WarSclerotic

In an apparent threat, an Israeli intelligence firm on Tuesday released photographs of what it said is an Iranian tunnel being dug along the Syria-Iraq border to assist in the movement of weapons throughout the Middle East.

According to the private satellite image analysis company ImageSat International, the tunnel is likely being used to store Iranian missiles en route to Tehran’s proxies throughout the region.

In some cases in the past, suspected areas of Iranian military entrenchment have been identified and publicized by ImageSat International shortly before the sites were targeted in airstrikes attributed to Israel.

The tunnel, whose entrance can be seen in satellite images, is located on a suspected Iranian military base, known as the Imam Ali base, in Syria’s Boukamal region, near the Iraqi border. The base has been the site of several Israeli airstrikes in the past year, including some in the past few days, according to Syrian media.

Satellite images showing an alleged Iranian tunnel on a military base near the border crossing in Syria’s Boukamal region, near the Iraqi border, on December 10, 2019. (ImageSat International)

ImageSat said the tunnel appears to have been built in response to these airstrikes, as a means to protect high-quality munitions from Israeli attacks.

“Currently, the estimated tunnel’s width is 4-5 meters and its length is unknown. Due to the area’s rigid flat terrain, it is unlikely that the tunnel will be extended significantly,” it wrote in its report.

The firm said the capacity makes it large enough to “securely store weapon systems, possibly advanced, for protecting them from airstrikes.”

Satellite images showing an alleged Iranian tunnel on a military base near the border crossing in Syria’s Boukamal region, near the Iraqi border, on December 10, 2019. (ImageSat International)

The Boukamal region in Syria is seen as critical to Tehran’s effort to establish a land corridor from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, and out to the Mediterranean Sea in order to more easily move weapons and fighters throughout the Middle East. Israel has vowed to prevent Iran from establishing a military presence in Syria.

On Sunday, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel was taking action to force Iran’s military out of Syria.

“We are telling the Iranians: Syria will become your Vietnam,” he said, referring to the disastrous American war.

“If you don’t leave, you will become entrenched and you will bleed because we will work without hesitation to remove aggressive forces from Syria,” Bennett said.

Satellite images showing ongoing construction at an alleged Iranian military base near the border crossing in Syria’s Boukamal region, near the Iraqi border, on December 10, 2019. (ImageSat International)

The defense minister’s comments came shortly after reports emerged of an airstrike on three Iranian-controlled weapons depots the night before, which killed several members of Tehran-supported militias, according to Syrian media outlets.

The outlets said the attack was carried out by unidentified aircraft, though many analysts speculated that Israel was behind the raid.

The Israeli military as a rule does not comment on specific airstrikes in Syria, save for those that are in retaliation for attacks on Israel.

Some news sites reported that four fighters were killed in the strike, while others said five. The Syrian government did not immediately release an official tally.

According to the Syrian Step News agency, the airstrikes occurred around 10 p.m. on Saturday, targeting three munitions storehouses. The outlet cited “well-placed sources” as saying that the four people killed were guards at the storehouses who were members of militias backed by Iran.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that at least five militiamen were killed in the strike.

New Defense Minister Naftali Bennett (R) meets with IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi on November 13, 2019. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry

The Saturday night strikes came days after reports of a similar raid in the same region.

Last Wednesday, unidentified aircraft bombed other Iranian-controlled weapons storehouses in Boulkamal, causing a massive explosion, according to Step News.

The outlet reported that the planes fired several missiles at warehouses belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the al-Hamdan airport, outside Deir Ezzor. Troops on the ground fired anti-aircraft weapons at the attacking planes, the news site said. There were no reports of casualties in that raid.

Satellite image showing the aftermath of an overnight airstrike on an alleged Iranian military base in Syria’s Boukamal region, near the Iraqi border, on September 9, 2019. (ImageSat International)

Last month, Iranian troops fired several rockets at northern Israel from Syria and the Israel Defense Forces retaliated with a series of airstrikes on Iranian and Syrian military targets.

According to a Syrian war monitor, at least 23 combatants were killed in those strikes, 16 of them likely Iranians. An Israeli official said the military believed that to be an inflated number, with the actual death toll estimated to be closer to 10.

Though it does not generally comment on specific attacks, Israel has generally acknowledged carrying out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against Iranian targets over the last several years. Iran has forces based in Syria, Israel’s northern neighbor, and supports Hezbollah and Gaza terrorists.

Investigators believe that the gunmen in a Tuesday shootout at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey deliberately attacked the store, though there was no immediate word on their suspected motive.

“Based on our initial investigation (which is ongoing) we now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked,” Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said.

Authorities had initially said that they did not believe that the JC Kosher Supermarket had been singled out. Fulop did not elaborate on why authorities now believe the market was targeted.

The gun battle left at least six people dead — three bystanders, one police officer and two suspected shooters.

Authorities have not released information on the bystanders or gunmen who were killed, but Chabad identified two of the dead as store owner Leah Minda Ferencz and Moshe Deutsch, both members of the local Hasidic community.

The slain police officer was identified as Detective Joseph Seals, 40.

The shooting took place at multiple locations, starting at a cemetery, where the officer was gunned down, and continuing at the kosher supermarket about a mile away, where five more bodies were found, Jersey City Police Chief Michael Kelly said.

Fulop said that there were no signs of further threats, although earlier reports had said a third gunman may have escaped the scene, and said he had been in close contact with Jersey City’s Jewish community following the attack.

“I know the entire Jersey City community stands together with the Jewish Community during these challenging times,” Fulop said.

Next to the store, the only kosher supermarket in the area and a central fixture for the growing community, are a yeshiva and a synagogue. Around 100 Jewish families live in the area in the city’s Greenville neighborhood, with most of the families having moved there from Brooklyn in the last few years.

Chabad Rabbi Moshe Schapiro, who shops at the store and attends the synagogue next door, said he spoke with the store owner, Moishe Ferencz, before Ferencz learned that his wife had been killed in the attack.

“He told me he had just walked out of the store into the synagogue not five feet away just before this happened, and then he couldn’t get back for hours,” Schapiro said. “His wife was inside the store. He said, ‘I hope my wife is safe.’”

New York City councilman Chaim Deutsch, a member of the city’s Jewish caucus, said that New York City police was providing extra security to synagogues and other sites.

Seals was credited by his superiors with having led the department in the number of illegal guns removed from the streets in recent years, and might have been trying to stop an incident involving such weapons when he was cut down by gunfire that erupted near the cemetery, authorities said.

The bullets started flying early in the afternoon in the city of about 270,000 people, situated across the Hudson River from New York City. Seals, who worked for a unit called Cease Fire, was shot around 12:30 p.m. The gunmen then drove a stolen rental van to another part of the city and engaged police in a lengthy shootout.

Kelly said that when police responded to the area of the kosher store, officers “were immediately engaged by high-power rifle fire.”

“Our officers were under fire for hours,” the chief said.

Inside the grocery store, police found the bodies of who they believed were the two gunmen and three other people who apparently happened to be there when the assailants rushed in, authorities said. Police said they were confident the bystanders were shot by the gunmen and not by police.

A police officer pushes pedestrians back from the scene of a shooting in Jersey City, New Jersey, Dec. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

The shooting spread fear through the neighborhood, and the nearby Sacred Heart School was put on lockdown as a precaution.

SWAT teams, state police and federal agents converged on the scene, and police blocked off the area, which in addition to the school and supermarket included a hair salon and other shops. Dozens of bystanders pressed against the police barrier to capture the action on their cellphones, some whooping when bursts of fire were heard.

Video shot by residents recorded loud volleys of gunfire reverberating along one of the city’s main streets and showed a long line of law enforcement officers pointing guns as they advanced, yelling to bystanders, “Clear the street! Get out of the way!”

US President Donald Trump said he had been briefed on the incident, which he called a “horrific shootout,” adding that the White House would be monitoring the situation and assisting local officials.

“Our thoughts & prayers are w/ the victims & their families during this very difficult & tragic time,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the men and women of the Jersey City Police Department, especially with the officers shot during this standoff, and with the residents and schoolchildren currently under lockdown.”

“I have every confidence in our law enforcement professionals to ensure the safety of the community and resolve this situation,” Murphy said.

Police officers arrive at the scene of a shooting in Jersey City, New Jersey on December 10, 2019. (Kena Betancur/AFP)

One umbrella US Jewish group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, released a statement Tuesday expressing “solidarity for the Jewish community and all the residents of Jersey City, where it appears members of the community were wounded by gunfire, as were members of the police force responding to gunfire from active shooters. We do not know at this point if the kosher supermarket from which they were firing was an intended target. We pray for the safety of all those involved.”

Israel’s consul general in New York, Dani Dayan, praised Seals for making “the ultimate sacrifice.”

“His life was inspirational. His death was heroic. He will be remembered,” Dayan said.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was “heartbroken by the loss of life.”

Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said she was “deeply saddened by the horrific loss of life.”

Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who is from New York and is a supporter of the boycott movement against Israel, said she was “praying this wasn’t a hate-filled act. Unfortunately, there have been instances in the near past that keep our communities on edge especially our Jewish neighbors.”

Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker, a senator from New Jersey, said that “once again, we’re faced with scenes of carnage, fear, and loss. It’s reprehensible that in America, residents are shot while grocery shopping.”

Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang similarly condemned the attack.

Tehran on Friday accused Israel of testing a nuclear-capable missile “aimed at Iran,” after the Defense Ministry carried out a launch of what it described as a “test of a rocket propulsion system.”

“Israel today tested a nuke-missile, aimed at Iran,” tweeted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif was likely speaking figuratively as Israel usually test fires missiles to the West over the Mediterranean and not towards Iran in the East.

“E3 & US never complain about the only nuclear arsenal in West Asia — armed with missiles actually DESIGNED to be capable of carrying nukes — but has fits of apoplexy over our conventional & defensive ones,” he said.

His comments come a day after France, Germany and the United Kingdom said “Iran’s developments of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles” go against a UN Security Council resolution calling on Tehran not to undertake any activity related to such missiles.

The Israeli Defense Ministry gave few details on the missile test conducted Friday morning.

“The defense establishment conducted a launch test a few minutes ago of a rocket propulsion system from a base in the center of the country,” the ministry said.

“The test was scheduled in advance and was carried out as planned.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (2nd-L) speaks with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono (not pictured) during their meeting at a hotel in Yokohama, Japan, on August 27, 2019. (Kazuhiro Nogi/Pool/AFP)

The Defense Ministry refused to comment on the nature of the rocket being tested, leading to speculation that it was a ballistic missile.

Residents of the area reported seeing a white trail left behind by the rocket.

Israel does not publicly acknowledge having ballistic missiles in its arsenals, though according to foreign reports, the Jewish state possesses a nuclear-capable variety known as the Jericho that has a multi-stage engine, a 5,000-kilometer range and is capable of carrying a 1,000-kilogram warhead.

These types of tests are conducted as part of the development of several different types of projectiles, from offensive ballistic missiles to defensive interceptors and satellite launchers. Though in cases of interceptors and satellite launchers, the Defense Ministry generally reveals additional details about the nature of the test.

While foreign sources have estimated Israel has an arsenal of dozens to hundreds of nuclear weapons, the Jewish state has neither publicly confirmed nor denied such reports in keeping with its policy of so-called nuclear ambiguity.

The rocket test required incoming flights en route to Ben Gurion Airport to be temporarily diverted.

The three European nations urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a letter circulated Wednesday to inform the council in his next report that Iran’s ballistic missile activity is “inconsistent” with the call in a council resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The letter cites footage released on social media April 22, 2019, of a previously unseen flight test of a new Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile variant “equipped with a maneuverable re-entry vehicle.” It says: “The Shahab-3 booster used in the test is a Missile Technology Control Regime category-1 system and as such is technically capable of delivering a nuclear weapon.”

A Shahab-3 surface-to-surface missile is on display next to a portrait of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at an exhibition by Iran’s army and paramilitary Revolutionary Guard celebrating ‘Sacred Defense Week’ marking the 39th anniversary of the start of 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, at Baharestan Square in downtown Tehran, Iran, September 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

The Europeans noted that a 2015 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program concluded “that extensive evidence indicated detailed Iranian research in 2002-2003 on arming the Shahab-3 with a nuclear warhead.”

Officials in the Trump administration also have said Iran is working to obtain nuclear-capable missiles, something the Iranians deny.

US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement in May 2018. But it is still supported by the five other parties — France, Britain, Russia and China, which are all veto-wielding Security Council members, and Germany, which is currently serving a two-year term on the council.

The letter says “France, Germany and the United Kingdom assert once again our firm conclusion that Iran’s development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and related technologies is inconsistent” with the missile provision in the council resolution.

That provision urges Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” But it does not require Tehran to halt such activity, and the Iranian government insists all its missile activities are legal and not nuclear-related.

The Security Council has scheduled a Dec. 19 meeting to discuss implementation of the 2015 resolution on the Iran nuclear deal.

During last year’s meeting, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the council to again ban Iranian ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and to maintain an arms embargo that is scheduled to be lifted in 2020 under the nuclear deal.

AP contributed to this report

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president said on Sunday his country will depend less on oil revenue next year, in a new state “budget of resistance” that is designed to resist crippling US trade embargoes.

Iran is in the grips of an economic crisis. In May 2018, the US began re-imposing sanctions that block Iran from selling its crude oil abroad, following US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers over its continued development of ballistic missile programs and support for terror groups in the region. That accord had given Iran sanctions relief in return for limits on its nuclear program.

“Next year, similar to the current year, our budget is a budget of resistance and perseverance against sanctions. This budget sends a message to the world that despite sanctions we will manage the country, especially in terms of oil,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the opening session of Parliament.

The budget will counter “maximum pressure and sanctions” by the US, he said.

Rouhani added that the Iranian government will also benefit from a $5 billion loan from Russia that’s being finalized.

Shops that were destroyed during demonstrations against petrol price hikes, are pictured on November 20, 2019 in Shahriar, west of Tehran. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

He said the US and Israel will remain “without hope” despite their goal of weakening Iran through sanctions.

The next Iranian fiscal year begins March 20, with the advent of the Persian New Year. The budget is set to be about $40 billion, some 20% higher than in 2019. The increase comes as the country is suffering from a 40% inflation rate.

Rouhani also announced in the speech a 15% increase for public sector wages as a stopgap to offset the effects of inflation.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast that Iran’s economy will contract by 9.5% this year.

Iran’s economic woes led to fuel price hikes in mid-November that helped trigger nationwide protests last month. Iranian security forces violently suppressed the protests, killing over 200 people, according to Amnesty International.

Israel is prepared to attack Iran militarily if sanctions don’t force it to curtail its nuclear program and attacks on Israel, Foreign Minister Israel Katz told an Italian daily over the weekend.

Asked by the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera on Friday if a military strike on Iran were a possibility, Katz affirmed “it’s an option. We will not allow Iran to produce or obtain nuclear weapons. If the only option left to us is the military option, we’ll act militarily.”

Katz also said Iran was known to be planning new attacks against Gulf states, similar to its September strike against Saudi oil facilities.

“The actions against Saudi Arabia and the oil tankers make us understand that Iran still feels strong. Our intelligence information tells us that it intends to hit the Gulf countries again. The threat of sanctions is not enough. The only deterrent is a military threat directed against the regime,” Katz said.

Katz was in Rome over the weekend to attend the annual MED forum, a strategy conference for Mediterranean countries hosted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) think tank.

He lamented that European powers eager to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal risked undermining American and international sanctions that were succeeding in reining in the regime.

He told the paper that Israel believed “that US pressure and sanctions are effective. We expect Iran’s attempts to procure nuclear weapons and support terrorist groups to decline, but this will be easier if there is support from European countries. As long as the Iranians delude themselves that they have the support of Europe, it will be more difficult for them to bend.”

Asked by the paper about Israeli cooperation with Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia, he said he could not go into detail but affirmed that there was cooperation, and that “we have common interests” and “find ourselves working together.”

The cooperation “allows us to identify and foil any threats we are aware of. But Iran’s threat is not only against Saudi Arabia or Israel, we are talking about long-range missiles with nuclear potential. It is not for nothing that Germany, France and Great Britain turned to the UN the other day saying that Iran had contravened the agreements. There is beginning to be a broad front against the Iranian threat.”

Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami (2nd-R) walks past a Khordad-3 air defense system during a visit to see an exhibition at the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense museum in the capital Tehran on September 21, 2019. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

Besides his meeting with soccer star Christiano Ronaldo, Katz also met with Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio during the visit, who called for dialogue with the Assad regime in Damascus.

Katz rejected the idea, telling Corriere Della Sera that “dialogue with Bashar Assad cannot be resumed as long as Syria allows Iran to use its territory against Israel and moderate Arab states.”

The meeting with his Italian counterpart dealt with “the common fight against anti-Semitism, the promotion of bilateral trade, and expressed the desire that Italy join the regional initiative to connect the Gulf countries to Haifa and the Mediterranean ports through a railway network.”

The idea is a longtime pet project of Katz, who served for over a decade as minister of transportation.

In this September 20, 2019, file photo, taken during a trip organized by the Saudi information ministry, workers fix the damage in Aramco’s oil separator at a processing facility after the September 14 attack blamed on Iran in Abqaiq near Dammam in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

Such a rail connection “frees us from the need to go through two easily [sealed] straits, Bab El-Mandeb and Hormuz, and saves us 6,500 kilometers by sea.”

On September 14, a cruise missile and drone attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities knocked out half the kingdom’s oil production. Although Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, the US, Britain, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia have blamed Iran of being behind the attack.

Iran regularly threatens Israel, viewing the country as a powerful enemy allied with the United States and Sunni countries in the region against Tehran and its nuclear ambitions.

Iranian forces and Iran-backed militias, as well as fighters of Iranian proxy Hezbollah, have been fighting alongside forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad in that country’s civil war since 2011.

Unidentified aircraft bombed three Iranian-controlled weapons depots on Saturday night, killing several members of Tehran-supported militias, Syrian media reported.

Some news outlets in the country said that four fighters were killed in the strike, while others said five. The Syrian government did not immediately release an official tally.

According to the Syrian Step News agency, the airstrikes occurred around 10 p.m. on Saturday, targeting three munitions storehouses in the Boulkamal region of Syria, near the Iraqi border, an area that has reportedly been hit by many Israeli raids in the past year.

The outlet cited “well-placed sources” as saying that the four people killed were guards at the storehouses who were members of militias backed by Iran.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that at least five militiamen were killed in the strike.

There were no immediate reports of who was responsible for the strikes, though defense analysts indicated that Israel was the likely actor.

The Israeli military as a rule does not comment on specific airstrikes in Syria, save for those that are in retaliation for attacks on Israel.

New Defense Minister Naftali Bennett (R) meets with IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi on November 13, 2019. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry

On Sunday, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel was taking action to force Iran’s military presence out of Syria.

“We are telling the Iranians: Syria will become your Vietnam,” he said, referring to the disastrous American war.

“If you don’t leave, you will become entrenched and you will bleed because we will work without hesitation to remove aggressive forces from Syria,” Bennett said.

The Saturday night strikes came days after reports of a similar raid in the same region.

Last Wednesday, unidentified aircraft bombed other Iranian-controlled weapons storehouses in Boulkamal, causing a massive explosion, according to Step News.

The outlet reported that the planes fired several missiles at warehouses belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the al-Hamdan airport, outside Deir Ezzor. Troops on the ground fired anti-aircraft weapons at the attacking planes, the news site said. There were no reports of casualties in that raid.

Satellite image showing the aftermath of an overnight airstrike on an alleged Iranian military base in Syria’s Boukamal region, near the Iraqi border, on September 9, 2019. (ImageSat International)

The Abulkamal region, near Syria’s border with Iraq, is seen as a crucial region for Iran and its plans to establish a land corridor to the Mediterranean Sea in order to more easily transport materiel and fighters throughout the Middle East.

The reported attack on the IRGC weapons caches came some three weeks after a flareup between Jerusalem and Tehran, during which Iranian troops fired several rockets at northern Israel from Syria and the Israel Defense Forces retaliated with a series of airstrikes on Iranian and Syrian military targets.

According to a Syrian war monitor, at least 23 combatants were killed in those strikes, 16 of them likely Iranians. An Israeli official said the military believed that to be an inflated number, with the actual death toll estimated to be closer to 10.

Israel has repeatedly said that it will not accept Iranian military entrenchment in Syria and that it will retaliate for any attack on the Jewish state from Syria.

Though it does not generally comment on specific attacks, Israel has admitted to carrying out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against Iranian targets over the last several years. Iran has forces based in Syria, Israel’s northern neighbor, and supports Hezbollah and Gaza terrorists.

Times of Israel staff and AFP contributed to this report.