WarSclerotic

The Namer’s operators run through their last checks. Their commanders, situated on a mound overlooking the area, radio their instructions. The desert wind blows through the expansive training ground, marked by sandy hills and valleys.

In any future conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza – or possibly in Syria – the imposing Namer APC, which is the size of tanks (and is built using the frame of the Merkava tank) will carry Golani Brigade infantry soldiers deep into enemy territory.

The APCs, together with tanks, will blaze a trail for the remainder of the IDF ground forces, and will have to engage an array of threats such as tunnels laden with explosives and terrorists armed with anti-tank missiles.

The rate of progress made by the Namer APCs and the soldiers they carry will help determine how quickly the IDF extinguishes hostile rocket fire on the Israeli home front during the next confrontation with Hezbollah.

Hence, training the APC’s operators is crucial to the future of battlefield victory.

The Namer APCs and tanks have gathered for a live-fire exercise at the IDF’s School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders. This is the training center through which all Namer crews must pass, to learn how to master their 63.5-ton metal beasts.

Suddenly, the desert air is shattered by a series of deafening volleys. A cacophony of automatic shots from an M2 Browning machine gun affixed to the Namer blast the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity.

The Namer’s bullets sear through the ground in a far-off valley, sending sand flying up into the air.

The Namer is also fitted with secondary firepower capabilities in the form of grenade launchers and MAG 7.62 mm. machine guns. All of these weapons are controlled remotely via two joysticks and a screen in the vehicle.

The APCs and tanks rush up mounds, open fire on an imaginary target, and then quickly reverse their way down the slope, out of the sight of a would-be enemy. The Namer guns are joined by the heavy, unmistakable sound of tanks firing their shells. The vehicles are “returning fire” according to the drill scenario.

“Two missiles fired at you!” one of the drill commanders calls over the radio network to a Namer driver.

The attacks represent the first phase of conquering territory in a ground combat scenario.

In any real battle, it is reasonable to expect that this kind of firepower would be backed by artillery and aerial strikes.

Since it entered service in 2008, the Namer is becoming Israel’s principal land platform for transporting infantry soldiers across combat zones. It is expected to replace older – and weaker – APC models such as the Achzarit and the Nakpadon.

It is the fastest, most fortified APC in the IDF with considerable firepower capabilities, and can transport infantry soldiers over a long distance.

Sgt. Yarden Fried, 20, an infantry instructor for the Namer, and Lt. Inbar Margaliot, 22, a Namer section officer, are responsible for training Golani crews in handling the vehicles.

A heavy burden rests on the shoulders of these two young women who must make sure that infantry forces can navigate their way through a war zone.

The two stand on a mound overseeing the company drill.

“The aim here is to conquer the targets,” says Fried. “The Golani Brigade will be the first to go into battle,” she adds.

“There is cooperation with tanks, because the two will always be combined,” Margaliot says.

Fried points out the many fortifications built into the Namer, with armored reinforcements to its front, back, and sides, enabling it to withstand direct rocket and explosive attacks from all directions.

As the vehicles maneuver below, Margaliot says she feels much pride in seeing her training bear fruit.

“All of the fighters are trained by us. In addition to pride, I also feel concern. They are like our kids,” she says.

Fried says she has family in the United States, and that they are amazed when she tells them that instead of enjoying college, she is training infantry soldiers for war.

“My cousin is at university studying history of art. She can’t believe a 20-year-old can be qualified to do this,” she says. “Girls want to contribute to the military. Even after long nights of hard work, when we only get to bed at 3 a.m., it feels good to contribute.

“We see the respect we get from the soldiers,” she says.

The firing from the vehicles stops. Soldiers disembark from the Namer, advance to a hilltop, and lay on the ground, their rifles pointed forward. The tanks, meanwhile, race forward to the next position.

Soon, the soldiers get up and move into the area that has just absorbed the bullets and shells. One area has been “conquered” in the drill. The forces move forward to take the next area.

In a real war, the decision on when soldiers should disembark the Namer and storm enemy positions on foot rests with their company commander, and is influenced by the changing conditions of any given situation.

Col. Ronen Marelly commands the School for Infantry Corps Professions.

He arrives in a jeep to monitor the progress of the drill.

He tells The Jerusalem Post that the Namer offers some highly advanced systems as well as conditions for the soldiers inside, including air conditioning.

“The infantry soldier likes to move around on foot. But inside the Namer, the soldiers can feel comfortable.

There is room for all the soldiers and their equipment. The Namer will move on with the solder’s gear inside after he disembarks,” Marelly explains.

“This is a company exercise to train Namer officers. They have to learn to command the vehicle, and we’re the only ones who provide this training. We train the drivers and the company commanders.

After the training, the Namer crew gets an army license allowing them to operate the vehicle,” he says.

“We’re not only a school. We produce a company that can fight with this new platform, alongside tanks,” Marelly stresses.

The infantry school’s instructors receive and pass on the IDF’s most updated ground forces doctrine, based on threat assessments from all arenas.

“If a specific enemy emerges with a new threat, it will have to be studied.

We must ensure that the training remains relevant,” he says.

Although the battle doctrine is handed down to the school’s instructors from the Ground Forces command, it is also improved upon by feedback from the infantry school. The feedback leads to changes – including some to the interior design of the Namer.

Marelly says that the number of hours spent training infantry forces together with the Armored Corps rose dramatically since the Second Lebanon War of 2006, when chronic under-training led to a series of battlefield errors.

“We’ve been training a lot in recent years. There are no drills involving just one type of army corps. They’re all combined. In other drills, the air forces and artillery are involved too. Any battle will see combined forces in action,” he says.

North Korea’s warning that its military has been cleared to launch a nuclear attack against the US should be on everyone’s mind as the Western powers sit down again with Iran on Friday in Kazakhstan, Israeli leaders stressed on Thursday.

“Today it is more clear than ever before that we simply cannot allow a situation in which a regime that calls for our annihilation obtains the weapons of annihilation,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – alluding to the North Korean threats – said before a meeting with a five-member US Senate delegation headed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York). “This must be prevented at all costs.”

Earlier in the day, International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz told visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide that North Korea’s threats should be a flashing red light regarding Iran.

“The extreme regime in North Korea obtained nuclear weapons a short time ago and already a significant nuclear threat is hovering over the citizens of South Korea, Japan and even the western United States,” he said. “This demonstrates to all of us what are the likely ramifications for Israel, the Middle East and Europe of nuclear weapons in the hands of the extreme regime in Iran.”

Israeli officials have low expectations of any progress coming out of the talks, the second round in the Kazakhstan commercial center of Almaty in the past 40 days.

So far the talks by the P5+1 – the US, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany – with Tehran have only succeeded in buying the Iranians more time, one government official said. “The Iranians have a deliberate strategy of trying to run out the clock.”

The official said it was time for the international community to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, so its leaders would understand that the world was committed to keeping them from continuing to enrich uranium and would act to prevent the enriching of uranium if the Iranians did not stop of their own accord.

Israel’s expectations of what the Iranians need to do are higher than that of the P5+1. While Israel is demanding that the Iranians stop all uranium enrichment and ship out all the enriched uranium in the country, the P5+1 proposal presented to the Iranians calls for them to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent, the level needed to fuel nuclear reactors.

According to The Christian Science Monitor, the proposal on the table calls on Iran to convert its existing 20% enriched uranium into fuel for a research reactor, and export or dilute the rest.

Also, while Israel is calling for the dismantling of the Fordow enrichment facility near Qom, the Monitor reported that the P5+1 wants only to curtail its functioning and turn it into a “reduced readiness status without disarmament.”

The proposal also calls on Iran to accept “enhanced” monitoring of its nuclear facilities, including the placement of cameras at Fordow.

In exchange for meeting their demands, the P5+1 is offering to roll back some of the crippling economic sanctions, such as those on gold and precious metals, and on oil exports.

A senior US administration official said that the results of the Almaty talks would depend “on what the Iranians come back with in terms of response on the substance of our proposal.”

The proposal was made on February 26 at the previous round of two-day talks in Almaty, followed by 12 hours of “technical talks” a couple of weeks later in Istanbul to flesh out the proposals.

The officials said there “has been a very positive line out of Tehran on the talks so far,” and that he hoped this “positive talk will now be matched with some concrete responses and actions on the Iranian side.”

While the US official sounded cautiously optimistic, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili sounded a defiant note ahead of the talks, saying the world had to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium for there to be any breakthrough.

“We think our talks tomorrow can go forward with one word. That is the acceptance of the rights of Iran, particularly the right to enrichment,” he said at a university in Almaty.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Egyptian navy forces seized a ship carrying heavy weapons as it entered Egyptian territorial waters in the Red Sea late on Wednesday, three security sources told Reuters on Thursday.

It is unclear what is the origin of the ship, that was seized in the Ras Mohamed area in Aqaba bay.

Turkish news agency Anatolia reported that the ship was registered as an Iranian fishing vessel under the name “Sawit 1,” while Egyptian army spokesman Ahmed Mohamed Ali said the ship was a Togolese-flagged ship, called “COMR.”

An AFP report supported the Egyptian statement, saying that the ship was flying an African flag and left the southern Israeli port of Eilat, heading for Togo.

Anatolia, however, reported that preliminary investigations revealed the ship was heading towards Egyptian territory.

The ship’s cargo contained 45 ton of weapons, Egyptian news site Aswat Masriya reported. 62,283 firearms were found in the hold, including sniper-rifles, AK-47s, RPGs, hand grenades, land mines and large quantity of ammunition, Anatolia reported.

The ship spent a week in international waters before entering Egyptian waters, the security sources told Reuters.

According to reports in AFP and the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm, Egypt arrested 14 crew members and a second boat with four people. Both boats are owned by a Ukranian security firm according to the report.

Among the crew members were Iranians, Americans and Britons, Aswat Masriya and Lebanese NOW reported.

The ship was escorted into the port of Safaga, 569 km (356 miles) southeast of Cairo, where the crew members are being interrogated and an investigation is ongoing to determine whether the weapons are legal, the sources said.

“The boat belongs to a private maritime security company which serves to secure ships passing through highly dangerous areas, especially in light of the spread of piracy in the southern Red Sea area and off the Somali coast,” Ali said on his Facebook page.

“The weapons and ammunition seized in the vessel are linked to the nature of their work and the tasks assigned to them to secure commercial vessels,” he added.

International shipping companies have begun to employ private security firms to ward off the threat of Somali pirates, with contractors often picking up weapons from ships off the coast of Djibouti as they enter the areas at risk.

That, together with the presence international warships patrolling the Indian Ocean, has seen the number of successful pirate seizures of ships fall sharply to five ships in 2012, from 25 in 2011, and 27 in 2010.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian army denied discussing re-demarcation of Egypt-Israel borders with the President Mohamed Morsi, according to the Egypt State Information Service.

This comes after a report in the Egyptian Independent on Tuesday that Egyptian security forces arrested 15 suspected terrorists in the Sinai after they marched with assault weapons through the northern Sinai towns of Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed.

The report also quoted military sources as saying that the army will crack down relentlessly against Sinai terrorists. The military has set up more than 75 checkpoints in order to catch other Salafi jihadists, according to the Egyptian website.