WarSclerotic

Iran, world powers set to meet for nuclear talks | The Times of Israel.

With the window shrinking on diplomacy, international community aims to curb Tehran’s ability to produce atomic weapons

Iran’s heavy water nuclear facilities near the central city of Arak 150 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of Tehran. (photo credit: AP/ISNA,Hamid Foroutan, File)

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) — Iran and world powers trying to curb Iran’s nuclear progress are coming to the negotiating table this week with the window shrinking on diplomacy. Tehran is moving closer to the ability to make atomic arms, and that risks the threat of Mideast conflict.

Israel says the Islamic Republic is only a few months away from the threshold of having material to turn into a bomb and has vowed to use all means to prevent it from reaching it. The United States has not said what its “red line” is, but has said it will not tolerate an Iran armed with nuclear weapons.

Any strike on Iran would provoke fierce retaliation directly from Iran and through its Middle East proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, raising the specter of a larger Middle East conflict. The stakes are thus clearly high for negotiators of six nations meeting their Iranian counterparts in Almaty Friday.

While not threatening force, the United States and Israel both warned Iran ahead of that meeting that they would not allow it to acquire nuclear arms.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran is a model of a country “talking but at the same time developing nuclear weapons.”

“I think that model certainly can’t be allowed to happen in the case of Iran,” said Netanyahu Wednesday after meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Eide.

In Washington, a senior US administration official urged Tehran to meet demands from the six powers that it scale back on uranium enrichment — a potential path to nuclear weapons — citing President Barack Obama as saying that “all options remain on the table” to prevent Iran from having such arms. The official demanded anonymity as a condition for speaking on the issue.

The six — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — hope the talks will result in at least an incremental advance in a decade of efforts to reduce Iran’s bomb-making capacities by curbing its uranium enrichment program.

The two sides parted in February after meeting in Almaty with agreement to at least keep talking over a new proposal submitted by the six. But they remain vastly divided on what they want from each other.

Iran wants an end to punishing sanctions crippling its economy imposed to force it end uranium enrichment, a process that can generate both nuclear energy and the core of nuclear weapons. Iran denies any interest in atomic arms, insists its enrichment program serves only peaceful needs, says it has a right to enrich under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and describes UN Security Council demands to stop Iranian enrichment as illegal.

“We are talking about peaceful nuclear energy,” Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, said before the latest talks. He said Iran had a right to such a program and accused “a handful of countries” of working ” to deny this right to others.”

The six have moved from demanding a total end to enrichment. As a first step, they now are asking Tehran only to stop production and stockpiling of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which is just a technical step away from weapons-grade uranium. A halt to production and stockpiling would keep Iran’s supply below the amount needed for further processing into a weapon.

Starting a few months ago, Tehran began keeping a ceiling on its higher-enriched uranium stockpile below the amount it would need to produce bomb-grade material by turning some into a form unusable for weapons and holding off on activating more enriching centrifuges.

Neither Iran nor the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose experts monitor Iran’s atomic program, have confirmed that Tehran is continuing to limit its higher-enriched uranium stockpile. But IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told The Associated Press this week he “has no particular indications” to believe otherwise.

While the six are dangling some sanctions relief, they are not offering to lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports and other punitive measures. The offer is not enough for Iran, so at best, the negotiations will end Saturday with an agreement that enough progress was made to talk again later.

Deep-seated Iranian suspicions of US motives adds to the hurdles at the Almaty talks, said Belfer Center nonproliferation expert Gary Samore, alluding to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Samore, President Barack Obama’s coordinator for weapons of mass destruction until January, said Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “strongly suspects that the US is using the nuclear issue to ultimately overthrow the (Iranian) regime.”

Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said “the two sides are just too far apart.”

“At best they may narrow their differences,” said Fitzpatrick, a former US administration official.

Even an agreement to keep talking would give both sides short-term gains.

It would leave the international community with some breathing space in its efforts to stem Iran’s nuclear advance. For Tehran, continued negotiations are insurance that neither Israel nor the United States will feel the need to act on threats of action.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

Egyptian forces capture arms ship off Sinai | The Times of Israel.

Vessel reportedly Iranian, carrying RPGs, ammunition and small arms to Sinai-based terrorist elements

Egyptian security forces detained a fishing vessel reportedly smuggling arms off the southern coast of the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday. Eleven of its crew were arrested.

According to Israel Radio, the ship was an Iranian vessel bearing 60,000 rifles, RPGs, and ammunition, which were believed to be en route to terrorist groups in the Sinai. It was captured 30 kilometers off Ras Mohammad, the southernmost point of the peninsula.

In a separate incident, Egyptian soldiers searched for terrorists preparing to attack Israeli targets in the lawless region, Israel Radio reported. It was not clear whether they intended to fire rockets at the port city of Eilat or target ships in the Red Sea, the report said.

Last week officials said Egyptian forces foiled a number of planned terror attacks against Israeli and Egyptian targets in Sinai. In 2012 rockets were fired from Sinai into Israel and Egyptian forces were attacked by extreme Islamic terror groups. Last month a jihadist group reportedly fired a more advanced rocket as part of a drill.

South Israel on alert for multiple al Qaeda strike. Iron Dome posted.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 4, 2013, 9:18 AM (GMT+02:00)

Egyptian forces in Sinai capture armed Salafist

Incoming intelligence of All Qaeda groups in the Sinai Peninsula winding up preparations for a multiple attack on an Israeli location, such as Eilat, and a US military target in the Negev, has put southern Israel and US forces posted there on high terror alert. This is reported by debkafile’s military sources.
The Israeli high command decided to treat the five Qassam rockets fired at Shear Hanegev Wednesday, April 3, which were claimed by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Salafist “Jihad Brigades in Jerusalem.” as the opening salvo for this coordinated attack. An Iron Dome battery was accordingly moved Thursday to the Israeli-Egyptian border north of the southern port of Eilat and additional IDF strength directed to the South.
Heavy sandstorms in the region have sharply reduced visibility for troop movements and provided excellent cover for terrorist infiltration.
Dozens of armed Salafist and al Qaeda operatives in SUVs on which heavy machine guns were mounted were sighted Tuesday driving along the northern Sinai road linking Rafah on the Gazan border to Sheikh Zuweid. They withdrew hurriedly to the mountainous central region when a beefed up Egyptian military contingent drew up and was able to catch a few.
The group is believed to be preparing to mount a multiple attack simultaneously from Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Eilat may be one target but others are thought to be US forces based in the Negev and also the many American officers and men of the MFO peacekeeping force in northern Sinai.
debkafile: Israeli spokesmen are holding Hamas responsible for the revival of the missile and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip after five months of calm were ushered in by the November ceasefire agreement. They are trying to push the Hamas rulers into asserting control and reining in the Salafist and al Qaeda-linked cells embedded in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israel is also calling on the Egyptian government to step up military action to cut down terrorist activity in North Sinai and other border areas.
These Israeli steps have had little effect. Hamas is scared of a direct confrontation with al Qaeda’s cells and allies, while the Egyptian security agencies have adopted a policy of checking the papers of entrants from Sinai to Egypt proper, but not travelers moving in the opposite direction. There is therefore no bar against Islamist terrorists from Egypt and even Libya entering Sinai.

Kerry to return to region in peace push | The Times of Israel.

( Why does this news give me an ironic smile? – JW )

US secretary of state set to visit Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Qatar next week, may also meet Abbas and Netanyahu

John Kerry during a visit to Jerusalem in May 2012 (photo credit: Uri Lenz/Flash90)

Just two weeks after playing point man on US President Barack Obama’s trip to Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry will reportedly return to the region next week for official visits to Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Qatar.

As part of a US push to restart the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the secretary of state is to meet with Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday in Amman, Jordan, according to a PA official quoted by the AFP on Wednesday.

Kerry will also likely meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to an al-Quds report cited by Ynet News, although it was unclear whether that meeting would take place in Jordan or Israel. Abbas reportedly said he would be willing to meet with Netanyahu if Israel frees 120 Palestinian security prisoners who were jailed before the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Kerry is to visit Turkey ”this weekend,” according to a Tuesday Hürriyet Daily News report, while an anonymous State Department official told Reuters that the visit was likely to take place on “Friday or on Saturday.” Kerry is likely to discuss the ongoing Syrian civil war while in Ankara, among other topics.

On Monday, Kerry is reportedly to fly to Qatar for a meeting with Arab League representatives regarding the Arab Peace Initiative.

Kerry had planned to depart next week for meetings in London and then South Korea, China and Japan. But he has moved up his departure to Saturday to build on the rapprochement that President Barack Obama brokered between Turkey and Israel during his visit to the region, US officials said.

Since securing his position as secretary of state on February 1, Kerry has been extremely active in Middle Eastern affairs, and made surprise visits to Iraq and Afghanistan following his March trip to Israel.

In February, he held a high-level meeting in Ankara with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and President Abdullah Gül. Erdoğan is reportedly to meet with Obama in Washington in mid-May.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Syrian, Iraqi jihadi groups said to be cooperating | The Times of Israel.

Border area ‘is a nest of terrorist cells’ carved out by al-Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliates, Iraqi government spokesman says

BAGHDAD (AP) — The wounded Syrian government troops were returning to their country in trucks escorted by Iraqi soldiers. They’d almost reached the border, near the frontier town of Akashat, when the attackers struck.

Regional intelligence officials saw the March 4 ambush, which left 48 dead, as evidence of a growing, cross-border alliance between two powerful Islamic extremist groups — al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front in Syria. Nusra Front is the most effective rebel faction fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime, and the US designates both Sunni jihadi groups as terrorist organizations.

Iraqi intelligence officials say the burgeoning cooperation is pumping new life into the Sunni insurgency in their country. They point to nearly 20 car bombings and suicide attacks that killed over 65 people, mostly in Baghdad, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq last month.

The alliance is also nurturing Nusra Front, which emerged as an offshoot of Iraq’s al-Qaeda branch in mid-2012 to battle Assad’s regime as one of a patchwork of disparate rebel groups in Syria. Nusra Front’s presence on the battlefield complicates desperately needed international support for Syrian rebels because foreign backers do not want to bolster Islamic extremist groups.

Two Iraqi intelligence officials said the cooperation reflected in the attack on the wounded Syrian troops prompted their government to request US drone strikes against the fighters. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to reporters about the subject.

A US official confirmed that elements within the Iraqi government had inquired about drone strikes. But the official said the US was waiting to respond until the top level of Iraqi leadership makes a formal request, which has not happened yet.

Iraq is also turning elsewhere for assistance. Ministry of Defense spokesman Staff Lt. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said that in Iraq’s last weapons deal with Russia, Baghdad requested aircraft and heavy weapons to try to seize control of the Iraqi-Syria border region where the groups are operating.

The two Iraqi intelligence officials said the jihadi groups are sharing three military training compounds, logistics, intelligence and weapons as they grow in strength around the Syria-Iraq border, particularly in a sprawling region called al-Jazeera, which they are trying to turn into a border sanctuary they can both exploit. It could serve as a base of operations to strike either side of the border.

“We are very concerned about the security situation in Iraq,” said Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Moussawi. He said Iraqi ground troops and the country’s tiny air force were unable to quell the militant activity in the border zone.

“This area is a nest of terrorist cells,” he said.

A Jordanian counterterrorism official said al-Qaeda in Iraq was assisting Nusra Front “with all possible means, including weapons, fighters and training.”

Another regional security analyst cited the attack on the wounded Syrian troops in Iraq as decisive proof of cooperation.

“This is operational collaboration,” the analyst said, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “The transfer of weapons, tactics and ideas, what they call complex suicide attacks.”

Iraq and Syria’s other neighbors, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel, all fear the spillover effects of the 2-year-old civil war. Iraq, Lebanon and Syria all share a similar, fragile ethnic mix and the concern is that the conflict could cause sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shiites to spread throughout the region.

Under Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government, already tense relations with minority Sunnis have worsened. There are also longstanding strains between Arabs and Kurds, who control their own autonomous region in Iraq’s north.

In Syria, Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and his security forces are heavily stocked by fellow Alawites and Shiites. But Alawites are a minority, and the opposition fighting him is predominantly made up of majority Sunnis.

Shiite-dominated Iran and Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon are Syria’s two closest allies in the Mideast.

Iraq pledged on Friday that it would conduct more searches of Syria-bound planes and vehicles, days after visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry asked al-Maliki to stop shipments of Iranian weapons and fighters through Iraqi territory to help Assad’s regime.

But al-Moussawi also pointedly noted that Iraq would try to halt weapons shipments to rebels.

Nusra Front’s role in Syria’s civil war is troubling not only for Iraq but for international supporters of the Syrian opposition as well.

Since it emerged in mid-2012, it has transformed into the most potent fighting force among rebel groups, with a strong presence in the eastern provinces of Raqqa, Deir el-Zour and Hassakeh close to the Iraqi border.

The group has claimed responsibility for many of the deadliest suicide bombings against the regime and military facilities. Its success has led to popularity among fighting groups, though a source of friction with more moderate and secular brigades in Syria. Nusra Front has complicated the fractured Syrian opposition’s cause and remains a chief reason the US has been reluctant to arm the Syrian rebels.

Intelligence officials estimated last month that about 750 Nusra Front militants — including foreign fighters from other Arab countries — were among approximately 2,000 anti-Assad fighters who control long stretches of borderlands on the Syrian side. The officials said the Syrian militants were increasingly crossing into Iraq to meet their al-Qaeda counterparts.

They mostly operate from the al-Jazeera region that straddles three provinces of western Iraq. The region abuts part of the porous, 375-mile border, composed of desert valleys, orchards and oases.

Their cooperation with al-Qaeda intensified when Nusra Front seized control of two border crossings between Syria and Iraq, freeing up space for the militants to operate, the Iraqi intelligence officials said.

The rebels seized the Rabia-Yarubiya crossing in March and the al-Qaim crossing in September, according to a report on Nusra Front by the UK-based Quilliam Foundation. One crossing still remains in Syrian hands — the Walid-Tanf post near where the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi borders intersect.

Government spokesman al-Moussawi and Jassim al-Halbousi, a provincial council member in Iraq’s Anbar province, also confirmed the two groups were using “nests” — Arabic slang for small bases — in the area.

“This battle has two directions, from Syria to Iraq and from Iraq to Syria,” said analyst Mustafa Alani of the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center.

The Jordanian counter-terrorism official said al-Qaeda in Iraq was also providing “expertise and logistics” to the Nusra Front.

“During training, Nusra elements are taught how to fire rockets and machine guns, maneuver in the desert terrain and handle arms supply to its in-the-field fighters,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said the training is conducted in “temporary camps in a no-man’s land along the Syrian-Iraqi border.” After training sessions, the camp is usually dismantled so as not to leave traces behind.

“It’s natural for al-Qaeda to help another group with a similar ideology,” he said. “The aim is to control the street in Syria as a step toward toppling Assad and setting up an Islamic jihadi state there.”

According to the Iraqi officials, the group is helping al-Qaeda expand in western Iraq and conduct high-profile attacks against mostly Shiite targets.

A wave of daring and coordinated strikes in March led intelligence officials to conclude that al-Qaeda militants had strengthened their weapons-smuggling networks as well as their ability to find volunteers and carry out attacks.

They said the surge was caused by increased cooperation with Nusra Front fighters who appear to have facilitated the flow of suicide bombers, weapons and explosives into Iraq.

The ambush on the wounded Syrian troops only strengthened the notion of cooperation. An intelligence official said attackers appeared to have been tipped off.

The soldiers were making their way back to Syria in an Iraqi-escorted convey traveling hundreds of miles westward.

The assault began with militants detonating explosive charges on the military escort vehicles assigned to protect trucks carrying the Syrian soldiers, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed in a statement posted on its website after the attack.

After that, “the fighters launched an attack from two directions using light- and medium-range weapons as well as rocket-propelled grenades,” it said. “Within less than half an hour, the whole convoy … was annihilated.”

US and Iraqi forces had mostly quelled al-Qaeda’s presence in Iraq before American troops withdrew in late 2011. But by September 2012, Iraqi intelligence officials were warning that al-Qaeda was regrouping, seizing on regional instability and government security failures to regain strength.

They reported at the time that fighters linked to al-Qaeda were crossing into Syria to battle the Assad regime. Since then, those fighters have strengthened the al-Jazeera area into what they hope will be a haven to battle their foes, intelligence officials said.

“For these guys,” said the regional security analyst, “the border between Iraq and Syria is not even a real thing.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

When there is no peace | JPost | Israel News.

PM: Israel’s primary objective is to prevent nuclear Iran | JPost | Israel News.

On the eve of another round of talks between the world powers and Iran Friday in Kazakhstan, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came out Wednesday against continuing to negotiate with Tehran as it moves forward with its nuclear development.

Before meeting visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, Netanyahu said Iran must not be allowed to develop a model whereby it negotiates while in parallel it develops and threatens to use nuclear arms.

“There are many  important issues in the Middle East,” he said, “such as trying to reach peace with the Palestinians and other regional issues, but they are all overshadowed it Iran believes it has the right to develop nuclear weapons, and continues to do so. Our main objective is to prevent that.”

Eide said that Norway is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and is concerned about Iran’s lack of cooperation. “We are allowed to visit sites that are not important, but not those that we are interested in visiting,” he said.

Meanwhile in Ankara,the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the nuclear talks, but said it was vital that Tehran responded to an offer put forward by major powers.

“I remain always cautiously optimistic. But I am also very clear that it is very important that we do get a response (from Iran),” Ashton told reporters in the Turkish capital when asked about the talks in Almaty.

Reuters contributed to this report

IDF Adds Fifth Iron Dome Battery – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Iron Dome

IDF Spokesperson’s Office

The Israeli military has added another Iron Dome battery to its arsenal of anti-missile defense systems.

A fifth unit, one deployed for emergency use in central Israel during the IDF’s counter terror Operation Pillar of Defense in November, has just become fully operational.

The unit has been assigned to the Israel Air Force for combat conditions together with the necessary military personnel and commanding officers, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Office.

Two other Iron Dome units are also deployed in northern Israel, where the IDF is currently maintaining an operational alert pending any enemy missile activity.

Israel has been particularly watchful of the northern border with Syria in the Golan Heights, where there has been occasional “spillover” from the savage civil war raging between troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and fragmented opposition forces.

The system, produced by Rafael, detects and identifies rockets and artillery shells as they are launched, and monitors their trajectories. The target data is transmitted to a battle management and weapon control (BMC) instrument for analysis and the expected impact point is estimated, allowing military personnel to determine whether it poses a critical threat.

If so, an interceptor missile is launched within seconds against the threat, guided by a radar seeker that allows it to acquire the target with a special warhead that detonates the threat over a neutral area, reducing damage to the protected region.

The Iron Dome is a mobile unit and is used to counter short-range rockets and 155mm artillery shells within ranges of up to 70 kilometers (43 miles) in all weather conditions, including low clouds, rain, dust storms or fog.

Iran’s nuclear quest ‘has cost Tehran over $100 billion’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Report says though sanctions take heavy toll on Islamic Republic, its nuclear program is ‘entangled with too much pride to simply be abandoned’

Reuters

A report by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists said Iran’s atomic work could not simply be ended or “bombed away” and that diplomacy was the only way to keep it peaceful.

“It is entangled with too much pride – however misguided – and sunk costs simply to be abandoned,” the report’s authors, Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group and Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour, said of Iran’s five-decade-old nuclear program, which began under the US-allied shah.

“Given the country’s indigenous knowledge and expertise, the only long-term solution for assuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains purely peaceful is to find a mutually agreeable diplomatic solution,” the report said.

Iran says its nuclear work has medical uses and will produce energy to meet domestic demand and complement its oil reserves.

The United States and other states suspect Iran is covertly seeking a nuclear arms capability. Israel has threatened military action to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring atom bombs. Tehran denies pursuing nuclear weapons.

The US and its allies have demanded that Iran curb its enrichment of uranium and have imposed increasingly tough sanctions on Iran’s energy, banking and shipping sectors that have cut Iranian oil exports by more than half since 2011.

Iran and six world powers are due to meet in Kazakhstan this week in the hope of finding a solution to the standoff. Their last meeting in February failed to achieve a breakthrough.

The report, titled “Iran’s Nuclear Odyssey: Costs and Risks”, seeks to tabulate the opportunity costs of the nuclear program, and puts these at “well over $100 billion” in terms of lost foreign investment and oil revenues.

Relatively small uranium deposits will keep Iran from being fully self-sufficient in nuclear energy, it said, while Tehran has neglected to maintain existing infrastructure and develop other resources that could better secure its energy needs.

For instance, Iran’s 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear reactor, which came on-stream in 2011 after repeated delays, accounts for just 2 per cent of its electricity production, while about 15 per cent of “generated electricity is lost through old and ill-maintained transmission lines”, the report said.

Iran has vast oil and gas reserves, but sanctions have forced major Western firms to abandon the petroleum sector, making crucial upkeep difficult. Iran’s solar and wind energy sectors have also gone undeveloped, the report said.

“No sound strategic energy planning would prioritize nuclear energy in a country like Iran,” the report said.

“Instead of enhancing Iran’s energy security, the nuclear program has diminished the country’s ability to diversify and achieve real energy independence.”

The authors recommended that outside powers engage with Iranians through “grassroots public diplomacy” and make clear what they could gain by compromise.

“The Iranian people have been largely absent from the nuclear discussion,” they wrote.

“While US officials and members of Congress frequently speak of ‘crippling sanctions’, they rarely impress upon Iranians the concrete costs of their country’s nuclear policies and the potentially myriad benefits of a more conciliatory approach.”

A lasting deal would have to include commitments by Iran to abstain from activities vital to weapons production, which could give confidence that Iran could continue to enrich uranium to low levels needed for power generation, it said.

“There is virtually no chance that Iran will abdicate what it and many developing countries now insist is a right – a right to enrichment,” the report said.

Negotiators should also discuss less politically charged topics such as nuclear safety cooperation and alternative energy options for Iran, “increasing the chances of breaking free of zero-sum games and creating win-win opportunities”, it said.