WarSclerotic

Syrian army ordered to use chemical weapons, defected general tells Al Arabiya – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

The Syrian government ordered the use chemical weapons against the Free Syrian Army (FSA) during select battles with Syrian regime forces, a defected general told Al Arabiya late Saturday.

A former army general from the chemical weapons branch, Zahir al-Sakit, said he was instructed to use chemical weapons during a regime battle with the FSA in the southwestern area of Hauran.

But instead, Sakit disobeyed the orders and swapped the chemicals with disinfectant water he called “Javel water.”

“I was given orders to execute the use of poisonous chemicals in caves and tunnels that are used by the Free Syrian Army, but I mixed all chemicals with water and used Javel water instead,” Sakit said.

According to Sakit, prior to his defection, no chemical weapons were used on his watch in battles against the FSA.

“I assure you that I ordered all chemical weapons to be buried and I can point out the exact locations of those chemicals,” Sakit added.

The U.S. and Britain have previously accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons in Damascus after results of the smuggled soil samples showed presence of chemicals that were used in the capital’s suburbs.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday warned Syria that using chemical weapons would be a “game changer,” after the U.S., Israel and Britain all cited signs that the regime attacked with the deadly agent sarin.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon has called on Syria to approve a U.N. mission of inspectors to probe the alleged use of chemical weapons in the spiraling two-year conflict.

Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Saturday that claims chemical weapons have been used in Syria should not become a pretext for a foreign military intervention.

“If there is serious evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, it should be presented immediately and not concealed,” said Bogdanov, who is Russian President Vladmir Putin’s Middle East envoy, during a visit to Beirut.

US Patriots relocate from Gulf to Jordan. Israel and Turkey pool Syria intelligence.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 28, 2013, 9:45 AM (GMT+02:00)

US Patriots moved to Jordan-Syrian border

Israel and Turkey agreed last week to start pooling their incoming intelligence on the Syrian civil war, debkafile’s intelligence sources report exclusively. Exchanges will take place at the highest level between Mossad Director Tamir Pardo and Hakan Fidan, head of Turkey’s MIT.

The United States will also provide additional security for Syria’s southern neighbor by the relocation of US Patriot missile interceptors from West Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to northern Jordan opposite the Syrian border.

US Patriots were deployed on the Turkish-Syrian border last year.

The new Patriot deployment indicates that the Obama administration is now treating the peril to its allies from Syria as greater than the Iranian menace.
Things are also on the move in the Turkish-Israeli arena.
Advantage was taken of the Israeli delegation’s visit to Istanbul Monday, April 22, for negotiations on the amount of compensation to be paid out to the families of the nine Turks who died in a clash of arms with Israeli naval commandoes in May 2010, when their ship, the Mavi Marmara, was stopped from completing its mission to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
As first reported by the last DEBKA-Net-Weekly, the negotiating session was brief. Criteria for determining the amounts of the payouts were settled in less than an hour. A joint Israeli-Turkish group is to calculate the sums and refer their estimates back to the delegations for approval.

The two delegations then got down to the brass tacks of the most pressing issues of interest to them both.

A day earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry had urged Turkey to hurry up and restore its relations with Israel because of the urgent security interests they shared with one another and the United States in the Middle East:

The turbulence in Syria and Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb posed extreme perils to all three nations.
The delegations responded by launching into an intense discussion of ways to further their military and intelligence cooperation for the common benefit.

One immediate decision was for Turkey and Israel to set up a joint mechanism for sharing intelligence on the Syrian conflict.

Turkey and Israel are reputed to have the best Syrian intelligence in the business, but their methods of gathering information, its content and their sources vary.

The Turks use Syrian rebels and Lebanese informants operating in Syria. They don’t command the electronic resources which Israel possesses. The two agencies also maintain contact with different rebel militias.
It was quickly recognized that both agencies have much to gain from a arrangement for sharing their input without further delay.

Israel Will Strike Iran ‘s Subterranean Nuclear Sites – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

Published: Friday, April 26, 2013 11:50 AM

An Israeli strike on Iran’s sites is inevitable. However, timing and opportunity do matter. A careful analysis of both.

Israel is facing an existential threat far greater than anyone could have ever imagined and difficult to ignore. On the contrary, it would even be foolish to assume that Israelis and Jews living overseas are safer – when Iran becomes a nuclear capable state.

An overwhelming majority of Israelis believe that the Iranian nuclear threat constitutes an existential threat to the State of Israel; and the price Israel would have to pay for living under the shadow of Iran’s nuclear warheads is higher than the price it would pay for attacking Iran’s nuclear capability.

Israel’s cruel dilemma is an open ended question of bombing or not bombing Iran. A critical decision to risk indeterminate war with Iran will be a momentous challenge for Israel- and yet, it will have a durable impact towards the preservation of geopolitical-strategic balance of power in the restive Middle East.

In any military conflict, however, timing and opportunity do matter.

Indeed, an inevitable Israeli airstrike against Iran’s subterranean nuclear facilities may be a very complex operation- but Israel’s high tech military advantage could level the playing field and determine once and for all, the fate of its enemies, who would reel in disbelief.

Consequently, plausible deniability and nuclear ambiguity have served Israel’s decisive deterrence so far against Iran and its proxies: Hizbullah in Lebanon, Syria, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

It is interesting to note that Israel’s first layer of defense, the Iron Dome, has successfully intercepted short-range rockets from Gaza during Operation Pillar of Defense, but the David Sling and Arrow, specifically designed with Iran’s Shahab missiles in mind, has never been tested in real-life combat.

In general, an Israeli Air Force (IAF) strike on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities from Natanz to Fordow, in particular, might require the most lethal combination of sophisticated precision-guided bunker-buster weapons (GBU-27 and GBU-28) that can only be carried on B-2 Spirit stealth bombers.

In large measure, Israel already possesses these weapons, built either on their own or sold to it by the U.S. But, it is unclear how Israel would deliver the GBUs maximum payload short of B-2s.

Furthermore, Israel’s possession of Jericho III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), that can reach New York and Tokyo, are capable of striking Iran’s above-ground targets. The high speed of the ICBM makes it practically invincible for interception and will free up IDF aircrafts to focus on hard targets.

In absolute terms, Israel could use tactical nukes- but the IDF might opt to use the much vaunted precision guided GBU-31s which have the same warhead as Israel’s existing GBU-28s (the BLU-122 warhead)- to augment the IAF’s existing capabilities.

Of course, it is not surprising, or beyond the realm of impossibilities, that Israel might deploy a simultaneous, knockout combination of cyber offensive weapons and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks.

In the event Russia might have surreptitiously supplied Iran with the SA-12 or S-300 air defense systems, the attrition rate of an Israeli air strike could be significant.

But now, a respected Washington think tank (CSIS) has said that low-radioactive yield “tactical” nuclear warheads would be one way for the Israelis to destroy Iranian uranium enrichment plants in remote, dug-in fortifications.

Given the difficulty its jets would face in reaching Iran for anything more than a one-off sortie – ballistic missiles or submarine-launched cruise missiles could serve for Israeli tactical nuclear strikes without interference from Iranian air defenses.

“Preemptive nuclear strikes are foreign to the national doctrine”:

Israeli leaders do not comment on this capability other than to underscore its deterrent role. A veteran Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said preemptive nuclear strikes were foreign to the national doctrine: “Such weapons exist so as not to be used.”

Neither the public nor the media ought to deal with the operational issues that are connected to a military action. Having said that, the mainstream media is actually rife with speculation about the United States — which, like Israel, has not ruled out military force to deny Iran atomic arms, and could itself resort to tactical nuclear strikes.

“We are not bluffing,” has become the familiar refrain from both countries specifically as a warning to Iran. Under no circumstances will Israel agree to a nuclear-armed Iran.

Unfortunately, the U.S.-Iran secret nuclear deal to recognize Iran as a “threshold-power”, as long as it does not manufacture atomic weapons is inherently a flawed logic.

As a result of a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program, Iran has forfeited its right to unrestricted access to civil nuclear technology. Moreover, nuclear weapons have become a symbol of Iran’s national pride and therefore, there is no ironclad guarantee that Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons.

The possibility that there is still time for diplomatic sanctions to succeed is just a morbid dream and an illusion of the imprudent Obama administration.

Let us make this categorically clear to Iran:

The U.S. and Israel share a united front against Iran, and the U.S. commitment to defending its longtime ally in the Middle East remains unbreakable. For the most part, the U.S. has a 60-year commitment to Israeli security, and if Israel’s population centers were hit, the U.S. could feel obligated to come to Israel’s defense.

The importance of the recent most complex and carefully orchestrated $10 billion arms deal to maintain Israel’s military edge cannot be overemphasized – a clear signal that Iran could face a military strike unless it abandoned its suspect nuclear program.

Although Iran’s genocidal rhetoric is unmistakably clear, Israel senses bluffing in Iran’s threats of retaliation.

Come to think about it- a fanatical radical Islamist theocracy bent on taking over the world for Islam, and “wiping Israel off the map”, by itself deserves to be sent back to the Stone Age.

Now the moment of truth has come to a close: Iran has enough enriched uranium to build five atomic bombs and probably is in possession of at least one primitive nuclear device—a “dirty bomb.”

What’s really interesting here is Washington’s response to U.S. intelligence indicating that the “red line”- Syria’s use of chemical weapons (sarin) and the transfer of its stockpiles to a terrorist group under the guidance of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Al-Quds – has been passed is very troublesome.

In light of these developments, Iran’s direct involvement in all the conflicts in Syria and the botched terrorist attacks in different parts in the world are a ruse designed to divert attention from its illicit nuclear program.

Finally, there is no question that under the Obama White House’s incompetent foreign policy, Iran has become the greatest purveyor of global terrorism and now is a de facto nuclear state, which via proxies has violated every convention of warfare- is a “casus belli” for Israeli military action.

The bottom line here is quite simple: in a few years, Israel’s existence would be worthless, if it didn’t make a historic decision to confront Iran’s atomic ambitions. The truth, however cruel, is also revealing: Israel must always adopt the war footing required to prevail over the unimaginable perils and catastrophic consequences of a nuclear Iran.

Born in Manila, American by choice, the author is a former clinical research-physician-general surgeon for Saudi Arabian, Philippine and American healthcare systems and currently an American freelance writer as well as op-ed contributor.

IDF received unspecific intelligence warnings ahead of Eilat rocket attack – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The Iron Dome battery did not intercept the rockets likely due to Eilat’s complex geography – a relatively small strip of coast between Egypt and Jordan.

By Amos Harel | Apr.17, 2013 | 6:24 PM 

The defense establishment had received unspecific intelligence warnings before the rocket attack on Eilat from the Sinai desert on Wednesday morning.

Assessing the situation earlier this month, the army decided to place an Iron Dome anti-missile battery in the area – the fifth deployed in Israel. (This was the system deployed on a limited basis to defend the Tel Aviv area during Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza last November.)

Deployment of the Iron Dome battery in Eilat made it possible to sound the alarm system in the city Wednesday morning. The old radar systems that were stationed in the city didn’t have the relevant capabilities.

On Wednesday, however, the battery was not triggered to intercept the rockets, which fortunately caused only light property damage. The army has not volunteered explanations on why the system didn’t operate when the rocket fire was detected.

We can assume however it has to do with Eilat’s complex geography – a relatively small strip of coast between Egypt and Jordan. It is a densely built-up area.

The IDF will have to examine the precise circumstances of the rocket fire and the response, but it must also take into account that under these conditions Iron Dome’s interception rate could be different from what we’re used to.

In recent weeks Israeli political and security sources have made positive statements about the cooperation with Egypt’s intelligence and army. Although these Egyptians are subordinated to a government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the improved contacts stem mainly from Egypt’s stepped-up efforts to prevent weapons smuggling from Sinai into Gaza and Cairo’s pressure on the Hamas regime in Gaza to halt rocket fire from Gaza into the Negev.

But the Egyptian security forces’ functioning is limited, especially concerning their control over extremist Islamic factions in Sinai. Therefore Wednesday’s rocket fire, at least the sixth such incident in the past three years, shouldn’t come as a surprise. A Salafi organization claimed responsibility, saying the attack came in response to the killing of two young Palestinians near the West Bank town of Tul Karm less than two weeks earlier. Whether it was the work of this faction or another small group, it’s hard to believe that the Egyptians will deal with them firmly or be able to assure Israel that Wednesday’s rocket fire won’t repeat.

Before the incident in Eilat, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz made statements for Independence Day expressing concerns about the situation in Syria. He warned that the calm in the Golan Heights for nearly 40 years since the end of the Yom Kippur War was now over. Gantz’s warning was perhaps also based on an intelligence assessment.

The situation on the Syrian and Egyptian borders is similar. Neither regime has effective control over the border area. The vacuum is filled by Islamic extremists inspired by Al Qaida. They seek to attack Israel, even though in the Syrian case, the fight against Israel still has a relatively low priority compared to the main goal of deposing the Assad regime.

In addition to a certain lack of intelligence, Israel’s problem is a lack of capacity to achieve deterrence against those extremist organizations. These factions don’t have assets they would fear losing. When Syrian soldiers fire at Israel, whether by mistake or not, it’s still possible to try to deter the Assad regime by hitting army positions.

Wednesday’s incident is also a sign of the current instability. Old concepts of deterrence, warnings and a balance of interests aren’t as valid as they have been for many years.

Boston bomber’s mother urged him to join Palestinians – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Phone calls between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother tapped by Russian authorities reveal discussions of jihad in 2011

Associated Press

Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother, officials said Saturday, days after the US government finally received details about the call.

In another conversation, the mother of now-dead bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, officials said.

The conversations are significant because, had they been revealed earlier, they might have been enough evidence for the FBI to initiate a more thorough investigation of the Tsarnaev family.

Boston Marathon bombing (Photo: Reuters)

As it was, Russian authorities told the FBI only that they had concerns that Tamerlan and his mother were religious extremists.

With no additional information, the FBI conducted a limited inquiry and closed the case in June 2011.

Two years later, authorities say Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhohkar, detonated two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 260. Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout and Dzhohkar is under arrest.

In the past week, Russian authorities turned over to the United States information it had on 26-year-old Tamerlan and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva.

The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens who emigrated from southern Russia to the Boston area over the past 11 years.

Even had the FBI received the information from the Russian wiretaps earlier, it’s not clear that the government could have prevented the attack.

In early 2011, the Russian FSB internal security service intercepted a conversation between Tamerlan and his mother vaguely discussing jihad, according to US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with reporters.

The two discussed the possibility of Tamerlan going to ‘Palestine,’ but he told his mother he didn’t speak the language there, according to the officials, who reviewed the information Russia shared with the US.

It was not immediately clear why Russian authorities didn’t share more information at the time. It is not unusual for countries, including the US, to be cagey with foreign authorities about what intelligence is being collected.

Jim Treacy, the FBI’s legal attache in Moscow between 2007 and 2009, said the Russians long asked for US assistance regarding Chechen activity in the United States that might be related to terrorism.

“On any given day, you can get some very good cooperation,” Treacy said. “The next you might find yourself totally shut out.”

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva has denied that she or her sons were involved in terrorism. She has said she believed her sons have been framed by US authorities.

But Ruslan Tsarni, an uncle of the Tsarnaev brothers and Zubeidat’s former brother-in-law, said Saturday he believes the mother had a “big-time influence” as her older son increasingly embraced his Muslim faith and decided to quit boxing and school.

After receiving the narrow tip from Russia in March 2011, the FBI opened a preliminary investigation into Tamerlan and his mother. But the scope was extremely limited under the FBI’s internal procedures.

After a few months, they found no evidence Tamerlan or his mother were involved in terrorism.

The FBI asked Russia for more information. After hearing nothing, it closed the case in June 2011.

In the fall of 2011, the FSB contacted the CIA with the same information. Again the FBI asked Russia for more details and never heard back.

At that time, however, the CIA asked that Tamerlan’s and his mother’s name be entered into a massive US terrorism database.

Face Islam for what it really is – ‘The Religion of the Sword.’ | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

Earl Cox

The ugly head of Muslim terrorism has risen again and this time with the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon. At least three people were killed and more than 150 maimed or wounded in that horrifying, inhumane bomb attack. You have to wonder how anyone could be so evil minded to plan and carry out such a devastating act. But that’s Islam. That’s all part of Islamic teaching and action.

Then, can you believe it? Catholic Bishop O’Malley tells the crowd at a hastily arranged interfaith service in Boston that Islam is not to be blamed for the Marathon massacre. He repeats the politically correct lie that Islam is really a peaceful religion. We can’t forget how then President George W. Bush made the same erroneous assessment about Islam following the devastating attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington DC, and the crash in Pennsylvania which resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 innocent Americans. How many scores of times do the Muslims have to terrorize and kill before these peace mongers believe the actual, horrifying truth?

To look at Islamic terrorism worldwide you have to start, of course, with Israel. On the very day that Israel declared its existence as a restored Jewish nation, five Arab Muslim national armies immediately set out to annihilate the new nation in its infancy but the God of Israel prevented them from succeeding. Five more times in the following years, those neighboring Muslims tried to wipe Israel out of existence, and God miraculously preserved Israel every time.

So then the Muslims switched to terrorism, sending suicide (a more precise term would be ‘homicide’) martyrs into Israel to blow themselves up in crowded buses and restaurants where scores of Jewish people could be killed and maimed at one time. And we should not forget that Muslim Iran keeps threatening “to wipe Israel off the face of the map,” particularly with the nuclear bombs they are developing.

A report written recently by Robert Shortt of Great Britain states that “if something is not done soon to stem the Muslim persecution in the Middle East, Christianity may disappear from the region entirely.” Shortt reports that in Iraq the Muslims have forced the number of Christians in the country to drop from 1.4 million in 1990 to fewer than 200,000 today. In Iran Muslims have routinely falsely accused Christians of blaspheming the Islamic prophet Mohammed, and they have imprisoned and tortured numerous Christian and/or driven them out of the country. Shortt’s report adds that in Egypt the Coptic Christians have faced increasing persecution since Mohammed Morsi took over as president and instituted Sharia law. Muslim leaders in Egypt are now unrelenting in their threatening and persecuting of Coptic Christians with genocide.

And don’t forget the murderous Muslim activity in Nigeria and Sudan in Africa. In northern Nigeria more than 60,000 people have died from Muslim violence, mostly Christians. Some 300 Christian churches have been burned and more than 100 Christian pastors have been put to death. In southern Sudan the same murderous activity has been taking place. Hundreds of Christian churches have been destroyed and thousands of innocent Christians have been killed but there’s more. Remember the relatively recent unprovoked Muslim terrorist bombings of a Madrid passenger train and of a London subway station. Again, dozens of innocent people were killed and hundreds were injured.

It’s hard for me as a Christian to conceive that any people group can be so evil minded as to kill and injure innocent people all around the world yet this is exactly what the terrorists, who happen to be Muslims, are doing.  We Christians are taught to be kind to others, even to our enemies. Conversely, Muslims are taught to hate and to kill others for no reason other then they are not Muslims. The Islamic holy book, the Koran, labels all non-Muslims as “infidels,” and it primarily specifies Jews and Christians. Everyone understands that the two primary targets of Islamic terrorism today are Israel and the United States. Muslims call the U.S. “the Great Satan” and Israel “the Little Satan.” But their full intent, according to their Koran, is to conquer and to control the entire world. They are supposed to do it by “jihad,” or holy warfare. And that’s why Islam is really (and rightly) characterized as “the religion of the sword.”

It is time that Israeli and U.S. government and religious leaders stand up and face Islam for what it really is. Since it authorizes the killing of all Jews and Christians, and since it authorizes the annihilation of Israel and the conquering of the U.S. nation, it is not just a religion, it is also a traitorous and treasonous militant ideology.  Civilized nations need to enact and enforce laws to prevent Islam from infecting our tolerant countries since it wars against our traditional freedoms and against our countries’ existence. Islam must be recognized for what it is not…it is not a peaceful religion.

Are there rules in these games? | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

Barack Obama has said that Syrian use of chemical weapons is a “game changer.” 

“he would respond “prudently” and “deliberately” to evidence that Syria had used chemical weapons, tamping down any expectations that he would take swift action after an American intelligence assessment that the Syrian government had used the chemical agent sarin on a small scale in the nation’s civil war. . . . he was seeking further proof of culpability for chemical weapons attacks. It is a laborious process that analysts say may never produce a definitive judgment. But Mr. Obama is also trying to preserve his credibility”

For Israelis, the bigger issue is Iran. Its leaders seem intent on creating a nuclear weapon, and they have said time and again that Israel has no place in their world. We worry about an unstable Syria, perhaps being taken over by Muslim fanatics, with a sizable arsenal that might fall into the hands of Hezbollah fanatics. However, those concerns are more manageable than what may come out of Iran.

Analysis: No good military options for US in Syria | JPost | Israel News.

Evidence of sarin use puts US intel at crossroads | JPost | Israel News.

US requests UN investigation based on ‘credible’ proof; Oren: Israel ‘not pressuring’ Washington to intervene militarily.

IAF Strikes Terror Targets in Gaza – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IAF air strike in Gaza

Flash 90

IAF aircraft struck a terror facility and a weapons storage site in southern Gaza on Saturday night.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement that direct hits at the targets were identified. All Israeli aircraft returned to their bases safely.

The attack came in response to the recent escalation in rocket attacks from Gaza at southern Israel, said the statement, which stressed that the IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers and the IDF does not intend to allow a return to the reality that existed before Operation Pillar of Defense.

Earlier on Saturady, as Israelis celebrated Lag Ba’Omer around the bonfires, Gaza-based terrorists fired a rocket at southern Israel.

The rocket exploded in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. No physical injuries or damages were reported. Children who were celebrating Lag Ba’Omer were instructed to return to their homes.

The latest attack comes exactly one week after a rocket fired by Gaza terrorists exploded in an open area in the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no physical injuries or damages.

Two days before that, two rockets were fired at the Eshkol Region from Gaza. They exploded in open areas as well.

The head of the Eshkol Regional Council, Haim Yellin, told Arutz Sheva last week that it is time that Israel follow up on its words with actions and act to stop the rocket attacks from Gaza.

“Terrorism without a response is not viable, both inwardly and outwardly,” Yellin said. We may say that there’s no reason to strike back over a small shell which explodes in an open area, but this small shell will eventually explode on Tel Aviv,” he warned, adding that the Israeli restraint encourages Hamas terrorists to expand the range of the rockets until they reach Tel Aviv.