WarSclerotic

Israel Air Force now holds key to fate of Damascus, Assad regime.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 9, 2013, 2:06 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli Air Force F-15-E figher-bombers

The Syrian rebels’ hyped up “Great Confrontation” to capture Damascus the capital has ended in a draw with Bashar Assad’s army like all their previous offensives in recent months. They failed to break through to the heart of the capital past the powerful Syrian army’s 4th Division standing in their path under the command of Gen. Maher Assad, the president’s brother. The rebels also lost their position on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. But amid heavy battles with the division’s troops, the rebels are still clinging to the southern suburbs of Damascus.
The Syrian capital (1.9 million inhabitants) is therefore the second city after Aleppo (2.3 million) to be divided between the combatants.
debkafile’s military sources report that, notwithstanding the bitter fighting, the flow of refugees fleeing Syria has slowed down substantially, as many choose life in war zones over the wretched conditions prevailing in Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian refugee camps, where rudimentary essentials such as food, clean water, heating and basic medical services are lacking for the hundreds of thousands of dispossessed Syrians. Adding to these horrors, some Syrian families are said to be selling their daughters for food.
The Syrian outward refugee movement now tends to be internal, people in embattled areas seeking asylum in regions outside the war zones, such as the Druze Mountains southeast of the Golan and Kurdish areas in the north.
Since the Israeli air strike on the Syrian military complex of Jamraya on Jan. 30, Syria’s warring sides have been looking over their shoulders to assess Israel’s moves before embarking on the next stage of their contest because of two considerations:

1.  debkafile’s military sources report that when the rebels first looked like breaking through to the heart of Damascus in the early part of their offensive – and so forcing Syrian President Bashar Assad to flee the capital – he ordered his army’s 4th Division tanks and short-range surface missiles to be armed with chemical weapons. They were to be used if the city’s defenses were breached. This would have made the battle for Damascus the first Syrian war engagement to deploy chemical weapons in combat.
The only military force close enough to prevent this happening and destroying the forces wielding chemical arms was the Israel Air Force. Its intervention would have been critical in giving the rebels victory.

2.  Ever since the Jamraya episode, Lebanon military sources report Israel Air Force fighters and surveillance planes are conducting over flights almost every day.
According to our military sources, the Israeli aircraft are densely deployed over Syria’s borders with Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, to guard against two eventualities, which the Netanyahu government is bound to preempt:

a)  Information has reached US and Israeli intelligence that Bashar Assad has vowed to his close circle that he will make Israel pay for Jumraya.

b)  Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has directed the Syrian ruler to make every possible effort to transfer to Hizballah in Lebanon the batch of Iran-supplied sophisticated weapons stored in Syria. This directive was handed to Assad by Iran’s National Security Director Saeed Jalilee when they met in Damascus last Sunday, Feb. 3.
All the parties concerned understand that Israel is just as determined to block this transfer as Tehran and Damascus are resolved to get it through.

In view of these challenges and their potential for an armed clash, Israel is keeping an eagle eye on every twist and turn of Assad’s forces in Damascus for any indications of the onset of chemical warfare or traffic on the move toward the Lebanese border with Hizballah’s weapons.
The Syrian ruler for his part is busy hatching schemes for keeping this arms traffic out of the electronic sight of the Israel Air Force, whereas the Syrian rebels are laying plans for provoking a clash between the Syrian army and the Israeli air force to provide them with an opportune moment for bringing their “great confrontation” in Damascus to a successful conclusion.

Lebanese army accuses Israel of 17-hour overflights | The Times of Israel.

Report that Israel sent ‘spy’ drones to South Lebanon twice follows repeated claims about IAF jets conducting mock sorties

An IDF soldier greets a drone on its return from a mission (photo credit: Tsahi Ben-Ami/Flash90)

Israeli “spy” drones conducted overflights in southern Lebanon twice and returned to Israel, violating Lebanese airspace for over 17 hours, a Lebanese Army Guidance Department spokesman said Saturday in comments quoted by the Lebanese government’s news agency.

The spokesman, who was not named, said the lengthy overflights were not the same as those reported on Friday morning, which were said to have been carried out by Israeli jets.

The report said Israeli fighter planes, accompanied by a reconnaissance drone, flew over Lebanese airspace for three hours overnight Thursday and conducted mock sorties.

Similar incidents of IAF “violation of Lebanese sovereignty and resolution 1701″ were reported on Wednesday, when the fighter planes reportedly flew over the Litani River, a natural barrier that marked the northern lines of the IDF presence in Lebanon before Israel’s 2000 withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines.

Since Israel’s reported attack on a weapons convoy carrying advanced weapons from Syria to Lebanon last week, reports of Israeli jets flying over Lebanon have become increasingly common.

Israel has not responded to the reports.

‘We don’t want weapons to fall into wrong hands’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

White House says decision to rebuff plan to arm Syrian rebels was due to fear that weapon reaches hands of terrorists; ‘no weapon shortage in Syria,” press secretary says

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – The White House refused to send weapon to the Syrian opposition for fear of it reaching the hands of al-Qaeda and other terror organizations that are part of the effort to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad‘s regime.

White House press secretary Jay Carney discussed the US’ caution Friday, in saying: “We have had to be very careful. We don’t want any weapons to fall into the wrong hands and potentially further endanger the Syrian people, our ally Israel or the United States. We also need to make sure that any support we are providing actually makes a difference in pressuring Assad.””That’s why we’ve focused our efforts on helping the opposition to become stronger, more cohesive and more organized,” the press secretary said.

The issue of weapon supply to Syria has come up following a New York Times report by which a plan was developed last summer by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus to arm and train Syrian rebels.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was said by some officials to be sympathetic to the idea, the paper reported, and Panetta himself confirmed in a Senate meeting Thursday that he and US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey have supported the plan to send arms to the Syrian rebels.

Though many in the defense establishment were in support of the plan, the White House decided against it. Carney refused to address “internal deliberations about policy decisions of that nature,” but noted that there was “no shortage of weapons in (Syria).

Iraqi PM: Assad could hold on for years in… JPost – Middle East.

Flaws found in US missile shield against Iran | The Times of Israel.

One fix for European-based interceptors has been ruled out as technically unfeasible, while another could be diplomatically explosive

US Army officers stand at a Patriot anti-missile battery site during a joint Israeli-US air-defense exercise in Tel Aviv in 2009. (photo credit: Ziv Koren/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret US Defense Department studies cast doubt on whether a multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe will ever be able to protect the US from Iranian missiles as intended, congressional investigators said Friday.

Military officials say they believe the problems can be overcome and are moving forward with plans. But proposed fixes could be difficult. One possibility has already been ruled out as technically unfeasible. Another, relocating missile interceptors planned for Poland and possibly Romania to ships on the North Sea, could be diplomatically explosive.

The studies are the latest to highlight serious problems for a plan that has been criticized on several fronts. Republicans claim it was hastily drawn up in an attempt to appease Russia, which had opposed an earlier system. But Russia is also critical of the plan, which it believes is really intended to counter its missiles. A series of governmental and scientific reports has cast doubt on whether it would ever work as planned.

At a time that the military faces giant budget cuts, the studies could prompt Congress to reconsider whether it is worthwhile to spend billions for a system that may not fulfill its original goals.

The classified studies were summarized in a briefing for lawmakers by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ nonpartisan investigative and auditing arm, which is preparing a report. The GAO briefing, which was not classified, was obtained by The Associated Press.

Military officials declined repeated requests to discuss the studies on the record, noting they were classified. Even speaking on condition of anonymity, they declined to say whether the GAO had accurately reported its conclusions. But the GAO briefing had been reviewed by several Defense Department officials and the revisions they requested were incorporated. There was no indication they had objected to how the studies had been described.

The officials who spoke to the AP emphasized that the interceptor intended to protect the United States is in the early stages of development and its capabilities are not known. They said that the US is already protected by other missile defense systems. Even if European-based interceptors are unable to directly defend the United States, they say they would protect not only European allies and US troops stationed on the continent, but also US radars there that are necessary for all US missile defense plans.

Missile defense has been a contentious issue since President George W. Bush sought to base long-range interceptors in central Europe to stop missiles from Iran. Some Democrats criticized the plans, saying they were rushed and based on unproven technology. Russia believed the program was aimed at countering its missiles and undermining its nuclear deterrent.

While it might seem logical for the US to want to have a defense against Russian missiles, it’s not so simple. A new missile defense system aimed at Russia could undermine the balance between the nuclear powers, prompting Moscow to add to its arsenal and build up its own defenses. It would undermine prospects for further cuts in nuclear weapons — a priority for US President Barack Obama — and could also hurt US-Russian cooperation on other issues of international importance.

Obama reworked the plans soon after taking office in 2009, arguing that the threat from long-range Iranian missiles was years off. His plans called for slower interceptors that could address Iran’s medium-range missiles. The interceptors would be upgraded gradually over four phases, culminating early next decade with those intended to protect both Europe and the United States.

The plans have gained momentum in Europe with the signing of basing agreements in Poland, Romania and Turkey, as well as backing by NATO. But Russia, while initially welcoming the plan, now strongly opposes it, especially the interceptors in the final stage. Russia fears those interceptors could catch its intercontinental missiles launched at the US.

It is that fourth stage that is now at issue. The GAO investigators said that the classified reports by the Missile Defense Agency concluded that Romania was a poor location for an interceptor to protect the US. It said the Polish site would work only if the US developed capabilities to launch interceptors while an Iranian missile was in its short initial phase of powered flight.

But the administration is not pursuing that capability because it does not believe it is feasible, according to one senior defense official.

The military has considered deploying interceptors on ships, but the Navy has safety concerns that have not yet been resolved. The suggestion of attempting intercepts from ships on the North Sea would likely aggravate tensions with Russia. That could put it right in the path that some Russian ICBMs would use, further reinforcing Russia’s belief that it, not Iran, is the target of the system.

The GAO investigators also took the administration to task for not conducting studies earlier that could have revealed the problems. Reports by the GAO and scientific bodies advising the government have raised other concerns about the missile shield, citing production glitches, cost overruns, problems with radars and sensors that cannot distinguish between warheads and other objects. One report by the National Academy of Sciences recommended canceling the fourth phase of the system and deploying the interceptors to the East Coast.

The GAO study was requested by Republican Rep. Michael Turner, who until recently led a panel that oversees missile defense. He said he is concerned that the interceptor in development might be useless in protecting the United States.

“This report really confirms what I have said all along: that this was a hurried proposal by the president,” he said.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Israel’s Intensifying Fronts.

Amir Rapaport

8/2/2013

While Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, IDF Chief of Staff, received the Legion of Merit decoration from the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington (on behalf of the US president and secretary of defense), three fronts that determine the IDF’s agenda intensified in Israel.

The most intense border in Israel is the northern one. The attacks that took place last week in Syria, which foreign publications attribute to Israel, do not represent a one-time event that is fading away. Several senior Israeli officials (including the minister of defense) stated that Israel is preparing to consistently prevent Hezbollah’s acquisition of strategic weaponry. This is an active policy which is advanced in the IDF by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, and the head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.

If the Israeli statements are well-established (and there is no reason to assess that they aren’t), it is quite possible that another attack was also carried out this week, in Lebanon or in Syria. In light of the stated Israeli policy, the northern tension has only escalated. There is no expectation of massive rocket launch towards Israel, but it is possible that Syria or Hezbollah will make use of a cover organization to carry out a launch or two, without leaving fingerprints pointing to the identity of who sent it. It’s more likely that efforts are underway now to carry out a retaliatory terror attack against Israeli targets abroad or in Israel. In the past year, the Shabak caught a Hezbollah network for smuggling advanced explosives to “dormant” cells in Israel. It is quite possible that not all of the smuggling attempts were foiled, and not all the cells were exposed – perhaps this is what senior Iranian officials meant when they threatened that Tel Aviv will suffer for the attack in Syria.

The considerable media exposure this week for the findings of the Bulgarian investigation into the August 2012 terror attack is of no actual security significance. Israel’s Shabak and Mossad have already known for a while that Hezbollah was behind the attack, with Iranian assistance, just as it was the one behind terrorist attacks and attempted attacks with similar characteristics in the past year or two – in India, Thailand, Azerbaijan and in Cyprus. The attacks were linked to Hezbollah’s decision to avenge the death of Imad Mughniyah in 2008 – also attributed to Israel – and not the recent tension that began due to the deterioration taking place in Syria.

Meanwhile, from the Israeli side, the high degree of tension is expressed in the wider deployment of three Iron Dome batteries in the north (the most extensive deployment of the Iron Dome layout in this area to date). Furthermore, other measures were also deployed in the north such as the Raz radar operated by the Israeli Air Force, which provides warnings for both fire and air movement. It has also been revealed that the IDF ordered the evacuation of aircraft from the civilian airfield in Haifa, and it seems the tension is also connected to this unprecedented measure. These are just the visible aspects of the tremendous tension.

Iran

The high level of tension in the north is also directly linked to Syria and Hezbollah’s real patron: the Iranian regime. The full story with regards to Iran is, of course, Israel’s desire to prevent the Ayatollah regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, and the situation is intensifying with regards to that aspect as well. After the establishment of the second Obama administration, Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel cautiously stated that “the option of a military operation against Iran, should the need arise, must not be taken off the table.”

From the US perspective, the gathering of forces in the Middle East and in front of the Persian Gulf will begin towards the coming spring. In addition to the increased military threat, the US will operate to increase the economic pressure (again). Iran is scheduled to have elections in June. The exacerbation of the economic situation could bring millions of Iranians out into the streets, undermining the stability of the regime. Therefore, the US and Western window of opportunity for exerting effective pressure on Iran is between the months of March and June.

The US will not rush to attack, and Iran will not rush to abandon its nuclear program (it will seek ways to continue it in defiance or in secrecy). However, it is quite possible that the planned Israeli visits of US President Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel are tied to the Iranian issue no less than the political issue, as the media was inclined to estimate this week. Obama and Hagel may be coming in order to coordinate positions towards a potential attack, or rather to keep Israel in line so as not to attack on its own (the fact of having to wait for the visits will constitute a consideration in the Israeli decision on a potential attack).

Kerry says US weighing Syria options anew, mum on arming rebels | The Times of Israel.

White House fears weapons could end up in wrong hands and endanger Israel or the US, spokesman says

Secretary of State and former Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry leaves a closed-door briefing on the investigation of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi last December. (photo credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that the United States is evaluating new options to halt Syria’s civil war, but he refused to weigh into administration debates over whether to arm the rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime.

In his first news conference as secretary, Kerry said the Obama administration was looking at the crisis anew and hoping to find a diplomatic solution. But he sidestepped specifically addressing a question over providing military assistance to the anti-Assad opposition.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Thursday that they had recommended offering military support to the rebels but were rebuffed by President Barack Obama.

“My sense right now is that everybody in the administration and people in other parts of the world are deeply distressed by the continued violence in Syria,” Kerry told reporters alongside Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird. “There’s too much killing. There’s too much violence. And we obviously want to try to find a way forward.”

“We are evaluating now,” he said. “We’re taking a look at what steps, if any, diplomatic particularly, might be able to be taken in an effort to try to reduce that violence and deal with that situation.”

Kerry’s suggestion of a possible new American approach comes after Panetta and Dempsey gave the Senate a glimpse of the internal disagreements over how forcefully the US should respond to violence that has killed some 60,000 people in the last two years. Both military leaders said they supported providing weapons to the rebels, but that the president made the final decision against such action.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney addresses the media (photo credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that President Obama’s decision hesitance to arm the rebels stems from the fear that such weapons could end up in the wrong hands.

When asked by a member of the press why the White House overrode recommendations from other officials in the administration to arm the Syrian rebels, Carney responded: “I can tell you that, as the president and his national security team have looked at these issues, we have had to be very careful. We don’t want any weapons to fall into the wrong hands and potentially further endanger the Syrian people, our ally, Israel, or the United States.  We also need to make sure that any support we are providing actually makes a difference in pressuring Assad.”

“I think it’s widely viewed that more weapons in Syria — that a lack of weapons is not the problem in Syria right now.  Keep in mind that there is no shortage, as I just said, of weapons in Syria.  That’s why we’ve focused our efforts on helping the opposition to become stronger, more cohesive, and more organized,” he added. “We almost constantly or continually review what we’re doing with regards to Syria and that conversation continues.  But it is, of course, of paramount interest on this matter in particular that we not create a situation where weapons provided by the United States end up in the wrong hands and we thereby accidentally, if you will, create more danger for the United States, for the Syrian people, or for Israel.”

Washington has struggled throughout Syria’s civil war to come up with a policy that would help end the bloodshed and hasten Assad’s departure. Obama called on the Syrian leader to leave power in August 2011, but the United States has refused to entertain any notion of military intervention by patrolling Syria’s skies to prevent government airstrikes or by handing out advanced weaponry to Syrian rebels.

US officials have noted that, unlike in Libya, there is no UN mandate for any direct American military involvement such as a no-fly zone. And officials believe any plan to provide weapons would only further militarize a conflict that needs to be resolved with some sort of political transition. There is also fear that if the weapons end up in the hands of terrorists and extremist groups they can later turn on nearby Israel or other US allies and interests in the region.

Kerry said he wasn’t privy to all the details of the administration’s internal deliberations.

“I don’t know what the discussions were in the White House and who said what, and I’m not going to go backward,” Kerry said at the end of his first full week in his new job. “This is a new administration now, the president’s second term, I’m a new secretary of state and we’re going forwards from this point.”

But Kerry underscored the numerous challenges hindering the possibility of a more activist approach, citing the threat of the rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra — the Obama administration has designated it a foreign terrorist organization — and the influx of fighters from al-Qaida in Iraq. “It is a very complicated and very dangerous situation,” he said. “And everybody understands it is a place that has chemical weapons, and we are deeply concerned about that.”

In the past months, several officials in the State Department, Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency have said that giving weapons to carefully vetted rebels could help blunt the influence of extremists like al-Nusra among the rebel ranks. Such US assistance, according to proponents, might also be remembered in a post-Assad Syria and provide the United States a new partner in a place that it has generally met hostility during the four decades of the Assad family dynasty.

The counterargument maintained that giving weapons posed too great a risk, according to other officials who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly about internal matters. The White House, in particular, was wary in the weeks preceding Obama’s re-election and hasn’t changed its mind because the nonextremist opposition still lacks cohesiveness and because there is no compelling national security reason for direct US weapons supplies.

It’s unclear whether Kerry has formed his own opinion. Asked during his confirmation hearing last month about new options for Syria, he said he needed to first see the administration’s contingency plans.

“What I do know is that there are a lot of weapons there,” he said. “There are people in the Gulf, and you know who they are, who are not hesitating to provide weapons. And that’s one of the reasons, together with the fact that al-Nusra has been introduced to the equation that the movement on the ground is faster than the movement in the politics.”

Looking ahead to nuclear talks later this month between Iran and senior officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, Kerry warned Iran to come prepared to talk seriously about concerns over its nuclear program.

If Iran does what it needs to do to prove its nuclear intentions are peaceful, Kerry said the international community is prepared to respond positively. If not, he said Iran will only face increased international isolation.

Kerry reminded the Iranian leadership that Obama has taken no options off the table, including military force, to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“Iran has a choice,” he said. “They have to prove to the world that it is peaceful and we are prepared to sit responsibly and negotiate how they can do that and how we can all be satisfied.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Kerry says Iran must be serious at nuclear talks – Israel News, Ynetnews.

US secretary of state says Tehran’s recent revelation that it would vastly increase pace of uranium enrichment ‘concerning’ and ‘disturbing’

Associated Press

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Iran on Friday to come to upcoming nuclear talks prepared to talk seriously with world powers about addressing concerns over its nuclear program.

Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Kerry said in his first public comments on the matter since taking office last week that Iran knows full well what it needs to do to prove its nuclear intentions are peaceful as it claims.

If it does, Kerry said the international community is prepared to respond positively. If not, he said Iran will only face increased international isolation. He reminded the Iranian leadership that President Barack Obama has taken no options off the table, including military force, to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Ahmadinejad at Iranian nuclear plant (Archive photo: AP)

“We are prepared to let diplomacy be the victor in this confrontation over their nuclear program,” Kerry said after meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird. “The president has made it clear that he is prepared to talk about a peaceful nuclear program.”

Kerry also said: “Iran has a choice: they have to prove to the world that it is peaceful and we are prepared to sit responsibly and negotiate how they can do that and how we can all be satisfied.”

His comments came ahead of a meeting between Iran and senior officials from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. That meeting is set for Feb. 26 in Kazakhstan.

Kerry also said that Iran’s recent revelation that it would vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads, is “concerning” and “disturbing.”

“The president has made it clear that his preference is to have a diplomatic solution, but if he cannot get there, he is prepared to do whatever is necessary to make certain that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Obama and Netanyahu: The sta… JPost – Features – Week in review.