WarSclerotic

Helpless Hamas Watches as Egypt Targets Islamists – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

An Egyptian police car set ablaze on Cairo’s Six of October Bridge

AFP photo

As tight allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas has been watching the situation in Egypt with grave concern. And with the deposing of Mohammed Morsi from the presidency of Egypt, Gaza Arabs are very concerned that the Hamas government in Gaza could be negatively affected by the anti-Islamist atmosphere in the Levant.

A poll by the PA’s Ma’an news service Monday found that 73.4% of Gaza Arabs polled believe that the events in Egypt will negatively affect the Hamas government. Only 22.9% say that there will be no effect. Among the effects that some Gazans fear is an increase in secular political activity, as well as bolder efforts by Fatah-oriented Gazans to organize politically.

In a statement, Hamas condemned the “massacre” Egyptian Army units are said to be committing against Islamists. Early Monday, at least 40 people were killed in clashes outside a military building in Cairo, where supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi were holding a sit-in against, Egyptian officials said. Those killed were all Morsi supporters, among them many members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Later Monday, reports from Egypt said that the army had ordered the closure of Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo, claiming that soldiers had been fired upon from there.

But Hamas dare not intervene to help their comrades in Egypt, at least openly. With the deposing by the Egyptian army of Mohammed Morsi and the arrests of top Muslim Brotherhood leaders, many of the Brotherhood have been clearing out of large cities and taking refuge in remote areas, like Sinai. Over the weekend, angry riots broke out in El Arish between pro- and anti-Morsi groups, and on Saturday night the Egyptian army announced that it was moving troops and tanks into Sinai in order to rout out Brotherhood and pro-Morsi groups.

With that, there were reports Monday that dozens of Hamas terrorists had made it over the border into Sinai and taken up arms to fight Egyptian Army troops. Several of them are said to have participated in a Brotherhood attack on an Egyptian Army post in El-Arish, in which several Egyptian soldiers were killed. Egypt, meanwhile has closed up most of the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza. Reports said that since the weekend, over 50 of the tunnels have been sealed.

Car bomb hits Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut; several said killed, 18 hurt | JPost | Israel News.

Al Quds Commander Killed in Syria.

Or Heller

8/7/2013

A severe blow to the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah in the combat taking place in Syria: according to the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the commander of Hezbollah’s elite Al Quds brigade was killed in Syria.

If the report is correct, then the death of the Al Quds force commander, known as Abu Ajaib, represents Hezbollah’s highest-ranking casualty in Syria to date.

Thus far, Hezbollah has lost hundreds of fighters in the fighting taking place in Syria. According to IDF assessments, the organization is close to losing more fighters in Syria than it lost during the Second Lebanon War.

Violent Ramadan ahead: Egypt’s army chief says no to dialogue with Brotherhood. Assad nixes ceasefire.

Muslim Brotherhood casualties in Cairo gunfire

The holy Muslim month of Ramadan beginning in the Middle East Tuesday, July 9, heralds more, rather than less, bloodshed. After at least 51 deaths in a Cairo shootout Monday, Egypt’s military chief Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi rebuffed US diplomatic efforts to bring the various political forces in the country around the table for dialogue. The high military council is divided on this: One faction urges a relentless crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and its deposed president; a second, led by Gen. El-Sisi, says they mustn’t be cowed by the backlash to Monday’s incident, but should keep the political process for a new and stable government on track
In line with this perception, Provisional President Justice Adli Mansour issued a decree Tuesday for elections to a new parliament in February 2014, followed immediately by voting for a new president. He did not fix a precise date. No one expects this decree to tranquilize the turmoil in the country or deter the Brothers from an uprising (intifada) declared against the powers that unseated them after Egyptian soldiers shot dead at least 51 of their supporters. They were accused by the army of trying to storm the Republican Guards Club in Cairo where deposed president Mohamed Morsi is held. The Brothers claimed they were just holding a peaceful sit-in.
The generals have geared up to meet this threat, which appears to have been kicked off Monday with attacks on strategic targets across Egypt – carried out, according to debkafile’s military sources, by the Brotherhood’s armed underground, Al-Gihas al-Sirri.

In parallel, the military is also deploying for a major offensive to curb the armed Salafi Bedouin rampant in Sinai and now harnessed to the Brotherhoods uprising. The generals believe this center of revolt must be nipped in the bud without delay for the sake of confining the MB uprising to mainland Egypt.

To this end, heavy military reinforcements were seen pouring into Sinai in the early hours of Tuesday. The urgency of cutting down the Brotherhood’s capabilities for making trouble was attested to by the risk the Egyptian army took by withdrawing substantial military strength from the Suez Canal towns of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez and redeploying them in Sinai. They acted on the assumption that, in the short term, the Brothers would concentrate their defiance on street protests and clashes with the army to Cairo.

Our military sources report that Maj. Gen. Ahmad Wasfi, head of the Second Army, arrived Monday in the northern Sinai town of El Arish to set up a command center for the forthcoming campaign against the Islamist opposition and its allies, the Salafist networks linked to al Qaeda and the radical Palestinian Hamas.
The outbreaks in Egypt this week overshadowed the disastrous situation in Syria.

debkafile’s military sources report that alongside thrusts on other fronts, such as Homs, the Syrian army and Hizballah are in the final stages of preparations for their big push to liquidate rebel strongholds in Aleppo and recapture Syria’s second city.

Syrian President Bashar Assad decided to go ahead with this offensive despite the onset of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from sunup to sundown for a month.
Iran and Moscow are speeding extra military and arms supplies to aid this effort by airlift. Refusing to brook any further delays in the battle for Aleppo, Assad turned down a proposal by UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s and the new Syrian opposition president Ahmad Jabra to declare a bilateral ceasefire for the month of Ramadan.

Snowden: US and Israel did create Stuxnet attack code • The Register.

UK is ‘radioactive’ and ‘Queen’s selfies to the pool boy’ slurped

“The NSA and Israel cowrote it,” he told Der Spiegel in an email interview conducted before he publicly outed himself as the NSA mole. Snowden is currently in Russia and a “free man” according to Vladimir Putin – as long as there are no further NSA leaks.

Early variants attempted to contaminate uranium supplies by interfering with the flow of gas to the fuel being processed, potentially causing explosive results in the processing factory. Later a more advanced variant attacked the centrifuges themselves, burning out motors by rapidly starting and stopping the units and contaminating fuel production, although it may actually have encouraged the Iranians.

Last year an unnamed US official said that Stuxnet was part of a program called Operation Olympic Games, started under President Bush and continued under the current administration, aimed at slowing down the Iranian nuclear effort without having to resort to risky airstrikes. General James Cartwright, a former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is currently under investigation by the US government for allegedly leaking details of Operation Olympic Games.

Don’t trust Europe or multinationals

Such international efforts are coordinated by the NSA’s Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD), Snowden said.

The FAD has full cooperation with its so-called “Five Eye partners,” in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and these agencies are even better or worse (depending on your viewpoint) at collecting data. Typically, these countries practice “full take,” Snowden said, scooping every bit of data and storing it for later perusal.

“As a general rule, so long as you have any choice at all, you should never route through or peer with the UK under any circumstances,” he said. “Their fibers are radioactive, and even the Queen’s selfies to the pool boy get logged.”

Other European countries also work closely with the NSA, he said, describing the organization as “in bed together with the Germans.” Other countries don’t ask where the NSA’s data comes from, and the US returns that favor, to give politicians plausible deniability in the event of source disclosure, he explained.

Multinational companies also play the game, Snowden said, and cooperate with the NSA to enable the slurping of their customer’s data, although a few (unnamed) firms don’t submit their data to NSA inspection. “The NSA considers the identities of telecom collaborators to be the jewels in their crown of omniscience,” he said

“As a general rule, US-based multinationals should not be trusted until they prove otherwise,” he said. “This is sad, because they have the capability to provide the best and most trusted services in the world if they actually desire to do so.”

*Bootnote

There are unconfirmed reports that the CIA was using dodgy software as far back as the 1980s to cause problems with its then–enemy number one, the Soviet Union.

According to National Security Council staffer Thomas Reed, the CIA got wind that the Soviets were trying to steal industrial-control software for a new gas pipeline from a Canadian supplier. He claims the CIA installed a trojan into the Canadian firm’s software and allowed it to be purloined by the KGB.

“The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds,” he said. “The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.”

The report has never been officially confirmed, although the CIA has said that it introduced numerous dodgy technologies to the Soviets, including “flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline.”

Israelis cautiously optimistic over Morsi ouster | The Times of Israel.

Not having the Muslim Brotherhood in charge in Egypt brings hope — but an unstable neighbor carries many risks, analysts say

By Ben Sales July 8, 2013, 8:25 pm

Hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters hold demonstrations at Cairo’s Tahrir Square, on Tuesday, July 2. (photo credit: screen capture/Channel 10 news)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For the second time in less than three years, Egypt is erupting in chaos, with a popular protest movement leading to a swift change in the country’s leadership.

For Israelis, the Egyptian military’s removal of Mohammed Morsi from the presidency last week is a cause for optimism.

An Islamist and a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi’s brief tenure saw a further estrangement between Israel and Egypt. The Brotherhood advocates Israel’s destruction and supports Hamas, the terrorist group that governs in Gaza. And while Morsi upheld the 1979 peace treaty with Israel during his year in office, his refusal of contact with Israel and his warm relations with other Islamist governments portended future tension between the countries.

With Morsi gone and the Egyptian military reasserting itself, Israel can breathe a little easier. Israel has enjoyed close cooperation with the Egyptian army in recent decades, born of their shared interest in combating terrorist groups and maintaining stability.

“To get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood is great for Egypt and for the region,” said Zvi Mazel, Israel’s ambassador to Egypt in the late 1990s. “It’s the best thing that has happened this year. One of their central goals is to destroy Israel.”

The takeover also poses risks for Israel.

A weak and unstable Egypt will be less able to maintain calm in the Sinai Desert, act as an anchor of stability in the Arab world or step in as a mediator between Israel and its enemies. And while dealing with a country led by secular pragmatists is obviously preferable to one led by Islamists, the 2011 Egyptian uprising showed that a government inclined positively toward Israel may only be possible amid significant repression at home.

Israel thus far has stayed silent in response to the unrest in Egypt’s capital, neither praising nor condemning the military’s actions, nor reaching out publicly to the new government in formation.

In an interview last week with the Italian newspaper La Corriere Della Sera, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said only that Israel is watching events in Egypt very carefully. Netanyahu also made only passing reference to Egypt in his weekly speech to the Cabinet on Sunday.

The Israel Defense Forces also have reacted calmly. Troop activity on Israel’s southern border has not increased meaningfully, despite a rocket exploding last week near the resort town of Eilat and the bombing of an Egyptian gas pipeline to Jordan. Last week, Israel allowed Egypt to move troops into the Sinai — a move prohibited by their peace treaty — as an added security measure.

Despite ongoing close coordination between the Israeli and Egyptian militaries, the Sinai has been a hotspot of terrorist activity since Mubarak’s ouster, a situation that could get worse with Egypt’s top brass focused on containing the unrest in Cairo, which already has claimed dozens of lives. In addition to the pipeline bombing, an Egyptian soldier was killed there on Sunday.

Morsi’s fall also has weakened Hamas, which enjoyed a small uptick in prestige during his administration. In October, the emir of Qatar became the first head of state to visit Gaza. The following month, Morsi’s mediation of the conflict between Hamas and Israel led to a slight easing of Israel’s Gaza blockade.

Now, Hamas again is on the ropes. Its parent organization has been removed from leadership after only a year and it has lost some financial support from Iran for choosing to back the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, an Iranian ally. If the Egyptian military clamps down on weapons transfers in the Sinai and underground tunnels to Gaza, it could stanch Hamas’s supply chain.

For now, Israeli officials are reacting with a poker face. But if the Brotherhood’s fall portends a decline in Islamist fortunes across the region, Israelis will likely smile and collectively exhale.

“The interests of the [Egyptian] government are pragmatic — to work in Sinai against terror and to revive the Egyptian economy,” Mazel said. “They may even cooperate with us more economically. It was a cold peace. We’ll see what happens now.”

Gaza terrorists infiltrate Sinai – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Dozens of terrorists affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood head to Sinai, take part in assaults on Egyptian army posts. Egypt authorities scramble to seal off smuggling tunnels

Roi Kais

The official told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that Egyptian authorities have observed the entry of 150 Izz al-Din al-Qassam operatives into Sinai via the tunnels. “They were wearing uniforms associated with the military police before joining Jihadists in Sinai,” he said.

The official added that the army suspects that Palestinians took part in assaults on army posts last Friday.

Cairo violence (Photo: Getty Imagebank)

In addition, Egyptian security sources told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that Muslim Brotherhood officials are overseeing terrorist activity against army and police forces in Sinai and coordinating these efforts with commanders in Hamas’ military wing.

At least 42 people were killed on Monday when Islamist demonstrators enraged by the military overthrow of Morsi said the army opened fire during morning prayers at the Cairo barracks where he is being held.

But the military said “a terrorist group” tried to storm the Republican Guard compound and one army officer had been killed and 40 wounded. Soldiers returned fire when they were attacked by armed assailants, a military source said.

Israel Hayom | Syria: Latakia attack carried out by al-Qaida terrorists.

Israel Hayom | Hezbollah asks Iran to send more fighters to Syria.

Israel Hayom | In Egypt, US stuck in time warp.