Syria claims Israel hit 7 Hezbullah targets, Hezbullah denies it, Israel has no comment
It may have been another explosive night in
Damascus.
Syrian media claimed that the Israeli Air Force targeted at least than
seven Hezbollah targets in the country's Qalamoun region late on
Saturday night.
Hezbollah denied that there were any explosions at its bases, according to a report by Israel's Channel 2 news.
The
IDF has not commented on the situation, but earlier in the evening,
released a statement saying that "in the next few hours, explosions will
be heard in the Upper Galilee. The explosions are routine, were planned
ahead of time and are not connected to a security incident."
Hezbullah has threatened to avenge terrorist Samir al-Kuntar's death. No way to determine what's truth here.
Labels: Hezbullah, Syria, weapons smuggling
In case you were wondering...
So the real reason for the flotilla was to open up a weapons passage... just like we said all along.
Labels: flotilla of fools, Gaza, weapons smuggling
With friends like this... Tony Blair negotiating end to Gaza 'blockade' with Hamas
Recently departed 'quartet' (remember them?) envoy Tony Blair has been
negotiating an end to the Gaza 'blockade' with Hamas' Khaled Meshaal.
Tony Blair met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal twice in Doha to discuss ways to end the Gaza siege, the Middle East Eye website has reported, citing unnamed sources.
The website reported on Monday that the pair last met prior to Blair stepping down from his post as the representative of the Quartet of Middle East power brokers in May.
It was reported that they discussed ways to end the Gaza siege,
including the possibility of a rolling ceasefire, and that Blair's
negotiations were being supported by the UK, the United States and the
European Union. Two Arab states and Israel were also reportedly aware of
the discussions.
Though Blair has stepped down from his post with the Quartet, the discussions are reportedly continuing.
Neither the recognition of Israel, nor the decommissioning of Hamas'
arsenal, would be a requirement for any potential deal, the website
reported.
Wonder which two Arab states? I'd bet on Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Gaza blockade, Hamas, IDF, Middle East quartet, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, weapons smuggling
Deja vu all over again?
A new
flotilla of fools may be heading toward Gaza at the end of the month, threatening a repeat of the
Mavi Marmara incident three years ago in which
IDF soldiers were attacked with
deadly weapons and killed ten Turkish IHH terrorists in response. This is from the first link.
"Freedom Flotilla 3,"
a maritime challenge to Israel's legal naval blockade on the coastal
enclave of Gaza which is controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization,
is preparing to embark in the final week of June and threatens to
potentially cause a flare-up like the infamous 2010 Mavi Marmara.
Mazen Kahil, head of the European Campaign to Break the Siege on Gaza, told the Hamas journal Palestine on Saturday that the flotilla ships are currently in the Mediterranean Sea.
The ships are waiting to join the Swedish ship Marianne, which
recently anchored in Italy, on the open sea and from there continue as a
unified group towards Gaza, where they intend to confront the Israeli
Navy - potentially with lethal force as was seen in the Marmara.
Kahil detailed that senior public figures, including former Tunisian President Muncef
Marzouki, members of the European Parliament, journalists, athletes,
artists, as well as radical leftist Israelis will be on board.
He claimed that symbolic humanitarian materials will be loaded on
board the ships to demand Gaza's naval entry be opened - despite the
fact that Israel is allowing hundreds of truckloads of humanitarian and
construction materials to enter Gaza border crossings every day, even as
Hamas rebuilds its terror tunnels for the next round of fighting.
The equipment to be loaded on the ships include solar receptors, children's medicines and medical equipment.
Leaders of the flotilla estimate that Israel will once again block
the naval breach and defend its maritime blockade, but they expressed
optimism that they would be able to eventually reach Gaza and open a
water route for Hamas that Israel has warned would serve as a port for
Iran on the Mediterranean.
In the Mavi Marmara incident, the IDF waited way too long to get the word out on what happened, but when they did get the word out, they did it well. If this happens again, we can only hope they will get the word out faster (hint, hint).
Labels: flotilla of fools, Gaza blockade, IDF, IHH, Islamic terrorism, Mavi Marmara, weapons smuggling
US Naval forces seeking Iranian arms boarded cargo ship in Red Sea
US Naval forces from the USS Sterett (pictured) in the Red Sea
boarded a cargo ship they thought was delivering Iranian arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this month (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News).
According to the Wall Street Journal:
U.S. naval forces in the Red Sea this month boarded a freighter
suspected of delivering Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen,
American military officials said.
The destroyer USS Sterett’s search of the Panamanian-flagged Saisaban
on April 1 came up empty. But the officials said it marked the U.S.
Navy’s first boarding operation in an expanding campaign to ensure Iran
doesn’t supply game-changing weapons such as surface-to-air missiles
that would threaten Saudi-led airstrikes on the Houthis.
COMMENTARY: Publicized USN interdiction efforts such as these serve to
put Iran on notice that potential arms deliveries by sea in support of
Ansarullah will actively be pursued.
Ship details for Panamanian-flagged Saisaban cargo ship... (continue reading
here).
Because after all, if the sanctions go away, someone will still have to try to stop Iranian arms smuggling....
Labels: Iran, Iran sanctions regime, US Navy, weapons smuggling, Yemen
Egypt intercepts Grad rockets being smuggled from Gaza to Sinai
Oh my....
Remember all those years when we couldn't get Egypt to do anything to stop the weapons smuggling?
Labels: Egypt, Gaza, Grad rocket, Hamas, Sinai, weapons smuggling
Hamas' best weapons depots
I am sure that those of you who live abroad have at some point heard Israel attacked because we attacked a mosque or a 'place of worship.' Well, there's a very good reason why Israel attacks mosques: Because
Hamas uses them as weapons depots.
Hamas has been hiding its headquarters and arsenals in a new type of
building, a special report from the Center for Intelligence and
Counterterrorism revealed Tuesday.
Mosques and minarets in Gaza have been converted to centers of war,
according to the report, which was penned after Hamas officials leveled accusations
against Israel after the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck the mosque in
the Alfaruk Nuseirat "refugee camp" in central Gaza.
...
Hamas officials claim that attacks on the mosques are "barbaric," masking their uses as terror centers.
"This is the true face of the Israeli Occupation," Dr. Hassan Aldifi,
Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments in Gaza, insisted to foreign
media. Sheikh Yousef Aldais, Religious Endowments Minister in Ramallah,
called the attacks "war crimes" and complained over "religious and
cultural persecution."
However, as the report established, Hamas regularly uses mosques to mask terrorist activity.
"The mosque in Alfaruk is no exception," the report states. "Hamas
and other terrorist organizations systematically use them for military
and political uses throughout Gaza."
Their conversion to terror centers even finds legitimization in Islam, according to the report.
"The root of the military use for mosques is found in the views of
both Sunni clerics and Shi'ite officials, among them Sheikh Aldais, that
the use of mosques for jihad (a holy war) is legitimate," it says.
"This perception is based on Islamic tradition (hadith) which
states that the Prophet Mohammed, himself, used a mosque for military
and political purposes - not just as a house of worship."
I'm shocked. So totally shocked. You mean the lying 'prophet' did that? Oh my....
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, mosque, Operation Protective Edge, weapons smuggling
What was on Iran's terror ship?
More
here.
Labels: Gaza, Iran, Islamic terrorism, weapons smuggling
Range map for intercepted rockets
The rockets seized from Iran's terror shipment to Gaza would have put over
5 MILLION Israelis in danger.
Labels: Gaza, Iran, rockets, weapons smuggling
Final inventory of weapons ship posted
The big show won't be until Monday, when the government hopes to bring most of the foreign diplomats in the country to Eilat, but the IDF has already posted its
final inventory of the weapons discovered on the Klos-C - the Iranian weapons ship that was intercepted off the coast of Sudan this past week.
After detailed analysis carried out by the Engineering Corps, the IDF
found 40 M-302 rockets, with a range of between 90 to 160 kilometers,
hidden in crates.
The Klos C also carried 180 120mm. mortar shells and some 400,000 7.62mm. bullets.
“These
are advanced weapons that were intended to threaten the security of
millions of Israeli civilians. The IDF will continue in its mission to
prevent arms smuggling across the Middle East to various terrorist
organizations, under Iranian cover and funding,” the military said in a
statement.
Before being intercepted,
the ship was heading for Port Sudan, where the Iranian Quds Force had
planned to pick up the rockets and move them overland via Egypt and
into Gaza through smuggling tunnels, the IDF determined.
Thank God the IDF was able to stop this.
Labels: Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Islamic Jihad, Sudan, weapons shipment, weapons smuggling
Former Navy chief: 'We have answers to the Yakhont'
Every time I post about Iran smuggling weapons to Hezbullah via Syria, a weapons system that figures prominently in the post seems to be the
Yakhont land-to-sea missile, a missile for which Israel is presumed to have no answer. Except that former Israel Navy chief Eliezer Marom says that
Israel has defenses in place against the Yakhont.
Describing the Yakhont as the most advanced missile of its kind in the
world, Marom said the West does not know very much about the weapon,
which flies at low altitude “right over the sea,” reaching speeds of
between Mach 2 and Mach 3 (up to three times the speed of sound).
With
most other missiles in the Yakhont’s group achieving subsonic speed at
most, the Yakhont represents a new type of threat, giving the navy
between half and a third of the time to respond compared to other
threats, Marom said.
He warned that no defense is foolproof.
“Israel
has answers for these missiles, and these are being developed all of
the time,” Marom, who completed his term as navy chief in 2011, added.
“The more advanced the missile is, the less percentage of defenses
available. This is a big challenge to the navy.
Additionally, with a range of 300 kilometers, it can reach every location on the Israeli coast.”
Should
Hezbollah come to possess an operational arsenal of Yakhont missiles,
it would be able to target Israeli gas drilling rigs in the
Mediterranean, civilian shipping, and ports.
Err.... Those answers don't sound really definitive, do they?
Labels: Hezbullah, Iran, Israel Navy, Lebanon, Syria, weapons smuggling, Yakhont land to sea missile
Boo. Hoo. Hezbullah terrorists in Nigeria complain about Mossad interrogation
Two Hezbullah terrorists who were arrested in connection with a huge arms cache in Nigeria complained in court on Monday that they were interrogated '
roughly' by agents of Israel's Mossad.
Testifying in a Nigerian court on Monday, Fawaz was quote by AFP as
saying that he had been interrogated by six "crude and nasty" Mossad
agents over 14 days.
"They handcuffed my hands behind my back for
days. I lost count because they did not allow me to sleep for several
days...I was interrogated in Arabic. I asked to be interrogated in
English, but they refused. Most of them are weak in English. They are
not Europeans, but Israelis."
Fawaz, who denied being a member of
Hezbollah in his testimony on Monday, added that the alleged Mossad
agents "asked me about my link with Hezbollah, but they concentrated
more on Lebanon -- whether I knew if there are weapons stored in the
south of Lebanon or the identities of people who have been trained by
Hezbollah."
Thahini, who told the court that he was no longer a
member of Hezbollah, said that he had been denied sleep for five days by
the alleged Mossad interrogators. He said that he knew by their accents
that they were Israelis, according to AFP.
Both suspects denied
any knowledge of the arms cache or a terror plot. AFP reported that the
trial was adjourned until September 30 after both the prosecution and
defense concluded their cases.
No waterboarding? No sticking their heads in bags with the faint smell of vomit? Heck, they got off easy as far as I'm concerned.
UPDATE 1:13 PM
Much, much more
here.
Labels: Hezbullah, Mossad, Nigeria, weapons smuggling
Iran builds a terror network in Africa
I've reported several
times on this blog about
Iran's and
Hezbullah's
operations in
Latin America and in the
Republic of
Sudan (also
here and
here). But Iran has also made inroads all across Africa that have
contributed significantly to its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Iran’s experiences in Sudan demonstrate how traditional diplomacy is
subordinated to the Islamic Republic’s boarder, asymmetrical goals.
Sudan’s Islamist National Congress Party (NCP)-led government signed a military cooperation agreement with Iran in 2008; according to The Telegraph, the IRGC maintained
a base in Al Fashr, Darfur, as recently as September of 2011. The
Conflict Armaments Research report strongly suggests that Iranian
ammunition was used in at least some of the atrocities committed by
Khartoum-allied militias during the conflict in Darfur, and that Sudan
was a transit point for Iranian ammunition that eventually made its way
to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, on the other side of Africa.
This relationship is widely resented within Sudan itself. A
significant faction within Sudan’s notoriously divided regime is set
against a continued relationship with Iran, and in November of last
year, foreign minister Ali Karti spoke out
against the docking of Iranian warships in the Red Sea city of Port
Sudan. According to one East Africa-based analyst who works frequently
in Khartoum, the Sudanese government views its alliance with Iran as
purely opportunistic. “It’s a very self-interested relationship,” he
says. “In its propaganda, the NCP will talk about the infidel west, the
Zionists, the communists, the atheists — and they will put the Shia in
that list as well.”
For many Sudanese, the Yarmouk incident only demonstrated the cost of
Sudan’s conscription into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by its
Iranian allies—a conflict which has nothing to do with Sudan’s own
already-shaky internal affairs. “A lot of Sudanese are very upset, but
not at the actual Israeli strike,” the analyst said. “They’re upset
about the fact that the government is involving themselves in something
that’s a lot bigger than what Sudan can handle.” Amongst some of Sudan’s
leaders, and a significant part of its populace, Iran is an unwelcome
ally. Even a fellow pariah state — truly an ally of last resort—harbors
little real enthusiasm for the Islamic Republic and its policies.
But Iran has gotten exactly what it needs out of Sudan, regardless of
how facile and opportunistic the ties between the two countries really
are. Sudan is a beachhead for the IRGC — a transit point for weaponry
that allows Hezbollah to aid in the Assad regime’s survival, and Hamas
to rain Fajr 5s on the majority of Israel’s civilian population. It
doesn’t matter that Sudanese resent the bombing of their capital city,
or that Sudan is under international sanctions, or that Iran’s
relationship with such a problematic country is liable to deepen
perceptions of the Islamic Republic’s international isolation. All
across the continent, Iran’s expansionist foreign policy is in direct
conflict with its economic and soft power outreach—and Iran has
succeeded is using Africa to advance its interests anyway.
South Africa, for instance, seems at first glance like a signal
Iranian failure. Africa’s largest economy has totally caved to American
and E.U. pressure on Iranian oil purchases, even despite the
traditionally left-leaning foreign policy of the ruling African National
Congress. In early June, the country’s Department of Energy announced
that it had totally cut off its oil trade with Iran, and Trevor Houser
of the Rhodium Group, which tracks the effects of sanctions on Iran’s
oil sales, confirmed by email that “South African customs has not
recorded any oil imports from Iran for several months now.”
Iran’s oil trade with South Africa has evaporated, but the Islamic
Republic scored a crucial consolation prize: a major investment from
South African cell phone giant MTN, along with a raft of favors from the
South African government. According to a civil complaint filed in
District of Columbia federal court, MTN elbowed Turkcell, a Turkish
competitor, out of a 49% stake in an Iranian joint venture called
Irancell by “promising Iran that MTN could deliver South Africa’s vote
at the International Atomic Energy Agency, promising Iran defense
equipment otherwise prohibited by national and international laws, and
the outright bribery of high-level government officials in both Iran and
South Africa.”
The suit alleges that between 2003 and 2005, MTN won its Iranian
license through a series of lucrative kickbacks. These consisted of straightforward bribes
paid to Iranian officials, although the suit presents strong evidence
that South Africa’s pro-Iran votes at the IAEA between 2005 and 2008
were a quid pro quo for the Islamic Republic’s approval of MTN’s
Irancell investment. The complaint boasted over 60 pages of
documentation, including damning internal emails leaked by an employee
at MTN’s Tehran offices. It goes into specific detail about vehicles and
military equipment the South Africans would provide to Iran if MTN were
awarded the Irancell stake, a list which included “Rooivalk helicopters
(based on the U.S. Apache platform), frequency hopping encrypted
military radios, sniper rifles, G5 howitzers, canons…and other defense
articles.” (The weapons were never delivered, and the Turkcell case was
withdrawn in May of 2013–but only because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a
month earlier that international corporate civil suits could no longer
be tried in U.S. court).
The scandal has resulted in no criminal prosecutions in South Africa.
MTN still owns nearly half of Irancell, an arrangement that nets the
company over $117 million
a year. Irancell’s Iranian owner is a holding company whose investors
include Iran Electronics Industries, a government-connected electronics
and defense company that has been under U.S. sanctions
since September of 2008. Iran and the IRGC are still leveraging their
relationship with South Africa, even after the collapse of the
companies’ oil trade. And according to Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies, the country is “a very hospitable place for
Iranian sanctions-busting.” In early June, the U.S. Treasury Department added 37 Iranian front companies to its sanctions list. Three were based in South Africa.
This pattern—in which Iran scrapes for asymmetrical gains within a
challenging diplomatic environment, and in spite of its own internally
divided conventional diplomacy—repeated itself in Nigeria. In October of
2010, Nigerian authorities scored the largest seizure of an Iranian
weapons shipment in African history, when a container ship carrying
crates of rocket launchers and heavy mortars was impounded in the port
of Lagos. This embarrassment hardly ended Iran’s efforts in the country.
In June of 2013, a Hezbollah cell was uncovered in
the northern Nigerian city of Kano. And Iran has an asset in Nigeria
that’s arguably more valuable than a foothold for its Lebanese proxies:
Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, a radical Iranian-trained Shi’ite cleric and a
promoter of Iranian state ideology in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous
country.
...
But perhaps the most startling Iranian success in Africa has to do
with its pursuit of the ultimate asymmetrical objective: a nuclear
weapons capability. Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe inked a
uranium agreement with Iran in 2011, and Ahmadinejad visited Niger, the
world’s fourth-largest uranium producer, late in his second term as the
Islamic Republic’s president. A 2006 Wikileaks cable asserts that
Iran had smuggled Congolese uranium through ports in Tanzania. As for
Tanzania—its government has proven remarkably tolerant of Iranian
tankers operating under Tanzanian registration
in order to evade the oil sanctions regime. Tanzania is a close enough
U.S. ally to warrant a visit from Barack Obama during his July, 2013
trip to Africa. Iran can get what it needs even from African countries
with established, pro-western bona fides—and despite an almost total
absence of real friends in the continent.
As with its nuclear program, Iran has found its way around the
obstructions that diplomacy and statecraft are constantly throwing in
its path. Despite the pinch of international sanctions, and setbacks
like the Stuxnet computer virus, Iran has increased the number of its
operating uranium centrifuges, along with its stockpile of fissile
material. Thanks to diplomatic stalling tactics, like the ones perfected
by Iranian president-elect and former nuclear negotiator Hassan
Rowhani, and its patient, decades-long accumulation of nuclear
components, Iran has steadily progressed towards a nuclear weapons
capability —even in the face of a nearly-global effort at derailing
them.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: African, Ayatollah Khomeni, Hezbullah, Iran, Iranian nuclear threat, Islam, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, weapons smuggling
Reports: Israel attacked another weapons convoy headed for Hezbullah
Reports in Arab media, including in media affiliated with the Syrian rebels, claim that
Israel attacked another weapons convoy headed for Hezbullah from Syria on Saturday.
Arab media outlets and
websites affiliated with Syrian opposition forces reported on Saturday
that Israeli fighter jets seen flying over Quneitra bombed a weapons
convoy intended to reach Hezbollah.
It was also reported by Lebanese news outlet
El-Nashra that Israeli jets bombed weapons warehouses at Syrian army
outposts in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon.
A Syrian rebel group's Facebook page claimed that the weapons convoy carried warheads for long-range missiles.
Heh.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Bekaa Valley, Free Syrian Army, Hezbullah, Lebanon, Nusra Front, strategic weapons, Syria, Syrian army, weapons smuggling
Report: Jordan allowing Israeli drones to fly over its airspace to Syria
A report in France's
Le Figaro based on 'western intelligence sources' claims that Jordan is allowing the
overflight of Israeli drones on their way to Syria.
According to the report, Jordanian King Abdullah made the decision in
March during US President Barack Obama's visit to Jordan, which came
immediately after his first trip as president to Israel.
Le Figaro quoted the military
source as saying that the Israeli drones fly at night to avoid
detection. The source added that "the Syrians have Russian air defense
assets, but Israeli aircraft are difficult to detect and therefore
virtually immune to anti-aircraft measures."
According to the
source, the unmanned aerial vehicles are carrying out surveillance, but
"they are also armed and therefore can hit targets anywhere in Syria."
The Jordanian air corridors allow Israel to avoid accessing Syrian
airspace through southern Lebanon, which it fears could draw a response
from Hezbollah, Le Figaro added.
The instinct for self-preservation is an amazing thing.
Labels: al-Qaeda, Bashar al-Assad, drone, Free Syrian Army, IAF, Jordan, Jordanian King Abdullah, Syria, Syrian uprising, weapons smuggling
Hmmm... Why would a ship be carrying 45 tons of weapons off the coast of Egypt?
I want to put this in perspective. 45 tons is an awful lot of weapons. By comparison, the
Karine A, the weapons ship that was sent to the 'Palestinians' a number of years ago, which was considered huge, was carrying 50 tons.
Egyptian forces have forced a
Togolese ship carrying 45 tons of weapons into one of Egypt's Red Sea ports. But there are more unknowns than known facts about this ship.
Egyptian navy forces captured a Togo flagged ship carrying heavy
weapons as it entered Egyptian waters in the Red Sea late on Wednesday,
three security sources told Reuters on Thursday.
The ship spent a
week in international waters before entering Egyptian waters where the
ship was escorted into the port of Safaga, 569 km (356 miles) southeast
of Cairo, according to the sources.
The origin and facts surrounding the seizure remain unclear amid
contradicting reports. Now Lebanon reported that the ship was Iranian.
The
ship's cargo contained 45 ton of weapons including land mines,
automatic rifles, and hand grenades, according to the Aswat Masriya
website. The website also stated that Americans and Britons were among
the crew members.
According to the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm, Egypt arrested 14 crew members and a second boat with 4 people on board. Both boats are owned by a Ukranian security firm.
"The
weapons and ammunition seized in the vessel are linked to the nature of
their work and the tasks assigned to them to secure commercial
vessels," General staff spokesman Ahmed Mohamed Ali stated on his
Facebook page.
Ships often hire private security firms to defend themselves from Somali pirates.
I suspect we will be hearing a lot more about this one....
Labels: Egypt, Iran, weapons smuggling
Netanyahu to press Obama to stop Syrian weapons transfers
During President Obama's visit to Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu will press him to stop efforts by the Assad regime to
transfer weapons to Hezbullah.
The Obama administration
has made clear that it would intervene militarily only to stop the
Assad regime using its chemical or biological weapons or transferring
them to extremist groups. Israeli officials say they feel they have been
left alone to deal with the spread of Syria's arsenal of anti-aircraft
and anti-ship missiles.
Israeli warplanes destroyed a Syrian convoy at the end of January which Israeli officials say was taking Russian-made ground-to-air missiles to Hezbollah. Binyamin Netanyahu's
government has made clear that it would strike again in similar
circumstances. A senior official said: "Maybe it would be better if
Israel doesn't do it, but who is going to deal with it?
"These
missiles are not just a problem for Israel," the official added. "They
include [anti-ship] missiles, and who has the biggest navy in the
Mediterranean?" – a reference to the US. Israeli military and government
officials concede that it is unlikely that they will be able to
persuade Washington to take military action in Syria unless chemical
weapons are involved.
But they want to use Obama's scheduled five
hours of talks with Netanyahu on Wednesday evening to secure a guarantee
of US support for more pre-emptive Israeli strikes, even if they risk
provoking a cross-border conflict with Hezbollah. "What I hear over and
over again from Israeli generals is that another war with Hezbollah is
inevitable," a western diplomat said, pointing to estimates that the
Shia militia has up to 60,000 missiles hidden in southern Lebanese
villages. He said neither side had anything to gain from a new conflict
now.
Netanyahu will also try to get Obama to agree to move up the timetable for stopping Iran - an effort at which Netanyahu is even less likely to succeed.
Read the whole thing.
My guess is that the best we can hope for from Obama is diplomatic cover in the event that we need to attack Syria. There is no way Obama is going to get involved in a military conflict right now.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Binyamin Netanyahu, Free Syrian Army, Hezbullah, Syrian uprising, weapons smuggling
Shateri killed by Israel?
Iran has vowed to
take revenge against Israel for the killing of Revolutionary Guards' commander Hassan Shateri in Syria last week. And while that might seem like ordinary Muslim irrationality and Jew hatred at first, at least some Syrian rebels are claiming that
Israel really did kill Shateri. Israel has not commented.
Israel was responsible for the assassination of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander in Syria, a faction of Syrian rebels said Friday according to the Wall Street Journal.
According
to reports, the man was killed in his car while traveling from Damascus
to Beirut. However, the Syrian rebels dispute this account, claiming
that the Iranian commander, identified as Gen. Hassan Shateri, also
known as Hessam Khoshnevis, had actually been assassinated on January
30, when Israel attacked a convoy and military factory in Jamaraya,
Syria, near the Lebanon border.
The account seems in line with Iranian allegations that “suspected Israeli agents” carried out the attack.
Hmmm.
Labels: Free Syrian Army, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Syrian uprising, weapons smuggling
Yadlin: This won't be the last time we strike Syria
Former Chief of IDF intelligence and director of the Institute for National Security Studies Amos Yadlin told the Washington Post on Saturday that Israel's recent strike in Syria is
unlikely to be the last one.
Israel, he said, has defined four types of weapons whose transfer to
militant groups would not be tolerated: advanced air defense systems,
ballistic missiles, sophisticated shore-to-sea missiles and chemical
weapons.
In accordance with this policy, Yadlin said, “any time
Israel will have reliable intelligence that this is going to be
transferred from Syria to Lebanon, it will act,” although specific
decisions to strike would be subject to assessments of the military
value of the attack, the risk of escalation and the positions of foreign
powers.
“As the Syrian army becomes weaker and Hezbollah grows
more isolated because of the loss of its Syrian patron, it makes sense
that this will continue,” Yadlin said, adding that Israeli responses
would be weighed each time and “not happen automatically.”
The
real dilemma facing Israeli officials, Yadlin said, is not whether to
attack, but whether inaction would mean a greater threat later. “The
correct comparison is the risk of escalation now and the risk of having a
much more formidable enemy and many casualties in future hostilities,”
he said.
Analysts in Lebanon also predicted more Israeli strikes if advanced weapons transfers were attempted.
“Israel
is trying to create a sense of deterrence,” said Elias Hanna, a retired
general and a professor at the American University of Beirut. “The
other side tries to test and erode the system.”
...
With the Syrian army preoccupied with internal fighting and Hezbollah
wary of jeopardizing its position in Lebanon as its Syrian sponsor
weakens, neither is likely to risk wider conflict by retaliating against
Israel for the Jan. 30 strike, according to the Israeli official and
analysts.
“The Syrians are interested in keeping the civil war in
Syria, where they are militarily much stronger than the rebels,” Yadlin
said. “Against external forces, they would be inferior.”
“If
Hezbollah attacked [Israel], they would basically be admitting that the
air defense system was on its way to them, infuriating the Russians” who
supplied the weapons to Syria with the understanding that they would
not be moved to Hezbollah, he said.
Still, Yadlin cautioned, every additional Israeli strike would raise the risk of escalation.
If this analysis is correct, the strikes should all be on the Syrian side of the border. Since 2006, Israel has avoided striking in Lebanon, even though that policy permitted the massive buildup of some 60,000 rockets that Hezbullah has available to it today. There will be another war. The only question is when.
Labels: anti-aircraft missiles, chemical weapons, Hezbullah, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Lebanon, Syria, weapons smuggling, Yakhont land to sea missile
