WarSclerotic

Iran’s Rouhani affirms support for Syria, Hezbollah | The Times of Israel.

President-elect says close ties with Damascus will help vanquish Zionists, who conspire with US to destabilize region

Iran’s newly elected president Hasan Rouhani places his hand on his heart, as a sign of respect, after speaking at a press conference, in Tehran, Monday, June 17, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Iranian president-elect sent messages to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, reaffirming support for the two allies.

The official IRNA news agency on Tuesday cited Hasan Rouhani as saying close Iranian-Syrian ties will be able to confront “enemies in the region, especially the Zionist regime.” According to the semi-official Fars News, Rouhani “lauded the Syrian nation for its resistance against western plots” and said Syria will “overcome its current crisis.”

The note was in response to Assad’s congratulatory message on Rouhani’s June election. Tehran has sided with Assad’s regime in Syria’s civil war and provided Damascus with arms and money to help quash a two-year uprising.

In an interview with IRNA, Syrian MP Khaled al-Abboud said the rebels against Assad “are tools in the hands of Washington and Tel Aviv,” but that eventually the rebels “would rise against their present supporters and their allies.” Echoing Rouhani, al-Abboud also remarked that Western support for Syrian rebels was a plot by the US and Israel to destabilize the Middle East.

Rouhani also wrote to the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, saying Iran backs the “steadfast nation” of Lebanon and the Palestinians, a reference to the militant Hamas group.

The notes reflect Rouhani’s intentions to emphasize links to Iran’s key regional allies even as he urges for greater outreach to the West.

Earlier Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry said that Israel’s prime minister seeks to damage relations between Iran and the world, referring to the Jewish state as “a warmonger regime.”

The remarks by ministry spokesman Abbas Araghchi come two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the world to step up pressure on Tehran to halt its disputed nuclear program with tougher sanctions and threats of military action.

Araghchi said Iran views Israel as “angry” about moderate Hasan Rouhani’s victory in June presidential elections, claiming that Israel appears concerned the world will ease pressure in order to engage the Islamic Republic’s next president.

Blast hits Hezbollah convoy near Syrian border – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Senior Hezbollah official possibly killed in attack on convoy headed to Syria from Lebanon along border; road-side bomb attack leaves three dead

Associated Press

A roadside bomb struck a jeep carrying members of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group near Lebanon’s border with Syria on Tuesday, wounding three people, a police official said.

The official added the vehicle appeared to have been part of a Hezbollah convoy heading to Syria and that the three casualties were transported in ambulances affiliated with the group to a hospital in Beirut. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press, said it was not immediately clear whether the bombing was an assassination attempt.

Lebanon, long troubled by Syria’s civil war and its potential to overwhelm its smaller neighbor, has been on edge since a powerful car bomb last Tuesday in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs wounded 53 people. To many in Lebanon, that blast confirmed fears that the Iranian-backed group, a staunch ally of the Assad regime, would face retaliation for its now overt role fighting alongside President Bashar Assad‘s troops inside Syria.

Scene of attack (Photo: Reuters)

As Hezbollah’s hand in the Syrian conflict has become public, Lebanon has seen a spike in Sunni-Shiite tensions that has sparked gun battles in several cities around the country. Many Lebanese Sunnis support the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad in Syria, while Shiites generally back Hezbollah and the regime.

Tuesday’s roadside blast struck the jeep as it was driving on the main road in Majdal Anjar leading from Lebanon to the Syrian capital, and about 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) from the Masnaa border crossing. The road is frequently used by Hezbollah security officials and other Lebanese officials headed to the Syrian capital.

Funeral of Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria (Photo: AP)

The state-run National News Agency identified the wounded men as Hussein Ali Bdeir and Fadi Abdul Karim. Local media reports said that two of the dead may have been bodyguards for a Hezbollah official traveling in the convoy.

Lebanese security officials said the bomb appeared to have been detonated remotely. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV did not report the explosion and a Hezbollah official said the group had no information on the blast.

Rebels in Aleppo (Photo: Reuters)

The group’s fighters played a key role in a recent victory by Assad’s forces to retake control of the strategic Syrian town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, where rebels held sway for more than a year. Syrian activists say Hezbollah fighters are now aiding a regime offensive in the besieged city of Homs.

Attacks that target Hezbollah, such as last week’s car bombing in the heart of the group’s bastion of support, considerably raise the stakes in Lebanon and suggest that Syria’s civil war is beginning to consume Lebanon.

Hezbollah fighters in Qusair, Syria (Photo: AFP)

Inside Syria, pro-government gunmen killed seven members of a local Syrian reconciliation group near the central city of Homs, as troops shot dead nine people including a child at a checkpoint in a suburb of the capital, activists said.

The killings coincide with an offensive by Assad’s troops in Damascus and its surrounding suburbs, as well as in the strategic province surrounding Homs.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the seven men, including two retired army officers, were Sunnis working to convince gunmen to drop their weapons and return to normal life. They were killed Monday in the village of Hajar Abyad, where residents are known to be regime supporters, it said.

Assad’s troops have captured several nearby rebel-held areas in recent weeks including the towns of Qusair and Talkalkh near the border with Lebanon. Late last month, they launched an attack to try to capture rebel-held areas of Homs, Syria’s third largest city.

They have also made headway against fighter brigades on the edge of Damascus and eastern suburbs.

The uprising against Assad’s rule began in March 2011 and has deteriorated into an insurgency with growing sectarian overtones. The rebels have been assisted by foreign fighters, while government forces have been bolstered by Hezbollah guerrillas and Shiite fighters from Iraq.

In the Damascus suburb of Qarah, troops shot dead nine people including a child at an army checkpoint in the area, the Observatory said.

It was not clear whether those killed were fighters or civilians. An amateur video showed seven dead men, some of them with beards, and a boy with a bloodied face. The dead appeared to have suffered bullet wounds, some to the head.

“These are Bashar’s crimes during Ramadan,” a man could be heard saying in the video referring to the Muslim holy month that began last week.

The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events depicted.

The Observatory also reported fighting in the town of Qahtaniyeh on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said regime forces were attacking rebels in the town.

More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes in the conflict.

Defense Minister Yaalon denies Israel attacked Syria’s Latakia arms depot. Twenty-five Syrian shells on Golan.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon on the Golan

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon Tuesday, July 16, contradicted US claims that Israeli air strikes of July 5 were responsible for destroying Russian-made Yakhont SS-N-26 anti-ship missiles stored at the Syrian port town of Latakia..  Wiped out too were the system’s radar. The claims by Pentagon and other US officials were widely published by American and British media and Syrian rebel outlets. Yaalon spoke while visiting a defense plant near Acre.
Israel has consistently abstained from commenting on reports of this kind, ever since, six years ago, US administration officials named Israel as having demolished the North Korean-built plutonium reactor in northern Syria.

Neither does Jerusalem normally deny such reports – at all events, not until Tuesday, when the minister delivered Israel’s first comment on the Latakia episode. This deliberate denial is all the more striking given the wide media mileage of the American version, which looked like a move to draw Israel into involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in an interview to CBS TV declined to answer questions on the Latakia incident, only asserting that Israel stands by its policy of preventing advanced weapons reaching Syria from falling in to the hands of the Lebanese Hizballah.

So, clearly, in the last two days, official Israeli tactics appear to have shifted from non-response to denial. The defense minister also reiterated a point he has made before, that Israel is not involved in the Syrian civil war but reserved the right to hit back for any cross-border Syrian fire against its territory.
All the same, at around the same time as he spoke, 25 shells landed in the center of Israeli Golan as new fighting erupted between the Syrian army and rebel fighters around the town of Quneitra. Yet there was no sign he had ordered the IDF to respond.
Unlike in previous instances, when flying ordnance on Golan elicited IDF tank or missile fire, the army spokesman in Tel Aviv commented with unusual forbearance that they were almost certainly stray shells and not aimed at Israel.
This signaled another apparent shift in Israeli policy: Not only has a top official stepped forward to contradict a report by US officials, but the IDF is holding its hand against a volley of Syrian shells falling inside the Golan.
Interestingly, the only other denial of Israeli responsibility for the Latakia attack came from Damascus, where government officials attributed the explosions to al Qaeda. This sort of concurrence between Jerusalem and Damascus is so surprising that, who knows? the Syrians may have got it right after all.

Israel Has Launched Long-Shot Attacks Before – Wall Street Journal – WSJ.com.

Iran should take heed: In 1967, a pre-emptive strike on Egypt seemed impossible too.

By Daniel Nisman

Former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1965.

Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

Last week, Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, sought to settle a long-running debate regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s willingness to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“Certainly,” Mr. Oren told daily newspaper Haaretz, “[Mr. Netanyahu] was the one who succeeded in drawing the world’s attention to the threat. . . . But this success is not enough. The question he faces is similar to the question that [former Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol faced in May 1967.”

As a close confidant to the prime minister and an award-winning historian of the Six Day War, Mr. Oren’s comparison of Mr. Netanyahu to Eshkol is an ominous one that shouldn’t be ignored.

Throughout its short history, the state of Israel has repeatedly shocked the world with bold military operations previously considered impossible, unthinkable, or borderline suicidal. On June 5, 1967, Eshkol sent most of Israel’s air force into Egypt for a surprise preemptive attack, which left less than a dozen warplanes to defend the entire homeland. In the six days that followed, Israel defeated multiple threatening Arab armies, changing the face of the Middle East to this day.

Since the Six Day War, successive Israeli leaders have signed off on daring operations that have entered the annals of history: the 1976 hostage rescue in Entebbe, Uganda, the bombing of Saddam Hussein’s Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 and the sneak attack to spoil Bashar al-Assad’s own nuclear ambitions in 2007, to name a few. Premiers like Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Olmert embarked on each of these operations after becoming convinced that even their staunchest allies would not come to Israel’s assistance.

In the face of such choices, forget the intelligence estimates and risk assessments. It ultimately takes a do-or-die, all-or-nothing mindset to make a decision which could either bring complete victory, or considerable military defeat and diplomatic isolation. In this context, Mr. Netanyahu not only views Iran as an existential threat comparable to the Nazi Holocaust—he also wishes to be remembered as the one who personally delivered its demise. On this point, sources close to the prime minister assert that he keeps in his desk drawer World War II-era letters from the U.S. War Department, which decline requests by the World Jewish Congress to bomb gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Amid turmoil now in Egypt, bedlam in Syria and musings of reform from Iran’s newly elected President Hassan Rouhani, Mr. Netanyahu now fears that his campaign to stop Iran from going nuclear has been put on the international community’s back burner. Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, has repeatedly warned the Security Council that Iran’s nuclear program is racing forward like an express train, passing diplomatic efforts that lag behind on the local route. Recent statements by the Netanyahu administration indicate they believe that Iran’s nuclear train will arrive at its final destination by Nov. 2013 unless the international community intervenes.

Last month, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz revealed Israel’s assessment that Iran is close to stockpiling 200 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium and repeated that acquiring 250 kilograms would constitute Mr. Netanyahu’s so-called “red line.” His assessment is in line with th International Atomic Energy Agency’s May 2013 report, which alleges that Iran possessed approximately 182 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium. With Iran’s current ability to stockpile roughly 15 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium per month, Iran could trigger a preemptive Israeli strike in less than four months.

Meanwhile, while Mr. Netanyahu may have faced resistance in the past to launching a preventative strike, current conditions at home and across the region may be the most optimal he has ever had. Since Jan. 2013, Israel has provoked Iran and its allies (at least) three times with airstrikes against weapons convoys destined to Hezbollah in Syria, albeit without any reaction. The incidents, which served to reduce fears of a regional conflagration, have clearly resonated with Israel’s various security chiefs, who have refrained from voicing any concerns about a strike on Iran, unlike their predecessors.

On July 14, Mr. Netanyahu commenced a widespread public and back-channel diplomacy campaign to re-rally Israel’s allies to commit to both a convincing military threat and additional economic sanctions against Iran. His hope is that such a stance by the world community would deter Iran’s decision makers from taking advantage of Mr. Rouhani’s transition period to advance the nuclear program beyond the point of no return. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have stated that nuclear negotiations with the West should be put on hold until after Mr. Rouhani’s cabinet is inaugurated in August. It is Jerusalem’s fear that by the time Iran and its negotiating partners agree on a timetable and venue for new talks, it may be too late.

Many Israeli pundits, as well as Ambassador Oren himself, have compared Mr. Netanyahu’s diplomatic push to Eshkol’s last-ditch efforts to convince Washington of the existential threats posed by Arab nations in the weeks before June 5, 1967. As in 1967, this is a conflict that Israel has been anticipating for years, building previously unused military capability and practicing its strategy in preparation for another surprise feat, which may ultimately shock the world once again.

Having recently announced its willingness to negotiate with President-elect Rouhani, the Obama administration should heed this history lesson, lest the U.S. and the international community be caught off guard by another Israeli-induced regional earthquake.

Israel scratching its head after US officials (again) leak Syria strike | The Times of Israel.

Sources in Jerusalem say ‘there’s no anger’ over American reports of Latakia bombing; only an attempt to figure out the leakers’ motives

An Israeli F-15I at the Hatzerim Airbase (photo credit: Ofer Zidon/Flash90)

In the wake of Israeli media reports about “anger” in Jerusalem over American leaks to CNN and The New York Times regarding an alleged Israeli attack in Syria this month, official sources clarified to The Times of Israel Monday that “there is no anger toward the administration.”

Still, according to the sources, Israel is trying to understand how and why it happened: why twice in the past two months American media ran reports — based on tips from US officials — that could get Israel caught up in a military conflict with Syria. According to the same sources, there is also disappointment among decision-makers regarding the conduct of the American media. But again, they stressed, “there’s no anger.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad has threatened a military response to any future Israeli strike on targets in Syria. However, since Assad has his hands full with the civil war in his country, it is widely assumed that he wouldn’t risk a head-on conflict with Israel unless he felt he had no choice. Reports of Israeli strikes increase the pressure on Assad to respond or risk losing his credibility.

According to the reports in CNN and The New York Times, Israeli warplanes targeted a Syrian naval base in Latakia earlier this month and destroyed a warehouse full of Russian-made anti-ship missiles that may have been bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

There are two, conflicting assessments in Jerusalem as to the source of the leaks. One suggests that they come from groups interested in deeper US involvement in the fighting in Syria. Through such leaks, those groups are trying to show that, just as Israel has managed to avoid getting sucked into the fighting in Syria, the American military can do the same while still achieving meaningful intervention. This despite assessments in the Pentagon that military involvement — to impose a no-fly zone, for instance — would require hundreds of aerial sorties and even boots on the ground.

The second Israeli assessment holds that those who oppose American involvement in the fighting in Syria are trying to send the message that such a campaign is unnecessary, since for the time being Israel is striking critical targets; and that an attempt to topple the government in Syria could bring to power a government even more extreme than the one in Damascus today.

The Israeli officials pointed out that despite the leaks, there’s a noticeable effort by the Syrian regime to emphasize that the incident in Latakia wasn’t an Israeli attack. The Syrians underscored in reports published over the past few days that “No foreign army was involved in the explosions, and there was no action from the air or from the sea,” as some Western and Arab media outlets claimed.

President Assad is apparently trying desperately to avoid being forced into standing by his promise from two months ago that he would respond militarily against Israel if it attacks Syria again.

Report: Israel made sure no Russians in Latkia – then attacked – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Lebanese station says Israel attacked stockpile of Russian Yakhont missiles only after ensuring no Russian experts were on-site. Another report: Senior rebel commander passed on information regarding missile stockpile to US

Roi Kais

Even after US sources affirmed that Israel was the one behind the bombing of the Yakhont missile stockpile in Latkia, Syria, the whole story behind the attack on the anti-ship cruise missiles remains murky.

Monday evening, Lebanese channel MTV reported that Israel had bombed the advanced land-to-sea missiles, which had been transferred from Russia to President Bashar Assad, only after it made sure that no Russian experts were on-site.

At the same time, Syrian news site Al Hakika quoted Turkish officials who said that a senior rebel source, Malik al-Kurdi, sent a message to the US that Yakhont missiles had arrived in Syria and Assad intended to give them to Hezbollah.

The sources, close to the Free Syrian Army command in Istanbul, said that al-Kurdi, who defected from the Syrian Army in 2011, recently sent a message to the US military attaché in Ankara via a Turkish officer, asking to meet in order to pass on “important information of interest to the US and Israel regarding Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.”

According to the same Turkish sources, al-Kurdi said in his communiqué that “he had important military secrets related to the arrival of Yakhont missiles in Syria and that the regime intends to give some of them to Hezbollah.” He noted that his former colleagues in the Syrian naval command had provided him with the information and the location of stockpiles.

The report claimed that the senior rebel gave the US naval attaché additional, accurate information regarding the stockpiles, and met with him again at the end of June. According to the Turkish sources, this information was what made it possible for Israel – after consultation and coordination with the US government – to determine at least three locations where the missiles were stored.

The same report said that the missiles were destroyed with three sea-to-land Harpoon missiles.

On Monday, the Russian news site RT reported that Israel used military bases in Turkey for one of the sea-to-land strikes against Syria. Apparently, this referred to the attack on arsenals in Latakia, which was generally attributed to the Israeli Air Force. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu quickly denied the report of Turkey’s involvement, calling it a complete lie.

Another article, this one appearing earlier in the week in Britian’s Sunday Times, stated that the missiles which destroyed the Yakhont stockpile were launched from a Dolphin submarine. It is still unclear how the attack was carried out.

Failed US policy endangers Israel – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Analysis: Political disputes in Washington putting Israel’s citizens in truly dangerous situation

The American policy toward the Middle East has been moving in the past few months from failure to failure, and mainly from helplessness to embarrassing mistakes. The inability of the Obama administration to produce worthy responses to the developments is angering not only the supporters of the US in the region, but also the political establishment and media in American itself.

Even media outlets that are considered to be traditional supporters of the president, such as the New York Times, have leveled harsh criticism over the lack of policy and mainly the failed conduct vis-à-vis Syria. But this isn’t all. The efforts invested by Secretary of State John Kerry in an attempt to bring Netanyahu and Abbas to the negotiation table have been dubbed “obsessive” and “pathetic.” Meanwhile in Egypt, Defense Minister al-Sisi is furious with the Americans over what he claims is their continued support of deposed president Morsi.

The Obama administration, at least in the beginning, capitulated to various human rights groups until it realized that supporting Morsi goes against American interests in the region, goes against the interests of the Sunni Arab states, particularly in the Gulf, and is also unjustifiable because the Egyptian army does not want to rule the country, even if this power is served to it on a silver platter. Al-Sisi wants to remain behind the scenes rather than become a new pharaoh.

Those who helped the Obama administration realize this were senior Israeli officials, including National Security Advisor Ya’akov Amidror and Defense Minister Ya’alon, who discussed the matter with his American counterpart Hagel.

Another indication of the confusion in Washington is the leaks by anonymous sources in the Pentagon regarding the operations in Syria allegedly carried out by the IDF. In May they leaked to CNN’s military correspondent that the Israeli Air Force attacked Iranian missiles near Damascus, and this past weekend the same correspondent reported – and later other news outlets – reported that Israel struck from the air Russian-made land-to-sea Yakhont missiles that were stored northeast of the Syrian port city of Latakia.

In May senior American officials apologized and promised that the leaks would stop. Israel made it clear to the Americans at the time that the reports may force Assad to launch devastating missile attacks on northern Israel so as not to be perceived as a collaborator and lose what’s left of his credibility as an Arab ruler. Then came the most recent leak, which shocked the Israeli leadership.

Once again the question was asked: Why did the leak come from the same Pentagon officials? The answer is not encouraging. The reason Pentagon officials were behind the current and past leaks is most likely political – part of an internal dispute within the Pentagon: Should the US act militarily to end the massacre in Syria? Can it? Or should it avoid a military operation and also ignore the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces, despite Obama’s threats?

Obama on way to golf game as Egypt erupts (Photo: EPA)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey claimed the US Military would need 700 sorties to neutralize Syria’s anti-aircraft force and secure a no-fly zone. This was how the US and its allies came out on top in past conflicts in Iraq, Kosovo and Libya. But America does not want another war after it has already withdrawn from Iraq and is trying to leave Afghanistan by the skin of its teeth. This is why senior government officials are using various excuses provided by the generals in the Pentagon in order to avoid military intervention in Syria.

The leaks, which point to Israeli successes in Syria, expose the emptiness of the Obama administration’s excuses. Therefore, some people estimate the leaks are actually meant to embarrass the administration and come from those who are in favor of Western military intervention in Syria and from Republicans looking to attack the Obama administration any chance they get.

The Israeli political established is fuming, because the internal disputes within the US are putting Israel’s citizens in a truly dangerous situation. The leaks are reducing Assad’s so-called “room for denial.” The Syrian president is really not interested in getting involved in a conflict with Israel at this juncture.

Without addressing the question of whether Israel was behind the destruction of the Yakhont missiles, it is clear that the leak from Washington may push Assad into a corner and force him to respond in a way that will hurt and endanger Israel.

American officials, in the heat of the domestic argument, are pitting Israel and Syria against each other. This is not a legitimate move by our closet ally and patron. After all, it is Israel that will suffer from the missile attacks, not the US.

This is not the only damage caused to Israel and other countries by the US’ befuddlement and careless conduct. But everyone has to keep quiet because we have no other superpower that supports us.

Egypt’s Gen. El-Sisi tells visiting US official: Don’t bully Cairo by threats to suspend military aid.

US Dep. Secretary of State William Burns in Cairo

Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, the first senior US official to visit Cairo since the military coup of July 3, exchanged tough talk with the coup leader, Defense minister Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Monday, after he met interim President Adly Mansour and Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi.
The general frankly advised Washington to be more realistic about the situation in Egypt. Accordingly to debkafile’s Middle East sources, El-Sisi asked Burns bluntly why the Obama administration backed the Muslim Brotherhood and appeared to accept an Egypt plunged in chaos and economic meltdown during Mohamed Morsi’s one-year presidency.
Burns said the US remained committed to an Egypt that is “stable, democratic, inclusive and tolerant,” stressing Washington understood that “only Egyptians can determine their future.” To this, Gen. El-Sisi replied that in ousting Morsi, the military had obeyed the authentic will of the Egyptian people. He said the army’s role is national not political.
On the question of US military assistance, the general remarked that the “US is more keen than Egypt on keeping up military aid as an assurance of the continuation of military ties between the two countries.” debkafile: Implicit in this comment was a hint that military ties with Washington would suffer if the administration tried to push the Egyptian army around.
Present at the two-hour meeting were Egypt’s chief of staff Sobhi Sidki and US Ambassador Anne Patterson, a known supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood who tried hard to bridge the differences between the Brotherhood and the general and avert the coup.
Secretary Burns faces an uphill task in his mission to mend fences between the Obama administration and the caretaker rulers of Egypt – especially when the Egyptian street’s two halves – anti and pro-Morsi – are united on little else but anti-American sentiment.

Earlier Monday, debkafile carried this report:
The last ten days have seen dozens killed and hundreds wounded in battles between Egyptian security forces and a coalition of increasingly aggressive Islamist Salafists and Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami fighters, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report. The Egyptian military has clamped a news blackout on the Sinai battlefield.

In the latest incident Monday, July 15, rocket-propelled grenades blew up a bus carrying workmen to the Multinational Force-MFO based at Al Gora near the North Sinai town of El Arish. According to official sources, three of the passengers were killed and 17 injured. Unofficial estimates were as high as 13-20 dead. The attackers shouted Allahu Akbar when the bus blew up.

debkafile reports that further, unknown numbers of Egyptian soldiers and Islamist assailants were killed in a gunfight nearby. The Salafists were trying to plant explosives along the road connecting the town of Sheih Zweid to the MFO encampment. Many of them died when gunshots detonated the explosives they were holding.

Our sources disclose that since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo on July 3, Egyptian troops confront surging Islamist violence at four current flashpoints in Sinai, two near the Israeli border.

One is the Rafah area south of the Gaza Strip where the Salafists are tackling Egyptian forces engaged in blocking the smuggling tunnels running contraband into the Palestinian enclave.
The commander of Egypt’s Second Army, Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, is convinced by incoming intelligence that the Muslim Brotherhood unseated two weeks ago in Cairo and its Libyan allies are conniving with the Salafist Bedouin of Sinai and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami of the Gaza Strip to stage a violent uprising against the Egyptian army and security forces in Sinai.

The events of the past 24 hours confirm him in this conviction. Saturday, July 13, the Egyptian army intercepted and destroyed three arms convoys crossing from Libya into Egypt on their way to the Gaza Strip. The next day, armed Salafists conducted a multiple onslaught on Egyptian Border Police camps, checkpoints and patrols opposite the Israel region of Halutza.

The residents of Bnei Netzarim, Naveh, Yevul, Dekel, Avshalom and Sdeh Avraham were told to stay in protected areas and local security squads placed on alert, in case the Salafist assailants stormed across the border to attack Israeli targets.

Overnight, the IDF bolstered military units in the area. In the process, an Israeli Hermes 450 drone crashed while on surveillance duty over the embattled area. The Israeli Air Force reported that a technical fault caused the drone to fly out of control.
All Sunday, the Egyptian army sent extra forces to bolster the engineering units engaged in destroying the smuggling tunnels carrying arms, fighters and consumer goods into the Gaza Strip for more than a decade, which provided the Hamas-ruled regime with a major source of revenue. Orders from the high command in Cairo were to step up the pressure on Hamas and Jihad Islami. And so, the Egyptian army targeted a number of tunnels on the Rafah border used to smuggle fuel to Gaza. Without gas, their combat mobility will be sharply reduced.

Bulldozers were used to remove several machines pumping fuel into the Gaza Strip through the tunnels.

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh tried appealing to Egyptian intelligence chiefs in Cairo to stop the operation. He was fobbed off with junior officers who said they were not competent to make decisions in the matter and would pass his request to higher authority.
The El Arish area has become the most dangerous of all the four flashpoints: There, the heavily concentrated Egyptian force is battered by constant assaults. They are hemmed in by thousands of Salafist gunmen. Any officer, soldier or vehicle trying to exit their fortified compound runs the gauntlet of roadside bombs, anti-tank weapons, hand grenades and heavy machine gun fire.
Fighting is raging at two more locations: the central mountains of Jabel Halal and along the Egyptian-Israeli border opposite Israel’s southern air base of Ovda.