WarSclerotic

Syrian air defenses pose formidable challenge | The Times of Israel.

International military action against Syria’s government would run up against a system bolstered by top-of-the-line Russian hardware

By Barbara Surk and RYAN LUCAS May 3, 2013, 1:05 am

Syrian soldiers prepare an anti-aircraft gun in this 2001 file photo (photo credit: AP Photo, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — International military action against Syria’s government over its alleged use of chemical weapons would run up against one of the Middle East’s most formidable air defenses, a system bolstered in recent years by top-of-the-line Russian hardware.

The US said last week that intelligence indicates the Syrian regime has likely used the deadly nerve agent sarin on at least two occasions in the civil war. That assessment has increased pressure for a forceful response from President Barack Obama, who has said the use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and carry “enormous consequences.”

Obama has tried to temper expectations of quick action against Syria, saying he needs “hard, effective evidence” before making a decision. But he has also said that if it is determined that the regime of President Bashar Assad has used such weapons, then “we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a news conference Thursday the administration is rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels, saying it is one of the options being considered along with its allies in the more than 2-year-old conflict.

In 2011, the US and its NATO allies imposed a no-fly zone in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi’s brutal crackdown on its uprising. The allied air campaign, which received UN backing, played a major role in the rebels’ victory in Libya’s eight-month civil war.

While NATO quickly knocked out Libya’s air defenses, experts warn that Syria’s capabilities are far more sophisticated and its system is far more extensive than Gadhafi’s was.

“In the case of Libya, the system had deteriorated completely already before the outbreak of the conflict due to the fact that Gadhafi had not invested so much in his air defense,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “In the case of Syria, it’s quite different.”

Syria, experts say, possesses one of the most robust air defense networks in the region, with multiple surface-to-air missiles providing overlapping coverage of key areas in combination with thousands of anti-aircraft guns capable of engaging attacking aircraft at lower levels.

Six years ago, the system was showing signs of neglect.

In 2007, Syria’s aging Soviet-supplied air defense system received a shock when Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear reactor site along the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria. The attack proved deeply embarrassing and provided a jolt to the Assad regime, which responded by making a concerted push to upgrade its air defenses, and turned to the country’s traditional arms provider, Russia, for help.

Moscow, which has been the source of most of Syria’s military hardware since Assad’s father and predecessor, Hafez, courted the Kremlin decades ago, was more than happy to oblige.

It provided Syria with new systems, such as 36 Pantsyr mobile surface-to-air missile systems and at least eight Buk-M2E mobile SAMs. The Pantsyrs, considered particularly effective against attacking aircraft, feature a combination of 30mm cannons paired with a radar and anti-aircraft missiles all on the same vehicle.

At the same time, old SA-3s were upgraded to Pechora-2Ms — essentially a new and much more capable system.

There have also been persistent rumors that Syria acquired the advanced, Russian-built S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, considered to be the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology, although there are doubts about whether Damascus actually has them.

Moscow had refused to deliver the systems, but there have been unconfirmed reports that other nations may have sent Syria the missiles, which could make any aerial intervention very costly for the attackers.

“It’s certainly the kind of system that if delivered would increase the risks for Israel, the USA or anyone else would they want to intervene militarily,” Wezeman said.

Separately, Syria also has obtained from Russia the mobile Bastion-P land-based coastal defense systems, including Yakhont anti-ship missiles capable of sinking large warships, including aircraft carriers.

Russia has stood by Damascus since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, shielding it from U.N. sanctions and continuing to supply the Syrian military with air defense components. Its support has not faded, even as the death toll in the conflict passed 70,000.

In February, Anatoly Isaikin, the head of the state arms trading agency Rosoboronexport, said that since there are no sanctions against shipping weapons to Syria, Russia was still fulfilling its contract obligations.

“These aren’t offensive weapons,” he said. “We are mostly shipping air defense systems and repair equipment for various branches of the military.”

Like all of the Syrian military, the country’s air defense system undoubtedly has suffered damage since the conflict became a civil war. Rebels have captured large swaths of northern Syria and have made a bridgehead in the south along the border with Jordan. Hydroelectric dams, cities and military bases have fallen into rebel hands.

But the extent of the fighting’s toll on Syria’s air defenses is, like many things in the country, hard to gauge.

“There is plenty of evidence that the rebels have been able to capture or destroy such air defense systems, and that included also new equipment,” Wezeman said, citing videos posted on the Internet. “There must be major holes in there in the system.”

Israel appeared to find one in January when it hit an apparent convoy purportedly carrying anti-aircraft missiles to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

After that airstrike, Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij said rebels had made Syrian air defenses across the country a focus of their attacks, hitting some with mortar fire while trying to seize others in order to incapacitate them.

In response, he said the Syrian leadership decided to station them all in one safe place, leading to “gaps in radar coverage in some areas.”

“These gaps became known to the armed gangs and the Israelis who undoubtedly coordinated together to target the research center,” he said.

Despite al-Freij’s uncommonly frank remarks, Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general and a senior lecturer at the American University of Beirut, said Syria’s air defenses were still in good shape and would provide a stiff challenge to any foreign intervention.

Most of the country’s air defense weapons, radar and other equipment have been positioned along Lebanon’s border and in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights because Israel, which captured part of the territory in the 1967 war, was long perceived as the biggest threat, he said.

Some defense systems are also deployed along the Syrian Mediterranean coast and substantial air defense system have always been stationed in and around the capital Damascus.

“If there was an attack now,” Hanna said, “Syria would have an upper hand.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Pentagon Redesigns ‘Bunker Buster’ Bomb to Combat Iran – WSJ.com.

U.S. Upgrades Weapon to Penetrate Key Nuclear Site; Push to Persuade Israelis

By ADAM ENTOUS and JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has redesigned its biggest “bunker buster” bomb with more advanced features intended to enable it to destroy Iran’s most heavily fortified and defended nuclear site.

U.S. officials see development of the weapon as critical to convincing Israel that the U.S. has the ability to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb if diplomacy fails, and also that Israel’s military can’t do that on its own.

Several times in recent weeks, American officials, seeking to demonstrate U.S. capabilities, showed Israeli military and civilian leaders secret Air Force video of an earlier version of the bomb hitting its target in high-altitude testing, and explained what had been done to improve it, according to diplomats who were present.

In the video, the weapon can be seen penetrating the ground within inches of its target, followed by a large underground detonation, according to people who have seen the footage.

The newest version of what is the Pentagon’s largest conventional bomb, the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, has adjusted fuses to maximize its burrowing power, upgraded guidance systems to improve its precision and high-tech equipment intended to allow it to evade Iranian air defenses in order to reach and destroy the Fordow nuclear enrichment complex, which is buried under a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom. The upgraded MOP designed for Fordow hasn’t been dropped from a plane yet.

The improvements are meant to address U.S. and Israeli concerns that Fordow couldn’t be destroyed from the air. Overcoming that obstacle could also give the West more leverage in diplomatic efforts to convince Iran to curtail its nuclear program.

“Hopefully we never have to use it,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the development of the new version. “But if we had to, it would work.”

Fordow has long been thought to be a target that would be difficult if not impossible for the U.S. to destroy with conventional weapons. In January 2012, U.S. officials disclosed they didn’t think their largest bomb could penetrate to the centrifuges within the complex, where Iran refines fuel it maintains is intended for civilian use but the U.S. and its allies believe is destined for a nuclear-weapons program.

At the time, the Pentagon had spent about $330 million to develop about 20 of the bombs, and sought additional funding to make them more effective. That money came through; so far, the Defense Department has now spent more than $400 million on the bombs, which are built by Boeing Co., according to government officials.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran’s nuclear sites are so well fortified that Israel’s military alone can’t deliver what a U.S. official called “a knockout blow.” Even if Israel were able to obtain its own MOP—and U.S. officials said they haven’t offered it to its ally—U.S. officials said Israel doesn’t have stealth aircraft capable of carrying the bomb to its target deep inside Iran.

U.S. officials said they believe the enhanced U.S. bunker-busting capability decreases the chances that Israel will launch a unilateral bombing campaign against Iran this year and possibly next year, buying more time for the Obama administration to pursue diplomacy after Iran holds elections in June. Israeli officials declined to comment. Israeli officials maintain they reserve the right to attack Iran.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other senior American officials have told their Israeli counterparts in recent weeks that the Obama administration will look more closely at military options to deal with Iran’s nuclear program after assessing the impact of those elections on Tehran’s intentions.

The White House wants to find a diplomatic solution but hasn’t ruled out military action. In part to increase pressure on Tehran, both President Barack Obama and Mr. Hagel have used recent visits to Israel to stress Israel’s right to decide for itself whether to strike Iran.

Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment on the changes made to the MOP or the contents of Mr. Hagel’s meetings with Israeli officials.

The changes made to the MOP reflect a close U.S. analysis of what it would take to destroy Fordow. On the bomb itself, the detonator fuse has been adjusted specifically to withstand impact with layers of granite and steel that encase the nuclear facility, officials said.

The newest version is also designed to operate in “contested environments.” It is equipped with capabilities designed to counter Iran’s air defenses and keep the bomb on target if the Iranians try to knock it off course. Iran has invested heavily in recent years in air defenses and electronic warfare.

Officials said they believe the enhanced bomb would be even more effective against North Korea’s nuclear bunkers, which the U.S. thinks aren’t as heavily fortified as Iran’s.

The new version of the weapon also includes changes to the guidance system to improve precision. U.S. officials say precision is important because, if the U.S. decides to strike Iran, the Air Force may need to drop more than one MOP on the exact same spot to thoroughly destroy Fordow.

The idea is to create a crater with the first strike and then send other bombs through the same hole to reach greater depths.

Israeli officials remain skeptical that the Obama administration is prepared to strike Fordow and other nuclear sites, according to current and former U.S. and Israeli officials. That skepticism, officials say, has fueled calls within Israel’s government for a unilateral strike on Iran, even if Israel is capable of only setting back the nuclear program by a couple of years.

Israel still thinks its Air Force can do substantial damage to Fordow, according to Israeli and U.S. officials. U.S. intelligence agencies concur with that assessment. Mr. Hagel, during a visit to Israel last week, announced steps to supplement Israel’s military capabilities, though it is unclear how soon the new weapons systems and aircraft will arrive.

U.S. officials see Iran’s June vote as a critical test of whether the current Obama administration approach—using economic sanctions to try to shape Iranian public sentiment and bring the country’s hard-liners to the negotiating table—is having the desired effect.

U.S. officials said the U.S. and Israel have reached an understanding that they will assess the intentions of Iran’s leaders after the election, and then, barring progress on the diplomatic track, shift to a detailed discussion of military options.

U.S. officials said the elections won’t trigger an automatic shift from the diplomatic to the military track but would be a critical juncture in American and Israeli deliberations.

“The election is a milestone to determine whether or not Iranian intentions will shift,” a senior U.S. official said. The official said the review would take “some time” but declined to say how many months the U.S. and Israel have agreed to wait.

White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden declined to discuss private U.S.-Israeli deliberations but said “the United States and Israel coordinate very closely on the issue of Iran.”

“We are committed to trying to resolve concerns about Iran’s nuclear program diplomatically. But, as President Obama has made clear: the U.S. will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. The onus is on Iran and it knows that time is not unlimited,” she said.

U.S. and Israeli officials say they believe that Iran has stayed below an enrichment threshold set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a bid to avoid a conflict with the West going into the elections.

‘US upgrades bunker buster to thwart Israel strike on Iran’ | JPost | Israel News.

Analysis: Egypt, Iran in power struggle over Gaza | JPost | Israel News.

Hamas arrests Islamists in Gaza over rocket theft | The Times of Israel.

( Almost desperate, this Hamas attempt to convince Israel they’re enforcing the cease fire. – JW )

‘Extremists calling themselves Salafis’ nabbed for making off with terrorist’s missiles, plotting terror attacks

File photo of Islamic Jihad members in Gaza preparing to launch rockets (photo credit: CC BY-SA Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, Flickr)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip on Thursday said it had arrested six militant extremists suspected of stealing weapons and plotting terrorist attacks.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry said that four men were charged with stealing rockets belonging to Palestinian terrorists and two others with trying to attack targets in Gaza.

The statement described the men as “extremists calling themselves Salafis,” a reference to Muslims following a hard-line version of Islamic law. It didn’t say when the men were arrested.

Shadowy Salafi groups oppose the rule of Islamist militant group Hamas over Gaza, seeing the organization as too moderate.

Inspired by the al-Qaeda terror network, they often claim responsibility for firing rockets at Israel.

The arrests came days after an Israeli airstrike killed a Gaza Salafi who Israel said was responsible for a recent attack on southern Israel.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Erdogan: Assad using chemical weapons in Syria | JPost | Israel News.

‘Hamas ups Gaza security to stop rocket fire at Israel’ | JPost | Israel News.

Exclusive: Kerry’s plans double peace track: Israel vs Palestinians and vs Arab League.

Secretary of State John Kerry

US Secretary of State John Kerry has gained the consent of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for his novel plan to run peace negotiations on two tracks – Israel versus Palestinians plus Israel, for the first time in its history, directly facing the Arab League.
This is reported exclusively by debkafile.
The two tracks will run simultaneously. Kerry says more work needs to be done before a starting date can be scheduled but he hopes the talks can begin this summer.
This formula was designed to address the fundamental objections he ran into in the spring at the start of his initiative for re-launching Middle East peace talks.

Netanyahu said that while the withdrawal of the 2002 Saudi Peace plan, which gained Arab League endorsement as the Arab Peace Initiative, was not an Israeli pre-condition for attending peace negotiations, the talks would quickly run into a stalemate if the demand for a total Israel withdrawal to pre-1967 lines in return for peace and normal relations with the Arab world remained on the table.

Abbas, for his part, told the Secretary of State that comprehensive Arab backing was imperative for him to consent to reenter peace talks with Israel after two years of stalling.

Kerry accordingly invited a group of prominent Arab foreign ministers, heads of the Arab Peace Initiative follow-up committee, to visit Blair House, the official guest house of the US government, for a thorough threshing-out of the issues standing in the way of an Arab peace with Israel. Among those present were Hama bin Jassim, who serves as Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, as well as Arab League Chairman, Arab League Secretary Nabil al-Arabi and Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki.

After putting before them the Israeli prime minister’s objections to the Saudi peace plan, Kerry was able to
persuade the Arab ministers to accept President Barack Obama’s formulation, which provides for an Israeli return to the 1967 boundaries with “comparable and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land.”

Obama added this rider to accommodate “the burgeoning communities in the area.”

Netanyahu had told Kerry that if he could convince the Arab League ministers to adopt this rider, he would have taken a big step towards getting negotiations moving between Israel and the Arab League for a comprehensive peace.
As Kerry prepared to inform the PA leader that he had obtained “Arab endorsement” for the simultaneous two-track talks, the Palestinians were sending out mixed signals: Wednesday night, May 1, Abbas said the “minor swaps” locution was acceptable, followed by Riyad al-Maliki who insisted that the Arab Peace Initiative must be accepted as it stood, unless the full Arab League endorsed amendments.

Nevertheless, there is much optimism in Washington that a breakthrough in the stalled Middle East peace process is at hand. Vice President Joe Biden seconded Kerry’s description of “a very positive, very constructive discussion,” at Blair House this week.
According to senior sources in Washington and Jerusalem, the Secretary of State is running his initiative virtually single handed without recourse to the usual bevy of Middle East experts. He accepts that there is plenty of work ahead before he can declare the two negotiating tracks ready to go.

Saudi official: Kingdom ‘warned the United States IN WRITING about Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012 and rejected his application for an entry visa to visit Mecca in 2011’ | Mail Online.

• Saudis developed intelligence separately from Russia, which also warned the U.S. about the accused Boston bomber
  
• A letter to the Department of Homeland Security allegedly named Tsarnaev and three Pakistanis as potential jihadis worthy of U.S. investigation
• Red flags from Saudi Arabia to have included Tsarnaev’s name and information about a planned explosive attack on a major U.S. city
  
• Saudi foreign minister, national security chief both met with Obama in the oval office in early 2013
  

By David Martosko and The American Media Institute

PUBLISHED: 03:46 GMT, 1 May 2013 | UPDATED: 08:39 GMT, 1 May 2013

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.

The Saudi warning, the official told MailOnline, was separate from the multiple red flags raised by Russian intelligence in 2011, and was based on human intelligence developed independently in Yemen.

Citing security concerns, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to the elder Tsarnaev brother in December 2011, when he hoped to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the source said. Tsarnaev’s plans to visit Saudi Arabia have not been previously disclosed.

Was it preventable? A senior Saudi official says his country warned the U.S. about Tamerlane Tsarnaev in 2012, advising the federal government that he planned an attack on a major U.S. city

Did she know? Janet Napolitano (R) sits atop the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that allegedly received a detailed letter from the Saudi kingdom about Tsarnaev (L) and three Pakistani jihadis

The Saudis’ warning to the U.S. government was also shared with the British government. ‘It was very specific’ and warned that ‘something was going to happen in a major U.S. city,’ the Saudi official said during an extensive interview.

It ‘did name Tamerlan specifically,’ he added. The ‘government-to-government’ letter, which he said was sent to the Department of Homeland Security at the highest level, did not name Boston or suggest a date for his planned attack.

If true, the account will produce added pressure on the Homeland Security department and the White House to explain their collective inaction after similar warnings were offered about Tsarnaev by the Russian government.

A DHS official denied, however, that the agency received any such warning from Saudi intelligence about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

‘DHS has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack,’ MailOnline learned from one Homeland Security official who declined to be named in this report.

The White House took a similar view. ‘We and other relevant U.S. government agencies have no record of such a letter being received,’ said Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the president’s National Security Council.

As many as 4 million Muslims make pilgrimages annually to the Grand mosque in the city of Mecca. Tsarnaev sought to join them for an ‘Umrah’ journey, a trip that happens outside of the month reserved for the annual Hajj

The letter likely came to DHS via the Saudi Ministry of Interior, the agency tasked with protecting the Saudi kingdom’s homeland.

A Homeland Security official confirmed Tuesday evening on the condition of anonymity that the 2012 letter exists, saying he had heard of the Saudi communication before MailOnline inquired about it.

An aide to a Republican member of the House Homeland Security Committee speculated Tuesday about why the Obama administration contradicted the knowledgeable Saudi official.

‘It is possible the Department of Homeland Security received the information from the Saudi government but never passed it on to the White House,’ the GOP staffer said. ‘Communication between DHS and the White House’s national security apparatus isn’t always what it should be.’

‘I can easily see it happening where one hand didn’t know what the other was doing because of a turf war.’

‘Just like the different agencies in the Boston JTTF [Joint Terrorism Task Force] want credit for breaking the Tsarnaev case,’ the aide added, ‘they sometimes jealously guard the very intel they should be sharing the most freely. Sometimes it makes no sense at all.’

Obama said Tuesday that an inter-agency review would leave no stone unturned in an effort to learn whether government agencies could have done more to prevent the Boston bombings

House Homeland Security Committee chairman Mike McCaul plans to announce on Wednesday an investigative hearing to probe what U.S. intelligence knew prior to the Boston attacks, two senior Republican sources told MailOnline.

Separately, President Obama announced Tuesday that the U.S. government will launch a wide-ranging inquiry into the sharing of information among the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and other intelligence and law-enforcement agencies of the federal government.

‘We want to leave no stone unturned,’ the president said in a rare White House press conference.

The internal review will be led by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and several inspectors general.

‘This is not an investigation,’ Clapper’s spokesman Shawn Turner said in a prepared statement. ‘This is an independent review of information-sharing procedures. It is limited to the handling of information related to the suspects prior to the attack.’

It is not yet clear whether information from Saudi Arabia will be involved in Clapper’s inter-agency review.

Eight-year-old Martin Richard was among the three people killed in the explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15

Chaos: The bombing left thousands running for their lives and sent more than 200 to hospitals, including some whose limbs were torn off their bodies by the force of the blasts

Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz appeared on CNN Tuesday afternoon, upbraiding the Obama administration for presuming that the federal government’s handling of intelligence prior to the Boston bombings was appropriate and effective.

‘As soon as the bombing happened we had officials, locally and from the feds, saying, “Oh, this was an isolated case, there was just one person involved.” We didn’t know that,’ Chaffetz said.

The ‘starting point’ for a federal investigation, he said, must be, ‘This is unacceptable, we will not stand for it, we will get to the bottom of it, and we will not rest until we figure it out.’

‘Mr. President,’ he said, addressing Obama, ‘the starting point should be an intolerance that this thing happened.’

GOP momentum? House Homeland Security Committee chair Mike McCaul (L) plans to convene a hearing to investigate the government’s failure to prevent the Boston bombings. Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R), who serves on that committee, said on CNN that an inquiry should not presume all is well

The high-ranking Saudi official whom MailOnlne interviewed at length provided a wealth of detail about the warning he says his government sent to the United States. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk publicly about foreign intelligence, or about Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic relationship with the United States.

He suggested that the Saudi Ministry of Interior sent the letter out of an abundance of caution in order to be helpful to the United States, even though its intelligence on Tsarnaev wasn’t yet fully developed.

‘With Saudi Arabia it’s always code red,’ he said. ‘There’s no code orange, or code yellow. Always red.’

The Saudi government, he added, alerted the U.S. in part because it believed American authorities should be inspecting packages that came to Tsarnaev in the mail in order to search for bomb-making components.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz (L) met with President Obama in January. His counterpart in the Saudi foreign ministry, Prince Saud bin al-Faisal (R), had an unscheduled meeting with Obama in the Oval Office just two days after the Boston bombings

The written warning also allegedly named three Pakistanis who may be of interest to British authorities. The official declined to provide more details about the warning to the UK, but said the two governments received the same information.

The Ministry of Interior, he said, sent the letters in 2012, likely after Tsarnaev returned from Russia to the United States in July.

President Barack Obama’s published schedule indicates that he met in the Oval Office with Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi Interior minister, on January 14, 2013.

The Saudis denied Tsarnaev entry to the kingdom when he sought to travel to Mecca in December 2011 for a pilgrimage known as an Umrah – one that is undertaken during months that don’t fall within the regular Hajj period of the year.

That rejected application came one month before he traveled to Russia, where U.S. intelligence sources believe he acquired training enabling him to construct and detonate the bombs that he and his younger brother placed hear the Boston Marathon’s finish line.

The younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is in federal custody at a prison medical facility.

Celebration turned to mourning on April 15 after Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar allegedly detonated two powerful bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 200

The Saudi official speculated that Tsarnaev’s residence in the United States might have made it more difficult for him to gain entry into the kingdom.

‘U.S.-based Muslims who become radicalized and want to visit Mecca create an unusual problem,’ he said, compelling the Saudi government ‘to carefully examine applications.’

In the wake of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with Secretary of State John Kerry on April 16, and then had an unscheduled meeting with President Obama on April 17.

‘This is the DNA of the Saudi government,’ said the Saudi official, referring to officials in the royal court in Riyadh. ‘This is how they work. They sent the letter, but that wasn’t enough. They then sent the top guy to meet personally with the president.’

He dismissed the idea that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was likely trained by al Qaeda while he was outside the United States last year.

The Saudis’ Yemen-based sources, he explained, said militants referred to Tamerlan dismissively as ‘the volunteer.’

‘He was a gung-ho, self motivated jihadi who wasn’t tasked by a larger group,’ he said.

‘There is no reason for anyone in Afghanistan to have in his thinking a scenario like this,’ the official added, referring to pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon. ‘He took the initiative. That’s why they call him “the volunteer.”‘

‘The Boston thing is beneath them,’ he said of al Qaeda. ‘They don’t think like this. This is like a firecracker to them. They want something big.’

Richard Reid (L) was apprehended after a failed attempt to blow up an airliner with bombs concealed in his shoes. The Saudi government provided specific intelligence about Reid to the U.S., and now it has been revealed that they wrote to the American government about Tamerlan Tsarnaev (R) in 2012

Tamerlan may have boasted about his plans online, the Saudi official said, offering an explanation for how Yemen-based sources first learned of him. Islamist militants have well-developed social networks that can enable news to migrate quickly across vast distances.

The Saudi government sometimes tracks such radicals by launching fake jihadi websites to attract extremists. The Ministry of Interior then tracks them electronically, often across the world, and shares information with governments it considers friendly, including the United States.

‘The Saudi Arabian government is doing everything it can to wipe out these people and treat America as a true friend,’ the official said.

The Saudi intelligence services have a long history of providing credible information to America and Great Britain about looming threats.

‘This is the fourth time the Saudi Arabian government has given the U.S. specific intel’ about a possible terror plot, the official said, citing prior warnings about Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber who repeatedly tried to light a fuse in his shoe to bring down American Airlines flight 63 bound for Miami in December 2001.

He also cited the 300-gram ‘ink-cartridge bombs’ planted on two cargo planes headed for the United States from Yemen in October 2010. Those explosives were intercepted in Dubai, and at an East Midlands airport in Great Britain.

The terror: A Boston firefighter carried an injured girl away from the scene after the Boston Marathon bombings. In all, Tsarnaev is believed to have killed three Americans, including an eight-year-old boy

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s namesake was a 15-century Central Asian warlord who referred to himself as ‘the sword of Islam.’ Sometimes spelled ‘Tamerlane’ in English, he was known for his cruelty.

When he conquered Baghdad, he reportedly made a pyramid of human skulls from unfortunate residents of that city.

Although still revered in Chechnya and throughout Central Asia, the original Tamerlane is sometimes vilified in modern-day Saudi textbooks.

Richard Miniter contributed the American Media Institute’s reporting for this story.

Saudis said to have warned US of Boston bombing | The Times of Israel.

( Did anybody not warn the US about these bastards ? ! – JW )

Washington denies Daily Mail report that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was pointed to as potential security threat a year before the attack

This composite photograph shows Tsarnaev Tamerlan, 26 (left), and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing (photo credit: AP/The Lowell Sun & Robin Young)

Saudi Arabia in 2012 sent the United States a written warning naming alleged Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a security threat, Britain’s Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.

The 2012 warning was a “very specific” one and explicitly named Tamerlan as a suspect, an unnamed Saudi official told the Daily Mail. The message, sent to the US Department of Homeland Security, warned that “something was going to happen in a major US city,” though it didn’t give an exact time or location, he said.

Police believe the 26-year-old Tamerlan and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings which killed three and injured over 170 people last month. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with security forces and Dzhokhar was severely injured before being apprehended.

Saudi authorities also rejected a 2011 request by the older Tsarnaev brother to visit Mecca because of security concerns, the source said.

The report was denied by the US Department of Homeland Security, which told the paper it “has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack.”

The national security council also denied the report, saying it had “no record of such a letter being received” by any American official or office.

The mother of the alleged bombers was added to the terrorism database 18 months before the attacks, the Associated Press reported last week

According to the report, the CIA asked for the elder Boston terror suspect and his mother to be added to a terrorist database in the fall of 2011, after the Russian government contacted the agency with concerns that both had become religious militants, according to officials briefed on the investigation.

About six months earlier, the FBI investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, also at Russia’s request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to terrorism, but the names were added to the list.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.