WarSclerotic

‘5,000 Hezbollah troops in Syria, with 5,000 more set to join them’ | The Times of Israel.

Israel should try to stay out, but is increasingly likely to be drawn into the conflict, expert tells the World Economic Forum

Hezbollah fighters hold party flags during a parade in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (photo credit: AP/Hussein Malla/File)

DEAD SEA, Jordan — Lebanon’s Hezbollah has 5,000 troops fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria, and another 5,000 are getting ready to join them, a World Economic Forum gathering heard Sunday.

Salman Shaikh, director of the Doha Center of the Brookings Institution think tank, said there were also 1,500-2,000 fighters from Iraq in the battlegrounds of Syria. He said that not only was Syria “on the abyss,” but that after two years of civil war, there was growing danger that the fighting could draw in “the entire region.”

Shaikh cited the Hezbollah figures a day after the Shiite group’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah admitted for the first time that his group had deployed fighters to Syria, saying his group would not stand idly by while its chief ally is under attack.

Shaikh said Israel “should do its best to stay out of the conflict.” But “it should also give up on the old paradigm of ‘better the devil you know.’” He said his fear was that “Israel will be increasingly drawn in” — in part because of ongoing Russian weapons supplies to Syria, and because the UN peacekeeping forces in Syria and Lebanon were coming under increasing strain.

Salman Shaikh (Photo credit: Courtesy)

Shaikh said that the US hesitation over intervention in Syria derived in part from the legacy of the “illegal war” in Iraq. President Barack Obama, he said, “doesn’t want to get involved in the complexity of the Syrian crisis.” He said that hesitancy was likely to persist, though it could be affected by the use of chemical weapons and the degree of extremist involvement in the fighting.

But only a fool would believe that the latest attempts at negotiation were going to make a difference, he said. The Assad regime does not take the so-called Geneva process seriously, he said. Instead, it is looking ahead to elections next year, and has already “calculated” the result — a victory for Assad with 70-75 percent of the vote.

The killing of civilians in Syria “is going to on for a very long time,” he said. “Many more are going to die in the months and possibly years ahead.”

At the same panel, Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, said the regime was responsible for the overwhelming majority of human rights abuses since the fighting broke out. She said HRW had recently found torture devices used by the regime — included devices used “to stretch people to death.” HRW had not found a basis for allegations of widespread rape, she said.

The gathering was told that there are currently some 1.5 million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries — and that this number would likely double by the year’s end.

More than 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. The Syrian government and Hezbollah deny there is an uprising in Syria, portraying the war as a foreign-backed conspiracy driven by Israel, the US and its Gulf Arab allies.

Khamenei heads for dynastic rule – his repression and Syrian role unopposed by the West.

Favorite presidential runner Golam Ali Haddad-Adel

In the presidential election of June 14, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei aims to grab the whole pot: He has whipped out a dark horse contestant who is both tame – in strong contrast to the outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – and also family.

debkafile’s Iranian sources name him as former Majlis Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, 68, whose daughter is married to the ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei. He would be trusted to comply with his boss’s plan to keep the presidential seat warm for Khamenei Junior to claim unopposed in 2017.
The Iranian voter may not approve of the plan to establish a Khamenei dynasty for ruling the country. But the Leader is leaving nothing to chance.

He has placed two faithful henchmen in charge of guaranteeing the desired results at the ballot. They are Heydar Moslehi, Minister of Intelligence since 2009, and Ali Fallahian, a proven undercover expert in eliminating enemies of the regime.

The two frontrunners of last week discovered they had been dropped, our Iranian sources disclose. Senior nuclear negotiator and National Security Council head Saeed Jalili was the favorite, trailed closely by Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s close adviser, the more experienced of the two in government administration. Now, the supreme leader expects them to muster their fans to bolster Haddad-Adel’s prospects of winning the election.
But first, the ayatollah took care to knock his adversaries out of the race by baldly manipulating the Guardians of the Constitution Council into disqualifying former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandyar Rahim Mashee, Ahmadinejad’s own kinsman.

The US put up a weak protest over the watchdog’s disqualification of hundreds of candidates. Only eight survived – all Khamenei loyalists, barring one. The ayatollah achieved this unopposed by the simple device of conspicuously posting Revolutionary Guards units in Tehran and other strategic points Tuesday night, May 21, the night before the Council published its final list of approved candidates.
Wednesday, the guardsmen began withdrawing from the streets and by Thursday they were gone, although they kept watch vigilantly from the shadows.

By then, Ahmadinejad understood that his own in-law, Esfandyar Rahim Mashee, whom he had planned to use as the stopgap for his own “Putin exercise” in the 2017 vote, was out of the running. A hint that he could face jail or even “a road accident” helped him to decide to go quietly.
Rafsanjani, for 30 years backbone of the revolutionary Islamic regime of Iran, was also deterred from kicking up a fuss before the Iranian media by the hanging in Tehran on May 19 of two men accused of spying for the CIA and the Israeli Mossad. There were whispers of a similar fate awaiting his son and daughter for alleged financial wrongdoing.
That the new dark horse is destined to be a stopgap president is attested to by the fact that in the conduct of state affairs, he is a virtual nonentity.  A political philosopher and poet who as Speaker dealt with academic and cultural matters, he has none of the qualifications required for grappling with Iran’s acute economic ills which demand urgent attention.

Mojtaba Khamenei, the Ayatollah’s son and heir, will no doubt gradually take over the reins of government behind the scenes and prepare for the smooth transfer of the presidency when the 2017 election comes around.

The June 14 election is therefore not expected to change anything in the hard-line policies driving Iran’s aspirations to become a nuclear and regional power, or its massive military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad in beating down the rebellion against his rule.

Neither the United States nor Israel – or any Western government – has raised a dissenting voice against the growing repression under Khamenei autocratic rule, just as they turn a blind eye to Tehran’s crude violations of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions by shipping military units and equipment to Syria.

Before them is a resolution issued under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, in which the UN Security Council barred Iran from “exporting troops, military equipment or military aid beyond its borders, and pledged to take measures against Iran in the event it is found in breach of those requirements.”

When Israel hits Syria, it hones military edge for wider war – Firstpost.

by FP Staff 28 mins ago

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – When Israeli jets bomb Syria to deny it or its allies “game-changer” weapons, they play according to one core rule: ensuring the Jewish state maintains the military superiority to swiftly prevail in any war.

On Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s target list are four types of advanced arms, Russian- or Iranian-supplied, whose transfer from Syria to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas next door would hinder Israel’s strategic options.

Although they outgun Syria, Hezbollah and Iran, the Israelis assume all three allied adversaries may have to be fought at once – an unprecedented scenario complicated by the probable launch of thousands of missiles into the Jewish state.

That, air force chief Major-General Amir Eshel cautioned in an unusually forthright speech last week, meant the Israeli military had to be ready to lash out “with the full spectrum of its might” almost anywhere and at a few hours’ notice.

But Eshel said this capability was challenged by Syria’s acquisition, at a time when President Bashar al-Assad is fighting a two-year-old rebellion, of “the best Russian air defence systems available”.

One such system, the SA-17, was on a convoy bound for Hezbollah when it was hit by Israel warplanes in late January, intelligence sources said. Two other air strikes near Damascus this month destroyed formidable Fateh-110 ground-to-ground missiles flown in from Iran and awaiting transit to Hezbollah.

The other two types of arms Israel says it is monitoring for any sign of handover to Hezbollah are Syria’s chemical warheads and Russian-supplied Yakhount anti-ship missiles, which could repel Israel’s navy and threaten its Mediterranean gas rigs.

Short on land, the Israelis have long relied on their hi-tech warplanes, helicopters and drones to keep any war mainly on enemy turf. But while the air force could best any Middle East adversary one-on-one, it might struggle to keep up far-flung sorties – especially if more-distant Iran were involved.

“Sustaining massive air operations far from home has not been an objective within the Israeli mission set,” said Philip Handleman, an American aviation expert and author.

“MASSIVE FIREPOWER”

The most potent Russian air defence system, the long-range S-300, is “on its way” to Syria, Eshel said. He did not say where he got his information but it could indicate that appeals by Netanyahu to Russia to scrap such a deal had not succeeded.

Russia’s foreign minister said on May 13 that it had no new plans to sell an advanced air defence system to Syria but left open the possibility of delivering such systems under an existing contract.

One senior Israeli official quoted Netanyahu as saying privately that the S-300 could “turn Israel into a no-fly zone” as well as curb its currently unrestrained Lebanese overflights.

Amos Gilad, an Israeli defence official, said in a radio interview that the S-300, if delivered to Syria, could end up in Iranian hands and thus “threaten the Gulf” – hamstringing any plan for a pre-emptive attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

Sounding similar warnings about the limits of Israel’s conventional arsenal, Eshel said it would not achieve any “knock-outs” but would have to “prevail in the war within a few days – and that will require massive firepower”.

“The homefront will be hit no matter how much we defend it,” Eshel said. He was referring to some 200,000 missiles and rockets Israel believes are aimed at its interior from Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and Palestinian guerrillas in Gaza.

The Fateh-110 would significantly increase the potency of Hezbollah’s stockpile. Accurate to a few dozen yards (metres) at ranges of 300 km (190 miles), carrying half-ton warheads and designed to be fuelled up and fired at short notice, they could disrupt the military command and commercial centres of Tel Aviv.

Israel suffered thousands of shorter-range missile strikes during its wars with Hezbollah and in Gaza in 2006 and 2008-2009. Its firepower also exacted a vastly greater casualty toll in Lebanon and Gaza than it suffered, drawing unfriendly media coverage and diplomatic pressure to relent.

With their regional isolation deepening, the Israelis predict they will have “days” in which to wage another offensive before foreign remonstrations become impossible to resist.

“In modern times, because war is all the time on television, people see this and can’t take it. There are limits. There is a price you pay,” then-deputy prime minister Dan Meridor said in 2011, remarks echoed recently by Israeli officials and officers.

That the Assad family has never brandished chemical weapons against Israel during its 43 years of rule suggests a parity with the Jewish state’s reputed nuclear arsenal. But such deterrence may not apply, some Israeli experts argue, for non-state actors like Hezbollah or the Islamist militants among the Syrian insurgents fighting to overthrow Assad.

Yet Amos Yadlin, the former chief of Israeli military intelligence who now runs the INSS think-tank at Tel Aviv University, parted with the government’s chemical arms fears.

With their lack of a comprehensive military structure, Hezbollah guerrillas are even less likely than Syria to use such weapons, were they to obtain them, he told Reuters.

“I am not at all worried by the chemical weaponry. On the operational level, it is not efficient or easy to operate. It is more dangerous for those launching it.”

(Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Sweden: Muslim riots rage in Stockholm for sixth night – Jihad Watch.

And still the media persists in denying and obfuscating who is rioting and what the root cause of the riots really is.

“Stockholm riots spread west on sixth night,” from The Local, May 25 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Stockholm experienced a sixth straight night of riots early Saturday, with cars torched in several immigrant-dominated suburbs, as Britain and the United States warned against travelling to the hotspots.Nearly a week of unrest, which spread briefly Friday night to the medium-sized city of Örebro 160 kilometres west of Stockholm, have put Sweden’s reputation as an oasis of peace and harmony at risk.

The unrest has also sparked a debate among Swedes over the integration of immigrants, many of whom arrived under the country’s generous asylum policies,
and who now make up about 15 percent of the population.

An AFP photographer witnessed a car engulfed in flames before firefighters arrived in the Stockholm district of Tensta. Cars were incinerated in three other areas of the capital as well, according to the Swedish news agency TT.

“I’ve never before taken part in anything that lasted so long and was spread over such a wide area,” police spokesman Lars Byström told TT.

Another police official said earlier that Stockholm police were about to receive reinforcements from Gothenburg and Malmö, the country’s second- and third-largest cities, but declined to disclose how many would arrive.

In the city of Örebro, police reported a fire at a school as well as several cars ablaze, but quiet had returned around midnight. The unrest in Stockholm had “rubbed off”, police told TT.

About 200 right-wing extremists were reported to cruise around Stockholm suburbs in their cars late Friday, but intense police surveillance apparently prevented any kind of serious violence.

The nightly riots have prompted Britain’s Foreign Office and the US embassy in Stockholm to issue warnings to their nationals, urging them to avoid the affected suburbs.

Firefighters were dispatched to 70 fires the night between Thursday and Friday, extinguishing torched cars, dumpsters and buildings, including three schools and a police station, the fire department wrote on Twitter. This was down from 90 blazes the night before.

Parents and volunteer organisations who have patrolled the streets in recent nights have helped decrease the intensity of the unrest, police have said.

Police, who have so far concentrated on putting out fires, are beginning to round up people suspected of criminal acts, so far arresting at least 29.

“Even if we don’t intervene, we regularly make video recordings and get information from the public. That way we can get people a couple of days later,” police spokesman Byström told TT.

The troubles had begun in the suburb of Husby, where 80 percent of inhabitants are immigrants, triggered by the fatal police shooting of a 69-year-old Husby resident last week after the man wielded a machete in public.

Local activists said the shooting sparked anger among youths who claim to have suffered from police brutality and racism.

One of the rioters in Husby told Sveriges Radio that racism was rampant where he lived, and that violence was his only way of being noticed.

“We burned cars, threw rocks at police, at police cars. But it’s good, because now people know what Husby is… This is the only way to be heard,” said the rioter, identified only by the pseudonym Kim.

Stockholm county police chief Mats Löfving said Friday the rioters were local youths with and without criminal records.

In addition, “in the midst of all this there is a small group of professional criminals, who are taking advantage of the situation to commit crimes like this,” he told Sveriges Radio.

A 25-year-old who grew up in Husby said he didn’t think the riots had anything to do with the shooting.

“I’m not saying there are no problems… but people are glorifying this a little bit,” said the man, who declined to be named, adding that the rioters were often aged 12 to 17.

“I can imagine they get a big kick out of seeing themselves on TV,” he said.

Due to its liberal immigration policy, Sweden has in recent decades become one of Europe’s top destinations for immigrants, both in absolute numbers and relative to its size.

But many of those who have arrived struggle to learn the language and find employment, despite numerous government programmes.

Official data show unemployment was 8.8 percent in Husby in 2012, compared to 3.3 percent in Stockholm as a whole.

Eric Zemmour, a right-wing French commentator known for his controversial views, meanwhile told RTL radio the riots showed that the Swedish “kingdom of social democracy and of political correctness” was little different from countries like Britain and France.

Obama’s Appeasement Speech On War Only Emboldens Jihadist Enemy – Investors.com.

War On Terror: As jihadists bomb Boston, behead a soldier in London and firebomb police in Sweden, President Obama has decided America’s actions have offended them and it’s time to retreat.

In arguably the weakest national security speech by a commander in chief, Obama denied Thursday that our terrorist enemy is inspired by Islam — while at the same time appeasing Islamic critics by apologizing for drone strikes and agreeing to throttle back on such precision bombings, and close down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo.

He vowed to wind down further military actions in the war on terror, arguing he can protect America through law enforcement actions, instead, as if the threat comes from bank robbers or other common criminals.

His mea culpas and capitulations will only embolden the Islamist enemy. In case you missed the interminably long and rambling speech, here are some of its many pusillanimous lowlights:

• “Force alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating.”

• “So the next element of our strategy involves addressing the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism.”

• “In Iraq and Afghanistan … thousands of civilians have been killed.”

• “Much of the criticism about drone strikes understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties … It is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss … those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

• “By the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection (in the Afghanistan theater), and the progress we’ve made against core al-Qaida will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.”

• “America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate and prosecute.”

• “America does not take (drone) strikes to punish individuals” for past terrorist acts; “we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people.”

• “Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance — through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the homeland.”

Israpundit » Blog Archive » Obama’s willful blindness.

By Michael Ledeen, PJ MEDIA

He’s actually getting worse. This president will not admit that we are in a war, as President George W. Bush defined it, with various terrorist organizations and with countries that support them. In his overlong, rambling speech to the National Defense University on terrorism and national security, the president never even mentioned Iran, which happens to be our main enemy and the world’s leading sponsor of international terrorism. Not one word.

You may well ask how it is possible for the president to talk about his counterterrorism “strategy” without addressing the main source of terrorism. You would be right to ask, and you should also ask how it is possible that, so far as I can see, not one of the pundits, experts and commentators noticed the omission. They were so busy with the future of Gitmo and where captured terrorists should be tried, and how many drones can fit on the head of a jihadi, that they missed the biggest thing.

Talk about a dog that didn’t bark!

The speech was bizarre, to put it mildly. It was often incoherent, as when he gritted his teeth and actually admitted that there is an ideological conflict between us and the terrorists. “Most…of the terrorism we face,” he said, ”is fueled by a common ideology…that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West.” Without taking a deep breath, he hastily added that the “common ideology” was “based on a lie.” Why? Because “the United States is not at war with Islam…”

It’s typical of the president’s world-view that he would assume any such war to be instigated by us, but in this case the jihadis have it right, and he’s got it backwards. There is indeed a war, it is theirs, the jihadis’ war, and they are waging it because they firmly believe they are commanded to do so by the Almighty. They aim to destroy or dominate Western infidels and apostates. Those commands are in the Koran, and are repeated by a great mass of imams, ayatollahs and mullahs. Those thousands of Iranians or Hezbollahis who chant “death to America” mean just that. It’s the reason for their jihad against us.

But President Obama could not bring himself to mention that. Indeed, the one time he used the words “violent jihad” he wasn’t talking about the Quds Force, or Hezbollah, or Islamic Jihad, or the other terrorist organizations. He was talking about–listen very carefully–”radicalized individuals here in the United States.” Yes, if we take the text seriously, he’s saying that violent jihad is a homegrown American thing.

I know it’s hard to believe, but here’s the full context:

…we face a real threat from radicalized individuals here in the United States. Whether it’s a shooter at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin; a plane flying into a building in Texas; or the extremists who killed 168 people at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City – America has confronted many forms of violent extremism in our time. Deranged or alienated individuals – often U.S. citizens or legal residents – can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood, and the bombing of the Boston Marathon. (my emphasis)

Notice the sly use of “appears to have led” in the last sentence. And notice that he is only talking about “deranged or alienated” individuals. Lone wolves. Disturbed people. Not a mass movement that intends to destroy us.

A grand retreat from confronting Iran? | JPost | Israel News.

( This piece is convincing and scary.  It reinforces the meme that Israel is ALWAYS on its own.  Israel needs to destroy the threat from Iran.  Nobody else will do anything.  Crossing my fingers that we have secret tech advances that will make it possible.  – JW )

West concerned as Europe Muslims join Syria fight | JPost | Israel News.

Intelligence information indicates a rise in European Muslims traveling to Syria to join Islamic groups fighting the Assad regime.

Russia-Syria S-300 sale still on, senior Israeli official says | The Times of Israel.

Sunday Times report that says arms deal was canceled in return for Israeli pledge not to attack Syria dismissed as ‘fairy tale’

A Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system on display in an undisclosed location in Russia (photo credit: AP)

A senior Israeli official on Sunday denied emphatically a report that Jerusalem and Moscow have struck a deal under which Russia would withhold a Syrian-bound shipment of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. However, the official assessed that Russia would ultimately renege on its agreement with Syria.

According to the piece in the London-based Sunday Times, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed, during a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi earlier this month, to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin of the risk such a deal posed to regional stability and Israeli civilians, leading to the cancellation of the planned sale of six batteries to Bashar Assad’s regime.

Reports of this cancellation have “no basis in reality,” the official said. “It’s a fairy tale. There was no agreement between Putin and Netanyahu.”

Still, the official assessed, “It’s likely that the Russians will try to stall for time and use this as a bargaining chip without following through on the deal [with Syria].”

Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, who was present at the Netanyahu-Putin meeting as a translator, neither confirmed nor denied the report, although he noted that in the wake of the conversation between the two leaders, he had consistently maintained that “it would be wrong to classify the meeting as a failure.”

The Ukrainian-born Elkin told Army Radio that Israel’s sizable population of immigrants from former Soviet Union states was “clearly” a factor in Russian policy in the region. He noted, however, that Russian expats in Israel have “not prevented the Russian leadership from taking stands against Israel’s security… [and] supporting Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.”

In their meeting, Netanyahu reportedly warned Putin that Moscow’s sale of the sophisticated missile defense system to Assad could push the Middle East into war, and argued that the S-300 had no relevance to Assad’s internal battles against rebel groups.

Netanyahu and his national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, explained to Putin that planes landing or taking off from Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv would be within the 200-kilometer (125-mile) range of the S-300 system, the report said.

“We are very much concerned about this; the large Russian community in Israel is a major factor in our attitude to Israel, and we will not let this happen,” a Russian official told The Sunday Times.

In return, the official said, the Russians expected Israel to refrain from carrying out additional airstrikes in Syria, like the two the IAF reportedly conducted but never confirmed earlier in May, destroying shipments of advanced Fateh-110 missiles en route via Damascus to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.

Israeli officials have stated repeatedly over the past few weeks that Israel was not interested in a war with Syria but would do whatever it took to prevent the transfer of game-changing and nonconventional weapons from the Assad regime, or from Iran via Syria, to Hezbollah.

“The Israeli government has acted responsibly and prudently to ensure the security of Israeli citizens and to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and [other] terrorist organizations… and we will do so in the future,” Netanyahu said during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem last Sunday.

“The Middle East is in one of its most sensitive periods in decades, primarily Syria,” the prime minister added. “We are monitoring the changes there closely and are prepared for any scenario.”

During a visit to the Atlit naval base last Tuesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that Israel’s policy on Syria was clear: “We do not interfere in the civil war, but we will not allow it to enter our territory.”

The Times report on Sunday contradicted earlier statements by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who declared following the Netanyahu-Putin meeting that Moscow would honor existing contracts with its regional ally, including for the air defense systems.

“We’ve already carried out some of the deal,” Lavrov said, “and we will carry the rest of it out in full.”

A failure to honor signed contracts, Lavrov added in a television interview, would “harm the credibility” of Russia in other arms sales contracts. The deal was said to be worth $800 million.

Israel, on Monday, was set to begin a major defense drill preparing for the possibility of a chemical weapons attack on population centers.

Report: Putin nixes Syria missile deal – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Sunday Times reports Netanyahu explained to Putin that if S-300 anti-aircraft missiles reached anti-Israel rebel groups, planes taking off from Ben Gurion Airport or landing there would be at risk. Israeli officials dismiss report

Attila Somfalvi, Yoav Zitun

Russia will not fulfill a deal to sell advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria for fear they could fall into the wrong hands and be used to attack civilian aircraft at Israel’s main airport, a senior Russian official told The Sunday Times.

In return, he told the British newspaper, the Russians expected Israel to refrain from further airstrikes on Syria.

Israeli government officials dismissed the report. “This story is detached from reality. A fairytale. There was no agreement or understanding achieved between Putin and Netanyahu. That’s another piece of fantasizing,” one of the officials told Ynet.

“It’s likely there would be a great deal of foot-dragging by the Russians, who would use it as a bargaining chip without following through with the deal. Only time will tell,” he said.

“We are very much concerned about this; the large Russian community in Israel is a major factor in our attitude to Israel, and we will not let this happen,” the official told The Sunday Times.

According to the report, the deal was apparently struck at a “tense” meeting this month between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Netanyahu, with his national security adviser, Ya’akov Amidror, is said to have explained that if the missiles fell into the hands of rebel groups opposed to Israel, planes taking off or landing from Ben Gurion Airport would be within their 125-mile range, The Sunday Times reported.

Syria signed a contract to buy four S-300 systems in 2010. The deal is worth a reported $800 million. At the request of Israel, Russia postponed delivery of the first batch last year.

S-300 missile (Photo: AFP)

The Sunday Times said that after the alleged Israeli raid on targets near Damascus earlier this month, the Russians were furious, and Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, said the contract would go ahead.

The Russians are now said to be convinced that Israel plans no further attacks, according to the report.

Netanyahu (L) and Putin during meeting in Sochi (Photo: EPA)

“It will take months to manufacture the missiles and to assemble them into an integrated operating system,” Ruslan Aliev, a Russian weapons researcher, told the newspaper.

In addition, Syrian troops would have to fly to Russia to train on the missiles because it would be impractical to send experts into the Syrian conflict zone, he said.

According to the report, there are also doubts whether Syria, battered by more than two years of conflict, still has the means to pay.

Russia had previously cancelled the shipment of high-altitude Mig-31E interceptor jets to Syria and the supply of the Iskander-E tactical ballistic missiles.

The Russian official told The Sunday Times his country’s primary aim was to keep Syria as a single entity. Damascus has agreed in principle to attend an international peace conference scheduled to be held in Geneva next month.

“The Syrians are willing to arrive without preconditions, but so far the rebels are insisting that President Bashar Assad must step down as a precondition. This is unacceptable, and we’re waiting for the US to solve this problem with the rebels,” said the official.

The official said that Russia had no plans to provide refuge for Assad in Moscow. “We are telling the West: if Assad agrees to go we’ll accept it, of course. But we’re not going to suggest this to him. We’ll not give him asylum in Russia, as he will be wanted for sure for a trial at the Hague.”

The official further told The Sunday Times that although Assad had made some progress against the rebels in recent months, it would be “an illusion to think that Assad will be able to put down the uprising.”