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King Abdullah calls up Saudi armed forces on high preparedness. Egyptian troops ready to fly to kingdom

June 26, 2014

King Abdullah calls up Saudi armed forces on high preparedness. Egyptian troops ready to fly to kingdom, DEBKAfile, June 26, 2014

Saudi_special_forces_on_alert_26.6.14Saudi special operations force on the ready

This is just what US Secretary of State John Kerry meant when he said in Brussels Wednesday June 25, after two days of talks in Iraq, that “the war in Iraq is being widened.”

The Iraqi battle arena is become a veritable Babel of war. So far, seven countries are involved in varying degrees: the US, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Thursday, June 26, the day before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Riyadh, King Abdullah summoned a National Security Council meeting “upon the current security events in the region, especially in Iraq,” and ordered “all necessary measures to protect the kingdom against terrorist threats.” This meant a general call-up of military units for a high level of preparedness.

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Egypt is assembling an expeditionary commando force to fly to Saudi Arabia and bolster its border defenses.

This flurry of Saudi-Egyptian military steps comes in the wake of intelligence gathered by Saudi reconnaissance planes showing Iraqi Al Qaeda-linked Sunni fighters (ISIS) heading for the Saudi border and aiming to seize control of the Iraqi-Saudi crossing at Ar Ar (pop: 200,000).

ISIS and its Sunni allies are still on the march after capturing Iraq’s border crossings with Syria and Jordan earlier this week.

On Wednesday, Kerry warned Mideast nations against taking new military action in Iraq that might heighten sectarian divisions.

By then, he had been overtaken by a rush of events, as DEBKAfile reported this morning.

When the first of the 300 military advisers US President Barack Obama promised the Iraqi government arrived in Baghdad Wednesday, June 25, Iranian and Saudi Arabian arms shipments were already in full flow to opposing sides in embattled Iraq, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

At least two cargo planes from bases in Iran were landing daily at Baghdad’s military airport, carrying 150 tons of military equipment. More than 1,000 tons were flown in this past week alone. Tehran has replicated for the Iraqi army the routine it established for Bashar Assad’s army, furnishing its needs on a daily basis as per its commanders’ requests. Those requests come before a joint Iranian-Iraqi headquarters set up at the Iraqi high command in Baghdad for approval and the assigning of priorities for shipment.

At the same time, Saudi arms are flowing to the Iraqi Sunni tribes fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) against the Iraqi army and the Shiite Nouri al-Maliki’s government.

They are coming in both overland and by airlift.

Saudi arms convoys are crossing the border into Iraq with Saudi and Jordanian air force cover and heading north up to the Al-Qa’im district near the Syrian border. There, Sunni and ISIS fighters, after capturing this key Anbar district, have begun refurbishing the bases and runways at H-2, once one of Saddam Hussein’s largest airbases. Situated 350 kilometers west of Baghdad, this air base has two long runways and hangars for fighter planes and helicopters.

DEBKAfile‘s military sources disclose that, on Tuesday June 24, unmarked civilian cargo planes landed at the base, bringing arms shipments from Saudi Arabia.

The response was swift. Syrian warplanes, on their first bombing mission inside Iraq, tried to damage the partially repaired runways at H-2 to prevent any more Saudi air shipments from landing.

Military sources in Washington confirmed Wednesday June 25 that those air strikes were conducted by the Syrian Air Force “in Anbar province” and left at least 57 people dead and 120 wounded – most of them Iraqi civilians. They declined to say what was attacked, referring only to ISIS-related targets.

That incident was a striking demonstration of the tight operational sync between the Iranian command centers in Damascus and Baghdad, which are attached respectively to the high commands of the Syrian and Iraqi armies. This coordination offers Tehran the flexibility for its command centers in both Arab capitals to send Iranian drones aloft from Syrian or Iraqi airbases to feed those centers with the intelligence they need for the strategic planning of military operations to be conducted by the Syrian and Iraqi armies.

Iranian command centers in Baghdad and Damascus are fully equipped therefore to decide which Syrian, Iraqi or Hizballah force carries out a planned operation in either Syria or Iraq. Both are now pushing back against further ISIS advances towards its goal of a Sunni caliphate spanning both countries.

This is just what US Secretary of State John Kerry meant when he said in Brussels Wednesday June 25, after two days of talks in Iraq, that “the war in Iraq is being widened.”

He had good reason to sound worried. Shortly before he spoke, the first group of US military personnel, out of the 300 that President Obama had promised, had arrived in Baghdad. But neither Tehran nor Riyadh had consulted Washington before they organized heavy arms shipments to their respective allies in Iraq.

The Iraqi battle arena is become a veritable Babel of war. So far, seven countries are involved in varying degrees: the US, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

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For Israel at the UN, a Jordanian ‘ray of light’?

June 26, 2014

For Israel at the UN, a Jordanian ‘ray of light’?Jerusalem hopes that as Human Rights Council chief, Prince al-Hussein will curb the UN body’s famously strident criticism

By Raphael Ahren June 26, 2014, 5:35 pm

via For Israel at the UN, a Jordanian ‘ray of light’? | The Times of Israel.

 

 

On September 1, Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein will start his term as the United Nation’s human rights chief, being the first Arab to hold that influential position. Israel always had an exceedingly tense relationship with the UN’s human rights apparatus, and some pro-Israel advocates have railed against his appointment, pointing to critical remarks about Israel he made in the past.

Is Jerusalem concerned that under the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights — a scion of an Arab dynasty — the body will turn even more hostile toward Israel?

The Foreign Ministry has resolutely refused to comment on al-Hussein ’s appointment. Diplomats there are likely worried that praising him publicly would be counterproductive. Accolades from the Israeli government would certainly increase pressure on him from Arab member states to be tough on Israel, a scenario Jerusalem seeks to avoid.

Yet Israel is actually very pleased about al-Hussein replacing Navi Pillay, believing he was the best choice of all candidates under consideration for the position. The Amman-born diplomat is thought to be the most reasonable and approachable human rights commissioner Israel could have hoped for. Indeed, in 2006, Israel’s ambassador to the UN had hailed al-Hussein as a “ray of light” in the region that he hoped “would shine more frequently in the future.”

Unaware of Jerusalem’s unspoken appreciation for al-Hussein, some pro-Israel advocates criticized his appointment for his positions on Israeli policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Some accused him of equating Palestinian suicide bombings with Israel’s “horrific” actions toward the Palestinians.

Human rights lawyer and pro-Israel advocate Anne Bayefsky, for instance, suggested al-Hussein is likely to abuse his position to agitate against Israel. “So how likely is it that a High Commissioner for Human Rights who comes from a country that is a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — which has hijacked the UN Human Rights Council to serve as its personal Israel-bashing tool — will confront his nation’s allies and refuse to become part of the problem?” she told the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month. “The answer is, as the British would say, not bloody likely,” Bayefsky said.

Speaking at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about Israel’s separation wall, al-Hussein said in 2004 that “suicide bombings have indeed been nothing less than horrific.” He then added that “those events do not stand by themselves. Israel’s argument, centered as it is on the sporadic suicide bombings of the last three years in particular, must be weighed against almost four decades of Israel dominating and, by virtue of its occupation, degrading, an entire civilian population; often unleashing practices, which have been no less horrific, resulting in a huge number of innocent Palestinian deaths and casualties.”

Al-Hussein made this statement in his role as Jordan’s representative to the ICJ, as the court was considering the security barrier’s legality. “The case was a farcical ‘legal’ exercise that answered a ‘question’ posed by the General Assembly,” Bayefsky said. “The Assembly had already decided the illegality of ‘the Wall’ and gave the court the information to ‘prove’ the foregone conclusion.”

 

A Palestinian man walks past the Israeli security barrier in the East Jerusalem village of Abu Dis (photo credit: Kobi Gideon/Flash90).
 

Regarding al-Hussein’s suggestion that Israeli practices were “no less horrific” than terror attacks, Bayefsky said, “exactly the orientation that will be encouraged and welcomed by the UN’s ‘human rights’ establishment.”

However, two years after his ICJ speech, in 2006, al-Hussein drew praise from pro-Israel human rights advocates, and even from a top Israeli diplomat, for a statement he made in a Emergency Special Session at the UN General Assembly about the barrier. At the time Jordan’s ambassador to the UN, he reiterated Amman’s opposition to the barrier and condemned the “occupation,” but also criticized Holocaust denial and called on delegates to reflect on the harm Arabs cause Israeli civilians.

“He asked the Assembly to consider the wrongs being done by Israel to Palestinian people and other Arab populations — its enforced occupation now stretching on some 40 years now — as well as the wrongs being done by Arab groups to civilians in Israel,” according to an official UN report on the session. “He also expressed concern that many in the Arab world and beyond continued to deny or downplay the Holocaust, an event of immense pain that had caused so much suffering to the Jewish people, Roma and others.”

The Jordanian prince concluded his speech by saying that peace would only come “when justice eclipsed political expediency for all the people of the region” — a statement echoing Israel’s core message to the UN for decades, observers said at the time.

Speaking right after al-Hussein, Israel’s ambassador to the UN at the time, Dan Gillerman, praised his Jordanian colleague for his statement. Gillerman said “it was not often that an Israeli was in a position to pay tribute to an Arab but the Prince was a voice of reason that drew forth an acknowledgement,” according to the UN report. “The Prince was a ray of light on matters in the region, one that hopefully would shine more frequently in the future.”

UN Watch, a pro-Israel human rights organization based in Geneva, also applauded the Jordanian diplomat’s words. “The UN desperately needs more courageous voices to join Prince Zeid. Only with such voices will UN calls for Middle East peace cease to ring hollow and begin contributing to a constructive, just resolution to the conflict,” the group stated.

(Asked this week about al-Hussein’s appointment as UN high commissioner for human rights, the group’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, said he had no information to offer on this topic, presumably for the same reason the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem declined to comment.)

While al-Hussein received much praise for his 2006 speech, he expressed conciliatory ideas even in his more recent statements. In a 2011 address to the UN Security Council, he suggested the Arab world try to better understand Israelis’ emotions and positions.

“The Israelis will occasionally say to us: Resolving the conflict is less a matter of law than psychology, and given the rhythms and the very real traumas of Jewish historical experience, they are cautious of placing their trust in anybody, let alone, they say, in us, the Arabs,” al-Hussein said. “And perhaps we must concede: we could have done more to better understand this point, done more to develop greater trust by, inter alia, better explaining the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative to the Israeli public.”

While the prince reiterated Jordan’s “deep opposition” and “strong condemnation” to Israeli settlement building, he asserted that this stance “is not founded on some form of primordial enmity or bigotry toward the Jewish people.”

 

The Human Rights Council in Geneva. (photo credit: UN/Jean-Marc Ferré)
 

In about two months, when al-Hussein officially assumes the position of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, he will oversee a staff of about 1,100. Headquartered in Geneva, his office will have branches in 65 countries around the world.

Al-Hussein, who has a PhD from Cambridge University, has twice been Jordanian ambassador at the UN and is also the Hashemite kingdom’s former ambassador to the US. He is steeped in peacekeeping and international justice, and played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. For more than two years, he chaired complex negotiations on the elements of individual offenses under the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Currently, he represents Jordan on the UN Security Council, where Amman has a two-year term.

Israel’s relations to the UN Human Rights Council, and to outgoing High Commissioner Pillay, have long been tense. In March 2012, Jerusalem cut off all relations with the body after it announced the establishment of a fact-finding mission into Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a decision that was condemned by the government. A few months later, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem slammed Pillay for failing to condemn Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

In the winter of 2013, Israel rejoined the UNHRC after Western member states promised to admit the country into the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), which significantly increases Jerusalem’s ability to advance its interests at the body. In addition, the WEOG states agreed not to participate in discussions over the council’s notorious Agenda item 7 (“the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”) for two years.

Since 2007, Israel has been the only country whose alleged human rights abuses are discussed in the framework of a single permanent item on the council’s agenda.

AFP contributed to this report.

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Liberman urges ‘regional agreement’ with moderate Arabs

June 26, 2014

Liberman urges ‘regional agreement’ with moderate Arabs

Current Mideast situation makes separate peace deal with Palestinians impossible, foreign minister tells John Kerry

By Raphael Ahren June 26, 2014, 4:06 pm

via Liberman urges ‘regional agreement’ with moderate Arabs | The Times of Israel.

 

John Kerry, left, and Avigdor Liberman in Paris Thursday, June 26, 2014. (photo credit: Erez Lichtenfeld)
 

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called on Thursday for a “new political structure in the Middle East” that would entail a coalition of Israel and the moderate Arab states uniting to face the common threat of Islamist extremism.

Current circumstances in the Middle East make a separate peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians impossible, Liberman told US Secretary of State John Kerry during a meeting in Paris. Rather, “we must reach an overall regional agreement,” Liberman said. “Israel’s longstanding conflict is not only with the Palestinians but with the Arab world of which the Palestinians are a part. Therefore, we must reach an agreement that will include the moderate Arab states, the Palestinians and the Israeli Arabs.”

This is the first time that “a strategic consensus of interests has been created between the moderate elements in the Arab world and Israel,” the foreign minister said, “as both must contend with the Iranian threats, worldwide jihad and al-Qaeda, as well as the overflow of the conflict in Syria and Iraq to neighboring states.”

The Arab Peace Initiative, launched in 2002 by Saudi Arabia and since adopted by the entire Arab and Muslim world, offers “full diplomatic and normal relations” with Israel in exchange for a “comprehensive peace agreement” with the Palestinians. Liberman is now trying to turn this offer around: first a comprehensive agreement with the wider Arab world, followed by peace deal with the Palestinians later on.

The conditions prevailing in the region today have created the basis for the “creation of a new political structure in the Middle East,” Liberman said, according to a statement released by his office. Any kind of peace agreement must “include the Arab states and Israeli Arabs,” he insisted, referring to his controversial plan to redraw Israel’s borders in order to annex Israeli settlements and leave major Arab population centers on the Palestinian side of the border.

The Israeli minister also spoke about the current security situation in Iraq. The country is “dissolving before our eyes,” he said, adding that the establishment of an independent Kurdish state is “probably inevitable.” The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other extremists factions will try to undermine the stability of the entire Gulf area, Liberman said, “and Israel can provide support and assistance to the moderate Arab states against the extremists of the Arab world.”

He also thanked Kerry for Washington’s “firm position” regarding the gravity of the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers earlier this month, and told him that the teens’ parents wished to meet with him.

In Paris, Liberman was also set to meet with his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius.

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New Palestinian Poll Shows Hardline Views, But Some Pragmatism Too

June 26, 2014

New Palestinian Poll Shows Hardline Views, But Some Pragmatism TooDavid PollockJune 25, 2014

via New Palestinian Poll Shows Hardline Views, But Some Pragmatism Too – The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

 

New survey results show that violence is not a popular option among Palestinians and that Hamas is not benefiting from the current troubles, giving U.S. policymakers some breathing room to concentrate on more urgent crises in Iraq and Syria while backing practical steps to cool tensions.

A reliable new West Bank/Gaza public opinion survey conducted on June 15-17 — the only such poll since the current kidnapping crisis began — shows that Palestinian popular attitudes have hardened considerably on long-term issues of peace with Israel. Commissioned by The Washington Institute and conducted by a leading Palestinian pollster, the poll comprised face-to-face interviews with a standard random geographic probability sample of 1,200 adult Palestinians, yielding results with a 3% statistical margin of error. The responses indicate that fewer than 30% of Palestinians now support a “two-state solution”: a West Bank/Gaza Palestinian state in lasting peace with Israel. At the same time, some surprising signs of short-term pragmatism emerged — especially, and even more surprisingly, in Gaza.

Download a slideshow of poll data (PDF)

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2924/14503134701_9184a57080_z.jpg

 

TWO-STATE SOLUTION SUDDENLY A MINORITY POSITION

Regarding the longer-term, fundamental issue of a two-state solution, Palestinian public opinion has clearly taken a maximalist turn. Other recent polls, even after the collapse of the latest peace talks, showed a majority or plurality still favoring the goal of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, alongside Israel (though the numbers were gradually declining). But now, a clear majority (60% overall, including 55% in the West Bank and 68% in Gaza) say that the five-year goal “should be to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

On this key question, just 31% of West Bankers and 22% of Gazans would opt instead “to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to achieve a two-state solution.” And even fewer, contrary to other recent findings, pick a “one-state solution,” in which “Arabs and Jews will have equal rights in one country, from the river to the sea.” That is the preferred option of a mere 11% in the West Bank and 8% in Gaza.

This pattern is confirmed by other questions in the survey. For example, just one-third said that a two-state solution “should be the end of the conflict.” Nearly two-thirds said “resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine is liberated.” And only a third said that “it might be necessary to give up some of our claims so that our people and our children can have a better life.

Similarly, only a third said that a two-state solution would be their leadership’s final goal. Instead, almost two-thirds said it would be “part of a ‘program of stages,’ to liberate all of historic Palestine later.” This remarkable finding helps explain how a plurality or more of Palestinians can support President Mahmoud Abbas and reject a two-state solution at the same time.

BUT THE PUBLIC WANTS “POPULAR RESISTANCE,” NOT VIOLENCE

Despite continuing tensions over the June 12 kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank and Israel’s resulting intensive searches and arrests, the Palestinian public is not turning toward large-scale violence. Rather, on tactical questions of relations with Israel, respondents broadly supported a nonviolent approach. The survey did not ask specifically about the latest kidnapping, which does appear fairly popular among Palestinians judging from traditional and social media content and anecdotal evidence.

In this survey, when asked whether Hamas “should maintain a ceasefire with Israel in both Gaza and the West Bank,” a majority (56%) of West Bank respondents and a remarkable 70% of Gazans said yes. Similarly, asked if Hamas should accept Abbas’s position that the new unity government renounce violence against Israel, West Bankers were evenly divided, but a majority (57%) of Gazans answered in the affirmative.

Nevertheless, “popular resistance against the occupation” — such as demonstrations, strikes, marches, mass refusals to cooperate with Israel, and the like — was seen as having a positive impact by most respondents in both territories: 62% in the West Bank and 73% in Gaza. And in the week since the survey was completed, Israel’s shooting of several Palestinians and arrest of hundreds more in the course of searching for the kidnap victims may be turning the Palestinian public in a more actively hostile direction.

Both the kidnapping and a Palestinian hunger strike in Israeli jails have also maintained public attention on the prisoner issue. Asked what Israel could do “to convince Palestinians that it really wants peace,” a large plurality picked “release more Palestinian prisoners.” That option far outranked the others, each in the 15-20% range: “share Jerusalem as a joint capital,” “stop building in settlements beyond the security barrier,” or “grant Palestinians greater freedom of movement and crack down on settler attacks.”

HAMAS IS NOT GAINING POLITICAL GROUND FROM THE CRISIS

Most striking, and contrary to common misperception, Hamas is not gaining politically from the kidnapping. Asked who should be the president of Palestine in the next two years, a solid plurality in both the West Bank and Gaza named Abbas (30%) or other Fatah-affiliated leaders: Marwan Barghouti (12%), Muhammad Dahlan (10%), Rami Hamdallah (6%), Mustafa Barghouti (4%), Salam Fayyad (2%), or Mahmoud al-Aloul (1%). These findings strongly suggest that the Palestinian public as a whole has little or no desire to carry out any threats to “dissolve” the Palestinian Authority.

In stark contrast, Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal rated a combined total of just 9% support in the West Bank and 15% in Gaza. Another intriguing finding is that Dahlan has significant popular support among Gazans, at 20%. Also notable is that not one of the other old-guard Fatah figures, such as Abu Ala, Nabil Shaath, or Jibril Rajoub, attracted even 1% support in either the West Bank or Gaza.

MAJORITY WANT ISRAEL TO OFFER JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Some additional and unexpected signs of short-term pragmatism showed up concerning bread-and-butter issues. Over 80% said they would “definitely” or “probably” want Israel to allow more Palestinians to work there. Around half said they would personally take “a good, high-paying job” inside Israel.

Moreover, despite narrow majority support for boycotting Israel, a larger majority said they would also like Israeli firms to offer more jobs inside the West Bank and Gaza. Nearly half said they would take such a position if available. This kind of pragmatism was particularly pronounced among the younger generation of adult Palestinians, those in the 18-to-35-year-old cohort. In a similar vein, among West Bankers in that group, more than three-quarters said they would like a new north-south highway bypassing Israeli checkpoints around Jerusalem. Among older West Bankers, that figure was somewhat lower, at around two-thirds.

DECRYING ISRAELI PRESSURE, BUT ALSO LOCAL CRIME AND CORRUPTION

As Israel continues its search for the kidnap victims, Palestinian respondents voiced widespread concern about Israeli behavior in the territories — but also about unrelated Palestinian behavior. In the West Bank, three-quarters see a “significant problem” with “threats and intimidation from Israeli soldiers and border guards,” and with “delays and restrictions at checkpoints.” Somewhat fewer West Bankers, but still a majority (63%), see “threats and intimidation from Jewish settlers” as a significant problem. These figures were all a bit lower in Gaza, where Israel’s presence on the ground is much less intrusive.

Yet putting those numbers in perspective is the widespread negative perception of some Palestinian behavior. Among West Bankers, 72% view “corruption by Palestinian government officials” as a major problem; among Gazans, the proportion is 66%. Similarly, 77% of West Bankers and 71% of Gazans see local crime as a significant problem.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

These counterintuitive findings — demonstrating that violence is not a popular option among Palestinians, and that Hamas is not benefiting from current troubles — should give U.S. policymakers some needed breathing space to let the dust settle in this arena while concentrating on more urgent crises in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, the unexpected combination of short-term Palestinian popular pragmatism and long-term maximalism revealed by this survey suggests that U.S. policy should seriously consider abandoning all hope of a near-term, permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. In its place, Washington should focus on immediate steps to lower tensions, improve practical conditions, and perhaps set the stage for more moderate attitudes and more fruitful diplomatic discussions at some later date.

David Pollock is the Kaufman Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of Fikra Forum.

 

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Iraqi cleric pushes for emergency government

June 26, 2014

Iraqi cleric pushes for emergency government
Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of powerful Mahdi army, says “new faces” are needed to tackle ISIL and Sunni rebellion.

Last updated: 26 Jun 2014 09:50

via Iraqi cleric pushes for emergency government – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

 

Fighters loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr vowed to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [Getty]
 

Sadr, whose movement, the Mahdi army, has vowed to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, on Wednesday said that the Iraqi government “must fulfill the legitimate demands of the moderate Sunnis and stop excluding them because they have been marginalised”.

The cleric demanded “new faces” in a national unity government following April 30 elections that saw Maliki emerge with by far the most seats, albeit short of a majority.

“We also need to rush the formation of a national government with new names and from all backgrounds and not to be based on the usual sectarian quotas,” he said in a televised address.

“I call upon all Iraqis to stop fighting and terrorising the civilians, the Iraqi government must fulfill the legitimate demands of the moderate Sunnis and stop excluding them because they have been marginalised.”

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said that the comments effectively said that Sadr wanted to get rid of Maliki and choose a new government.

“These comments are strong and will be noticed,” he said, adding they showed a “huge rift” between what Maliki wants and what others believe.

“But Maliki ‎insists that he is the only one that can lead Iraq out of this crisis. July 1st will be a big test for him politically. That’s when parliament are due to meet, and they’ll discuss the formation of the new government.”

Sadr promised his fighters would “shake the ground under the feet of ignorance and extremism”.

Sadr’s remarks came days after fighters loyal to him paraded with weapons in the Sadr City area of north Baghdad, promising to fight the offensive by the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

ISIL and associated groups have overrun swaths of several provinces, killed nearly 1,100 people, displaced hundreds of thousands and threaten to tear the country apart.

Barack Obama, the US president, has so far refrained from carrying out air strikes on the rebels, as urged by Maliki, but American military advisers began meeting Iraqi commanders on Wednesday, with Washington having offered up to 300.

Washington has pressed for Iraq’s fractious political leaders to unite in a national emergency government, and on Wednesday brushed off Maliki’s insistence that such a move would be a “coup against the constitution and the political process”.

Washington has stopped short of calling for Maliki to go, but has left little doubt it feels he has squandered the opportunity to rebuild Iraq since American troops withdrew in 2011.

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After Syria bombs Iraq, growing fears of regional conflict

June 26, 2014

After Syria bombs Iraq, growing fears of regional conflictJordan,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all said to be bolstering recon flights inside their airspace;
Kerry warns against exacerbating tensions

By Hamza Hendawi and Lara Jakes June 26, 2014, 2:11 pm

via After Syria bombs Iraq, growing fears of regional conflict | The Times of Israel.

 

Fleeing Iraqi citizens from Mosul and other northern towns sit on a truck as they cross to secure areas at a Kurdish security forces checkpoint, in the Khazer area between the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Kurdish city of Irbil, northern Iraq, Wednesday June 25, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
 

BAGHDAD (AP) — Syrian warplanes bombed Sunni militants’ positions inside Iraq, military officials confirmed Wednesday, deepening the concerns that the extremist insurgency that spans the two neighboring countries could morph into an even wider regional conflict. US Secretary of State John Kerry warned against the threat and said other nations should stay out.

Meanwhile, a new insurgent artillery offensive against Christian villages in the north of Iraq sent thousands of Christians fleeing from their homes, seeking sanctuary in Kurdish-controlled territory, Associated Press reporters who witnessed the scene said.

The United States government and a senior Iraqi military official confirmed that Syrian warplanes bombed militants’ positions Tuesday in and near the border crossing in the town of Qaim. Iraq’s other neighbors — Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — were all bolstering flights just inside their airspace to monitor the situation, said the Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

American officials said the target was the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Sunni extremist group that has seized large swaths of Iraq and seeks to carve out a purist Islamic enclave across both sides of the Syria-Iraq border.

“We’ve made it clear to everyone in the region that we don’t need anything to take place that might exacerbate the sectarian divisions that are already at a heightened level of tension,” Kerry said, speaking in Brussels at a meeting of diplomats from NATO nations. “It’s already important that nothing take place that contributes to the extremism or could act as a flash point with respect to the sectarian divide.”

Meanwhile, two US officials said Iran has been flying surveillance drones in Iraq, controlling them from an airfield in Baghdad. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said they believe the drones are surveillance aircraft only, but they could not rule out that they may be armed.

A top Iraqi intelligence official said Iran was secretly supplying the Iraqi security forces with weapons, including rockets, heavy machine guns and multiple rocket launchers. “Iraq is in a grave crisis and the sword is on its neck, so is it even conceivable that we turn down the hand outstretched to us?” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The intelligence-gathering and arms supplies come on the heels of a visit to Baghdad this month by one of Iran’s most powerful generals, Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, to help bolster the defenses of the Iraqi military and the Shiite militias that he has armed and trained.

The involvement of Syria and Iran in Iraq suggests a growing cooperation among the three Shiite-led governments in response to the raging Sunni insurgency. And in an unusual twist, the U.S., Iran and Syria now find themselves with an overlapping interest in stabilizing Iraq’s government.

None-Arab and mostly Shiite, Iran has been playing the role of guarantor of Shiites in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It has maintained close ties with successive Shiite-led governments since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who oppressed the Shiites, and is also the main backer of Syria’s Assad, a follower of Shiism’s Alawite sect.

In a reflection of how intertwined the Syria and Iraq conflicts have become, thousands of Shiite Iraqi militiamen helping President Bashar Assad crush the Sunni-led uprising against him are returning home, putting a strain on the overstretched Syrian military as it struggles to retain territory recaptured in recent months from rebels.

Anthony Cordesman, a prominent foreign policy analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that with Syria’s apparent willingness to now take on the Islamic State directly, “the real problem is how will Iran, the Iraqi Shiites and the Alawites in Syria coordinate their overall pressure on the Sunni forces?”

Qaim, where the Syrian airstrikes took place Tuesday, is located in vast and mostly Sunni Anbar province. Its provincial government spokesman, Dhari al-Rishawi, said 17 people were killed in an air raid there.

Reports that the Sunni militants have captured advanced weapons, tanks and Humvees from the Iraq military that have made their way into Syria, and that fighters are crossing freely from one side to the other have alarmed the Syrian government, which fears the developments could shift the balance of power in the largely stalemated fight between Assad’s forces and the Sunni rebels fighting to topple him.

Bilal Saab, a senior fellow for Middle East Security at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, said Assad’s immediate priority is to fight the rebels inside his own country.

“His army is already overstretched and every bullet that doesn’t hit enemy targets at home can be a bullet wasted,” he said. “Going after ISIL along border areas could serve tactical goals but is more a luxury than anything else.”

In Brussels, Kerry said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to be standing by his commitment to start building a new government that fully represents its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish populations.

However, al-Maliki, in his first public statement since President Barack Obama challenged him last week to create a more inclusive leadership or risk a sectarian civil war, rejected calls for an interim “national salvation government .”

Al-Maliki has faced pressure, including from his onetime Shiite allies, to step down and form an interim government that could provide leadership until a more permanent solution can be found.

Al-Maliki, however, insisted the political process must be allowed to proceed following April elections in which his bloc won the largest share of parliament seats.

“The call to form a national salvation government represents a coup against the constitution and the political process,” he said. He added that “rebels against the constitution” — a thinly veiled reference to Sunni rivals — posed a more serious danger to Iraq than the militants.

Al-Maliki’s coalition, the State of the Law, won 92 seats in the 328-member parliament in the election, but he needs the support of a simple majority to hold on to the job for another four-year term. The legislature is expected to meet before the end of the month, when it will elect a speaker. It has 30 days to elect a new president, who in turn will select the leader of the majority bloc in parliament to form the next government.

More of Iraq’s sectarian tensions boiled over into violence on Wednesday, with Sunni militants shelling a Christian village 45 miles (75 kilometers) from the frontier of the self-ruled Kurdish region, which has so far escaped the deadly turmoil unscathed.

The shelling of the village of Hamdaniya sparked a flight by thousands of Christians from it and other nearby villages toward the Kurdish region. Hundreds of cars, many with crucifixes swinging from their rear-view mirrors, waited to cross into the relatively safe northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil.

Others were forced to walk, including 28-year-old Rasha, who was nine months pregnant and carried her 3-year-old son on her hip. After her husband’s car broke down, the woman, who would give only her first name for fear of militant reprisals, and her mother-in-law walked for miles toward the checkpoint, fearful she would give birth before reaching safety.

Like most others, the women said they had nowhere to go, but hoped strangers would take them in in the Christian-dominated area.

“Otherwise we will sleep in a park,” Rasha said, shrugging.

Meanwhile, pro-government forces battled Sunni militants, threatening a major military air base in Balad, north of Baghdad, military officials said. The militants had advanced into the nearby town of Yathrib, just five kilometers (three miles) from the former U.S. base, which was known as Camp Anaconda. The officials insisted the base was not in immediate danger of falling into the hands of the militants.

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Iran Secretly Operates Drone Flights from Former American Base in Iraq

June 26, 2014

Iran Secretly Operates Drone Flights from Former American Base in Iraq.

Iran deploys surveillance drones in Iraq

MQ-1 Predators sit on the Bravo South parking ramp at Balad Air Base, Iraq in this undated USAF handout photo obtained by Reuters February 6, 2013.Reuters

Iran is secretly operating surveillance drones from an airfield in Baghdad as the Sunni militia makes a stronger push across Iraq in its march on the capital to topple the Shiite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Tehran is also giving Iraqi forces tonnes of military equipment and other supplies after the US-trained troops failed to withstand the onslaught of the fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) since the beginning of the month.

The New York Times reported that Iranian transport planes are making regular flights to Baghdad, ferrying military equipment and supplies. There are two flights every day and each sortie carries 70 tonnes of equipment and supplies, an unnamed US official told the newspaper.

“It’s a substantial amount … It’s not necessarily heavy weaponry, but it is not just light arms and ammunition.”

Iran has reaffirmed its commitment to assist the Shiite-led administration in Baghdad against the advancing Sunni militants, while officially saying the US should not intervene in the current crisis in Iraq.

However, in reality the US, Iran and Syria are on the same side fighting against the common enemy.

The US is sending as many as 300 military specialists to Iraq, while about a dozen officers from Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force have reached Baghdad to advise the government. Syria carried out airstrikes on Isis fighters in western Iraq.

US allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia are wary of Iran’s direct military involvement in Iraq and Tehran has stopped short of deploying troops in the strife-torn country.

However, it has readied at least 10 divisions of the Quds Force along the border with Iraq and is willing to send the forces in if it perceives a threat to Shiite holy shrines in the country.

According to US officials, Iran has at least two dozen battle-ready aircraft stationed in the west of the country.

Iran’s special control centre at Rasheed Air Base in Baghdad is overseeing the operation of surveillance drone flights over Iraq. The command centre also has a signals intelligence unit that intercepts electronic communications between Isis fighters, the NYT said.

The US army had used the Rasheed Air Base in Baghdad in 2003, in the early phase of its occupation.

The Isis fighters who are closing in on Baghdad aim to establish a hardline Sunni Islamist caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.

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PM fears US hatching bad deal with Iran, summons his DC envoy, calls Putin

June 26, 2014

PM fears US hatching bad deal with Iran, summons his DC envoy, calls Putin
Netanyahu also to dispatch top officials to try to prevent accord that would turn Tehran into a threshold nuclear power

By Times of Israel staff June 26, 2014, 2:31 am

via PM fears US hatching bad deal with Iran, summons his DC envoy, calls Putin | The Times of Israel.

 

US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, March 3, 2014 (photo credit: AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
 

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday summoned home his ambassador to the US for emergency consultations, spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and prepared to dispatch a delegation of top officials in a bid to thwart what he reportedly fears is a dangerous deal being prepared by US-led negotiators over Iran’s rogue nuclear program.“There is growing concern in Jerusalem that a deal is being hatched,” Israel’s Channel 2 news reported.Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States and one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers, who was on hand in DC Wednesday to greet the visiting Israeli President Shimon Peres, was called home later in the day for two days of urgent consultations with the prime minister, the TV report said.Netanyahu also selected a team of officials, led by his Minister of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz, and his National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, who are set to leave Israel on Sunday for urgent talks with representatives of the P5+1 nations negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program. Those negotiations are set to resume next Wednesday.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on June 25, 2012. (Photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/POOL/FLASH90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on June 25, 2012. (Photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/POOL/FLASH90)

 

In Netanyahu’s phone conversation with Putin, the TV report said, the message conveyed was that any deal with Iran must leave it years away from a potential breakout to the bomb. Netanyahu’s concern is that the deal being hatched would turn Iran into a threshold nuclear state, capable of breaking out to the bomb in a matter of months.

The White House is well aware of Israel’s worries, the TV report said, but evidently does not share them.

Last November, taken by surprise as the P5+1 negotiators reached an interim agreement with Iran, Netanyahu publicly slammed it as a “historic mistake” and urged the US in vain not to approve it.

 

President Barack Obama greets President Shimon Peres at the White House on June 25 (photo credit: Kobi Gidon/GPO)

President Barack Obama greets President Shimon Peres at the White House on June 25 (photo credit: Kobi Gidon/GPO)
 

During their talks at the White House on Wednesday, President Barack Obama told Peres — who steps down as president next month — that the US would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Netanyahu, however, has been demanding that Iran be denied the capacity to build nuclear weapons — which would entail the dismantling of Iran’s entire “military nuclear program,” the prime minister says, notably including its uranium enrichment capabilities. Obama has indicated that Iran could retain an enrichment capacity, if subject to intrusive inspections.

Obama told Peres that there were still gaps between the sides in the P5+1 talks with Iran, which are being held in the hopes of reaching a permanent agreement with Tehran by July 20 to curb its nuclear program. Briefing Peres on the current state of the negotiations, Obama promised that the US position would not change on Iran’s breakout potential or on key aspects of its technological development, and said that the US will not compromise on Israel’s security.

After the meeting, Peres told journalists that he hoped the final agreement with Iran would be similar to the agreement by which Syria was forced to part with its entire chemical weapons stockpile and the dismantling of its related infrastructure earlier this year. With such a deal in place, Peres said, Israel would consider supporting the removal of some of the sanctions against Tehran.

Peres also underlined that no deal with Tehran would be better than a bad deal that turned Iran into a threshold state.

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Breaking Down the Enemy

June 26, 2014

Breaking Down the Enemy

The abductors, including all the outer circle of conspirators and collaborators, have nothing to fear for their crimes.

There is nothing to stop them, or future kidnappers, from continuing to abduct and harm Israeli citizens.

By: Rabbi Fishel Jacobs

Published: June 25th, 2014

via The Jewish Press » » Breaking Down the Enemy.

 

A prisoner in Israel’s Ramle Prison, July 29, 2013.
Photo Credit: Moshe Shai/FLASH90
 

Presently, Israel is in the throes of yet another unimaginable heinous terrorist crime. Specifically, the cold-blooded kidnapping of three innocent high school students, one of whom also holds American citizenship.

At this time, it is fitting to revisit the subject of the treatment of convicted Islamic terrorists in Israel Prison Service, (I.P.S.). As an ex-Israel prison officer, who’s also published a book on that subject, I’ve written my thoughts on this topic on numerous occasions.

There is a pointedly critical relevance between the conditions of terrorists in the I.P.S. and the horrific abduction of harmless teenage youth. It is a two-fold issue.

First. Israel is presently expending unlimited amounts of money and manpower searching for these boys. A house-to-house, cave-to-cave – every nook and cranny – search is now underway in suspected areas of concealment throughout Israel. To date (June 22), a few local Arabs have been killed when they inexplicably attempted to impede this search and rescue mission.

Israeli security utilizes many methods of intelligence gathering. For one, the country has huge numbers of informants seeded within the Arab community. These people have numerous incentives to cooperate. Economic gain is one. Simply, monetary compensation. Another benefit is legal protection. Israel often strikes deals with Arabs convicted of crimes for which punishment is erased in return for favors to the country. In this instance that would be information on the whereabouts of these abducted kids.

However, the reality of things is that pressure always helps. Israel must increase pressure on the Arab community. Pressure jolts information into moving. Intensified pressure gets information into the right hands.

Israel has thousands of convicted Islamic terrorists in their prison service. These men and women are living under extraordinarily comfortable conditions, which would be unfathomable in any other modern country. Televisions and radios in every cell. Kitchenettes and refrigerators in cell blocks. Frequent family and friend visits. Exercise yards full of equipment such as ping-pong tables, soccer balls, weights. Diet considerations specially tailored to their personal quirks. Rights to furthering their education, including post high school degrees.

One very reasonable argument, which arises regularly in the media and in fact in the Israeli parliament, is that these convicted criminals simply don’t deserve these luxuries. The Israeli prison where I served, for over a decade, held two hundred terrorists. Most had multiple life sentences. Not a few had over a dozen life sentences! These include men who murdered pregnant women with their own hands. Men who butchered defenseless children and elderly in coldly premeditated attacks in the light of day. Let it be perfectly clear, these are ruthless criminals.

Beyond that, however, there’s the message being sent to the Arab community at large. That message is: Israel doesn’t punish, even for the most heinous crimes against its citizenship.

By stripping these inmates rights to the bare minimum – as bestowed by other modern countries – this damaging message would be corrected. But, more importantly, pressure would be added to their terrorist organizations and personal supporters outside.

Imagine removing radios, televisions and newspapers from these terrorists. Stop family visits. Remove kitchenettes. Require that these inmates eat government-issued prison food. Any of these actions, and all together, they would dramatically increase pressure.

Increasing pressure inside will get more information flowing outside.

The second reason that Israel must remove the pampering of convicted Islamic terrorists, enjoyed exclusively in its jails, is the message that will be sent to the kidnappers of these three youth.

The abductors, including all the outer circle of conspirators and collaborators, have nothing to fear for their crimes. There is nothing to stop them, or future kidnappers, from continuing to abduct and harm Israeli citizens.

After all, Israel does not enforce the death sentence, even while it remains on the books. Incarceration is pleasant. Cells and cell blocks are shared with comrades in arms. Staff, from the lowest ranking guard to officers, wardens and even the highest echelon of hierarchy deal with terrorists professionally and pleasantly. These are the norms.

There are no deterrents to crimes against Israel today.

The fact that thousands of convicted terrorists are released in the ongoing so called ‘peace’ deals only increases the fact that there is no deterrent to committing crimes against Israel. Even the longest sentenced terrorists hold feasible hope that they will be released. But, that is a subject for a different article.

In short, Israel holds thousands of convicted terrorists in its jails, the majority are serving multiple life sentences. This is a tremendous card to pressure the Arab community. The time has passed to use it.

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Al Qaeda in Syria/Iraq Doubles in Size as ISIS and Al Nusra Kiss and Make Up

June 26, 2014

Al Qaeda in Syria/Iraq Doubles in Size as ISIS and Al Nusra Kiss and Make Up, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 25, 2014

isis-qaeda-450x287

ISIS didn’t just beat the Iraqi military. It also beat Syria’s dominant Al Qaeda group, the Al-Nusra Front, which like ISIS had also been spawned from Al Qaeda in Iraq. The Al-Nusra Front began shooting at ISIS when the latter invaded Syria and claimed authority over it. But now they kissed and made up.

It’s all one big happy Al Qaeda family.

The number of Islamist extremists fighting for ISIS could double after al-Qaeda’s 15,000 strong offshoot in Syria is said to have pledged allegiance to the militant group.

Al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot Wednesday made an oath of loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) at a key town on the Iraqi border, a monitor said.

News of the merger between ISIS and the al-Nusra front were made by both the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an Islamist website this afternoon.

Images widely shared by ISIS supporters online appeared to show al-Nusra’s alleged leader in the Albu Kamel region, Abu Yusuf al-Masri, embracing ISIS fighters after apparently taking an oath of allegiance.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the overall leader of al-Qaeda, has previously disowned ISIS and proclaimed the al-Nusra Front as its official Syrian affiliate.

An internal report of ISIS’ activities last year put its total number of fighters in Iraq and Syria at 15,000. With al-Nusra boasting a similar sized or possibly even larger force, today’s merger could double the total number of militant Sunni Islamists fighting under the ISIS banner in the Middle East.

Hardest hit are all the “news stories” about how ISIS was too “extreme” for Al Qaeda. So much for that. But nothing to worry about.

As Barack Hussein Obama once said, “If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”

The jayvee team is taking over two countries and has its own air force.

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