WarSclerotic

Adel al-Jubeir says Riyadh ‘will do everything’ to protect itself from Tehran; calls for pressure on Islamic Republic, says ‘we will have to see’ what Biden’s policies will be

By TOI STAFFToday, 5:15 am  0Saudi Arabia’s Adel al-Jubeir speaks to the media during a press conference in Prague, Czech Republic, January 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs said the kingdom will consider arming with nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them.

Adel al-Jubeir said in an interview with Germany’s DPA news agency that nuclear armament was “definitely an option.”

“Saudi Arabia has made it very clear that it will do everything it can to protect its people and to protect its territories,” Jubeir said. The report said the interview was held recently but did not give a specific date.

Jubeir said that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, other countries will follow, and expressed support for taking a harsh stance against Tehran.

“We believe that the Iranians have only responded to pressure,” he said.

“We will have to see” what US President-elect Joe Biden’s policies will be, Jubeir said.

Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are regional powers and fierce rivals in a struggle for hegemony in the Middle East, and have sparred through proxies in other countries, especially Yemen.

Iran is the region’s leading Shiite power and tied to groups in the region including its proxy Hezbollah, the Syrian regime and Palestinian terror groups in Gaza.

Saudi Arabia views itself as the leader of Sunni states in the Middle East, and is allied with countries including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which both signed normalization pacts with Israel in September. Riyadh is also an ally to the United States, which brokered the normalization deals.

Iran has marched toward nuclear armament since US President Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew the US from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and levied punishing sanctions against Tehran.

Taking a step back from the brink, Iran’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Tehran was willing to return to the nuclear deal if Biden lifts sanctions on Iran after entering the White House.

Biden pledged to return to the accord during his presidential campaign if Iran also adheres to its commitments again.

“We are ready to discuss how the United States can reenter the accord,” Zarif told Iranian media, according to a translation by the Reuters news agency.

“If Mr. Biden is willing to fulfill US commitments, we too can immediately return to our full commitments in the accord… and negotiations are possible within the framework of the P5+1,” Zarif said, referring to the six world powers that signed onto the deal.

Biden was vice president when former US president Barack Obama signed the deal with Iran. The pact was stridently denounced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who argued that it did not put in place sufficient safeguards to prevent Iran from seeking nuclear weapons capabilities.

Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons and views the possibility of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a bevy of wide-ranging sanctions on Iran to make it more difficult for the incoming administration to reenter the nuclear deal.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on Biden last week to “compensate for past mistakes” and return to the deal, opposed to Zarif, who did not call for restitution.

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said Monday it would be a “mistake” for the incoming US administration to reenter the deal.

The remarks appeared to mark the first time an Israeli official publicly spoke out against Biden’s plans to reenter the nuclear accord since he defeated incumbent Trump earlier this month.

During the recent presidential campaign, Biden and his aides slammed Trump’s 2018 decision to bolt the agreement, arguing that it allowed Iran to progress toward acquiring a nuclear weapon.

They pledged that a Biden administration would work to renegotiate a “longer and stronger” deal.

Last week, former Biden aide Amos Hochstein told Channel 12 that rejoining the Iran nuclear deal was “high on his agenda” and that the US president-elect would move to do so shortly after taking office.

IAEA says Tehran is using advanced technology at underground Natatz plant prohibited by 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers

By TOI STAFF and AGENCIESToday, 11:56 am  0A lift truck carries a cylinder containing uranium hexafluoride gas for the purpose of injecting the gas into centrifuges in Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility, November 6, 2019. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)

The UN’s atomic watchdog agency has reportedly found that Iran is pumping uranium gas into advanced centrifuges at an underground part of the Natanz nuclear facility, in the latest breach of the 2015 nuclear deal signed with world powers.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a document distributed to member countries that Iran is feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) gas feedstock into the advanced IR-2m uranium-enriching centrifuges installed at the Natanz plant, Reuters reported Wednesday.

“On 14 November 2020, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding UF₆ into the recently installed cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz,” the IAEA report was quoted as saying.

The nuclear deal Iran signed in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, only allows Iran to use first-generation IR-1 machines, and states that those are the only ones it was allowed operate at Natanz’s underground plant.

The report comes a week after the UN atomic watchdog said that Iran continues to increase its stockpile of low-enriched uranium far beyond the limits set in the nuclear deal and to enrich it to a greater purity than permitted.In this February 3, 2007, file photo, an Iranian technician works at the Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the city of Isfahan 255 miles (410 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

The IAEA also reported that Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5%, higher than the 3.67% allowed under the deal.

Iran has openly announced a number of violations of the nuclear deal in advance, which have followed the decision by the US to pull out unilaterally in 2018.

The deal promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for the curbs on its nuclear program. Since the US withdrawal and imposition of new sanctions, Tehran has been putting pressure on the remaining parties with the violations to come up with new ways to offset the economy-crippling actions by Washington.

At the same time, the Iranian government has continued to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to its nuclear facilities, a key reason the countries that remain parties to the JCPOA say it’s worth preserving.

The goal of the agreement is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, something the country insists it does not intend to do.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tuesday that Tehran was willing to return to the 2015 nuclear deal if US President-elect Joe Biden lifts sanctions on Iran after entering the White House.US President Barack Obama, right, with Vice President Joe Biden, delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on July 14, 2015, after an Iran nuclear deal is reached. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Biden pledged to return to the accord during his presidential campaign if Iran returns to fulfilling its commitments. Tehran began breaching the terms of the deal after President Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018 and began sanctioning Iran.

“We are ready to discuss how the United States can reenter the accord,” Zarif told Iranian media, according to a translation by Reuters.

“If Mr. Biden is willing to fulfill US commitments, we too can immediately return to our full commitments in the accord… and negotiations are possible within the framework of the P5+1,” Zarif said, referring to the six world powers that signed onto the deal.

Biden was vice president when former US president Barack Obama signed the deal with Iran.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning an array of wide-ranging sanctions on Iran to make it more difficult for the incoming administration to reenter the deal.

Military says Iranian command base near Damascus airport also among targets hit overnight in response to attempted border attack; army goes on high alert for possible retaliation

By JUDAH ARI GROSSToday, 8:01 am  0Illustrative. Syrian air defenses respond to alleged Israeli missiles targeting south of the capital Damascus, on July 20, 2020. (AFP)

The Israel Defense Forces said a round of airstrikes it carried out in Syria on Wednesday morning was meant to send a message to Iran to leave the country, specifically the border area, following an attempted attack on the Golan Heights that was thwarted this week.

In the predawn hours of Wednesday morning, Israeli fighter jets struck eight targets in Syria — roughly half near Damascus and half along the Golan border — in response to an Iranian-directed effort to set off anti-personnel mines against Israeli troops, IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman said. The explosives were disarmed on Tuesday morning.

According to the spokesman, the strikes targeted a number of facilities controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ expeditionary Quds Force, which commands and supports proxy militias in Syria. In addition, the Israeli fighter jets bombed a Syrian military base, as well as several Syrian anti-aircraft batteries that fired at them.

The Syrian state news agency SANA said three soldiers were killed and one was injured in the attack, which it said targeted sites in southern Syria. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the IRGC.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition organization based in the United Kingdom, said 10 people in total were killed in the Israeli strikes, some of them Iranian. This could not be immediately confirmed. The Observatory has in the past been accused of inflating and even inventing casualty figures. In general, Israel does not intentionally target people in its strikes, instead focusing on infrastructure, as this has been found to reduce the likelihood of retaliation by Iran and its proxies.

Zilberman told reporters that the retaliatory attack was intended as both a message to Iran that “we won’t allow Iranian entrenchment at all and next to the border specifically,” and a message to Syria that it will be held responsible for allowing Tehran to maintain a presence in its country.

The spokesman said that Israel tried to send a similar message to Iran and Syria in August after a previous attempt to plant bombs along the border, but it evidently “wasn’t received.”Three anti-personnel mines that Israel says were planted inside Israeli-controlled territory along the border with Syria, which were uncovered on November 17, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

Zilberman said the military was prepared for the possibility of retaliation from Iran or Syria, with Iron Dome and other air defense systems on high alert.

Israel views a permanent Iranian military presence in Syria as an unacceptable threat, which it will take military action to prevent.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz threatened further action if Iran again attempted to carry out attacks on Israeli forces or continued to establish a permanent military presence in Syria.

“The IDF last night struck military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and the Syrian military in response to the planting of bombs on the Syrian border within Israeli territory. I say again to our enemies: Israel will not accept violations of our sovereignty anywhere, and we will not allow a dangerous force build-up on any border,” Gantz said in a Hebrew video statement.

Zilberman did not reveal the nature of all eight targets of the predawn attack, but said they included: a military base used by Iran to direct its forces in the country located just next door to Damascus International Airport; a secret barracks used by top Iranian commanders in Syria, which is also used to host visiting delegations from Tehran, southeast of Damascus; a base of the Syrian military’s 7th Division, which cooperates widely with Iran; and mobile Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries.Illustrative: IDF troops near the Israel-Syria border, in the Golan Heights on January 3, 2020. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

According to the spokesman, the military knew there were Iranian officers in the barracks when the attack was carried out, but did not specifically target them or the areas in the building where they were located.

In addition, the IDF said it targeted arms warehouses in Syria. Zilberman did not comment on the nature of the sites that were bombed on the Golan border.

The Syrian state news outlet also said Syrian air defenses shot down several incoming Israeli missiles, though war analysts generally dismiss the regime’s regular claims of interceptions as false, empty boasts. Zilberman said the military was still reviewing the results of the attack so he could not say definitively if the claim was true, but that if the Syrian military had succeeded in downing any incoming missiles, it was “extremely marginal if it happened at all.”

Though Israel officially maintains a policy of ambiguity regarding its activities in Syria — in the hopes of not giving Iran and Syria a pretext to respond — the IDF consistently acknowledges carrying out airstrikes on targets in Syria that either are in response to specific attacks from the country, as was the case this week, or were attempts to preempt and prevent such attacks.Three anti-personnel mines that Israel says were planted inside Israeli-controlled territory along the border with Syria, which were uncovered on November 17, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

According to Zilberman, the three Claymore-style mines planted along the border were set there by Syrian nationals who live near the border, at the instruction of the IRGC Quds Force. The mines were uncovered in a buffer zone near the border that is under Israeli control but is on the Syrian side of the security fence, where the IDF regularly conducts patrols, indicating that the explosives were meant to be used against soldiers.

It was the same area where Iranian-backed Syrian operatives tried to plant mines in August, though in that case the four men were spotted by the IDF at the time and killed.A map showing the approximate location of where Israel says three anti-personnel mines were planted by Syrian nationals working on behalf of Iran, in a buffer zone between the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria and a security fence, on November 17, 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)

Since that attempt, the IDF has more closely monitored the area to prevent a similar attack.

Zilberman said the military did not yet know when the three mines were planted along the border, but that it seemed to have been several weeks ago. The IDF was investigating how the Iranian-backed operatives were able to evade detection and plant the bombs.

On Tuesday morning, the IDF sent a team of combat engineers into the area to disarm the mines.Volume 0%

Zilberman said the military called on the UN peacekeeping force that is meant to maintain the 1974 ceasefire between Israel and Syria to prevent such attacks in the future.

The IDF has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011 against moves by Iran to establish a permanent military presence in the country and efforts to transport advanced, game-changing weapons to terrorist groups in the region, principally Hezbollah.

What?!

The possible change of leadership in the US is an opportunity for Israel to change course to a more appropriate policy also in terms of the Iranian challenge.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-must-prepare-for-a-change-in-us-policy-toward-iran-649108

‘The year is 1939 and Iran is Germany” – I heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say at a Jewish conference in Los Angeles in 2006. This statement sounded to me anti-Zionist because it raised the question of whether we really are in the situation we were in 1939 before there was a Jewish state with the strongest army in the region. So, does Zionism justify itself?

In addition, I wondered how this apocalyptic message is consistent with the attempt to bring American Jews to visit Israel and invest in it, and with us Israelis to raise our children in a country on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. I do not intend to diminish the Iranian strategic challenge and the importance to prevent Iran from achieving military nuclear capabilities, but a more rational and less hysterical perspective would benefit Israel.

This alarmist approach was one of the reasons for the conflicts the Netanyahu government had with the Obama-Biden administration. A new perspective would benefit the ability of Israel to work jointly with the Biden-Harris administration on a coordinated approach.

The prevailing axiom in our area is that Iran poses an existential threat, and that its efforts to achieve the ultimate weapon require us to use any means possible to prevent it. As part of our zigzagging between paranoia and hubris, we hear that Iran is a strong power that threatens the future of the Middle East, and the next day that Iran is on the verge of collapse if only we take one step or another. Both statements are far from reality. I would like to present a more balanced approach to Iran and the threat posed by it.

There are many similarities between Iran and Israel. According to foreign sources, Israel achieved military nuclear capabilities in the 1960s and was the sixth country in the world to do so. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the five permanent members of the Security Council (USA, Russia, Britain, France, China) have recognized nuclear weapons, but since then – India, Pakistan and North Korea have already declared nuclear weapons in their possession. Iran is not on the list, and even if it will be, Iran’s abilities are a long way from ours.

Iran’s motivation to acquire nuclear weapons, which is presented to us mainly as an aspiration for regional hegemony, is not different than Israel’s motivation, which stems from existential anxiety and the goal of defense and deterrence.

Iran is surrounded by enemies, represents a hated Persian minority in an area where an Arab and Turkish majority and represents an outcast Shi’ite minority in an area with a vast majority of Sunnis. Iran was traumatized by the war with Iraq, in which about a million Iranians were killed and wounded. As you may recall, the West supported Iraq.

Iran has chosen Israel as a target for its rhetoric because it pays off in terms of Iran’s status in the region, but Israel is not the reason for Iran’s motivation to acquire nuclear weapons.

As in Israel, the Iranian public is one of the most educated and creative in the world. The Iranian people, from all over the Muslim world, are most similar to us Israelis.

The governments of Israel and Iran are similar in the disproportionate influence of religious leaders and the lack of separation between religion and state, as opposed to liberal democracies. Israel often talks about the lack of democracy in Iran, but in the global ranking of democracies, Iran is ahead of Saudi Arabia, which we see as a moderate country. In Iran, it is remembered that the West supported the tyranny of the shah and that the United States assisted in a coup that brought the shah to power instead of a semi-democratic Mosaddegh regime. Israel, on the other hand, is in the process of declining in the democracy index.

Extremist elements in Iran have grown stronger thanks to the hysterical treatment of Iran by Israel and the United States. During the Gulf War, the Bush administration overthrew Iran’s enemy in Iraq – the Sunni Ba’ath party – and turned it into a chaotic Shi’ite-dominated state. Israel helped Iran export the revolution to Lebanon during its long stay in Lebanon after an unnecessary war (in which I participated) that turned Hezbollah into a legitimate organization in the eyes of the Lebanese.

Netanyahu encouraged president George Bush to overthrow the Ba’athist regime in Iraq. Netanyahu encouraged President Donald Trump to abandon the JCPOA agreement between Iran and the powers (P5 + 1). The abandonment of the agreement dismantled the international coalition that imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, which eventually brought Iran into negotiations; weakened Rouhani’s moderate leadership, which prefers a functioning economy to regional hegemony, strengthened extremist Revolutionary Guards, and brought Iran closer to a nuclear weapon.

I still remember as a diplomat serving in the US that the line we presented was that sanctions were not enough to bring about a change in Iranian policy, and after the agreement was signed, that if only they had continued with the sanctions, Iran would have surrendered.

I remember the concern we expressed during the negotiations about the possibility that president Barack Obama would include regional agreements with Iran. And after the agreement was signed, Obama was accused of failing to reach a regional agreement that would prevent Iran from promoting terrorism. The alarmist Israeli position has caused harm and continues to do so. Israel is perceived as inconsistent, failing to convince the Europeans, Russians and Chinese, whose cooperation is necessary.

Israel must be part of an international coalition trying to reach an agreement with Iran that will prevent it from reaching a nuclear bomb, but it must be understood that an agreement requires compromise. Israel must prevent Iran from transferring weapons to Hezbollah, but alongside military action, smart diplomacy must be exercised vis-à-vis Lebanon, where the mechanism of negotiations about the naval border can serve as an opportunity. Israel needs to find ways to reach out to the Iranian people and make a clear separation between our attitude toward the ayatollah’s regime and our attitude toward the general public.

The Iranian people are a proud people who do not support the rule of the ayatollahs, but want the change to come from within and not from outside intervention. A day will come and this proud people will change the political reality in Iran and the Arab Spring will also become the “Persian Spring.”

One can find Iranian exiles in the West who will say that an overthrow of the regime by US force will be welcomed there with flowers, as there were Iraqi exiles who claimed this before the attack on Iraq, and we know how that ended.

Another very important point of similarity between the Iranian and Israeli governments is that they are the only governments in the world that do not support the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and both benefit politically from this conflict as well as from the conflict between them.

The Iranian position is understandable, the only way the apocalyptic calls of its leaders against Israel be realized is if we fail to reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians and the status quo will eliminate us demographically or morally. But in this case, it is us eliminating Zionism, not the Iranians.

The possible change of leadership in the US is an opportunity for Israel to change course to a more appropriate policy also in terms of the Iranian challenge.

The writer is an adviser for international affairs at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, a member of the board of directors at Mitvim – the Israel Institute of Regional Foreign Policy and of J Street Israel. He served as political adviser to president Shimon Peres, and served in the embassy in Washington and as consul-general to New England in Boston.

New York Times reports president asked top advisers if he had options to strike main sites to halt enrichment, but was warned it could lead to wider conflict

By TOI STAFF and AGENCIESToday, 3:13 am  0Illustrative: In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) launches a tomahawk land attack missile in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017 (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ford Williams/U.S. Navy via AP)

US President Donald Trump convened top advisers last week to ask if he had options to strike Iranian nuclear sites during his last weeks in office, but was dissuaded with warnings it could lead to a wider conflict, The New York Times reported Monday.

Trump convened top officials on Thursday, a day after the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had stockpiled more than 12 times more enriched uranium than the 2015 nuclear deal allows, the Times reported, citing four current and former US officials.

Among those present were Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the report said.

Trump asked them how he should respond to the International Atomic Energy Agency report and what his options were. The Times said the focus of any attack would almost certainly be the heavily fortified Natanz nuclear center.US President Donald Trump arrives to address the nation from the White House on the ballistic missile strike that Iran launched against Iraqi air bases housing US troops accompanied by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, center, and US Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein, January 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Pompeo and Miley reportedly warned that a major strike, whether with missiles or by a cyberattack, could easily escalate into a major regional conflict.

The report said they left Thursday’s meeting believing that Trump had taken a missile strike of the table, but could still be looking at a more measured response against Iran or its allies.

Trump’s most high-profile attack on Iran, when the US killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a January 3 drone strike at Baghdad’s airport, resulted in a limited response from Iran.

The Pentagon has a wide range of strike options for Iran, including military, cyber and combination plans, the report said, noting that some called for direct action by Israel.

Israel has been blamed for an attack on an advanced centrifuge development and assembly plant at Natanz in July. It has also been blamed, together with the US, for the Stuxnet virus that sabotaged Iranian enrichment centrifuges a decade ago.A building Iran claims was damaged by a fire at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility some 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of Tehran, on July 2, 2020. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)

The New York Times also reported this week that Israel assassinated Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 in Tehran in recent months at the behest of the US.

Monday’s report highlighted fears that Trump could seek to dramatically influence events in his final few weeks in office (even though he has not conceded the election) in a bid to tie US President-elect Joe Biden’s hands on issues like Iran.

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer warned Monday that it would be a “mistake” for the incoming administration to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, as Biden pledged to do during the campaign.

“I think it would be a mistake and hopefully [Bdien] will look at the Middle East as it is, he will see the benefits of [the normalization] process, of how he can continue that process, and I think to not go back into the same deal,” Dermer said during a panel in Washington.

The nuclear deal was signed by the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia in 2015, but Trump withdrew from it three years later. Nevertheless, he has said he expects Iran to abide by the limits it sets.

The IAEA reported in a confidential document distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press last week that Iran as of November 2 had a stockpile of 2,442.9 kilograms (5,385.7 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, up from 2,105.4 kilograms (4,641.6 pounds) reported on August 25.Construction at Iran’s Natanz uranium-enrichment facility that experts believe may be a new, underground centrifuge assembly plant, annotated by experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, October 26, 2020. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

The nuclear deal allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds).

The IAEA reported that Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5%, higher than the 3.67% allowed under the deal.

Wednesday’s report confirmed that, in line with previous statements by Iranian officials, centrifuges had been installed at an underground part of the Natanz nuclear facility after another part of the site was damaged the explosion in July, which Iran blamed on “sabotage.”

Iran has openly announced all violations of the nuclear deal in advance, which have followed the decision by the US to pull out unilaterally in 2018.

The deal promised Iran economic incentives in exchange for the curbs on its nuclear program. Since the US withdrawal and imposition of new sanctions, Tehran has been putting pressure on the remaining parties with the violations to come up with new ways to offset the economy-crippling actions by Washington.This photo released by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on November 5, 2019, shows centrifuge machines at Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)

At the same time, the Iranian government has continued to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities, a key reason the countries that remain parties to the JCPOA say it’s worth preserving.

The goal of the agreement is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, something the country insists it does not intend to do.

A widely cited analysis by the Washington-based Arms Control Association suggests that Iran now has more than double the material it would need to make a nuclear weapon. However, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told The Associated Press in an interview last month that his agency does not share that assessment.

Before agreeing to the nuclear deal, Iran enriched its uranium up to 20% purity, which is a short technical step away from the weapons-grade level of 90%. In 2013, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was already more than 7,000 kilograms (7.72 tons) with higher enrichment, but it didn’t pursue a bomb.

In the quarterly report distributed to members on Wednesday, the IAEA said it still has questions from the discovery last year of particles of uranium of man-made origin at a site outside Tehran not declared by Iran.

The United States and Israel had been pressing the IAEA for some time to look into the Turquzabad facility, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described to the UN in 2018 as a “secret atomic warehouse.”

In the current report, the IAEA said the “compositions of these isotopically altered particles” found there were “similar to particles found in Iran in the past, originating from imported centrifuge components.” It said it found Iran’s response to questions last month “unsatisfactory.”

“Following an assessment of this new information, the agency informed Iran that it continues to consider Iran’s response to be not technically credible,” the IAEA wrote this week. “A full and prompt explanation from Iran…is needed.”

An Israeli strike against Iran is extremely complicated and has always been viewed by the IDF as a last resort.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/are-israel-and-the-us-planning-to-attack-iran-649030

In 2008, after the election that brought former US president Barack Obama to power, there were some officials in Israel who were confident that the previous president, George W. Bush, would not leave office with Iran’s nuclear facilities still standing. They were wrong. Iran’s nuclear facilities are not only still standing; they have grown in quality and quantity.

This is important to keep in mind amid speculation – once again during a presidential lame duck period – that in his last few weeks in office, Donald Trump will either order US military action against Iran or give Israel a green light, as well as some assistance, to do so on its own.

The speculation has a number of catalysts. First was the firing of Mark Esper as secretary of defense this past week and the replacement of him and other top Pentagon officials with Trump ideologues. Some media outlets in the US have raised the possibility that Trump wanted to get Esper out of the way, so he could more easily carry out controversial military moves.

In addition, there is no doubt that there is a lot of coordination already taking place on Iran. Elliott Abrams, the administration’s top envoy on Iran, was in Israel this week for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be here next week for three days to continue those conversations; and on Thursday night, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi held a video call with his US counterpart, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley.

And then there was the interview that H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser, gave to Fox News on Wednesday in which he raised the possibility that Israel – fearful of President-elect Joe Biden’s Iran policies – would attack Iran in the twilight of Trump’s term in office.

For veteran Israel-Iran watchers, this feels like a rerun of what happened in 2008 as well as in 2012 when Israel also seemed on the verge of an attack. While ministers later confirmed that Netanyahu had in fact wanted to launch an attack in 2012, he ultimately failed to muster support in the cabinet, so the IDF had no choice but to back down.

THIS IS all important to keep in mind amid the current speculation. While anything is possible – especially with Trump – there does not seem to be an immediate urgency right now to attack.

There are also no signs of activity in the IDF that would indicate a possible war, like beefing up forces in the North or preparing the home front for the missile onslaught that will likely follow. On the other hand, we should not necessarily expect to see moves that would give away a strike in the planning. In 2007, ahead of Israel’s bombing of Syria’s nuclear reactor, almost no one knew about it within the IDF, let alone throughout the country.

When it comes to the sense of urgency, while the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report this past week about Iran’s growing uranium stockpile is concerning, Tehran is still not at the point of building a bomb since it is not yet enriching uranium to military-grade levels. If that were to happen, the clock would definitely start ticking toward a possible bombing. But absent such enrichment – or some other piece of secret intelligence that the public is not aware of – there does not seem to be an immediate reason to attack right now.

Keep in mind that an Israeli strike against Iran is extremely complicated and has always been viewed by the IDF as a last resort. It is just that the threat is not yet at the point to warrant a military strike.

And then there is politics. Netanyahu has enough trouble heading into a new election campaign, which has a good chance of starting sometime in the coming week or two. His management of the coronavirus crisis has weakened him and his popularity ratings are falling. A war with thousands of rockets raining down all across Israel will probably not help.

Despite all the above, it is important to keep in mind that almost anything is possible when dealing with these two leaders – Trump and Netanyahu – who are unpredictable and willing to do a lot to stay relevant and in office.

The US and Israel both had ‘scores to settle’ with terror chief al-Masri, reportedly shot dead by Israeli agents in August; Iran now said to fear more hits in Trump’s last 2 months.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/tv-al-qaeda-no-2-was-planning-attacks-on-israelis-jews-when-killed-in-tehran/

The Al-Qaeda No. 2 reportedly shot dead by Israeli agents in Tehran in August was planning attacks on Israeli and Jewish Diaspora targets when he was killed, Israel’s Channel 12 news reported Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday, The New York Times reported that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, aka Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed by Israeli agents at the behest of the US on August 7. Iran denied the Times story, claiming it was “made up information.”

“Abu Muhammad al-Masri had recently begun planning attacks against Israelis and Jewish targets in the world,” the Israeli TV report said, quoting unnamed Western intelligence sources. This further underlined why the US and Israel had a “shared interest” in the elimination of this “arch-terrorist,” it said. The US was seeking him for orchestrating two devastating attacks on embassies in Africa in the 1990s, while Israel alleges he oversaw the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya in which three Israelis were killed.

The killing of al-Masri was the result of a huge, year-long operation, that went off without a hitch, the Israeli report said. The New York Times story said he was shot dead in Tehran by two Israeli agents on a motorbike, who fired five bullets at close range.

The Channel 12 report specified that the gunmen were Mossad agents. Israel’s Channel 13, by contrast, said the gunmen were likely “foreign agents activated by Israel.”

Channel 13 further said Iran now fears further operations against terrorist chiefs in Tehran by Israel and the United States in the final weeks of the Trump presidency.

The Channel 13 news report also said the killing of al-Masri in the heart of Tehran had prompted an intensive investigation by Iran of the intelligence breach that saw him tracked down.

The nature of the killing, the TV report noted, resembled a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years attributed in foreign reports to Israel.

The Iranians were now “extremely worried” that Israel or the US, since they evidently have the intelligence, may try to eliminate additional terrorists operating from Iran, from Al-Qaeda and other groups, between now and the US presidential handover in January, the Channel 12 report said.

Channel 13 said it was curious that the US did not publicize the killing of the Al-Qaeda number two, and that President Donald Trump did not reveal the killing during the presidential election campaign. It noted that nobody has claimed the up-to $10 million reward offered by the FBI for information regarding him.

It noted that at the time of al-Masri’s killing, Iran tried to pass off the incident as involving the death of a Lebanese lecturer and his daughter — “fictional figures,” the TV report noted.

It added that Israel had an account to settle with al-Masri, while the US account with him was even larger. Al-Masri was allegedly responsible for two August 7, 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224, and his reported assassination came exactly 22 years later.

He was also allegedly behind the suicide bombing of the Paradise hotel in Mombasa, Kenya — the only Israeli-owned hotel in the city — which killed 13 and injured 80. The Mombassa blast, on November 28, 2002, took place on the eve of Hanukkah, and the bomb, in a vehicle that plowed into the hotel, was detonated just as 60 tourists from Israel had checked in. Three Israelis were killed, two of them children.

At around the same time, two missiles were fired at an Israeli Arkia passenger plane taking off from Mombassa airport with 271 people on board.

The pilots saw the missiles streak past the plane, and considered an emergency landing, but flew on to Israel, and the plane was escorted home by Israeli fighter planes. Israel then temporarily halted flights to Kenya.

According to The New York Times account of the assassination, al-Masri was driving his sedan close to his home when two Israeli agents on a motorcycle pulled up alongside his vehicle and fired five shots from a silenced pistol, killing him and his daughter, Miriam, who was married to Osama bin Laden’s late son Hamza bin Laden.

The assassination has not been publicly acknowledged by the US, Israel, Iran or al-Qaeda.

The US was keeping tabs on al-Masri and other members of the terrorist group in Iran for years, but it’s unknown what role the US played in the killing, if any.

Al-Masri was one of the earliest members of al-Qaeda and likely the next in line to lead the terror group after its current chief, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Following the shooting, Iranian media identified the victims as a history professor from Lebanon named Habib Daoud and his daughter, Maryam, The New York Times report said. A Lebanese news outlet and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said the victim was a member of the Hezbollah terrorist group, which is backed by Iran.

Daoud and Maryam did not actually exist, however. One intelligence official, and a former head of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad group, said the persona was an alias Iran provided to al-Masri.

It’s unclear why Iran would harbor al-Masri. Iran is a Shiite state, and has fought with al-Qaeda, a Sunni jihadist organization.

Intelligence officials told the Times that al-Masri was in Iranian “custody” since 2003 and lived in Tehran since at least 2015. While in Tehran, he was protected by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps but allowed to move freely and travel abroad.

Experts told the Times that Iran may hold al-Qaeda members to prevent attacks in Iran, or to allow them to conduct operations against the US.

Iran cooperates with the Gaza-based Sunni terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Iran has denied harboring al-Qaeda members and did not respond to a New York Times request for comment on the article. Israeli and US officials also declined to comment.

Around the time of al-Masri’s killing, a series of mysterious explosions rocked Iran, hitting several sensitive sites, including the Natanz nuclear facility, a power station, a pipeline and the Parchin military complex outside Tehran.

Iran said in September it had identified those responsible for the sabotage at the Natanz facility, but did not provide further details. Foreign media reports have attributed the explosion, which they said badly damaged an advanced centrifuge development and assembly plant, to Israel or the US.

Israeli agents had in past years assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists using shooters on motorcycles, similar to al-Masri’s killing, according to foreign reports.

Al-Masri was from Egypt and around 58-years-old. He fought the Soviets in Afghanistan with jihadist groups, was then barred from returning to Egypt, and joined Bin Laden. He worked for al-Qaeda in Sudan and Somalia, where he trained militants to use weaponry they then used to shoot down US helicopters in Mogadishu in 1993 in the so-called Black Hawk Down incident. Nineteen American soldiers were killed in the battle with Somali militiamen.

Bin Laden then charged al-Masri with plotting attacks against US sites in Africa, leading to the simultaneous bombings of the two US embassies. The FBI had offered a $10 million reward for information on him.

Al-Qaeda’s second in command was reportedly killed by Israeli Assassins on motorcycles at the request of the United States, according to intelligence officials.

The New York Times reported that Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, also known as Abu Muhammad al-Masri was shot by motorcycle-riding Israeli assassins on the streets of Tehran three months ago. Al-Masri was described as “one of the masterminds of the deadly 1998 attacks on American embassies in Africa” and was on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list. Also killed in the attack was al-Masri’s daughter, Miriam, who was previously married to Osama Bin Laden’s son Hamza, who was killed in the early years of the Trump administration.

As reported by the Times, al-Masri was allegedly in Iran’s “custody” but was living freely in an upscale suburb of Tehran. At around 9 p.m. on the night he was killed, al-Masri and his daughter left their home in a white Renault L90 sedan. The two gunmen fired five shots, with four hitting al-Masri’s car and the fifth hitting a separate car.

“The killing occurred in such a netherworld of geopolitical intrigue and counterterrorism spycraft that Mr. al-Masri’s death had been rumored but never confirmed until now. For reasons that are still obscure, Al Qaeda has not announced the death of one of its top leaders, Iranian officials covered it up, and no country has publicly claimed responsibility for it,” the Times reported. “Mr. al-Masri, who was about 58, was one of Al Qaeda’s founding leaders and was thought to be first in line to lead the organization after its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.”

Though al-Masri was reportedly killed three months ago, his photo is still on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

The killing was initially reported by Iranian state-controlled media as an assassination against a Lebanese history professor and his daughter. The media outlets claimed Habib Daoud was a member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which wants to destroy Israel. The story seemed plausible since it matched similar Israeli assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, but it fell apart when no record of Daoud ever existing could be found.

“Several Lebanese with close ties to Iran said they had not heard of him or his killing. A search of Lebanese news media found no reports of a Lebanese history professor killed in Iran last summer. And an education researcher with access to lists of all history professors in the country said there was no record of a Habib Daoud,” the Times reported. “One of the intelligence officials said that Habib Daoud was an alias Iranian officials gave Mr. al-Masri and the history teaching job was a cover story. In October, the former leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, Nabil Naeem, who called Mr. al-Masri a longtime friend, told the Saudi news channel Al Arabiya the same thing.”

Iran enriched uranium stockpile 12 times limit set in nuclear deal, UN nuclear agency says

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now more than 12 times the limit set down in a 2015 deal with world powers, the UN’s nuclear agency reports.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reports in a confidential document distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press that Iran as of November 2 has a stockpile of 2,442.9 kilograms (5,385.7 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, up from 2,105.4 kilograms (4,641.6 pounds) reported on August 25.

The nuclear deal signed in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds)

.

Iran’s uranium conversion facility near Isfahan, which reprocesses uranium ore concentrate into uranium hexafluoride gas, which is then taken to Natanz and fed into the centrifuges for enrichment, March 30, 2005. (AP/Vahid Salemi)

The IAEA reports that Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5%, higher than the 3.67% allowed under the deal.

Violations of the nuclear pact have followed the decision by the US to pull out unilaterally in 2018.

— Agencies

Amos Hochstein tells Israeli TV rejoining the agreement is a top priority for the US-president elect; report says Trump planning flurry of sanctions to make move harder

By TOI STAFF8 November 2020, 10:40 pm  6Then US vice president Joe Biden, left, talks with then State Department special envoy for international energy affairs Amos Hochstein at a working lunch during the Caribbean Energy Security Summit, at the State Department in Washington, January 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais/File)

A former senior aide to Joe Biden said rejoining the Iran nuclear deal was “high on his agenda” and that the US president-elect would move to do so shortly after taking office.

“I believe that in the first months [of Biden’s presidency], we’ll either see him rejoin the deal fully, or what I would call ‘JCPOA-minus,’ meaning lifting sanctions in exchange for suspending some of the Iranian nuclear programs [developed] in the past three years,” Amos Hochstein said Sunday in an interview in Hebrew with Channel 12 news.

Hochstein, who served at the State Department and oversaw energy sanctions on Iran during former president Barack Obama’s tenure, said Biden wants “some changes” to the pact clinched in 2015 — and abandoned by US President Donald Trump in 2018 — including its expiration date.

The comments came as an Israeli news site reported the Trump administration — in coordination with Israel and Arab states in the Persian Gulf — was planning a bevy of wide-ranging sanctions on Iran to make it more difficult for the incoming administration to reenter the nuclear deal, which was negotiated when Biden served as vice president under Obama.

Quoting Israeli and Arab sources, Walla news said US Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela Elliot Abrams is planning to announce a raft of fresh sanctions on Iran every week from now until January 20. These sanctions will reportedly target Iran’s missile program and its support for terrorist groups, as well as focus on its human rights violations, making it harder for Biden to roll back such punishments.

Abrams met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday and was expected to hold talks with other senior Israeli officials.

Elliott Abrams, US special representative for Iran and Venezuela, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, November 8, 2020. (Matty Stern/US Embassy Jerusalem)

According to the report, Israel and Gulf states believe Biden will swiftly lift other sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program to restart diplomacy with Tehran, shedding some of the US’s leverage over the cash-strapped country. New sanctions, therefore, would keep up pressure on Tehran to compromise and likely keep Biden out of the international pact unless he lifts them.

“The goal is as many sanctions as possible by January 20,” an unnamed Israeli official was quoted as saying.

An Arab official involved in the negotiations told the news site, “The goal of the Trump administration is to impose sanctions that Biden cannot lift.”

Earlier Sunday, a senior minister in Netanyahu’s Likud party called for “dialogue with the new administration” to ensure that Biden does not reenter the pact under its previous terms.

Netanyahu has been a strident critic of the nuclear deal, arguing it did not put in place sufficient safeguards to prevent Iran from seeking nuclear weapons capabilities, and cheered Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord.

‘Bring back the Palestinian issue’

In his Channel 12 interview, Hochstein also spoke to the Palestinian issue, saying Biden “sees the two-state solution as preferable to one state. And his fear is that if there is no two-state solution, in the end, it will lead to a binational state.”

The Biden administration will “bring the Palestinian issue back to the heart of the discourse,” according to Hochstein.

Trump unveiled a peace plan in January that envisioned a Palestinian state in some 70 percent of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and some neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The plan was rejected by the Palestinian Authority, which has boycotted the Trump administration since its 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Then-US vice president Joseph Biden, left, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wave to the press ahead of their meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, March 10, 2010. (AP Photo/ Tara Todras-Whitehill)

An unnamed senior official in PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s office was quoted as saying by the Israel Hayom daily on Sunday that Ramallah has sent Biden messages that the PA would be willing to resume US-brokered peace negotiations with Israel, but only from the point where they were halted in 2016 under Obama.

The official added that Abbas will demand that Biden immediately return the US embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, reversing a move Trump made in 2018, and undo Trump’s recognition of the Israeli capital.

Biden has previously said that while he plans to take a more evenhanded approach to the Middle East conflict than his predecessor, he will not overturn those decisions.

Hochstein also said he did not believe Netanyahu’s delay in congratulating Biden would affect relations.

“He’ll smile and move on,” he said of the president-elect