WarSclerotic

Missiles fired at Russian plane with 159 passengers onboard flying over Syria — RT News.

Published time: April 29, 2013 16:14
Edited time: April 29, 2013 18:09

AFP Photo / Pascal Pavani

Two missiles were fired at a Russian passenger plane flying over Syrian territory with at least 159 people onboard, an informed source in Moscow told Interfax news agency. The source of the attack remains unknown.

“Syrian [officials] informed us that on Monday morning, unidentified forces launched two ground-to-air missiles which exploded in the air very close to a  civilian aircraft belonging to a Russian airline,” the source told the Russian agency.

The pilots managed to maneuver the plane in time however, “saving the lives of passengers.”

It is believed the aircraft was intentionally targeted in the attempted strike, “but it remains unclear whether the attackers knew whether it was Russian or not,” the source added.

The targeted plane belongs to Nordwind Airlines – a Russian charter air carrier, says the Ministry of Transport. It was en route to the city of Kazan, in Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, from Egypt’s resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, reports RIA Novosti.

When the Airbus 320 passenger plane was flying over Syria, “the crew spotted signs of combat activities which, they believed, could pose a threat to the safety of the plane,” states Russia’s Transport Ministry, citing the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia).

“No one was injured, and the plane was not damaged. The aircraft landed in Kazan as it had been planned,” the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism told news agencies.

Russia’s embassy in Damascus is looking into the report of the attack on the Russian passenger plane, RT has been told.

Meanwhile, Syrian aviation authorities received no indication of the alleged attack on the Russian plane,says the director of Syrian Airlines, Ghaida Abdullatif:

“We contacted the service that monitors traffic within Syrian airspace. None of the air traffic control services or other ground services at the airports in Damascus and Latakia have confirmed the information of a Russian plane plane being fired at“.

The civil war in Syria between the government of President Bashar Assad and opposition forces has been raging for over two years, claiming the lives of more than 70,000 people according to UN estimates. Assad says he is fighting an insurgency which has been sponsored from abroad.

Navy’s launches $500m Dolphin submarine – Globes.

( So proud, I just had to share!​ – JW )

The submarine, the most expensive weapon ever procured by Israel, can carry nuclear missiles according to foreign reports.

Israel Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ram Rotberg and Ministry of Defense director general Udi Shani today launched the new Dolphin submarine at Kiel Port in Germany. The submarine, named “INS Rahav”, will cost $500 million, one third of which will be financed by Germany. The INS Rahav is the most expensive item ever procured by the Ministry of Defense.

The INS Rahav will arrive in Israel in one year, after completing tests and is declared operational.

The Navy and Ministry of Defense said that the INS Rahav is one of the most advanced submarines in the world, and that its long-range secret mission capability would extend the IDF’s operational capabilities. According to the foreign media, the Dolphin-class submarines can also carry nuclear missiles.

Israel will receive the sixth Dolphin-class submarine, also built by HDW Shipyards GmbH, in a few years. The defense establishment calls this cutting-edge submarine an “improved Dolphin”. It will reportedly be delivered to the Navy in 2017 or 2018, and will also cost $500 million.

The Navy does not talk much about the operations of its submarine fleet, which the defense establishment calls “Israel’s very long arm”. Former Navy Commander Vice Admiral (res.) David Ben-Bassat once told “Globes”, “Doubling the submarine fleet will reflect Israel’s recognition of the strategic depth of its maritime space and will give the Navy immense capabilities. The IDF’s defense concept will be significantly improved and upgraded when it receives more submarines.”

Israel developed many of the Dolphin submarine’s systems. Defense sources say that Germany is making reciprocal procurements from Israeli civilian and defense companies as part of the program.

Israeli official: We have proof Syria used chemical weapons | JPost | Israel News.

Israel has clear evidence of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army using chemical weapons against rebels, a senior diplomatic source said Monday.

The official said the information is known to all intelligence agency, and that there is no doubt the Assad regime had used weapons of mass destruction against opposition forces fighting to topple him.

Israel should be more concerned with the possibility of the chemical weapons leaking to Hezbollah or other terrorist groups in Lebanon, the official said.

He also estimated the civil war is a long-term conflict and will not be resolved quickly.

Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.

In first meeting, security cabinet discusses Syrian threat | The Times of Israel.

Ministers divided on intervention in the increasingly volatile civil war, and what it might mean concerning Iran

Benjamin Netanyahu (center), arriving at a Cabinet meeting in March 2013. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the security cabinet for the first time Sunday night to weigh in on the increasingly chaotic situation in neighboring Syria.

Since the formation of the new government, the top ministers assembled a number of times to provide intelligence briefings to cabinet newcomers, including Finance Minister Yair Lapid, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett and Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan, but Sunday’s meeting was the first in which the security cabinet discussed policy.

On Sunday, the cabinet met for four hours to discuss the two-year-old civil war in Syria and possible responses to developments that could harm Israeli interests in the neighboring state. The primary topic of discussion was the range of scenarios the “day after” Syrian President Bashar Assad steps down, Channel 2 news reported.

According to the report, the security cabinet disagreed regarding which was greater, the danger of inaction in Syria — and the message that passivity would send to Iran — or the danger of trying to force American military intervention.

Last week, US President Barack Obama said that if Syria was in fact using chemical weapons against rebel forces, a claim that Israel has made but Syrian officials have denied, that would change the “calculus” of US involvement in the conflict.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon have both stated that if the US failed to act on Syrian nonconventional weapons, Iran was liable to feel more freedom to continue developing its own nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, Minister of International Relations Yuval Steinitz has said that Israel must not try to force Obama’s hand in Syria, as it had no way of knowing how that would end.

The report also stated that experts are divided regarding what to expect from Assad should he be forced from power. Some expressed concern that he would transfer chemical weapons at his disposal to Hezbollah, or, as an act of desperation, launch them at Israel.

According to the Ma’ariv daily, Israel’s intelligence services are divided on the question of which presents a greater threat to Israel — the Assad regime or rebel forces who seek to oust him.

One intelligence official reportedly said that toppling Assad could deal a mortal blow to the Iran-Syria-Hebzollah axis. Should he be deposed, Assad may be unable to transfer his weapons to Hezbollah.

Other intelligence sources posited, however, that ousting Assad would lead to complete chaos in Syria and, with the disintegration of a central government in Damascus, rebel groups may turn their attention to attacking Israeli targets.

President Obama’s dilemma – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Last thing US leader wants to do is topple the dictator Assad and get a terrorist despot in his place

Orly Azoulay

All the red lines have been crossed in Syria: Legally, morally and from a humane standpoint. The red has turned into dark purple even before chemical weapons were thrown into the arena, but the world looks on – as though the 70,000 deaths up to this point (according to UN data) are not proof enough that the most horrific event in recent times is taking place right under the world’s nose.

The US knows. So does Obama. Hundreds of Syrian exiles are knocking every day on the doors of policy makers in Washington and present photos from the ground: Citizens going up in flames, children being massacred, people being bombarded. Satellite images and the refugees who have fled do not leave any room for doubt: The Syrian president is employing the darkest methods.

President Obama is shocked – but so far his contribution to the Syrian people has mostly been limited to nice words, in addition to the occasional shipment of military equipment for the rebels. What the president has not done is set clear lines for Assad: He has not presented an ultimatum and he has not ordered the military to warm up the engines of the fighter jets.

Obama’s red line is amazingly flexible. Every time he moves it a little, mainly because he believes Assad will not dare cross it. But Assad is crossing it without batting an eye.

Aftermath of alleged chemical attack in Aleppo (Photo: Reuters)

Obama’s dilemma is complex. No one in the US administration can say that Assad is the worst of the lot: The Syrian opposition is comprised of extremist Islamist groups that are linked to al-Qaeda and aspire to establish an extremist Islamic state based on sharia law.

Not all those who oppose Assad are friends of the West, and the last thing Obama wants to do is topple a dictator and get a terrorist despot in his place. The dilemma is intensified by the Iranians, who are monitoring the developments in Syria – trying to gauge the power of the American president’s threat and figure out whether he will dare to act against them.

Obama does not want to get his army involved, yet again, in a conflict on the other side of the world, particularly when he is about to end the war in Afghanistan and free the American defense budget from the heavy burden of two wars.

He also remembers what happened in Iraq, when there was intelligence indicating the existence of weapons of mass destruction, which were never found. This is why he is declaring that he will attempt every diplomatic maneuver before setting Damascus on fire.

The White House has examined the alternatives vis-à-vis Syria, and what is certain is that there will not be a ground invasion. An aerial attack is also problematic: The bombing of the chemical weapons caches will result in the very catastrophe they are trying to avoid, and the air in the Middle East will be poisoned.

The White House prefers the plan involving a regime change, but today this plan appears to be more pretentious than ever. In order to topple the regime in Damascus Obama would need a broad coalition that includes Russia. But Moscow is in no rush, and in the American capital they are waiting for further proof of chemical weapons use, as though the evidence they already have is not enough.

Ashkenazi: Israel can handle outcomes of Iran strike – Israel News, Ynetnews.

In New York, former IDF chief says Israel worked ‘long and hard’ to prepare for consequences of military operation in Iran. Yadlin: Israel doesn’t need US for strike

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – Former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said Sunday that Israel can handle the outcomes of a military strike on Iran. “We’ve worked long and hard to prepare ourselves,” he said at a Jerusalem Post conference in New York.

Former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, who also spoke at the conference, echoed Ashkenazi’s statements saying that Israel can mount an attack on its own, without US assistance and can handle the consequences.

If all other options fail, Israel will have to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Yadlin said. Once a top Air Force commander Yadlin explained that an attack on Iran is preferable to an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Earlier on Sunday, Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the conference saying that Iran has yet to cross the “red line” as defined by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when speaking in front of the UN.

Olmert at New York conference

According to Olmert, the Iranian nuclear program has not been making progress in years, and the extent of the threat has been exaggerated.

Olmert further predicted that Syrian President Bashar Assad might suffer a fall, saying it was a matter of time before he would be toppled.

The conference also hosted former Mossad chief Meir Dagan who claimed that Assad was not the one who ordered the use of chemical weapons. He added that Russia will continue to support the Syrian regime as it holds a crucial naval base in Syria.

Dagan backed Olmert’s statements saying he had not changed his mind about an Israeli strike on Iran.

Pushing back the red line on Syria – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

President Assad crossed the red line on using chemical weapons, but as long as he does not lose them or use them again, Israel and the U.S. are hesitant to go ahead with an attack.

A satellite image of al-Safir, Syria’s main chemical weapons facility, near Aleppo. Photo by GlobalSecurity.org

The fear of the Syrian Army using chemical weapons has moved to the level of operative decisions. With Israel and the United States in agreement that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons at least twice and even able to identify the chemical used – sarin – there is pressure to respond to the crossing of the red line. And it’s not just the U.S. feeling the heat. Israel finds itself in the same dilemma, since its political and military leadership has warned that chemical weapons could change the theatre of battle from Syria to the entire region – including Israel.

But the red line is actually made up of two red lines woven together. One relates to the use of weapons of mass destruction and the other to the Assad regime’s loss of control over the stores of these weapons. While it is clear the ban on the use of chemical weapons has already been violated, despite the denials from Damascus, the weapons stockpiles are still in the hands of the regime. This is the reason for Western wariness of a military attack. In light of the threat of an external attack, estimates are that at least in the near term and as long as the Free Syrian Army and other militias do not gain a decisive advantage in the civil war, Assad will make no further use of chemical weapons.

At the same time, an immediate attack on the chemical weapons stockpiles could well create an even more dangerous situation, in Syria and the entire region. One of the possibilities is that an external attack would free Assad of any constraints on using his chemical weapons. As long as the attack is a threat, it serves as deterrence. But if the threat were carried out, it would no longer have this power. Another possibility is that bombing the bases where the chemical weapons are produced or the munitions are installed on the warheads of Scud missiles would spread toxic gases that will harm civilians and even cross Syria’s borders. An even more worrying possibility is that an aerial bombardment of the chemical weapons stores would immediately scatter the Syrian battalions guarding them and allow the Free Syrian Army or the militias, one of which is an Al Qaeda affiliate, to take control of the remaining chemical weapons left unguarded.

Another danger is that a bombing, even a very limited and accurate one, would grant legitimacy to direct military intervention by Iran or Russian. Iran and its representative Hezbollah have been operating in Syria for a long time now, but their involvement is only partial and in specific areas and significantly different than real military engagement.

The assumption behind all these scenarios is that Israeli and American intelligence agencies know exactly where the chemical weapons stockpiles are located. But this assumption is not necessarily realistic. There is agreement that the stockpiles are concentrated in five locations: near Latakia, in the area of Al-Safira in northwest Syria, near the city of Homs, in the area of Palmyra in the center of the country and near Hama. But about a year ago, the Syrian army moved some of these chemical weapons stores, and following Israeli and American warnings against Assad’s transferring chemical weapons to Hezbollah, there is no certainty that the intelligence agencies in the West and Israel know what was done with the weapons and where they are stored now.

These scenarios, along with the intelligence uncertainty, have forced Western and Israeli decision makers into an extremely complex dilemma. On one hand, the media pressure to act in Syria and respond to the crossing of the red lines is steadily growing – take as a precedent the media pressure during the period of the Second Gulf War. On the other hand, there are the threatening scenarios of a regional conflict, which all the parties have taken great efforts to avoid until now, even at the expense of the killing of some 80,000 people.

It seems that in the meantime, the decision to attack Syria will come only if and when the Western nations decide the time has come to get rid of Assad through the use of force and to use the attack on the chemical weapons stockpiles as the excuse. For now, the option remains on the table.

Syrian PM escapes Damascus bomb attack on his convoy | JPost | Israel News.

Sadat was also called a clown – Opinion – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Like the Egyptian president, who repeatedly warned that he would go to war and was described by his rivals as a clown, Benjamin Netanyahu too is suffering assaults on his credibility and courage.

There are incredible similarities between the challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces in 2013 and the one Egyptian President Anwar Sadat faced in 1973.

Netanyahu wants to deny Iran nuclear weapons, Sadat aspired to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt − and in both cases the leaders sought to achieve a strategic achievement despite knowing from the outset that their inferior power would make “victory” impossible.

The solution they came up with is also similar: Launch a war with limited objectives so as to spur diplomatic processes sponsored by the great powers.

Like Sadat, who repeatedly warned that he would go to war and was described by his rivals as a clown, Netanyahu too is suffering assaults on his credibility and courage.

Former Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin said last week that Iran has already crossed the red line for uranium enrichment that Netanyahu drew during his speech to the UN General Assembly in September − or, at best, will cross it this summer. Yadlin also stated that Israel was capable of attacking Iran alone and dealing with the consequences. What Yadlin, one of those who bombed the Iraqi reactor in 1981, was essentially saying was, “Bibi, you’re a shmatte.”

Contrary to what his critics say, Netanyahu is not eager to attack Iran just to go down in history as a hero. He is convinced that an Iranian nuclear bomb would change the world and threaten Israel’s existence, and he is convinced that he is responsible for preventing the “second Holocaust” the Iranians are planning against the Jewish people.

The weighty arguments against military action are well known to him, too: The Iranian nuclear facilities are far away and well-defended, the U.S. administration opposes an Israeli strike, Israel’s own security chiefs are hesitant, and the Israeli home front would be hit by missiles. But these arguments haven’t weakened his hand. He is continuing with his public threats and is slowly boxing himself into a corner.

Netanyahu’s moves are similar to the ones made by Sadat before the Yom Kippur War: waiting patiently for America’s futile diplomatic moves to play out, assuming they’ll fail, garnering support from the international community and appealing to the United Nations, assuming that the status quo is unacceptable ‏(Israel controlling the Sinai; Iran getting close to a nuke‏).

In both cases the sponsoring superpower opposed its client-state going to war, but in spite of its objections it supplied the client with crucial advanced weaponry before the operation ‏(Soviet Scud missiles to the Egyptians; the U.S. refueling planes to the Israel Defense Forces‏).

Sadat exploited his “oil weapon” to deter the West from supporting Israel and to extract concessions from the United States. Netanyahu is now using the energy weapon against Iran, but in the opposite way: Oil prices are now low and America is slowly liberating itself from dependence on Middle Eastern oil. That means Iran is losing its doomsday weapon − the ability to paralyze the world’s developed economies.

American commentators who visited here last week came away with the impression that the strategic circumstances couldn’t be better for an Israeli strike: Iran is bogged down in the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah is struggling to maintain its status in Lebanon. Similarly, Sadat planned the Yom Kippur War for just when Israel was busy on other another front, having found itself overwhelmed by Palestinian terrorism. Even the domestic position of the enemy is similar. Iran is preparing for presidential elections, just as Israel, in 1973, was gearing up for Knesset elections.

There’s no way to know − and one assumes that even Netanyahu doesn’t know − if when the moment of truth arrives he will have the guts to order a strike on Iran. Sadat also was hesitant until the afternoon of that fateful Yom Kippur. The only thing that’s clear is that leaders often bring their countries and their armies to a point where there’s no choice but to act − and that Israel is approaching that point.

In a few months Israel will mark the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and will surely engage in its annual breast-beating over the missed diplomatic opportunity, the intelligence failure and the humiliation in the containment battles in the Sinai. It would behoove us to devote some time to analyzing and understanding Sadat’s moves. They have great practical significance.

PM convenes security cabinet amid Syria concerns | JPost | Israel News.

( This story dovetails quit nicely with the previous story about an Israeli attack on a chemical site. – JW )