WarSclerotic

Biden: Iran could provoke ‘nuclear arms race in Middle East’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

U.S. Vice President: Iran has scorned our collective good faith efforts and continues to take actions threatening regional stability.

Iran’s unwillingness to negotiate with the international community could give rise to a “nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” the United States Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

Tehran’s hard-line Islamic regime has so far shunned all offers to subject its nuclear program to international scrutiny, leading many to question whether it is really intended only for peaceful purposes, as Iran’s leaders profess.

“Iran’s nuclear program violates its obligations under the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and risks sparking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” Biden warned during a keynote speech at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Israel, which is widely thought to have already developed its own nuclear weapons, has repeatedly hinted that it would be ready to strike first to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

Biden said he and U.S. President Barack Obama had “embarked on an unprecedented path of engagement with Iranian leaders,” but added that they “scorned our collective good faith efforts and continue to take actions which threaten regional stability.”

The US vice president said it would be “ironic” if, while the fall of the Iron Curtain had diminished the threat of “mutually assured destruction among the superpowers … a new arms race would emerge in some of the most unstable parts of the world.”

“Our children and grandchildren would not forgive us for allowing it to pass,” he stressed.

The United Nation’s Security Council has been talking for months about increased sanctions against Iran as a result of its defiance on the nuclear issue.

Biden said the country’s rulers face “a stark choice: abide by international rules and rejoin the community of responsible nations, which we hope for, or face further consequences and increasing isolation.”

He also said the U.S. was “committed to the security of [its] allies,” including through the controversial missile defense system planned in Eastern Europe, and would work within NATO “to prepare for a range of future security threats.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Israel’s nuclear center at Dimona

US president Barack Obama reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to supporting Israel’s policy of
nuclear ambiguity, whereby its possession of nuclear weapons is neither confirmed nor denied. debkafile‘s Washington sources report that President Obama repeated this pledge in a 20-minute telephone call to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday, May 3, almost a year after he gave it the first time during Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on May 18, 2009.

High-ranking American sources told debkafile that Obama needed to reassure Israel his commitment on this score was solid and unchanged for four reasons:
1.  Because of administration steps on the Middle East taken this week prior to and during the UN conference on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Wednesday, May 5, the five Security Council permanent members vowed to work together towards a nuclear-free Middle East. Two days earlier, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the conference that the United States “is prepared to support practical measures towards the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.”
2.  There was talk in the corridors of the conference, some published by Egyptian sources, that the US and Egypt were formulating a joint Middle East nuclear policy for bringing about the dismantling of Israel’s nuclear stockpiles.
3.  It became clear to the White House that if Netanyahu got the notion that President Obama was retreating from his nuclear commitment to Israel, he could forget about progress in the Middle East proximity talks which his special envoy George Mitchell is working hard to jump-start this week.
4.  And if that commitment were to be withdrawn, the entire Middle East would conclude that the Obama administration had also retreated from its “unshakable” pledge to support Israel’s security.

A few hours after the Obama-Netanyahu conversation, former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton said Tuesday that American-Egyptian cooperation on the Middle East nuclear issue was aimed squarely at Israel. His exact words were:  “There is only one country that resolution is targeted at and that is Israel.”

Therefore, the Israeli prime minister had needed to hear from the president in person that his year-old pledge was still valid and that the joint American-Egyptian effort for nuclear-free Middle East had a single target, Iran and its nuclear program.

According to debkafile‘s sources, that effort is led by Gary Seymour, WMD coordinator at the National Security Council, and Nabil Fahmy, for many years the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States. He is currently the dean of public administration at the American University in Cairo and head of the Center for Studies on Nonproliferation in the Middle East.

Our Middle East sources confirmed that Fahmy is the live wire of Egyptian policy in these areas.

Obama further promised Netanyahu that any US deal with Egypt or any other country on the nuclear issue would stipulate that Israel would not be called on to alter its nuclear stance until such time as a comprehensive Middle East peace is attained between Israel and its neighbors and all countries of the region dispose of their conventional and WMD arsenals.
Our sources in Jerusalem say that, even though Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed President Obama’s assurances and thanked him, there is still great unease in Israel’s ruling circles over the very fact that the administration is actually discussing Israel’s nuclear issues with Egypt.

Uncomfortable Truths and the Times Square Attack | STRATFOR.

May 6, 2010 | 0856 GMT

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By Ben West and Scott Stewart

Faisal Shahzad, the first suspect arrested for involvement in the failed May 1 Times Square bombing attempt, was detained just before midnight on May 3 as he was attempting to depart on a flight from Kennedy International Airport in New York. Authorities removed Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, from an Emirates Airlines flight destined for Dubai. On May 4, Shahzad appeared at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan for his arraignment.

Authorities say that Shahzad is cooperating and that he insists he acted alone. However, this is contradicted by reports that the attack could have international links. On Feb. 3, Shahzad returned from a trip to Pakistan, where, according to the criminal complaint, he said he received militant training in Waziristan, a key hub of the main Pakistani Taliban rebel coalition, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Authorities are reportedly seeking three other individuals in the United States in connection with the May 1 Times Square bombing attempt.

Investigative efforts at this point are focusing on identifying others possibly connected to the plot and determining whether they directed Shahzad in the bombing attempt or merely enabled him. From all indications, authorities are quickly collecting information on additional suspects from their homes and telephone-call records, and this is leading to more investigations and more suspects. While the May 1 attempt was unsuccessful, it came much closer to killing civilians in New York than other recent attempts, such as the Najibullah Zazi case in September 2009 and the Newburgh plot in May 2009. Understanding how Shahzad and his possible associates almost pulled it off is key to preventing future threats.

Shahzad’s Mistakes

U.S. Department of Justice via Getty Images

(click here to enlarge image)

While the device left in the Nissan Pathfinder parked on 45th Street, just off Times Square, ultimately failed to cause any damage, the materials present could have caused a substantial explosion had they been prepared and assembled properly. The bomb’s components were common, everyday products that would not raise undue suspicion when purchased — especially if they were bought separately. They included the following:

• Some 113 kilograms (250 pounds) of urea-based fertilizer. A diagram released by the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that the fertilizer was found in a metal gun locker in the back of the Pathfinder. The mere presence of urea-based fertilizer does not necessarily indicate that the materials in the gun locker composed a viable improvised explosive mixture, but urea-based fertilizer can be mixed with nitric acid to create urea nitrate, the main explosive charge used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (It is not known if the fertilizer in the Pathfinder had been used to create urea nitrate.) Urea nitrate is a popular improvised mixture that can be detonated by a blasting cap and does not require a high-explosive booster charge like ammonium nitrate does; 250 pounds of urea nitrate would be enough to destroy the Pathfinder completely and create a substantial blast effect. If detonated near a large crowd of people, such an explosion could produce serious carnage.
• Two 19-liter (5-gallon) containers of gasoline. If ignited, this fuel would have added an impressive fireball to the explosion but, in practical terms, would not have added much to the explosive effect of the device. Most of the damage would have been done by the urea nitrate. Reports indicate that consumer-grade fireworks (M-88 firecrackers) had been placed between the two containers of gasoline and were detonated, but they do not appear to have ruptured the containers and did not ignite the gasoline inside them. It appears that the firecrackers were intended to be the initiator for the device and were apparently the source of a small fire in the carpet upholstery of the Pathfinder. This created smoke that alerted a street vendor that something was wrong. The firecrackers likely would not have had sufficient detonation velocity to initiate urea nitrate.
• Three 75-liter (20-gallon) propane tanks. Police have reported that the tank valves were left unopened, which has led others to conclude that this was yet another mistake on the part of Shahzad. Certainly, opening the tanks’ valves, filling the vehicle with propane gas and then igniting a spark would have been one way to cause a large explosion. Another way would have been to use explosives (such as the adjacent fertilizer mixture or gasoline) to rupture the tanks, which would have created a large amount of force and fire since the propane inside the tanks was under considerable pressure. Shahzad may have actually been attempting to blast open the propane tanks, which would explain why the valves were closed. Propane tanks are commonly used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in many parts of the world. Even without detonating, the propane tanks would have become very large and dangerous projectiles if the fertilizer had detonated.

That none of these three forms of explosive and incendiary materials detonated indicates that the bombmaker was likely a novice and had problems with the design of his firing chain. While a detailed schematic of the firing chain has not been released, the bombmaker did not seem to have a sophisticated understanding of explosive materials and the techniques required to properly detonate them. This person may have had some rudimentary training in explosives but was clearly not a trained bombmaker. It is one thing to attend a class at a militant camp where you are taught how to use military explosives and quite another to create a viable IED from scratch in hostile territory.

However, the fact that Shahzad was apparently able to collect all of the materials, construct an IED (even a poorly designed one) and maneuver it to the intended target without being detected exhibits considerable progress along the attack cycle. Had the bombmaker properly constructed a viable device with these components and if the materials had detonated, the explosion and resulting fire likely would have caused a significant number of casualties given the high density and proximity of people in the area.

It appears that Shahzad made a classic “Kramer jihadist” mistake: trying to make his attack overly spectacular and dramatic. This mistake was criticized by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Nasir al-Wahayshi last year when he called for grassroots operatives to conduct simple attacks instead of complex ones that are more prone to failure. In the end, Shahzad (who was probably making his first attempt to build an IED by himself) tried to pull off an attack so elaborate that it failed to do any damage at all.

As STRATFOR has discussed for many years now, the devolution of the jihadist threat from one based primarily on al Qaeda the group to one emanating from a wider jihadist movement means that we will see jihadist attacks being carried out more frequently by grassroots or lone wolf actors. These actors will possess a lesser degree of terrorist tradecraft than the professional terrorists associated with the core al Qaeda group, or even regional jihadist franchises like the TTP. This lack of tradecraft means that these operatives are more likely to make mistakes and attempt attacks against relatively soft targets, both characteristics seen in the failed May 1 attack.

Jihadist Attack Models

Under heavy pressure since the 9/11 attacks, jihadist planners wanting to strike the U.S. mainland face many challenges. For one thing, it is difficult for them to find operatives capable of traveling to and from the United States. This means that, in many cases, instead of using the best and brightest operatives that jihadist groups have, they are forced to send whoever can get into the country. In September 2009, U.S. authorities arrested Najibullah Zazi, a U.S. citizen who received training at an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan in 2008 before returning to the United States to begin an operation that would involve detonating explosive devices on New York City subways.

Zazi’s journey likely raised red flags with authorities, who subsequently learned through communication intercepts of his intent to construct explosive devices. Zazi had no explosives training or experience other than what he had picked during his brief stint at the training camp in Pakistan, and he attempted to construct the devices only with the notes he had taken during the training. Zazi had difficulty producing viable acetone peroxide explosives, similar to what appears to have happened with Shahzad in his Times Square attempt. Zazi also showed poor tradecraft by purchasing large amounts of hydrogen peroxide and acetone in an attempt to make triacetone triperoxide, a very difficult explosive material to use because of its volatility. His unusual shopping habits raised suspicion and, along with other incriminating evidence, eventually led to his arrest before he could initiate his planned attack.

Other plots in recent years such as the Newburgh case as well as plots in Dallas and Springfield, Ill., all three in 2009, failed because the suspects behind the attacks reached out to others to acquire explosive material instead of making it themselves. (In the latter two cases, Hosam Smadi in Dallas and Michael Finton in Springfield unwittingly worked with FBI agents to obtain fake explosive material that they thought they could use to attack prominent buildings in their respective cities and were subsequently arrested.) In seeking help, they made themselves vulnerable to interception, and local and federal authorities were able to infiltrate the cell planning the attack and ensure that the operatives never posed a serious threat. Unlike these failed plotters, Shahzad traveled to Pakistan to receive training and used everyday materials to construct his explosive devices, thus mitigating the risk of being discovered.

A much more successful model of waging a jihadist attack on U.S. soil is the case of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in November 2009. Instead of traveling to Yemen or Pakistan for training, which would have aroused suspicion, Maj. Hasan used skills he already possessed and simple means to conduct his attack, something that kept his profile low (although he was under investigation for posting comments online seemingly justifying suicide attacks). Ultimately, Hasan killed more people with a handgun than the recently botched or thwarted attacks involving relatively complicated IEDs.

With AQAP leader al-Wahayshi advocating smaller and easier attacks against softer targets in the fall of 2009 (shortly before Maj. Hasan’s attack at Fort Hood), it appears that the tactic is making its way through jihadist circles. This highlights the risk that ideologically radicalized individuals (as Shahzad certainly appears to be) can still pose to the public, despite their seeming inability to successfully construct and deploy relatively complex IEDs.

Slipping Through the Cracks?

It is likely that U.S. authorities were aware of Shahzad due to his recent five-monthlong trip to Pakistan. Authorities may also have intercepted the telephone conversations that Shahzad had with people in Pakistan using a pre-paid cell phone (which are more anonymous but still traceable). Such activities usually are noticed by authorities, and we anticipate that there will be a storm in the media in the coming days and weeks about how the U.S. government missed signs pointing to Shahzad’s radicalization and operational activity. The witch hunt would be far more intense if the attack had actually succeeded — as it could well have. However, as we’ve noted in past attacks such as the July 7, 2005, London bombings, the universe of potential jihadists is so wide that the number of suspects simply overwhelms the government’s ability to process them all. The tactical reality is that the government simply cannot identify all potential attackers in advance and thwart every attack. Some suspects will inevitably fly under the radar.

This reality flies in the face of the expectation that governments somehow must prevent all terrorist attacks. But the uncomfortable truth in the war against jihadist militants is that there is no such thing as complete security. Given the diffuse nature of the threat and of the enemy, and the wide availability of soft targets in open societies, there is simply no intelligence or security service in the world capable of identifying every aspiring militant who lives in or enters a country and of pre-empting their intended acts of violence.

Syria gave advanced M-600 missiles to Hezbollah, defense officials claim – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Army intelligence worried by Lebanese militants’ growing rocket arsenal – but says Syria has a genuine desire to strike a peace deal with Israel.

By Jonathan Lis and Amos Harel

	A UN patrol in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah clashed with Israel in 2006
	Photo by: (Archive)

Syria has delivered advanced M600 rockets to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon within the past year, Israeli defense officials said on Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad: Israeli threats won’t stop Iran’s nuclear program – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

	Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks at a UN nuclear conference in News York, May 4, 2010
	Photo by: AP

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that his country would “definitely continue” its nuclear program despite Israeli hints at military action.

“Iran will definitely continue its path. You should not even doubt that we willcontinue our path. We’ll definitely continue our path,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

Asking if that meant Iran was playing with fire in light of Israel’s threat of a possible military strike, Ahmadinejad said it was not. “They’re not a factor, in our defense doctrine, we don’t even count them.”

Russia and China, veto-wielding members of the Security Council, have said they are willing to give Turkey and Brazil more time to resuscitate the nuclear fuel deal

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Iran claims new anti-cruise missile weapon

The development of the “Mesbah 1” (Lantern), a new air defence system for countering aircraft, cruise missiles, choppers and other low-altitude threats, was announced by Iran’s defence minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi Wednesday, May 5. It will go into operation in the near future. debkafile‘s military sources say that if Iran has indeed designed a weapon of this type and quality, it has come up with a powerful answer to US and Israeli cruise missiles, which pose the biggest threat to Iran’s nuclear facilities in a military strike.
Vahidi boasted that the Mesbah can fire 4,000 shots a minute, is very precise and can be operated by a smaller crew than similar artillery systems. He claimed it was also effective in tracing and shooting down unmanned aerial vehicles – drones.

The Iranian Air force is also reported to have received 10 new “Toofan” (Storm) attack helicopters based on the Bell AH-1K Sea Cobra design. After studying photographs, Western military sources reported the Iranian version has been heavily upgraded compared with the original. It has a narrower airframe for greater flexibility and is armed with M197 3-barrelled 20-mm “Gatling-type” cannon in the A/A49E turret. Its wing-stub stations carry a pair of 19-tube 70-mm rocket launchers. The rear section has a Vulcan-type 20-mm automatic cannon, and two clusters of 38 anti-tank 70-mm missiles.

Bullet-proof glass protects the pilot’s cockpit and weapons officer station, internal avionics have been revamped with the addition of a GPS and receiver in the nose, and a warning radar attached to the rear, with four antennae providing 360 degrees coverage and all electronics systems integrated.
debkafile‘s intelligence sources note that the Iranian Air Force’s Badr Base for light aircraft and helicopters in Esfahan, central Iran, accommodates 1,000 aerial military vehicles of different types, and is the biggest air base of its kind in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

Times Square Car Bomb Case Widens With Arrests in Two Countires – NYTimes.com.

[The US dodged this Islamic bullet not through our security measures but through terrorist incompetence.  While authorities take bows and kudos for apprehending the bomber after the fact, the press ignores that the plot was executed from beginning to end without the knowledge of our intelligence agencies.  This should hardly build confidence… Joseph Wouk]

By MARK MAZZETTI, SABRINA TAVERNISE and JACK HEALY

This article is by Mark Mazzetti, Sabrina Tavernise and Jack Healy.

A Pakistani-American man arrested in the failed Times Square car bombing has admitted his role in the attempted attack and said he received explosives training in Pakistan, the authorities said Tuesday.

The man, Faisal Shahzad, 30, was arrested as he tried to flee the country in a Dubai-bound jet late Monday. Hours later, there were reports that seven or eight people had been arrested in Pakistan, as officials in both countries sought to determine the origins and scope of the plot.

Mr. Shahzad was charged on Tuesday with several terrorism-related crimes. American intelligence officials said that while any ties Mr. Shahzad had to international terrorist groups remained murky, investigators were strongly looking at possible links to the Pakistani Taliban in the attempted attack on Saturday.

If the role is confirmed, it would be the group’s first effort to attack the United States and the first sign of the group’s ability to strike targets beyond Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban is a different organization from the Taliban groups that the United States is battling in Afghanistan.

Mr. Shahzad’s ability to board an international flight despite being the target of a major terrorism investigation was the result of at least two lapses in the response by the government and the airline, Emirates.

Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan who lived in Bridgeport, Conn., was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and other federal charges, several related to explosives. He was interrogated without initially being read his Miranda rights under a public safety exception, and he provided what the Federal Bureau of Investigation called “valuable intelligence and evidence.”

He continued talking after being read his rights, the F.B.I. said. The authorities charged him as a civilian, but he did not appear in court and no hearing has been scheduled.

“It is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in the country,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a news conference on Tuesday in Washington.

Mr. Shahzad booked a ticket on his way to Kennedy Airport and bought it with cash when he got there, officials said. He had boarded the plane but was taken off before it taxied away.

Investigators had been trying to find Mr. Shahzad after determining that he was the man who bought a Nissan Pathfinder from a Connecticut woman last month and had parked it just off Broadway on Saturday night packed with gasoline, propane, fertilizer and fireworks. No one was hurt, but officials said the bomb could have been deadly on the crowded streets if it had ignited.

Officials said Mr. Shahzad had been placed on a no-fly list on Monday afternoon, but they declined to explain how he had been allowed to board the plane.

An Isuzu Trooper that Mr. Shahzad had apparently driven to the airport was found in a parking lot. Inside the Trooper, investigators discovered a Kel-Tec 9-millimeter pistol, with a folding stock and a rifle barrel, along with several spare magazines of ammunition, an official said. Fearing the Izuzu might be rigged to explode, officials briefly cordoned off the area around it.

All of the passengers were taken off the plane, and they, their luggage and the Boeing 777 were screened before the flight was allowed to depart, about seven hours late, at 6:29 a.m. Two other men were also interviewed by the authorities but released, according to one law enforcement official.

Mr. Holder said Mr. Shahzad had been providing “useful information” to federal investigators since he was pulled off the plane. Besides saying that he had received training in Pakistan, Mr. Shahzad said he had acted alone, a claim that was still being investigated.

In Pakistan, developments unfolded quickly. Officials identified one of those arrested as Tauhid Ahmed and said he had been in touch with Mr. Shahzad through e-mail and had met him either in the United States or in the Pakistani port city of Karachi.

Another man arrested, Muhammad Rehan, had spent time with Mr. Shahzad during a recent visit there, Pakistani officials said. Mr. Rehan was arrested in Karachi just after morning prayers at a mosque known for its links with the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Investigators said Mr. Rehan told them that he had rented a pickup truck and driven with Mr. Shahzad to the northwestern city of Peshawar, where they stayed from July 7 to July 22, 2009. The account could not be independently verified. Mr. Shahzad spent four months in Pakistan last year, the authorities said.

Pakistani officials promised to aid the United States “in bringing such culprits to justice,” the Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, said in a telephone interview as he announced the seven or eight arrests.

Mr. Shahzad is believed to be originally from Kashmir and is among a handful of Pakistani-Americans who have recently faced terrorism accusations in the United States or abroad.

The Pakistani Taliban on Sunday released a video taking credit for the Times Square attack, but American officials cautioned on Tuesday that the investigation was still in its early stages, and said it could take days before enough evidence emerged to point to any one group for its role in the plot.

For months, terrorist groups have pledged to exact revenge for the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in the Pakistani mountains.

Last year, a C.I.A. drone killed the Pakistani Taliban’s leader, Baitullah Mehsud, and American intelligence officials believe that the group has over the years cultivated close ties to Qaeda leaders. Any ties between Mr. Shahzad and Pakistani militants could add new urgency to American demands that Pakistan root out the web of Al Qaeda and local groups that use the tribal areas to strike at United States troops in Afghanistan and other targets farther abroad.

The United States, which has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars in counterterrorism aid since 2001, has pressed Pakistan to crack down on militants inside its borders, and an American official said Pakistan’s response to this attempted attack would have serious implications for the country’s strategic relationship with the United States.

A detailed 10-page court document outlining the criminal charges describes new details about Mr. Shahzad’s actions in the days leading up to the attempted attack, including how he bought the Nissan Pathfinder that would ultimately help lead investigators to him.

It says that Customs and Border Protection records show that Mr. Shahzad returned from Pakistan on Feb. 3, 2010, after a five-month visit there, flying back on a one-way ticket from Pakistan. He told customs inspectors, the complaint said, that he was visiting his parents.

The complaint, sworn out by Andrew P. Pachtman, an F.B.I. agent assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, says that Mr. Shahzad used a prepaid cellular telephone to contact a Connecticut woman who had placed an online advertisement to sell the vehicle. It described how the phone led investigators to him.

He received four calls from a number in Pakistan hours before he bought the vehicle, the complaint says.

The prepaid cellular phone, according to the complaint, was also used to call a fireworks store in Pennsylvania that sells M-88 firecrackers like those that were used as part of the bomb. The phone was last used on April 28, according to the complaint.

In the Connecticut towns of Shelton and Bridgeport, where Mr. Shahzad had lived, residents described Mr. Shahzad as quiet and unremarkable. One of the last to see him was his landlord, Stanislaw Chomiak.

About three months ago, Mr. Shahzad signed a one-year lease on a second-floor two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeport. Mr. Chomiak usually saw Mr. Shahzad only when the rent was due, but Mr. Chomiak described his tenant as a nice guy who furnished his apartment sparsely and had claimed he made a living selling jewelry in New Haven.

But the evening of the attempted bombing in Times Square, the landlord received a phone call from Mr. Shahzad, who said he was riding the train back from New York City and needed to be let into his apartment because he had lost his keys. Mr. Chomiak lent Mr. Shahzad spare keys, with the two men agreeing to meet up the next day to return them, Mr. Chomiak said.

“He looked nervous, but I thought, of course he’s nervous, he just lost his keys,” Mr. Chomiak, 44, said in an interview at his home, about 15 miles outside of Bridgeport. The men did not end up meeting until about 4 p.m. on Monday, and Mr. Shahzad returned the keys. It was the last time the landlord saw him, and less than eight hours later, Mr. Shahzad was boarding the flight to Dubai.

An official in Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said Mr. Shahzad came to Pakistan in April 2009 and departed on Aug. 5 on an Emirates flight.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg called the attempted bombing “an act that was designed to kill innocent civilians and designed to strike fear into the hearts of Americans.”

In March, a Pakistani-American man, David C. Headley, pleaded guilty to helping plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. And last December, five young men from Virginia, two of them with Pakistani backgrounds, were arrested in Pakistan on accusations of plotting attacks against targets there and in Afghanistan.

At his news conference, Mr. Bloomberg warned against any backlash against Pakistanis or Muslims in New York, saying, “We will not tolerate any bias.”

“Hezbollah’s scuds are only the tip of the iceberg”.

”Hezbollah has in its hands an arsenal of thousands of every type and range of rockets”. Photo: IDF Spokesperson

Brig. Gen. Yossi Beiditz briefed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. According to Beiditz, the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah is not considered the smuggling of weapons to Lebanon – it is an official and organized transfer.

Arnon Ben-Dror

The head of the Research Department in the Intelligence Directorate, Brig. Gen. Yossi Beiditz, met on Tuesday (May 4) with the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Israeli Parliament, and discussed publicized reports that have been issued recently about the transfer of scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah.

“Syria plays a significant role in the ever-growing rocket arsenal in the hands of Hezbollah,” said Brig. Gen. Beiditz. “The transfer of weapons to Hezbollah occurs consistently from Syria and is organized by the Syrian and Iranian regimes. Therefore this is not considered the smuggling of weapons to Lebanon- it is an official and organized transfer.”

The head of the Research Department confirmed that long-range missiles have been recently transferred from Syria to Hezbollah, and said that “this is just the tip of the iceberg,” and that “already today Hezbollah has in its hands an arsenal of thousands of every type and range of rockets, including long-range and more efficient solid-fuel missiles.”

According to Beiditz, “the long ranges of the missiles in the hands of Hezbollah enable them to place their launchers deep inside of Lebanon, and they cover ranges that are much longer than what we have seen in the past. Hezbollah in 2006 was different from Hezbollah in 2010 from the standpoint of their military capabilities which has developed more.”

He continued to say that “Syria continues to march on two different paths without being forced on the international arena to choose between them. On one side Syria is improving her relations with the West, with the Arab states, and with Turkey, and is returning to a role of influence within Lebanon. At the same time, Syria is deepening her strategic and operational cooperation with Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinian terror organizations.”

Iran has overcome technological obstacles in creating a nuclear bomb

Brig. Gen. Beiditz also covered Iran’s nuclear program. “The Iranians continue to promote their nuclear program and they are accumulating abilities that enable them to attack with nuclear weapons at any moment they decide to,” he said. “From this moment, everything depends on their decision. If in the past arriving at nuclear capabilities was dependent on overcoming technological obstacles, today, in Iran, it is dependent on their decision alone to bring about the creation of a nuclear bomb.”

Brig. Gen. Beiditz also spoke about the travel warnings to Sinai which were publicized recently by the Counter Terrorism Bureau. “On the eve of Passover there was an actual warning related to the activities of Bedouins in Sinai where they were supposed to kidnap Israelis spending time there, and transfer them to the military wing of Hamas.  There was a plan of cooperation between them. The publicity deterred the groups, but there is still the possibility that Bedouins acting as subcontractors will kidnap Israelis and transfer them over to Hamas.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Arab Countries Hedge Bets on American Nuclear Resolve.

“Chutzpah” is one of the Yiddish language’s greatest contributions to civilization. The quintessential example is when a defendant, having just murdered his parents in cold-blood, throws himself on the mercy of the Court because he’s a double orphan!

In our time no one does chutzpah better than Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and nowhere does he do it better than at the United Nations.

Last year, serial human rights abuser, “Wipe Israel from the Map” Ahmadinejad keynoted the UN Human Rights Council’s Durban II Conference in Geneva. At another appearance at the General Assembly in New York, he flirted with Holocaust Denial and boasted about Tehran’s 9,000 nuclear centrifuges, making fissionable material in contravention of International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) rules and UN Security Council resolutions.

Now, given the spotlight as the only head of state to attend the opening session of the UN’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference, the irrepressible Iranian president castigates the “Zionist regime” with “acts of terror” and claims that the U.S. and Israel have created “major terrorist networks” that threaten the world with nuclear blackmail. And the winner is? Ahmadenijad — with 168 nations whose diplomats provided polite applause after his latest harangue.

As with his previous UN appearances, there’s always a method behind Ahmadenijad’s “meshugas” (Yiddish for madness). Even before the opening gavel, came word of a significant victory for Iran. Egypt, Tehran’s historic Mideast archrival, which fears and loathes a nuclear Iran, has already telegraphed it will seek to spin the nuclear forum’s focus onto Israel. Ambassador Maged Abdel Aziz told reporters last week that “[s]uccess in dealing with Iran will depend to a large extent on how successfully we deal with the establishment of a nuclear-free zone.” Egypt’s working paper will urge NPT members to “renew their resolve to undertake, individually and collectively, all necessary measures aimed at… the accession by Israel to the Treaty as soon as possible as a non-nuclear weapon state.”

Worse still, there are hints that the U.S. may follow up Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller’s demand last year that Israel go public about its defensive nuclear arsenal and sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would break forty years of consistent U.S. policy not to paint Israel as the Mideast’s atomic bad guy at the very moment Tehran is planning its nuclear breakout.

Behind their public anti-Israel bluster, Arab leaders privately tell us they’re losing sleep not because of the Jewish state but because of the real-time nuclear threat unfolding next door in Iran, which, they fear, America lacks the resolve to stop. Lee Smith in his new book, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, argues that the key to understanding the Mideast mindset is captured by this Osama Bin Laden statement: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”

Witnessing North Korea’s and Iran’s defiance of the U.S. — as well as the Obama’s Administration’s hint it may join demands that Israel unilaterally surrender its nuclear deterrent — Egyptians, Saudis, Kuwaitis and other regional players may use anti-Israel rhetoric to hide their real purpose of distancing themselves from a weakened “American horse.” Indeed, Israelis have just published a study that Saudi Arabia as well as Egypt — with Pakistani help — may be ready to develop their own nuclear weapons arsenals.

Mideast proliferation is surely not the purpose of Obama’s new “soft diplomacy;” but Washington’s delayed, watered down, and ineffective sanctions program, coupled with diplomatic signals more designed to pressure Israel than Iran, serve only to embolden, not rein in, Tehran. Demoralized Arab friends may feel they have no choice but to “go nuclear” to counter Iran, though under a smokescreen of anti-Israel rhetoric.

Israel’s commitment not to threaten the region with nuclear attack or blackmail has been unwavering for over forty years. In the 1960s, Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser pledged to secure “atomic weapons at any costs” and threatened to “drive Israel into the sea.” The 1967 Arab-Israeli War was the result. Rather than wait around to see if Nasser was serious about getting atomic weapons, Israel developed its own deterrent nuclear capacity, pledging never to be the first to introduce nukes in the region. It held fast to its “no first use” policy, even in 1973 when a combined Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack on Yom Kippur threatened its very survival.

Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, its most ardent advocate for peace with the Palestinians, is also the “father” of Israel’s secret nuclear efforts. In April 1963, he told President Kennedy that “Israel would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.” Long before the election of Barak Obama, Peres personally told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Israel would be willing to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty within two years after the establishment of “regional peace.” Peres believes that it was Israel’s unstated but obvious nuclear capabilities that helped set the stage for peace — the Jewish state’s historic peace with Egypt.

President Obama claims to be a “realist” about the Mideast, but his ambiguous policy about Israel and regional deterrence is anything but. In pursuit of a “new day” for that ancient region, he should stop wasting precious political time and capital debasing the deterrence of democratic Israel. Instead, to stop the volatile region from becoming an armed nuclear camp, President Obama must demonstrate to the Arab world that Washington is still “the strong horse” with the will to thwart all-too-real nuclear threats from the tyrants in Tehran.

This essay was co-authored with Dr. Harold Brackman, a historian who is a consultant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Bolton: Obama pressuring Israel on nukes.

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton expressed general concern Tuesday with the  US President Barack Obama’s pressure on Israel to rid the country of nuclear weapons.