Egyptian government that the United States can no longer tolerate such anti-Semitic rants and Holocaust denial behavior from another top Egyptian official.”

Shihab Eddim’s remarks became public just days after Morsi was accused of say

Hamas denies its gunmen are aiding Morsi in Egypt | The Times of Israel.

Gaza-based daily blames Egyptian Copt organization for attempt to ‘demonize’ Palestinians

Egyptian protesters clash with riot police, not seen, near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Khalil Hamra)

Amid rumors of Hamas involvement in support of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi, a Gaza newspaper has accused a Coptic Egyptian organization of fabricating the reports in order to incite against the Islamic leaders of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this week, Egyptian media reported that 7,000 Hamas operatives had infiltrated the country through tunnels from Gaza to support Morsi’s ruling Freedom and Justice party, which is currently facing a massive popular uprising in the Suez region.

Hamas officials were quick to deny the Egyptian accusation.

Moussa Abu-Marzouq, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, wrote on his Facebook page that he was sorry that his organization and the Palestinians were being used as a tool in a domestic Egyptian conflict.

Hamas, Abu-Marzouq added, “stands at an equal distance from all political parties in Egypt.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum issued a statement calling the Egyptian reports “lies,” which he said aimed at “driving a wedge between Egypt and Palestine and ruining the reputation of Hamas and its fighting brigades.”

To add credence to the official denials, Hamas’s Gaza-based newspaper Felesteen on Tuesday published an investigative report exposing the “secret” of the Egyptian organization behind the anti-Hamas publications.

Reportedly, a Coptic organization called the Justice and Development Organization for Human Rights, based in Upper Egypt, was behind the incitement campaign. The organization, Felesteen charged, even supported the visit of Egyptian opposition activist Maikel Nabil to Israel.

Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the Arab nationalist daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, which focuses on Palestinian issues, claimed in an op-ed Wednesday that the Egyptian reports were simply an attempt to victimize Palestinians, the default “weakest link” of the Arab world.

“The choice of Hamas… is a meticulously calculated one. The movement is Islamist and affiliated with the Brotherhood, very close to the mother organization in Egypt,” wrote Atwan. “Therefore, its current demonization is welcomed by certain circles in Egypt which are angry at the Brotherhood and wish to topple Dr. Morsi.”

Hamas doesn’t have 7,000 fighters, Atwan added, and even if it did — they could not cross the entire Sinai Desert unnoticed by Egypt’s security forces. 

“O Egyptian noblemen,” pleaded Atwan, “have mercy on the Palestinians.”

Ahmadinijad, guess who’s coming to dinner (Eye of the Tiger with lyrics) – YouTube.

Israel Hayom | Report: Israeli jets hit target in Lebanon-Syria border area.