WarSclerotic

An Iranian stealth submarine sinks before targeting a mock US carrier in an a naval exercise, DEBKAfile, May 6, 2014

The Iranians drew a tight veil of secrecy over the accident, curtailing the search for the estimated 10 crewmen to avoid drawing the notice of US or other intelligence agencies in the region.

Chinese and Russian teams secretly enlisted to help search for the sunken mini-submarine, quickly abandoned it saying that none of the crew could have survived. It was up to Iran to decide, they said, whether to continue the search at the risk of exposing its plans for sinking US carriers in a war contingency. So long as the sub stayed on the bottom, its stealth technology would make it hard for Western intelligence to locate it.

Iranian Ghadir-class mini-submarine

A new Iranian Ghadir-class stealth mini-submarine, home-built with Chinese technology, recently sank near the Strait of Hormuz, while preparing for a Revolutionary Guards naval exercise to practice sinking or disabling a mock-up US aircraft carrier, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report exclusively.

The sub was launched just a year ago.

The Iranians drew a tight veil of secrecy over the accident, curtailing the search for the estimated 10 crewmen to avoid drawing the notice of US or other intelligence agencies in the region.

Chinese and Russian teams secretly enlisted to help search for the sunken mini-submarine, quickly abandoned it saying that none of the crew could have survived. It was up to Iran to decide, they said, whether to continue the search at the risk of exposing its plans for sinking US carriers in a war contingency. So long as the sub stayed on the bottom, its stealth technology would make it hard for Western intelligence to locate it.

The ill-fated submarine was to have shown its paces by striking a replica of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier Iran had built at the Bandar Abbas naval base.

The replica was spotted by US satellites. Challenged for an explanation, the Iranians first tried claiming it was to be used in a film documenting the naval forces present in the Persian Gulf.

But then on April 27, the Navy Commander Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi gave the game a way by saying: “Iranian forces should target the carrier in the trainings. We should learn about the weaknesses and strengths of our enemy.”

On May 6, Adm. Fadavi made a more warlike statement that clearly defined “the enemy” when he said: “They [Americans] know nothing. We have been making and sinking replicas of US destroyers, frigates and warships for long years, and we have sunk the replica of their vessels in 50 seconds through a series of operational measures.”

The semi-official Fars agency quoted him as saying also: “Destroying the US navy remains one of the top operational goals of the Tehran forces. If war with the United States breaks out, the Iranians will attack American aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, their size making them easy to target.”

Tehran assumed its aggressive face the day before US National Security Adviser Susan Rice and senior US nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman were due in Israel to persuade Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to live with the comprehensive nuclear accord shortly to be signed with Iran by the six world powers. They will also demand an Israel guarantee not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, although the prime minister made this threat on Holocaust Day on April 27.

The Iranian navy chief’s words were a message to Washington that if Netanyahu does engage in military action against Iran, the American fleet will be at risk.

Iran’s military planners had assigned the new Ghadir-class mini-submarines the task of an attack to bring the US navy fleet, especially the carriers, to a halt – easy prey for a thousand IRGC torpedo boats armed with sea-to-sea missiles to strike the stationary vessels from all directions.

Iranian naval experts count on sinking a carrier or leaving it too crippled to move to safety and forced to call on US bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen for air cover.

Adm. Fadavi’s words, placing “destroying the US navy” among the operational goals of the Tehran forces” were meant to deter the US and Israel against military action.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that IRGC chiefs are also looking at ways of disabling US warships in the Mediterranean, to put them out of action for a second-strike attack on the Lebanese Hizballah by missiles or for sending bombers over Iran.

Not all Western naval experts agree on Tehran’s objectives or capabilities. Some discount the Iran’s speedboats’ ability to carry more than one sea-to-sea rocket – or two at most. And the US helicopters taking off from the targeted warship or ground bases would soon be able to sink them.

Iranian forces recently tested the option of arming the explosive speedboat’s crews with shoulder-carried anti-helicopter rockets, but gave up after 10 boats tipped over during the test.

The Revolutionary Guards Corps has a fleet of 10,000 small boats which are capable of great speed but easily overbalance.

If the US or Israel do decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, the anchorages of these boats would be among their first targets. Each of these anchorages, which are strung along the Iranian Persian Gulf coast, houses around 100 boats.

US denies report that peace team has been dismantled, Times of Israel, May 6, 2014

(And so the “peace process” goes on and on. Where it may land nobody knows. Perhaps in a Nobel Process Prize for Secretary Kerry? — DM)

State Department says officials will be traveling back to the region ‘soon,’ Kerry may release document of US ‘principles.’

US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, walks with US Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Martin Indyk, right, at Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel, on January 5, 2014. (photo credit: AP/Brendan Smialowski/Pool)

Senior US officials are planning to travel to Israel “soon” following the collapse of the Middle East peace talks led by Washington, a State Department official said Monday.

Deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf also dismissed reports that US Secretary of State John Kerry had decided to dismantle the team of American negotiators who have been based on the ground in Jerusalem for months trying to push forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Special envoy Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, had returned to Washington for consultations, Harf confirmed, after last week’s April 29 deadline for a deal passed in a stalemate.

“We’re going to see where this goes from here and, you know, figure out what makes sense in terms of staffing,” she told reporters, saying “we have some senior officials that will be going soon” to the region, without going into specifics.

Indyk has “returned for consultations, but there’s no dismantling” of the team, she said, dismissing as “inaccurate” a report in the Israeli press to that effect over the weekend.

The Haaretz daily said Sunday, quoting Israeli officials, that Indyk was preparing to resign and return to his post at the Brookings Institution think tank.

It also said National Security Adviser Susan Rice would be travelling to Israel this week for consultations as Washington prepares to resume nuclear talks with Iran.

Indyk was said to have been quoted anonymously in an interview in another Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, in which US officials blamed Israel for the breakdown in the talks and said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “did not move more than an inch.”

Harf insisted no one side was to blame, saying “both sides did things that were incredibly unhelpful.”

She did confirm, however, that Kerry, who was returning Monday from a week-long tour of Africa, was mulling whether to release a document laying out some of the principles reached during the nine months of talks, although no decision had been made.

And Harf insisted the situation was not worse than it had been before the start of the talks in July.

“Even if these negotiations eventually don’t work, in the nine months, you have put the issues on the table,” she said.

“You’ve talked about them. Maybe you’ve seen something where, whenever we start this process again, it will help us make progress faster or make better progress or go further.”

The Muslim Brotherhood and Terrorist Organizations, Gatestone Institute, Valentina Colombo, May 6, 2014

(Hamas united with Fatah will be a dandy “peace” process partner for Israel. — DM)

The link between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is clear and straight, and confirmed by Article 2 of the Charter of Hamas, which reads: “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.”

“[T]he organization of the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, and anyone who asks either to reconcile with them, to join them or to ally with them is himself a terrorist.” — Refaat Saïd, leader of Egypt’s Socialist party, al-Tagammu’, and previously close friend of former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide, Mahdi Akef.

A new terror group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis [ABM], just officially entered the scene. Both the U.S. State Department and the British government included it, at the beginning of April, in their list of proscribed terrorist organizations.

The United Kingdom justified its decision as follows: “ABM is an Al Qa’ida inspired militant Islamist group based in the northern Sinai region of Egypt. The group is said to recruit within Egypt and abroad and aims to create an Egyptian state ruled by Sharia law. ABM is assessed to be responsible for a number of attacks on security forces in Egypt since 2011. The attacks appear to have increased since the overthrow of the Morsi government in July 2013. The group’s reach goes beyond the Sinai, with the group claiming responsibility for a number of attacks in Cairo and cross-border attacks against Israel. ABM has undertaken attacks using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and surface-to-air missiles. Examples of attacks for which the group has claimed responsibility include: an attack on the Egyptian Interior Minister in which a UK national was seriously injured (September, 2013); an attack on a police compound in Mansoura, killing at least 16 people, including 14 police officers (December 24, 2013), and an attack on a tourist bus in which three South Koreans and their Egyptian driver died (January 16, 2014).”

The decision taken by the British government against Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis came almost at the same time as the decision to start investigations on the activities of Muslim Brotherhood [MB] and its possible links with terrorism.

Terrorists from the group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis.

There is however a link between ABM and the Muslim Brotherhood: the justification of jihad, based on the Koranic text.

Although in January 2014, after the December 24 attack — linked by the British government statement to ABM — the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood issued a declaration in which it denied any connection with ABM, Refaat Saïd, the leader of the Socialist Party, Tagammu’, said otherwise.

Saïd pointed out, during the visit of Catherine Ashton to Egypt on the eve of its presidential elections, that Ashton “wants to open channels for a reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood despite knowing perfectly well that Dr. Mohammed Morsi himself imported the organization of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis and placed it in the Sinai. Morsi released many of its members from prison so they could carry out terror attacks in the Sinai region to take him back to power.”

Saïd bluntly added that “the organization of the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, and anyone who asks either to reconcile with them, to join them or to ally with them is himself a terrorist.”[1]

Saïd, previously a close friend of Mahdi Akef, the former MB Supreme Guide, knows the Brotherhood closely.

In September 2013, after an attack on the Egyptian Minister of the Interior, Major General Ahmad ‘Abd al-Halim explained that “Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is an organization including 15 organizations acting and working in Gaza and belonging to the sphere of al-Qaeda and Hamas.”[2]

Colonel Farouq Hamdan — an aide to former Egyptian Interior Minister — also commented that “the attack was carried out with the blessing of, and consultation between the organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which was funded by the Brotherhood.”[3]

The connection between Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, al-Qaeda and Hamas — already on the official lists of proscribed terrorist organizations in the West — and the Muslim Brotherhood — which is already presently on the proscribed terror organizations of Russia (February 2003), Syria (21 October 2013), Egypt (25 December 2013), Saudi Arabia (7 March 2013) and the United Arab Emirates (9 March 2014) — is sometimes a direct one, and sometimes an ideological link.

The link between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is clear and straight, and confirmed by Article 2 of the Charter of Hamas, which reads: “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era. It is characterized by a profound understanding, by precise notions and by a complete comprehensiveness of all concepts of Islam in all domains of life: views and beliefs, politics and economics, education and society, jurisprudence and rule, indoctrination and teaching, the arts and publications, the hidden and the evident, and all the other domains of life.”

It would appear rather more difficult to demonstrate the link between the Muslim Brotherhood and some markedly jihadist movements such as Al Qaeda, Gamaat al-Islamiyya — also internationally recognized as a terrorist organization — and Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis.

In 2005, Sylvain Besson published, for the first time in a Western language, a document in his book, The Conquest of the West: The Secret Project of Islamists, often referred to as “The Secret Project.”

The document, “Towards a global strategy of Islamic politics (starting points, elements, essential conditions and missions),” was found in 2001 by Swiss authorities in the house of Youssef Nada, one of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West

A similar version of the “Secret Project” was also aired in 2012 in a documentary film about the MB in the West by American journalist Glenn Beck. What is strange is that no one has given due importance to the contents of both documents.

“The Secret Project” explains the twelve starting points of the strategy of the Brotherhood in the West. For example:

“Step 5: Work to establish the Islamic state, in parallel make progressive efforts aiming at controlling the local centres of power through institutional work.

“Step 6: Work with loyalty alongside Islamic groups and institutions in various fields by agreeing on a common ground in order to cooperate on points of convergence while putting aside the points of divergence.

“Step 7: Accept the principle of temporary cooperation between Islamic movements and nationalist movements […]”

In Step 9, jihad is finally mentioned: “Build a permanent force of the Islamic preaching and support movements engaged in jihad in the Islamic world, in different ways and within the limits of the possible….Get in touch with any new movement engaged in jihad wherever in the planet, with Islamic minorities, and create walkways, according to requirements, to support and establish a partnership. Keep the jihad on alert in the umma [Muslim community] […].”

“The Secret Project” calls for a bond, a better collaboration with jihadi movements and it would seem that strategically, leaders and members of the MB consider both jihad and jihadi movements fundamental to achieve their goals.

Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1936, issued a call to “kings and princes, members of legal organizations and Islamic societies, to those who own judgment and sense of honour in the Muslim world,” to the so-called “Fifty requests” to return to a true Islamic society.

The third request reads: “Reinforce the army, multiply sections of young people and inflame them on the grounds of Islamic jihad.”

Jihad appears always to have been part of MB ideology. Sayyid Qutb, possibly the most important MB ideologue, in his commentary of Koran, In the Shade of Qur’an, defines jihad: “Islam gives the name jihad to such cumulative efforts. This includes efforts to change people through verbal advocacy. It also includes the possible armed struggle to end an oppressive system and establish justice. […] among the radical concepts of the revolutionary party named “Muslim” the most foundational is to engage every rebellious force that comes in Islam’s way: fight them, muster everything possible to replace them.”

Sayyid Qutb’s books and his theory of jihad have been fundamental in building the foundation of Al-Qaeda ideology as Ayman al-Zawahiri clearly states in his book Knights under the Prophet’s Banner.

In 1978, a Sudanese reformist and political leader, Mahmud Muhammad Taha, who was sentenced to death for apostasy in 1985, wrote, in the first part of his reflection, These are the Muslim Brothers: “In this age when humanity was predisposed to spread Islam at the scientific level based on persuasion, on reconciliation and peace, when the world opinion was inclined to renounce violence and not to resort to war to solve problems, here came the organization of the Muslim Brotherhood calling Muslims to jihad! Here is the shaykh Hasan al- Banna, the founder of their preaching, consecrating a letter of his to jihad, ‘The Letter of jihad.’ He quotes many Koranic verses calling for jihad […] He concludes the document with the following invitation: ‘Brothers, the umma is a factory of death […] and Allah reserved you the precious life on earth and eternal bliss in the afterlife, what a fragility leads us to love this life and hate death, be ready for an important action and long for death since it will give you life.'”[4]

In a letter about “teachings” (Risalat al-ta’alim), in “Point 7,” the paragraph dedicated to action, Hasan al- Bannawrote: “We must be the masters in spreading the Islamic preaching in every place, ‘And fight them until there is nofitnah [upheaval] and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah’ (Surat al-Anfal, VIII:39) […] and I want jihad as an obligation of the past that will continues until the Day of Judgment and that has as its main purpose the hadith of the Messenger of Allah — upon him the greetings and blessing of Allah: whoever dies without having fought and without having any intention of fighting is as if he had died in the era of ignorance.'”

The importance of jihad in the history of MB is further underlined by the title of an essay that Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of its main theologians: “The Muslim Brotherhood. Seventy years of preaching, education and jihad” (Beirut 2001).

Al-Qaradawi states that, “the movement engaged in real jihadi battles against the Zionists in Palestine and the British in Egypt and the movement sent the best of its sons to sacrifice.” (page 235)

It should come as no surprise, then, that the motto of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is also the verse singled out by Hassan al Banna: “Fight them until there is no fitnah [discord], and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah.” [Qur’an, Sura VIII, verse 39].

As stated in “The Secret Project” of the Muslim Brotherhood, the MB and Islamist movements are merely different but complementary ways to implement the goals of jihad.

Whereas the Muslim Brotherhood preaches jihad with pragmatism and “moderation,” the ABM, Hamas and al-Qaeda preach and practice it bluntly and with no delay. But whenever the Brotherhood enters what could be perceived as resistance, then open violence becomes permissible, as now in Egypt.

Recent statements to the Sunday Times by Ibrahim al-Mounir, whom many regard as the leader of the Brotherhood in Europe, sound as if they are a veiled threat: “If this [ban] happened, this would make a lot of people in Muslim communities think that [peaceful] Muslim Brotherhood values … didn’t work and now they are designated a terrorist group, which would make the doors open for all options.” When asked if he meant that the group was open to violence, he replied: “Any possibility.”

There can be no doubt about the ideological link between ABM and MB: both believe in jihad, in the conquest of power by Islam. The most important thing the West has to understand is the blunt pragmatism of MB, that is what Mohammed Charfi, former Tunisian minister of education, wrote in his essay, Islam et liberté: “Today the observers call a “moderate” Islamist the person who, with Westerners, uses reasonable language and who does not choose an openly violent action. However even though his style is calm and the rejection of violence seems sincere, since the movement is always linked to sharia and the sacralisation of history, his moderation remains provisional and indicates a strategy of waiting, because the ingredients of radicalization have not disappeared.”

▶ Yom HaAtzmaut – Israel celebrates 66 years of Independance – YouTube.

Jerusalem – May 5, 2014

Happy birthday, Israel !  From the IDF…

The opening celebration in Jerusalem.

   !  חג שמח

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