WarSclerotic

US joins Russia in drawing ceasefire lines for ending Syrian war.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 28, 2013, 9:51 AM (GMT+02:00)

John Kerry on first foreign trip

Incoming US Secretary of State John Kerry, on his first foreign trip, set forth what sounded like a new Obama administration policy for Syria in his remarks in Paris Wednesday, Feb. 27. They were accompanied by reports that the US was stepping up its support for the Syrian opposition. It would cover training rebels at a base in the region and non-lethal assistances and equipment, such as vehicles, communications equipment and night vision gear.

But Kerry’s remarks did not reflect a new policy but merely recycled old definitions which confirmed US disengagement from Syria, rather than “stepping up support” for the Syrian opposition “for the first time.” US supplies of nonlethal assistance to Syrian rebels date back to early last year. The US has moreover been training Syrian rebels in Jordanian bases near the Syrian border for more than a year to carry out three missions:

1. To seize control of Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal;

2. To create a pro-Western core command structure as a factor in post-Assad government;
3. To ward off the takeover of the revolt command by Islamist factions, including groups associated with al Qaeda.
It turned out that none of these three missions was actually achieved. The chemical weapons remained firmly in the hands of Assad and his army – which never used them, contrary to rebel claims; factions close to Al Qaeda grew stronger; and their role in the rebel command expanded as they were seen to be the best-armed and trained of any Syrian rebel faction.

The Obama administration finally came to the conclusion that the only way to contain Islamist forces and retain a modicum of American control over the rebels was to catch a ride on Russian President Vladimir Putin plans for Syria, even through they entailed preserving Bashar Assad in power through to 2014. 
debkafile’s military and Russian sources reveal here for the first time that those plans hinge primarily on establishing armistice lines dividing the country into separate sectors and determining in advance which will be controlled by rebel factions and which by Assad loyalilsts. This is the first practical basis to be put forward for an accord to end the two-year old civil war between Assad and the Syrian opposition and it is designed to go forward under joint Russian-American oversight.
Our sources add that the teamwork between Washington and Moscow in pursuit of this plan is close and detailed. They have agreed to get together on the types of weapons to be supplied to each of the rebel groups and are sharing costs.

That is the real new American policy for Syria: It is based on Washington’s recognition of the new situation unfolding in Syria and the need to cooperate with Moscow, including acceptance of Assad’s rule, in order to salvage remnants of American influence within the Syrian rebel camp.

French President Francois Hollande showed he was quick on the uptake. No sooner had the Secretary Kerry departed Paris for Rome Wednesday, than Hollande was on his way to Moscow to scout out a role for France.

West offers Iran new deal, drops demand to close Fordow | JPost | Israel News.

( Now that’s a BIG concession…. Heh ! – JW )

Hagel, Kerry offer softer tone on foreign policy | The Times of Israel.

New secretary of defense suggests US ‘can’t dictate to the world,’ while secretary of state calls Iran’s government ‘elected’

By Haviv Rettig Gur February 28, 2013, 3:10 am

US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, is accompanied by France’s President Francois Hollande after their meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, on Wednesday, February 27, 2013. (photo credit: AP Photo/Francois Mori)

NEW YORK – The two newest members of Obama’s cabinet expressed views on Wednesday that will likely be grist for the mill for the administration’s foreign policy critics.

Shortly after he was sworn in Wednesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a group of Pentagon officials that the US “can’t dictate to the world, but we must engage the world.”

The remarks, which according to Reuters appeared to be unscripted, went on to emphasize the importance of alliances in American foreign and defense policy.

“We must lead with our allies,” Hagel said. “No nation – as great as America is – can do any of this alone. We have great power and how we apply our power is particularly important. That engagement in the world should be done wisely. And the resources that we employ on behalf of our country and our allies should always be applied wisely.”

Hagel’s views have faced close scrutiny during the weeks-long nomination process that ended with his approval by the Senate on Tuesday by the narrowest margin in history, 58-41. Hagel’s detractors, including most Republican senators, said he was too soft on threats such as the Iranian nuclear program, overly critical of Israel, and too skeptical regarding the efficacy of employing American power. His comments Wednesday will likely be seen by some of these opponents as vindication of their opposition to his appointment.

Hagel’s swearing-in ceremony was conducted behind closed doors. His remarks, delivered after the ceremony, also touched on the massive cuts the Pentagon faces on March 1 due to the looming budget sequester.

Meanwhile, John Kerry was in Paris Wednesday as part of his first European tour as secretary of state. In a press conference with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Kerry seemed to offer a rhetorical olive branch to the Iranian government he had appeared to threaten only days earlier, saying the government was “elected” and calling for direct bilateral discussions between the US and the Islamic Republic.

“Iran is a country with a government that was elected and that sits in the United Nations,” Kerry said, according to Foreign Policy. “And it is important for us to deal with nation-states in a way that acts in the best interests of all of us in the world.”

He added that “Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

The comments seemed markedly gentler than Kerry’s statements earlier in the week. On Monday, Kerry had warned that “the window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open forever. But it is open today. It is open now. There is still time but there is only time if Iran makes the decision to come to the table and negotiate in good faith.” While the US is “prepared to negotiate in good faith, in mutual respect,” Kerry didn’t flinch from speaking of “terrible consequences [that] could follow failure.

“And so the choice really is in the hands of the Iranians,” he said, “and we hope they will make the right choice.”

Kerry’s latest comment on the Iranian regime ran counter to past views expressed by the White House and among many observers in the West that Iran’s 2009 elections saw rampant fraud in favor of the victor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many have also pointed to laws that require candidates for high office to be vetted by the regime’s religious leaders as evidence of the less-than-democratic nature of the regime.

On January 31, in the middle of his confirmation hearings in the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel expressed similar sentiments to Kerry’s, arguing Iran was an “elected, legitimate government.”

At the time, following criticism by senators, Hagel retracted the comment and said he’d only meant to suggest Iran’s government is recognized by the international community. “What I meant to say, should have said, it’s recognizable, it’s been recognized, is recognized at the United Nations. Most of our allies have embassies there. That is what I should have said,” Hagel explained.

Iran hails ‘turning point’ as world powers make key nuclear concessions

Iran hailed a “turning point” in the confrontation over its nuclear ambitions when the world’s six leading powers watered down key demands during a “realistic” round of talks.

Iran agrees to hold new nuclear talks

Iran’s chief negotiator Saeed Jalili in Almaty today Photo: AP

By David Blair, Chief Foreign Correspondent

6:59PM GMT 27 Feb 2013

The negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany ended with rare words of guarded optimism from both sides.

“In this round of talks we have witnessed that, despite all the attitudes during the last eight months, they tried to get closer to our viewpoints,” said Saeed

Jalili, the lead Iranian negotiator.

Praising the “positive” approach of his interlocutors, he said: “We believe this is a turning point.”

The six, the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, known as the “P5 plus 1, had made three crucial demands on Iran before any sanctions could be relaxed.

These were that Iran should stop enriching uranium to the 20 per cent purity that is close to weapons grade; ship its stockpile of this material out of the country, and shut the nuclear plant at Fordow, which was built in secret and revealed only in 2009.

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Yesterday the US and the other countries diluted two of the three stipulations. They still insisted that Iran must stop enriching to 20 per cent, but they have relaxed their demands for the outright closure of Fordow and the export of Tehran’s medium-enriched uranium.

Instead, a Western diplomat said that Iran was asked to “reduce the readiness” of Fordow. This would mean “standing down” some of the cascades of centrifuges. Iran would also be able to keep enough 20 per cent uranium to fuel a civilian research reactor in Tehran.

The diplomat stressed that these would be interim “confidence-building measures”, designed to ease the path to a final settlement. But if Iran agreed, the US and her allies would lift sanctions on the trade of gold and precious metals and on equipment for the Islamic Republic’s petrochemical industry.

All other sanctions would remain, but the world powers would refrain from imposing any additional restrictions over the nuclear issue.

“They’re watering down the ‘stop, ship and shut’ commitments in order to have a pause, a breather,” said Hugh

Chalmers, a nuclear analyst at the Royal United Services Institute. “This seems like a very pragmatic approach towards buying time.”

Baroness Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, who chairs the “P5 plus 1”, said Iran had an opportunity to “take some initial steps that would improve the confidence of the international community in the wholly peaceful nature of their nuclear programme”.

Speaking after the talks in Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, Lady Ashton cautioned: “The real optimism will come when we start to see progress really being made. And that means our aspiration to see Iran move forward to pick up this proposal, to agree to it and to undertake to implement their part of it.”

Mr Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, listened “intently” as the proposal was set out, said one diplomat at the talks. But Iran has yet to give a formal response.

Officials will meet next month to pin down the details, preparing for another round of negotiations in April. Mr

Chalmers said the “P5 plus 1” had left much undefined. “Once they’ve reduced the readiness at Fordow, they’ll be looking to get far more intrusive IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspections. But ‘reduced readiness’ is an uncertain term. How many centrifuges would Iran be allowed to continue operating inside Fordow? And where do they draw the line as to how much 20 per cent enriched uranium Iran would be able to keep?”

Iran has taken conciliatory steps of its own, making it easier for the six countries to modify their demands. Tehran has converted 40 per cent of its medium-enriched uranium into harmless fuel rods, while only a quarter of the 2,710 centrifuges inside Fordow are operational – the same number as a year ago.

But Israel fears that America and its allies will give too much away. Yesterday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said that only a threat of “military sanctions” would make Iran back down. “I don’t think there are any other means that will make Iran heed the international community’s demands,” he said.

via Iran hails ‘turning point’ as world powers make key nuclear concessions – Telegraph.

US Capitol Building via AFP

Topics: iran

US lawmakers were introducing legislation Wednesday that would tighten sanctions on Iran, even as Tehran agreed to future talks with world powers over its contested nuclear drive.

The bipartisan House bill would allow President Barack Obama to impose penalties on foreign entities that provide Iran with goods to help maintain its struggling economy.

The Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013 also would provide Obama with broader authority to target strategic imports, such as mining or power generating equipment that could help Iran with its nuclear program, which the West and Israel say is a front for weapons development.

“Iran’s continued march toward nuclear weapons is the gravest threat facing the United States and our allies,” said bill sponsor Ed Royce, Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Co-sponsor Eliot Engel, the committee’s top Democrat, added that the bill aims to “tighten the screws on Iran until the regime abandons its nuclear weapons program.

“I hope this crisis can be resolved through diplomacy, but words cannot be a substitute for action, and the US must keep all options on the table,” he added.

The bill would designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.

Such designations are made through the State Department, but the bill, should it pass Congress, would compel the secretary of state to determine whether the group should be placed on its list of foreign terrorist groups.

Such a listing would subject the IRGC to additional sanctions. The Revolutionary Guards are already subject to United Nations sanctions.

Similar language was inserted into Senate legislation in 2007, sparking intense debate, but the bill never became law.

The House legislation also provides for stiffer penalties for human rights violators by applying existing financial sanctions to transactions that involve such violators.

“This bipartisan legislation ramps up the pressure on Iran’s regime, especially targeting those brutalizing the many Iranians demanding their human rights,” Royce said.

Iran is already under the toughest sanctions regime ever devised, including four separate UN resolutions. The measures are aimed at forcing the country to rein in its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is purely peaceful.

The sanctions are biting hard, slashing oil revenue and pushing the country close to recession as it seeks ways such as bartering to stay afloat, a US Government Accountability Office report said Tuesday.

News of the proposed bill comes just as Iran concluded a key meeting in Kazakhstan with P5+1 powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — aimed at easing the nuclear standoff.

A revised P5+1 offer reportedly involves easing sanctions on Iran’s gold and precious metals trade while simultaneously lifting some restrictions on its banking operations.

But they still want Iran to halt enriching uranium to 20 percent, which for the international community is the most worrisome part of Iran’s activities.

“Things are taking a turning point and I think the Almaty meeting will be (seen as) a milestone,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Vienna. The sides agreed to hold new talks in March and April.

via New sanctions on Iran introduced to Congress | The Raw Story.

Does Iran already have the bomb? Column

James S. Robbins6:22p.m. EST February 27, 2013

The question is whether the weapon North Korea tested this month was its own, Iran’s, or a joint project.

robbins iran has nukes

(Photo: Vahid Salemi, AP 2007 photo)

Story Highlights

So far, the case that Iran already has the bomb is largely circumstantial.

It would be foolish for Iran to test a nuclear weapon on its own soil.

North Korea%u2019s experience is an inspiration to Iran in its defiance of the United Nations and the United States.

During Secretary of State John Kerry’s listening tour of the Middle East, one troubling regional issue might go unspoken: the possibility that Iran already has nuclear weapons capability.

That will certainly change when President Obama lands next month in Israel, where the issue is at the top of the agenda. The emergence of an Iranian atomic bomb would represent a U.S. foreign policy failure of historic proportions. It is not the kind of crisis that Kerry would like to face in his first month on the job or that Obama would like to shape his second term.

Fortunately for them both, if Tehran does have the bomb, odds are it will keep it under wraps, at least for the time being.

So far, the case that Iran already has the bomb is largely circumstantial. Shortly after North Korea announced this month that it had successfully carried out its third underground nuclear test, Saudi Arabian news media reported that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist, was on hand for the blast. This should come as no surprise. Iran and North Korea have long cooperated on nuclear and ballistic missile technologies. Iran’s ballistic missiles are based on North Korean designs, and the two countries have long exchanged defense scientists and engineers.

New weapon tested

Perhaps more important, the RAND Corporation reports that the third North Korean nuclear test appears to many experts to be fundamentally different from its previous two efforts. North Korea’s first tests used plutonium to trigger the nuclear explosion. This one, according to some atmospheric tests, likely used highly enriched uranium, exactly the form of nuclear weapon pursued by Iran.

The question is whether the weapon North Korea tested this month was its own, Iran’s or a joint project. A senior U.S. official told The New York Times, “It’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.” It would be foolish for Iran to test a nuclear weapon on its own soil. Nuclear weapons cannot be detonated in secret; they leave unique seismic markers that can be traced back to their source. An in-country test would simply confirm the existence of a program that for years Iran has denied.

It would also be unwise for Iran to immediately announce it had conducted a nuclear test. After all, the North Koreans could have detonated Tehran’s only working nuclear weapon. The Islamic Republic would then be in the worst possible position, unmasked as a nuclear proliferator yet lacking a stockpile of weapons to deter U.S. punitive action.

It would be safest to test the weapon in another country, confirm the design works and then quietly produce enough weapons to give America pause.

North Korea’s experience is an inspiration to Iran in its defiance of the United Nations and the United States. The rogue regime in Pyongyang faced down the international community to develop and test a nuclear weapon after being told repeatedly that it would “not be allowed” to do so. North Korea achieved this with fewer natural resources than Iran, far less money and facing tougher economic sanctions. And Pyongyang never paid the serious penalty that Western nations threatened.

Keep it quiet

Even when Tehran begins stockpiling weapons, it need not make its nuclear status official.

For example, Israel has long maintained a policy of ambiguity regarding its nuclear weapons, believed to consist of 100-200 warheads. Iran could follow suit, allowing just enough information to leak out to give it some deterrent power but not face the public embarrassment, international condemnation and possible military response for having created the weapons it denied wanting.

Days after North Korea’s nuclear test, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reiterated that his country did not want to build atomic weapons, but that if it “intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us.”

This strange construction — saying the Islamic Republic does not desire nuclear weapons but there was no way to prevent it from having them — might have been the first in a series of diplomatic signals intending to inform the United States that, with North Korea’s help, the game is already over and Iran has won.

James S. Robbins is a senior fellow in national security affairs at the

American Foreign Policy Council.

via Does Iran already have the bomb? Column.

Statement by EU High Representative after talks with IranThursday, 28 February 2013, 1:18 pmPress Release: European UnionStatement by EU High Representative Catherine Ashton following the E3+3 talks with Iran, Almaty, 27 FebruaryThe High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission issued the following statement today:”The main result of today is that we have agreed to have a meeting between technical experts in Istanbul in March. This is important, because this is an opportunity for the Iranians to examine in detail with their technical people the proposal we put on the table. And then we also agreed to meet again at the political level back in Almaty in early April.We put what we call a confidence building proposal on the table. This is an opportunity for Iran to take some initial steps that would improve the confidence of the international community in the wholly peaceful nature of their nuclear programme, in return for which we would do some things as well. That could then lead us on to being able to move forward with substantial talks. Our hope and ambition is to see some tangible results and that Iran will pick this proposal up.The feeling in Almaty today is that we have a process to now examine this proposal. But the real optimism will come when we start to see progress really being made. And that means our aspiration to see Iran move forward to pick up this proposal, to agree to it and to undertake to implement their part of it. That will be real progress and that will be real cause for optimism.We laid out our proposals I described in detail in our first plenary session, and pointed out that there were of course some technical issues that would need to be discussed, which lay beneath it.Now the situation is that, once those technical details have been understood fully and discussed between experts, then it would be for Iran to give us their response to the proposals. And that will take place during the next political meeting, where of course it will be about trying to reach those tangible results for the future.”& additional remarks by EU HR Catherine Ashton”I thank the government of Kazakhstan for hosting these talks.As in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow, the E3+3 remain absolutely unified in seeking a diplomatic resolution to international concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, based on the %PT and the full implementation by Iran of U%SC and IAEA Board of Governors’ Resolutions.The E3+3 has tabled a revised proposal, which we believe is balanced and a fair basis for constructive talks.The offer addresses international concerns on the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, but is also responsive to Iranian ideas.”

via Statement by EU High Representative after talks with Iran | Scoop News.

Expert: Stuxnet part of long-term effort to stop Iran nukes | The Times of Israel.

New evidence shows that the virus has been active in Iran’s Natanz facility almost since the day it opened in 2007

Country distribution of Stuxnet 0.5, based on Symantec’s research (Photo credit: Courtesy Symantec)

Stuxnet, the virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear program and that may or may not have been developed by Israel and the US, was already doing its destructive work in 2007, two years earlier than previously thought.

And, said one expert on hacking in the Middle East, versions of Stuxnet, which are still plaguing Iran’s nuclear program, have apparently been a factor in preventing the Islamic Republic from achieving nuclear capability — one reason why predictions that Iran would soon achieve nuclear capability have not yet panned out.

In fact, said Dr. Tal Pavel, an expert on Internet usage and hacking in the Middle East, it’s safe to say that the Stuxnet attacks were planned out and executed as part of a deliberate policy to deny Iran nuclear weapons, as opposed to an idea that was executed in response to specific statements or actions by Tehran. “It’s likely there are other cyber aspects of this policy that we have not yet heard about,” Pavel said.

Researchers at antivirus company Symantec said they had gathered evidence that earlier versions of the code, which they called Stuxnet 0.5, was already seen “in the wild” as early as 2005, although it wasn’t yet operational as a virus. Stuxnet, said Symantec Tuesday, was the first virus known to attack national infrastructure projects, and according to the company, the groups behind Stuxnet were already seeking to compromise Iran’s nuclear program in 2007 — the year Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, where much of the country’s uranium enrichment is taking place, went online,

Stuxnet was designed specifically to attack the PLC (programmable logic control) automation system, manufactured by German conglomerate Siemens, that runs the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the Natanz facility, according to Symantec experts who analyzed the effects of the virus by reverse-engineering samples found on servers in countries around the world. Variants of Stuxnet have affected the centrifuges in various ways, mostly by changing the activity of valves controlled by the PLC software that feed the uranium to centrifuges at a specific rate required for enrichment.

The earlier version of Stuxnet, according to the antivirus researchers, contained a suite of cyber-weapons to affect the centrifuges, although it was missing the full range of remote control capabilities that the later versions included. In addition, there was a change in later versions of Stuxnet’s attack strategy, varying the speed instead of closing off feed valves to the centrifuges altogether.

Although Stuxnet 0.5 was less aggressive than the later versions, Symantec said, it appeared that the earlier virus was capable of doing as much damage to the nuclear enrichment systems. In 2009, Iran was forced to replace nearly 1,000 centrifuges after the later versions of Stuxnet were found to have compromised the Natanz plant. Symantec, quoting the Institute for Science and International Security, said there was evidence that earlier versions of Stuxnet had done significant damage to Iran’s program as well.

Symantec said it was not clear why the authors of Stuxnet changed their tactics, although it was likely that the controllers of the virus wanted more flexibility in their attacks, the researchers said. “Later versions of Stuxnet were developed using a different development framework, became more aggressive, and employed a different attack strategy that changed the speeds of the centrifuges, suggesting Stuxnet 0.5 did not completely fulfill the attacker’s goals,” Symantec said. Stuxnet 0.5 was preprogrammed to stop working on a specific date in 2009, after which newer versions of the virus took over, the company said.

Symantec did not speculate on how the virus reached the Natanz facility at least twice, considering that Internet connectivity at the site is said to be minimal.

But if one of the goals of Stuxnet was to significantly delay Iran’s nuclear development, the various generations of the virus have apparently been doing the job, said Pavel. “Iran itself has admitted on several occasions that viruses have slowed their nuclear progress, so we can certainly take them at their word on that,” he said. “If the research by Symantec is correct and the earlier version of Stuxnet did slow the program, then this is evidence for a long-standing policy by the people behind Stuxnet to impede Iran. And it does appear that the tool they used to execute this policy — Stuxnet — has been effective.”

With that, Pavel said, no one will ever know definitively who authored and distributed Stuxnet. “The nature of computer hacking is that it is anonymous, and even if you trace an attack to a server, you cannot know for sure that the owners of that server are behind the attack. In fact, it’s almost a sure thing that their server was hijacked by the hackers carrying out the attack,” since masking their internet address (IP spoofing) is a cardinal tenet of the hacker business. And while it makes sense that the Israel and/or the US would be seeking to prevent Iran from moving forward with its nuclear program, said Pavel, “we will probably never know definitively.”

Gaza-bound Libyan missiles intercepted

Egyptian authorities confiscate two pickup trucks with some 60 pieces of antitank weaponry headed for Sinai

By AP and Times of Israel staff February 27, 2013, 4:57 pm 0

CAIRO — An Egyptian security official says authorities have confiscated two pickup trucks carrying 60 antitank missiles smuggled across the border from Libya.

The official says two truck drivers were arrested and the weapons seized just south of Cairo on Wednesday morning.

The two were heading from Marsa Matrouh, 430 kilometers (270 miles) northwest of the capital on the Mediterranean Coast, to the largely lawless Sinai Peninsula where weapons are regularly smuggled to Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip through underground tunnels.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Lawlessness has been rife in Sinai since the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Weapons have flowed from Libya into the peninsula, where Islamist militants have grown in strength.

In early January Egyptian security forces said they discovered and captured a store of American-made missiles headed for the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported.

The missiles, discovered in the northern Sinai peninsula, included anti-tank and anti-aircraft projectiles, as well as rockets capable of reaching a number of ranges.

The forces captured the missiles in a secret depot south of el-Arish, after receiving intelligence information about the smuggling attempt.

A security source told Ma’an the missiles were about to be taken by truck to the smuggling tunnels at the border with Gaza and brought into the Palestinian enclave.

The missiles are thought to have come in from Libya. Officials have feared, since the revolution in that country, that heavy arms could fall into the arms of Islamists and be smuggled into Sinai and Gaza.

In December of 2012, Egyptian military forces in the Sinai intercepted a shipment of 17 short-range missiles en route to the Gaza Strip. The French-made rockets, with a range of three kilometers, were confiscated 22 kilometers south of el-Arish, an Egyptian military spokesman said.

One month earlier, Egyptian authorities intercepted two arms shipments from Libya bound for the Gaza Strip. One included 185 crates full of arms and ammunition — including bullets, anti-tank and anti-aircraft munitions, rocket-propelled grenades, landmines and explosives.

via Gaza-bound Libyan missiles intercepted | The Times of Israel.

Elaborate surveillance operation raises concerns about broader Hezbollah attacks – The Washington Post.

There are 3  pages of this article so its easer t click the link  than post all 3 pages,,J F I